Richard Jewell and The Olympic Bombing

Original Stories from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution

July 30, 1996
July 31, 1996
August 1, 1996 (pg 15A)
August 1, 1996 (pg 14A)
August 20, 1996

SECTION: LOCAL OLYMPICS; Pg. 01X
LENGTH: 378 words
SERIES: This story was archived from a Replate edition of The Atlanta Journal.
HEADLINE: ATLANTA EXTRA;
P.M. EDITION;
FBI suspects 'hero' guard may have planted bomb
BYLINE: Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz; STAFF WRITERS

BODY:
The security guard who first alerted police to the pipe bomb that exploded in Centennial Olympic Park is the focus of the federal investigation into the incident that resulted in two deaths and injured more than 100.

Richard Jewell, 33, a former law enforcement officer, fits the profile of the lone bomber. This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is a former police officer, member of the military or police "wannabe" who seeks to become a hero.

Jewell has become a celebrity in the wake of the bombing, making an appearance this morning at the reopened park with Katie Couric on the Today Show. He also has approached newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, seeking publicity for his actions.

He has told members of the media that he spotted a suspicious knapsack near the tower that was damaged in the blast. He said he reported the find to the GBI agent and helped move people from the area.

FBI agents are reviewing hours of professional and amateur video tape to see if Jewell is spotted setting down the military-issue backpack that contained the bomb. Acquaintances have told agents that he owned a similar knapsack. Agents have not seen Jewell in NBC tape of the 20 minutes following the blast.

Three undercover law enforcement cars were parked outside his mother's apartment on Buford Highway this afternoon. He refused to open the door when a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution knocked.

Jewell resigned two former law enforcement jobs in north Georgia, the latest at Piedmont College on May 21. He also was a deputy sheriff at the Habersham County Sheriff's Department, where he received bomb training.

Just before the Olympics Jewell got a job with Anthony Davis Associates, a Los Angeles security firm hired by AT&T after the company dismissed Borg-Warner Security Corp.after allegations of theft by employees.

Investigators are checking to see if his voice matches that of a 911 caller who phoned in a warning of the park bomb. The call was placed from a phone a few minutes' walk from the park.

Agents also are checking an earlier report from a plumber that pipes were stolen from his contruction area near the park.

Staff writer Kent E. Walker contributed to this article.

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SECTION: LOCAL OLYMPICS; Pg. 01A
LENGTH: 830 words
HEADLINE: AT THE SCENE OF THE BLAST;
'Hero' denies planting bomb;
FBI interviews security guard in blast probe
BYLINE: Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz; STAFF WRITERS

BODY:
The security guard who is suspected of planting a pipe bomb that killed two and injured more than 100 spectators was interviewed by FBI agents for at least two hours Tuesday and released.

Richard Jewell, 33, was originally credited with saving scores of lives in Centennial Olympic Park when he reported a suspicious package to the GBI and began moving people away.

Monday the FBI turned its attention away from an Alabama militia group and began to focus on Jewell, who has a history of overzealous policing in Habersham County.

Tuesday afternoon Jewell said, "No, sir, I didn't," when asked by reporters Tuesday whether he planted the deadly bomb at the base of a tower early Saturday morning. "I'm sure they're investigating everyone who was in the area. To be honest, hearing that from y'all (press), I don't know whether that's fact or fiction."

Shortly after that he went to FBI headquarters, where he was interrogated. Jewell said the FBI has interviewed him five times about the bombing.

Tuesday night after he returned home, Jewell's Atlanta attorney Watson Bryant said, "I just spoke with Agent Don Johnson and he assured me that Richard Jewell is not a suspect. He is not a target. He had nothing to do with this except be a hero."

The FBI would not confirm the statement.

Jewell, a former Habersham County Sheriff's deputy, became the FBI's prime suspect in the bombing after his former bosses at Piedmont College saw him inteviewed on television and tipped investigators to their suspicions.

Piedmont College President Ray Cleere said when he saw Jewell on CNN he contacted the GBI "because we felt he should be checked."

"His behavior here had been a little erratic," Cleere said. "He had been very sporadic and we felt he needed to be checked out further.''

Describing Jewell as "almost too excitable," Cleere said they were worried that he would not fit in on a small college campus. "We're not really a police department. We're more of a public safety department, and Mr. Jewell is definitely interested in police work and investigative work."

He was hired as a part-time security guard in April, but after he was moved to full-time status for a few weeks, the college had second thoughts. "To be perfectly honest, after a conversation with him, we weren't sure this was the right setting for him," Cleere said.

He quit in May and went to work for Borg-Warner Security, where he was assigned to protect AT&T Global Village at Centennial Olympic Park. Later, when Anthony Davis Associates took over the contract, he went to work for them.

Bryant Steele, spokesman for AT&T and the man who ferried Jewell from interview to interview after he was proclaimed a hero, said, "We are shocked to hear about these allegations. Like everyone else, we hope the FBI gets to the bottom of this quickly and brings those responsible to justice."

Investigators now say Jewell fits the profile of a lone bomber, and they believe he placed the 911 call himself. This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is a former police officer, member of the military or police "wannabe" who seeks to become a hero.

Jewell left the Habersham County Sheriff's Department after he was demoted for crashing his patrol car into another patrol car. Shortly after that, he was arrested on charges of impersonating an officer when he tried to arrest someone in DeKalb County.

Since the bombing, Jewell has become the celebrity police believe he always wanted to be. He appeared this morning at the reopened park with Katie Couric on the Today Show. He also has approached newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, seeking publicity for his actions.

When asked how it feels to be a hero, he said "I don't know how a hero's treated. I will say everyone's been nice.

"I don't think anything prepares you for what happened the other night," Jewell said. "I hope I don't have to go through anything like this again. I hope no one has to go through anything like this again."

He has told members of the media that he spotted a suspicious knapsack near the tower that was damaged in the blast. He said he reported the find to the GBI agent and helped move people from the area.

FBI agents are reviewing hours of professional and amateur videotape to see whether Jewell is spotted setting down the military-issue backpack that contained the bomb. Acquaintances have told agents that he owned a similar knapsack. Agents have not seen Jewell in NBC tape of the 20 minutes after the blast.

Investigators will check for a voice match on the tape of the 911 call, and three of the telephones along the bank of phones from which the warning call was placed were dismantled and sent to Washington for analysis.

Agents also are checking an earlier report from a plumber that pipes were stolen from his construction area near the park.

Staff writers Maria Elena Fernandez and Kent E. Walker contributed to this article.

GRAPHIC: Color photo: Posing for cameras at Centennial Olympic Park after the explosion, Richard Jewell said, "I don't think I'm a hero." The bomb-damaged light tower is in the background. / WILLIAM BERRY / Staff

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SECTION: LOCAL OLYMPICS; Pg. 15A
LENGTH: 399 words
SERIES: This story was archived from the Metro edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
HEADLINE: PARK BOMBING: THE FBI GATHERS EVIDENCE;
In TV glare: hair salon, cabin, pals;
No stone unturned: Reporters dug relentlessly into the suspect's past and present.
BYLINE: Chick Ludwig; STAFF WRITER

BODY:
Richard Jewell, the 33-year-old security guard suspected of planting the pipe bomb, found no shade from the media glare Wednesday.

WXIA-TV/Channel 11 showed the SuperCuts store where Jewell got a haircut before his interview with NBC's Tom Brokaw. And the station interviewed an expert who painted a profile of a person inflicted with "Hero Syndrome" - a person dissatisfied with life and willing to do anything for recognition.

Channel 11 reporter Kevin Rowson said his sources told him the FBI has concluded Jewell was not the person who made the warning 911 call. Publicly, the FBI refused to confirm that.

The station interviewed Jewell's attorney, G. Watson Bryant Jr., who proclaimed his client's innocence.

"We welcome this (investigation)," Bryant said. "Then it will be over."

A former co-worker of Jewell's told WXIA the suspect was "gung-ho" and "overzealous" in a previous job as a security guard, but found it hard to believe that Jewell would harm anybody.

WSB-TV/Channel 2 ran four segments on the story. From Jewell's apartment complex, reporter Richard Belcher noted that the focus on Jewell doesn't mean he is guilty or even a suspect. Another segment examined his background when he lived at the Post Place Apartments on Clairmont Road and was arrested for impersonating an officer. Another looked at the press frenzy around his apartment and on nearby Buford Highway.

Finally, the station reported that Jewell was sentenced to probation and required to get counseling for impersonating an officer, and it "appeared he did complete his probation as listed."

WAGA-TV/Channel 5 showed the international media crush and quoted Anthony Davis, whose company hired Jewell to work at the park. Davis said Jewell had to undergo an "extensive" background search.

"NBC Nightly News" led off with a report on the search of Jewell's apartment but quoted a federal source as saying, "We clearly didn't find the smoking gun or Jewell would be in chains right now."

The network also claimed an exclusive: FBI agents also arrived at a cabin in North Georgia to search it, adding that the cabin once was used by Richard Jewell.

In addition, NBC interviewed a friend of Jewell's who said the suspect was a gun buff.

"He had some machine guns, he had pistols, he had shotguns," the friend said. "Anything you about wanted, he had. He collected a lot of guns."

GRAPHIC: Media people gather Wednesday outside Richard Jewell's apartment on Buford Highway. The park bombing investigation has captured the world's attention. / CHARLOTTE B. TEAGLE / Staff

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SECTION: LOCAL OLYMPICS; Pg. 14A
LENGTH: 558 words
SERIES: This story was archived from the Metro edition of The Atlanta Constitution.
HEADLINE: PARK BOMBING: THE SCENE ON BUFORD HIGHWAY;
DAVE KINDRED AT LARGE;
A long wait in the shadows after his moment in the sun
BYLINE: Dave Kindred

BODY:
He sat in the shadows with his back to the world. He wore a white T-shirt, white shorts and black sneakers. Occasionally, he turned his thick body and looked through the staircase toward the firing line of cameras, every lens fixed on him.

He sat on the stairs outside his mother's apartment because, inside, federal agents were at work.

They brought in a dog, a ladder and boxes. Men wore latex gloves. A white van with Virginia tags unloaded members of the FBI Evidence Response Unit.

They were at work executing a search warrant in Apartment F3 at the Monaco Station Apartments, 3649 Buford Highway.

He sat there, waiting.
He sat seven miles from Centennial Olympic Park.

Hero or fool, he sat on the steps and leaned to his right to make room for agents passing on the staircase. An agent might sit with him awhile, talking about whatever FBI agents talk about with men who are suspects in murderous bombings.

Once upon a terrible time, federal agents came to this town to deal with another suspect who lived with his mother. Like this one, that suspect was drawn to the blue lights and sirens of police work. Like this one, he became famous in the aftermath of murder.

His name was Wayne Williams.
This one is Richard Jewell.

He sat with his back to us as two dozen federal agents did their work. They started at 9 o'clock Wednesday morning. By 2 o'clock, they had come from the apartment with only one box of stuff - a search either painstakingly slow or simply frustrating.

The crowd of reporters and photographers waited across a small parking lot. A television helicopter arrived, circling the encampment for a few minutes. On the second-floor landing above Apartment F3, two FBI agents could be seen in conversation.

"Reading the body language," said Dave Busse, a television photographer from Los Angeles' KABC, "the agent in the blue shirt there has been up all night and he's saying, 'We're not finding anything.'

"And the other guy is on the cell phone every 10 minutes to Washington saying, 'We can't put a guy in jail with what we've got here.' "

He sat with his back to us. He'd sat with network television stars this week. Now he sat in the shadows, alone, making room when a neighbor, Leonard Shinew, came down the stairs, pausing to put his hand on the man's shoulder.

"I just said, 'Are you all right, Richard? ' " Shinew said. "He said, 'OK.' "

Shinew is 78 and has lived in the Monaco complex 10 years. "Richard's just a regular fella. If you needed something done, who should you ask? Richard. Get my car started. Give me a ride somewhere. Regular fella, and I don't want him and his mother to have to move out. They're good neighbors, like everybody here."

Maybe the regular fella had nothing to do with the bomb; the FBI has often sat on a suspect and come up empty. But when the FBI sat on Wayne Williams in 1981, it gathered enough to convict him for two murders and to clear 20 more.

Ken Hawkins remembers. A free-lance photographer who covered Williams and now works this story, he said, "Did you see the FBI take those little vacuum cleaners into Jewell's apartment? It's exactly what they did with Wayne Williams. And, like this one, they were at Williams' place all day."

Richard Jewell sits in the shadows today.
Wayne Williams sits in prison forever.

GRAPHIC: Photo: Investigators don shoe coverings before entering the apartment of Richard Jewell on Wednesday morning. Agents used a police dog to help search the unit. / TANNEN MAURY / Associated Press

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SECTION: LOCAL OLYMPICS; Pg. 01B
LENGTH: 529 words
HEADLINE: Guard questioned in blast passes lie detector test
BYLINE: Bill Rankin; STAFF WRITER

BODY:
Richard Jewell, the security guard questioned in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, has passed a lie detector test in which he denied any involvement, according to the polygrapher hired by Jewell's lawyers.

"He didn't do it," Dick Rackleff, a former FBI agent now in private practice, said Monday. "There's not any doubt in my mind. He had no knowledge about the bomb.... The tests show he absolutely was not involved."

Rackleff said he spent 15 hours with Jewell on Aug. 4 and Aug. 15 conducting the lie detector test and a pre-test interview. The tests were done in the Buckhead office of one of Jewell's lawyers, G. Watson Bryant Jr.

Rackleff, who was paid by Jewell's lawyers to conduct the tests, said he stakes his reputation on his findings. "It's not a matter of choosing sides," he said. "It's a matter of establishing facts."

Jewell, 33, has been interviewed by the FBI in the park bombing, which led to the deaths of two people and injured 111. A former Habersham County sheriff's deputy, Jewell was initially regarded as a hero for calling authorities' attention to the green knapsack that contained the pipe bombs and helping to clear people away from the immediate area.

Stephanie Kearns, who heads the federal public defender's office in Atlanta, called Rackleff "one of the most thorough examiners in the field.... I've signed enough checks to Dick Rackleff to know he's not in anyone's pocket."

Jack Martin, an attorney for Jewell, trumpeted the results of the test despite his declaration last week that his client should not take an FBI polygraph, calling the tests "controversial."

"I still believe that lie detectors are controversial," Martin said Monday. "But we had him tested by the best lie detector person I know in Atlanta in the public or private sector and whose integrity is without question."

Martin added, "I wouldn't trust the FBI to give him a fair examination, especially since they don't use the most up-to-date techniques and have already and repeatedly shown a bias in the investigation."

In Georgia's state courts, polygraph tests can be admitted during trial only if both the prosecutor and defense attorney agree, which happens rarely. In federal courts in Georgia, trial judges have some discretion to allow the admission of polygraph evidence.

Rackleff was the FBI's polygrapher in Atlanta from 1979 to 1990 and was a special agent with the agency for 27 years. He gave Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams a polygraph on the night of his 1983 arrest and Williams' responses showed deception. Rackleff said he often trains law enforcement agencies to conduct polygraphs.

Rackleff said Jewell's responses showed no deception. "( Jewell) was very cooperative," Rackleff said. "He's been traumatized by the events, and that was a reason to take the time needed to do a good test."

Martin continues to ask the FBI to either arrest Jewell or apologize to him. "The FBI has searched his place, looked through his every possession, talked to just about everyone he knows. They have his hair, his blood, his fingerprints and everything else from him," Martin said. "They still don't have a case."

GRAPHIC: Chart: The questions

Polygraph examiner Dick Rackleff said Richard Jewell answered no to these questions:

• "Did you place the pipe bomb in the Olympic Centennial Park on July 27, 1996?''

• "Did you make the pipe bomb left in the backpack at Centennial Park?"

• "Do you know who put the pipe bomb in Olympic Centennial Park?"

• "Did you arrange to have that explosive device placed in the Olympic Centennial Park that night?"

• "Did you place the backpack with the pipe bomb near the AT&T tower in the park?"

• "Have you withheld any information about persons responsible for the bombing at Olympic Centennial Park?"

• "When you first reported the backpack to the GBI did you know it contained an explosive device?"

• "Can you identify the person who made the explosive device in the backpack at the park?"

• "Have you deliberately withheld information from the FBI about any persons responsible for the bombing at the Centennial Park?"

Color photo: mug of Richard Jewell