A blast at the 1996 Olympics shakes the American South. A woman is killed and scores injured. As cops wrongly target a security guard named Richard Jewell, the real bomber slips away, only to bomb again. And again. Thousands of photos and videos produce one blurry image of the attacker, a photo so grainy the FBI called him “Blob Man.”

Finally a break comes, but only after a student spots a man acting strangely as a fourth bomb kills in Birmingham.

In this episode we follow that student on his daring chase across Birmingham’s Southside, recreated with his own voice from newly unsealed archival files and interviews discovered by the Birmingham Public Library.

Meet those injured by the shrapnel, buffeted by the “hurricane force” of the blast. And those, including witnesses, experts, federal agents, cops, and, for the first time, the hero himself.

American Shrapnel is an eight-part series from Alabama Media Group. It starts with the biggest pipe bomb the FBI had ever seen. It ends in a dumpster, after the largest manhunt in U.S. history. This is the story of Eric Rudolph and the rise of American rage. Available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.