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Richard Jewell has been found dead in his home at the age of 44. Jewell was in fact a hero by noticing the suspicious backpack left in Olympic Park, giving people enough warning and moving them out of the way, saving countless lives. Yet, even in today’s headlines, the fact that the FBI let leak that he was a (convenient) suspect forever tragically overshadowed his heroism.

Richard Jewell, Wrongly Accused in Atlanta Olympics Bombing, Dead at 44

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.

Last year, Jewell have the AP an interview which detailed the damage done to the man because , IMHO, the FBI gave the media a suspect in an attempt to quell the fears of the Olympics-attending public. Jewell was that sacrificial lamb and another travesty of the Clinton/Reno Department of Justice.

‘All I did was my job’

As the 10th anniversary nears of the July 27 blast that killed one and injured 111 others, the episode is still fresh in Jewell’s mind.

“The heroes are soon forgotten. The villains last a lifetime,” Jewell told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “I dare say more people know I was called a suspect than know I was the one who found the package and know I was cleared.”…

The frenzy that changed Jewell’s life started three days after the bombing with an unattributed report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that described him as “the focus” of the investigation.

Other media, to varying degrees, also linked Jewell to the investigation. “There were thousands of reporters from all over the world here,” he said.

He was never arrested or charged, although he was questioned and was a subject of search warrants…“For that two days, my mother had a great deal of pride in me — that I had done something good and that she was my mother, and that was taken away from her,” Jewell said. “She’ll never get that back, and there’s no way I can give that back to her.”

He said the experience has made him distrustful of people and he rarely gives interviews. “I can tell you for sure I’m a different person,” Jewell said. “I’m paranoid. I’m cynical.”