Outside the Beltway

Richard Jewell Dies at 44

James Joyner · Thursday, August 30, 2007 · 3 comments

Richard Jewell has died at the ridiculously young age of 44.

Richard Jewell, the former security guard once suspected of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing — then cleared — died at his home Wednesday morning in Woodbury.

For the past three years, Jewell, 44, worked as a deputy sheriff for the Meriwether County Sheriff’s department, said Sheriff Steve Whitlock. He said Jewell had been out on medical leave.

Meriwether County coroner Johnny Worley said Jewell’s wife, Dana, discovered him unconscious at about 10:30 a.m. Worley said an autopsy would be performed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to determine how Jewell died, but there was “no suspicion of foul play. He had been having some pretty serious medical problems,” Worley said. He said Jewell had been diagnosed with diabetes in February and had a couple of toes amputated. “He had been going downhill ever since,” Worley said.

Whitlock described Jewell as “a good officer. A go-getter.” “You know how they say people live their work. Richard ate and drank his job. He loved it,” Whitlock said.

A rather unfortunate choice of words.

Jewell went from an unknown to a publicly despised terrorist suspect to an object of ridicule owing to a sloppy press corps more interested in sensationalism than truth. Jim Addison rightly calls him a “hero who saved many lives” but that certainly wasn’t how he was portrayed.