Murphy standoff involves man who fired at FBI during Rudolph hunt

MURPHY – A man who once fired a rifle at a federal agent during the search for serial bomber Eric Rudolph was involved in a standoff with police that started Tuesday night and ended early Wednesday.

No one was injured in the incident, which ended with Wayne Henry Burchfield, 48, in custody, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Robert Spangler.

The chain of events began around 9 p.m. Tuesday when Murphy police responded to a call on Sunrise Street, where a man reportedly was chasing a woman with a machete.

"Once on the scene, Burchfield was located, on the front porch of 93 Sunrise Street," Spangler said. "Burchfield made several threats toward law enforcement, prior to running into the residence and barricading himself."

After several hours of negotiations, Burchfield came out of the house and was arrested "after a brief struggle with law enforcement," Spangler said.

Burchfield was wanted on an outstanding fugitive warrant from Georgia for violating conditions of his supervised release from federal prison. He was released in 2014 after serving 13 years for attempting to kill an FBI agent during the Rudolph manhunt. He had been living in Marbleton, Georgia, since his release, but originally is from Murphy.

Officers with the Murphy Police Department, Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, Cherokee Tribal Police Department and U.S. Marshals Service responded to the scene.

Burchfield is being held without bond at the Cherokee County Jail.

Burchfield and Eddie Dewayne Carringer, of Hayesville, were convicted of firing an assault rifle in 1998 into a leased warehouse in Andrews that was serving as the command post of a federal task force heading the manhunt for Rudolph. One of the shots grazed the head of an FBI agent working inside the command post.

Rudolph, who was captured in spring 2003 in Murphy after hiding out for five years, is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado after pleading guilty in 2005 to a bombing at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and three other bombings.