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Sunday, August 15

Events of Atlanta still haunt Jewell

ATHENS - At night, each summer when July 27 draws near, he closes his eyes and still sees the bomb go off. When he passes by Centennial Park, the scene of the crime, he still smells the gunpowder and hears the screams.

Each day he hopes to forget. Hopes no one will ask. No one will pry. Most of the time he still wonders why, and all the time he is bitter.

That is the life of Richard Jewell, eight years after the Atlanta Olympics. That, and a job as police officer in Pendergrass, Ga., about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, a town with 480 residents, one stoplight and no questions.

``I'm trying to get on with my life now,'' he said over the phone from Georgia. ``But still, look what was done to me. The satellite trucks outside my mother's condominium, the 88 days of the spotlight of the world being put on me as the bomber. Every second, every minute, every day.

``How do you come back from that?

``I'll be living with this for the rest of my life.''

Which Richard Jewell do you remember? The security guard who spotted a green backpack late one Saturday night in 1996 as the Olympic masses partied in Centennial Park, and helped hurry enough people away that only one woman was killed when it exploded? The working stiff who may have saved Atlanta from a bloodbath?

Or the bombing suspect of three days later? The man hounded by the law and the media for 88 days, until someone decided he didn't do it, leaving Richard Jewell to pick up the pieces?

For the record, Eric Rudolph was arrested in May of 2003 and charged with several bombings, Atlanta among them. ``At least,'' Jewell said, ``that was a partial closing for me.''

That seemed to reinforce what law enforcement mumbled seven years before. Jewell was not the villain. Jewell was the hero. Sorry about those headlines. Sorry about those strobe lights. Sorry about that army of cameras waiting outside the front door.

So why hasn't everyone gotten the memo? Why is Jewell still a recluse, and never been publicly celebrated for what people originally thought he was, anyway? A guy who probably saved dozens of lives?

If there are 100 dead that night, do the Games of Atlanta go on? No.

But never a citation. Never a recognition. The day the story of the suspicions broke, it was as if Richard Jewell's contribution was quickly sent out to sea. It has never come back.

``Atlanta or the Olympics as a whole have never even said thank you,'' he said. ``And that would have been enough.''

Only one town has ever called to honor him. Carmel, Ind. Five hundred miles away.

Back in Atlanta, a wounded man drives an hour each day to work, as if trying to leave the past in his rearview mirror. He would appear to be the victim of the beast that media can turn into, when there is blood in the water. Glory fleets quickly, but scandal lives forever. The images of Jewell wading through the world press to get to an FBI interview never die.

``I never tried to say I was a hero. I just want people to think I did my job that night. I did what I was trained to do,'' he said. ``That I was not the person portrayed by the media, as some attention-grabbing zealot.``But you can talk until you're blue in the face, and they're going to believe the bad ... There are people who still believe I was connected in some way and got away with it. There are people in my own church who still feel that way, people I grew up with.

``That's the part of this that will always follow me.''

Jewell said where once he was outgoing, he is now guarded. Where once he trusted, he is now cynical. He is 42 now, and he looks in the mirror and sees a different man than 1996. A man who finds it hard to sleep each summer. Especially Olympic summers.

Time has passed, but not enough.

``The only thing that time does is it goes by faster as you get older,'' he said. ``It seems like it's a shorter time between each anniversary.''

His mother, Barbara, is now in her 70s, and she can't forget either, when her neighborhood became a feeding frenzy, and they were all after her boy.

She wrote then President Clinton and asked why. Why was the FBI after her son? She never heard back.

Long after 1996, a fire near her condominium brought out the TV trucks one day. When she saw them - unaware why they were there - she locked the doors, pulled down the shades and frantically called her son.

``They're coming again,'' she said.

But no, Richard Jewell is left alone now. The lawsuits are all settled, except one. Rudolph awaits trial. More Olympics come and go.

Jewell said he will watch the Athens games, wondering about the security, and the thousands of people doing the job he did in 1996, before fate and a bomb ripped his life apart.

``I'll be 65, 70 yeas old sitting at some restaurant watching the Olympics,'' he said, ``and somebody sitting next to us will say, `Do you remember when that Jewell guy was accused of the bombing? What happened to him? He probably got away with it.'

``I'm part of history. Unfortunately, I have to relive it every year.''

So time moves on for Richard Jewell. The past with pain slow to heal. The future with dread of questions still unheard.

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