Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, saving many people from injury or death. For months afterward he was suspected of planting the bomb, leading to adverse publicity that "came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media." Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell was soon considered a suspect by the FBI and local law enforcement based on psychological profiling. Though never charged, Jewell underwent what was described as a "trial by media", which took a toll on his personal and professional life. He was cleared as a suspect after 88 days of public scrutiny. In 2005, Eric Rudolph confessed and pleaded guilty to that bombing and other attacks. Jewell's life has been the subject of popular culture, including the 2019 film Richard Jewell and the ten-episode drama Deadly Games, the 2020 season of the anthology series Manhunt. Early life Jewell was born Richard White in Danville, Virginia, the son of Bobi, an insurance claims coordinator, and Robert Earl White, who worked for Chevrolet. Richard's birth parents divorced when he was four. When his mother later married John Jewell, an insurance executive, his stepfather adopted him. Olympic bombing accusation Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert and merrymaking. Sometime after midnight, July 27, 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph, a terrorist who would later bomb a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics, planted a green backpack containing a fragmentation-laden pipe bomb under a bench. Jewell was working as a security guard for the event. He discovered the bag and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers. This discovery was nine minutes before Rudolph called 9-1-1 to deliver a warning. During a Jack Mack and the Heart Attack performance, Jewell and other security guards began clearing the immediate area so that a bomb squad could investigate the suspicious package. The bomb exploded 13 minutes later, killing Alice Hawthorne and injuring over 100 others. A cameraman also died of a heart attack while running to cover the incident. Investigation and the