A sordid and strange story in Western North Carolina history entered a new chapter last week when serial bomber Eric Rudolph accepted a plea arrangement that will put him behind bars for the rest of his life. As Rudolph prepares for prison life, perhaps most of the notoriety that was foisted upon Western North Carolina will fade from people’s memories. That’s a good thing.

Rudolph had been charged with four bombings, including one at the Centennial Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics; another at an Atlanta nightclub; and two at family planning clinics, one in Atlanta and the other in Birmingham, Ala. Two people died as a result of those bombings, and many more were seriously injured.

Those bombings occurred from July 1996 through January 1998. A month after the last of the bombings in Birmingham, on Feb. 14, 1998, federal officials charged Rudolph with that crime. Rudolph had spent a part his childhood in Western North Carolina and had attended WCU for a short time.

What ensued during the search for Rudolph was a media circus that did not shine a kind light on the people of Western North Carolina. As a huge federal presence of agents from different law enforcement agencies began scouring these mountains, they were frustrated in their inability to find Rudolph and a supposed lack of help from the locals. There were rumors that Rudolph was being helped by locals, that he had died in some remote forest, or that he had been transported by other extremists to some exotic locale in an obscure country where he was living in the lap of luxury.

With the plea arrangement comes the realization that we may never know what exactly transpired during the five years Rudolph was on the lam. A trial might have revealed much about these years. We do know that he was arrested on May 31, 2003, while searching a Dumpster behind a local grocery store in Murphy.

Unfortunately, Rudolph’s success at eluding capture for five years enforced the stereotype that mountaineers are anti-government radicals who tacitly — if not openly — harbor a disdain for the rule of law. The fact that Rudolph included abortion clinics in his bombings also helped many imagine that those in this conservative neck of the woods would take pity on him. In other words, many portrayed us as hillbillies of the worst kind.

The truth is that many who spend time in these woods believe Rudolph probably did get some kind of help during his time on the run. But if he got help, it was from a radical few. At no time did he become the kind of folk hero some tried to make him.

Now at least we know Rudolph will get his due. Those who may have misjudged Western North Carolina’s people can move on to the next sensational, media-driven crime spectacle that hits the airwaves while we slide back into our mode of quiet normalcy.