Search for bombing suspect ends after 5-year manhunt.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Erica Beshears, Karen Garloch and Anna Griffin

MURPHY, N.C. _ The $24 million, five-year manhunt for accused serial bomber Eric Rudolph ended Saturday when a rookie officer stopped a man he thought was breaking into the Save-A-Lot grocery.

Police officer Jeffrey Postell said he was on patrol about 4:30 a.m. EDT Saturday when he found Rudolph hiding amid a stack of milk crates. Suddenly, one of the nation's largest manhunts was over, ended by a 21-year-old a few miles from where it began.

"He (Rudolph) was relieved," Cherokee County Sheriff Keith Lovin. "He had been in the area the whole time."

Rudolph, 36, was being held at the Cherokee County Jail but was expected to be transferred to Asheville. He may make his first court appearance Monday and faces federal charges in four bombings that killed two people, beginning with the 1996 attack at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Prosecutors must decide whether to try him in Georgia or Alabama first, and whether to seek the death penalty.

Much of Rudolph's five years on the run …