OPELIKA, Ala. — Jeffrey Tickal was drinking coffee at McDonald's when he saw the bomber striding past, and so it was on a McDonald's coffee cup that he wrote down the man's license plate number: KND1117.
Tickal had never done anything like that before, and he hasn't since. Stepping out of McDonald's and following the man that morning was an instinctive reaction, he said -- "what everyone is supposed to do."
Despite the extraordinary police effort that went into investigating the deadly bombings in 1996, 1997 and 1998, it was two bystanders -- Tickal and college student Jermaine Hughes -- who provided the single filament of information that led to Eric Rudolph.
On Wednesday, moments after Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombings, U.S. Atty. Alice Martin finally revealed the names of the men who had been known as WN-1 and WN-2. They have seen but never met each other. Tickal, 41, is now a lawyer in Opelika, and Hughes, 29, has left the South to study law at Harvard.
Martin said Thursday that she would like to see the two men receive a $1-million reward that was offered for identifying the bomber.
"These bombings would never have been solved without these witnesses," said retired police Lt. Donald Toole, who was commander of the police radio control room the morning of the bombing. "That's how important they were. Without these witnesses, Rudolph would never have gone into hiding. He knew he had been seen."
On Thursday, in the graceful, columned house that holds his law practice, Tickal was trying to figure out what to do about his constantly ringing phone. He complained about not getting work done, declined to be photographed and politely asked a television reporter not to go live outside his window. Asked about the reward, Tickal shrugged with what appeared to be a real lack of concern.
"A hero?" said Tickal. "I followed the guy's tag number. I don't know what to call it."
Through his lawyer, Hughes declined to comment for this report, saying the publicity could put him at risk.
In a news conference Wednesday, prosecutors gave a dramatic narration of what happened the morning of Jan. 28, 1998, when Tickal and Hughes followed Rudolph from the site of his fourth bombing.
This strike came in Birmingham, Ala., outside the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic.
After three highly publicized bombings in Atlanta -- at the Olympics, at another women's clinic and at a nightclub -- police still had only the vaguest sense of who was behind them.
