ATLANTA – Richard Jewell, the former security guard who was erroneously linked to the 1996 Olympic bombing, died Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Jewell, 44, was found dead in his west Georgia home, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.
“There’s no suspicion whatsoever of any type of foul play. He had been at home sick since the end of February with kidney problems,” said Meriwether County Coroner Johnny Worley.
The GBI planned to do an autopsy Thursday, Bankhead said.
Lin Wood, Jewell’s longtime attorney, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that he was “devastated” by the news. He declined to comment further, saying he was in New York trying to get back to Atlanta.
Jewell was initially hailed as a hero for spotting a suspicious backpack in a park and moving people out of harm’s way just before a bomb exploded during a concert at the Atlanta Summer Olympics.
The blast killed one and injured 111 others.
Three days after the bombing, an unattributed report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described him as “the focus” of the investigation.
Other media, to varying degrees, also linked Jewell to the investigation. He was never arrested or charged, although he was questioned and was a subject of search warrants.
As recently as last year, Jewell was working as a sheriff’s deputy.
Eighty-eight days after the initial news report, U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander issued a statement saying Jewell “is not a target” of the bombing investigation and that the “unusual and intense publicity” surrounding him was “neither designed nor desired by the FBI, and in fact interfered with the investigation.”