![]() ![]() Yet to this day people think he had something ugly to do with the bombing - when he’s the guy that, but for him, it would have been raining body parts when that bomb went off. “These bums never had enough to arrest him - they had nothing but a bunch of BS taken out of context that they used to frame him up for a story that was too good to be true. “Look, to this day I run into people and when you say Richard Jewell, they say, ‘Oh, he’s the guy that got off,’” says Bryant, who is still outraged at the way Jewell’s reputation was tarnished. Bryant hopes “Richard Jewell” will finally erase any lingering doubts about Jewell’s role in the bombing. Their bonds forged in that media and legal firestorm, Bryant and the Jewells remained close for a time, Bobi even babysat for the lawyer’s two children. Over the next three months, Jewell and his mother became virtual prisoners in Bobi’s apartment as the FBI kept him under constant surveillance and the media depicted him as the presumed culprit.Įven after his name was cleared with the help of a lawyer named Watson Bryant - even after domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to the Centennial Park bombing and three other attacks in 2005 - the ordeal would hover over Jewell until his death in 2007 at age 44 of heart failure from complications of diabetes. But just three days later, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the FBI was treating him as a possible suspect, under the theory that the security guard, disgruntled over a career that hadn’t panned out the way he’d hoped, might have planted the bomb so he could then “discover” it and be celebrated for saving lives. One person was killed and 111 were injured - a casualty count that surely would have been much higher had Jewell not discovered the bomb and helped move concertgoers to safety. ![]() ![]() A bomb squad was called in and, as Jewell and other security and law enforcement personnel worked to evacuate people from the area, an explosive device in the backpack detonated. On July 27, 1996, a week into the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Richard Jewell was working security at a nighttime concert in the city’s Centennial Park when he noticed a suspicious backpack underneath a bench and alerted the police. But then again, before that terrible summer of 1996, she never could have imagined that there would even be a story to tell. She never could have imagined that she would bake her famous pound cake for one of Richard’s biggest heroes and walk a red carpet at a glitzy premiere with Eastwood, holding his hand. But other than that, he was a good kid.”īack then, Bobi Jewell never could have imagined that Eastwood would one day direct a film about her son: the drama “Richard Jewell,” which is now in theaters. “He loved his loud music, and the people in the apartment above were elderly and they used to bang on the wall. “His schedule was iffy - he was gone at night most of the time - but if there was a good one he’d let me know about it and we’d watch it,” Bobi Jewell recalls by phone from Atlanta on an early-December morning. Living with his mother, Bobi, in her Atlanta apartment, Jewell, who worked as a security guard, would sometimes tell her when there was a film he thought she’d like so they could watch it together. Richard Jewell loved movies, particularly anything with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. ![]()
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