Nurse Expects Charges for Helping Rudolph-Report

Reuters/July 6, 2003

Atlanta -- A nurse opposed to abortions who worked at a North Carolina hospital expects to be charged with helping accused serial bomber Eric Rudolph evade capture, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Sunday.

The paper quoted Brenda Kay Phillips, 44, as saying in an interview that she could not discuss details of the Rudolph case "because the federal government is talking about going for an indictment for helping him."

Phillips spoke to the newspaper in the North Carolina jail where she is awaiting trial on unrelated charges of firing a shotgun into an abortion clinic.

After her arrest in February, Phillips told FBI agents she had helped Rudolph evade the manhunt for him, but the agency said at the time it lent little credence to her assertion.

Rudolph was arrested on May 31 in Murphy, North Carolina, after being on the run for five years. He has been charged with a 1998 abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, and is accused of three other bombings in the Atlanta area, including one at the 1996 Olympics.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Phillips' lawyer, Jack Stewart, as saying that since Rudolph's arrest federal authorities had shown more interest in what Phillips had to say about having helped him.

The paper said Phillips moved to Murphy in 2001 and worked at a hospital there. In February she fired a shotgun into the windows of an abortion clinic in the town of Asheville, North Carolina, in the middle of the night, it said.

Phillips told the newspaper she had fired at the clinic "to bring attention to abortion and to the unborn children... I want to speak up for the unborn babies."

No comment from the FBI on the newspaper report was immediately available.