We're travelling this week so one more Olympics Episode for you! This one is wild - it's 1996, and the Atlanta Olympic Centennial Park is open late. Security guard Richard Jewell is on the lookout for shenanigans and finds himself the first responder to a horrible attack that leaves one dead and many shaken. Jewel, is a dork - he's the kind of guy who takes his security role super seriously. You kind of want to make fun of him, but then you get to know him and realize he was the best man for the job, and a really kind soul. Learn more with us!
We're travelling this week so one more Olympics Episode for you! This one is wild - it's 1996, and the Atlanta Olympic Centennial Park is open late. Security guard Richard Jewel is on the lookout for shenanigans and finds himself the first responder to a horrible attack that leaves one dead and many shaken.
Jewell is a dork - he's the kind of guy who takes his security role super seriously. You kind of want to make fun of him, but then you get to know him and realize he was the best man for the job, and a really kind soul.
Learn more with us!
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: We are waiting for a hurricane to hit Texas
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not
>> Farz: what your country can do for you,
>> Taylor: ask what you can do for me.
>> Farz: And we are back. Hi, Taylor, how are you?
>> Taylor: Good fars. How are you?
>> Farz: I am doing well, as always. Do you want to go ahead and introduce us before I start bantering?
>> Taylor: Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We are the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week. And we had a story about serial killers from South America on Monday. And then today I am going to finish my series on the Olympics. Are you excited?
>> Farz: I am very, very excited. I will also note that we are waiting for a hurricane to hit Texas. And so if you're in the path to hurricane, get out of the path, go somewhere else, do something different. That's it.
>> Taylor: Is it gonna hit? It's not gonna hit you. It's gonna hit you. It's gonna rain.
>> Farz: If you're like, it's gonna rain if you're in Houston. Yeah. If you're like, Houston, Galveston area, like, it's not gonna be good. I think that, like, what we're gonna experience is gonna be a ton of rain, which is great. We need it. But. But yeah, hopefully it doesn't veer any further off. So tbd.
>> Taylor: I mean, it is record hot here. It's like just. You can't even go outside. It's in the 110s. Seriously, it's terrible. So we're here it is right now it's 100 and it's 6 o' clock at night. Every day this week it's gonna be okay. It goes back to 90 next week. Every day this week is going to be over 100. Today the high was 107.
>> Farz: So that is. That is worse than here, which is really weird. Usually we get it. Texas gets it worse.
>> Taylor: But when you're. It's humid there and it's not humid here, but Palm Springs is right now. It's 111. Tomorrow's high. High is 117. Palm Springs is so hot, so bad. I'm like, I don't know. How. How much longer can we go on like this?
>> Farz: It's. I mean. Yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, like, what do you do? Yeah. Is it gonna just go up forever and then, like, we can't live here?
>> Farz: I think so. I think that's probably the most likely outcome, unfortunately.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Oh, what a bummer. But we'll see what happens. But yeah, no, it's bad.
>> Farz: It looks like. What?
>> Taylor: Well, it looks like it's gonna rain for you tomorrow. This is so dumb. Sorry, everyone. Rain for you tomorrow. But that's it. It's only 65 chance of rain, so.
>> Farz: Still. Can I. Can I claim to be a victim of this hurricane or. No.
>> Taylor: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Go ahead.
>> Farz: Thank you. Okay.
There's just so much more that I would like to talk about
And today. So, yeah, we're gonna get into part four of Olympics. This is the last one you said, right?
>> Taylor: Yeah. I can't do it anymore.
>> Farz: Has it been that trying for you?
>> Taylor: Well, I just feel like I've learned a bunch of these are. There's just, like, so much more that I would like to talk about, and I'm not gonna get to it. And that is a bummer, you know, But I'm like. With every Olympics, there's, like, all these little stories, so I'm not gonna talk about, like, all the doping scandals. I'm not gonna get to the Winter Olympics. Things like Cool runnings and Nancy Kerrigan. Maybe in two years, in 2026, when they're having the Olympics in Milan, I can come back to those, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, Nancy Kerrigan was a. Was a fun one.
>> Taylor: Yeah. No, definitely, we should talk about that. But, like, I didn't even. Not even gonna get to it.
In our final installment, we'll talk about at the Atlanta bombing in 1996
Because today, in our final installment, we're gonna talk about at the Atlanta bombing in 1996, and Richard Jewell, who is the man who was suspected of being bomber or b******. Poor b******. Jesus. So we've talked about the origins of the Olympics. We talked about Pierre de Coubertin, who brought them back. It's kind of fun because now every book I read recaps what the Olympics are. And I'm like, oh, we already know all that, which is fun. We know about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. We know about the 1972 Olympics in Munich. And now we'll focus on 1996. So some of the things that happened between 1980, which is where we cut it off last time, and now just to kind of go through what they had in 1980. The Winter Olympics were in Lake Placid in the United States, and that was the Miracle on Ice. And I know there's a movie with. Is it Kurt Russell?
>> Farz: Probably.
>> Taylor: I think it's probably called Miracle on Ice. But the US Team beats. Beats the Soviet Union. And it's very exciting in the 1984 LA Summer Olympics, actually. And so the 1984 Winter Olympics were in Sarajevo. The Summer Olympics were in la. And those are the ones that I wanted to Talk about just a little bit. So some fun things that happened there. Mary Lou Retton became the first American woman to win an individual all around gold medal in gymnastics. So that's super exciting. She's like super cute. It's like old, 80s, short hair. That was a big deal. There was a woman named Madeline De Jesus and she had an identical twin sister who was also in the Olympics. And Madeline hurt herself during the long jump, so she had her sister pretend to be her during the relay. Seriously, just super fun. Yeah, and they got caught and then they got the medal taken away. But like that, that's hilarious and, and, and kind of fun. The opening ceremony for the LA Olympics was in the, what's it called? The Coliseum in by ucla.
>> Farz: Yeah, that was. Muhammad Ali was the one who lit.
>> Taylor: He, he l. He lit at the end. No, no, that was in Atlanta.
>> Farz: Was it? Okay, sorry.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he did it in 1996. But I, I don't know who did it in LA, but there was a guy in a jet pack. I don't know if you've ever seen this video. Watch it later. Just Google 1984 Olympics jetpack. It's like the, it's so lame. He just like kind of goes up in the air like 10ft and like moves around and it's just like hilarious and like very fun. You can, you can look it up now. Jetpack guy. 84 Olympics.
The Olympics are coming back to Los Angeles in 2028
So I want to mention like this in general because obviously, as you know, the Olympics are coming to LA again.
>> Farz: So this is not a jetpack. So he's not actually being propelled by a jetpack, he's just on a string or wire.
>> Taylor: No, it's a jetpack, isn't it? Like from the bottom.
>> Farz: I mean, there's no flames coming out of it.
>> Taylor: I don't know this. I don't pretend to know the science. The schematics behind jetpacks.
>> Farz: Okay, got it. But we'll come back to this.
>> Taylor: So the Olympics, as we know, is coming back to LA in, in 2028. And there I found a website called Nolympicsla.com that goes over all the Olympic, all the reasons why LA shouldn't have it. There's a lot of them, obviously. Like, we've talked about how having the Olympics, like a bunch of unhoused people get displaced. You know, it doesn't really help the community. It costs a lot of money. The 1984 Olympics actually was one that like made some money for the city because they had just insane sponsorships and things that they hadn't had before. But there's also an article that I'll put into our. Our sources from the nation. It's called Want to understand the 1992 LA Riots start with the 1984 LA Olympics. So the gist is that the police got so much funding. So this is like a couple years. Well, it's like a decade after Munich. But they want it to be like, you're safe because there's so many police here. Right. So there were just like a huge police presence with tanks, with all this stuff. And the police became, like, very aggressive because they had so much money being funneled into them. And that would eventually lead to Rodney King.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's. I'm on the no Olympics page. And that's. Yeah, what they're saying is likely gonna happen this time.
>> Taylor: So. Yeah, so it's fair to say they were, like, worried that something might happen during that time. It went off without anything really terrible happening. There was a thing where, and this is important for our story, an officer, a police officer named Jimmy Wade Pearson discovered a bomb on a bus. And he, like, very heroically took out of the bus and like, ripped all of the cords off like in a movie. But it wasn't a real bomb. He had planted it to be a hero. So.
>> Farz: Oh, so there was some precedent for. Yeah, okay, I didn't know that.
>> Taylor: Exactly. Yeah, so it had. It had happened. It happened recently and in the US So just kind of remember. Yeah, remember that. That had happened. So that's 1984. In 1988, the Winter Olympics were in Calgary, Canada. This is the Cool Runnings Olympics and the Eddie the Eagle Olymp. So, like, silly comedy movie Olympics, those happened. Then in the Summer Olympics in 1988, there were in Seoul, South Korea, and Ben Johnson won the men's 100 meter sprint, but he was disqualified for doping, giving the gold Carl Lewis. And Carl Lewis is going to dominate track and field in like, the next four to five Olympics. In 1992, they were in Albert. Albertville, France. And. And the Summer Olympics were in Barcelona, Spain. This was the Dream Team Olympics when Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson got to actually like. And crew got to actually be in the Olympics. And also I posted something about. I have this amazing CD called Barcelona Gold and had all this, like, great 90s music on it. So that also happened during 1992. Not that that matters, but I thought it was really fun. In 94, they were in Lillehammer, Norway. In 1996, they were in Atlanta, which we'll talk about in a second. Some fun things that happened during that one. I think the funnest is Carrie Strugg. Do you remember when she did the vault with her hurting?
>> Farz: Oh, my God. Yeah.
>> Taylor: How exciting it was.
>> Farz: Did the vault when she landed in her ankle. Right. Was that the woman?
>> Taylor: No, it was already hurt.
>> Farz: Oh, it was.
>> Taylor: It was already hurt. And then she landed on one foot because it was hurt, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, I remember that.
>> Taylor: And then, like, the coach carried her to get. To get the gold. It was like a whole thing. So that was super exciting and cute. And then in 1988, I don't know where that was. In 2000, they were in Japan and Australia. 2002, they were in Salt Lake City. So in the US in 2004, they were. The Summer Olympics were in Athens, Greece. And that's when Michael Phelps comes on stage. He won six gold and two bronze medals in his first Olympics. And then in 2008, they'll be in Beijing. Usain Bolt. That's his first olympics.
Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in 2008. In 2010 he won three gold medals
He won three gold medals. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in 2008.
>> Farz: I remember that.
>> Taylor: Incredible. In 2010. Yeah.
>> Farz: These the dream team. If you look up the scores that they racked up against other countries, it's.
>> Taylor: Was it just, like, dumb?
>> Farz: It's so stupid. Yeah. So the one game, June 28, 1992, US points 136 to Cuba's 57.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God.
>> Farz: I mean, I'm shocked they even got 57, actually.
>> Taylor: Me too. So, yeah, one day you're just, like, playing a basketball team, and the next day they're like, oh, hey, Michael Jordan's here against you. Good luck. And you're like, what?
>> Farz: I remember being a kid and playing at the ymca, like, the basketball. Every now and then, it's like. It's like the other kids will, like, the other team will have someone that's like, crazy good and crazy dominance. Like, nobody wants to guard that guy. It's like nobody wants to be the guy who, like, is obviously going to lose the game for you. And I just can't imagine being like this Cuba team and be like, so who's got Michael Jordan?
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to cover him or
>> Farz: do you want Michael Jordan? Do you want Carl Malone or do you want Patrick Ewing? Or do you want Scotty Pippen? Who do you want to cover today? Sleep. What a nightmare.
>> Taylor: I know this is not news, but, man, these guys are tall. Patrick Ewing is seven feet tall. Yeah. So tall. Insane. Yeah. So that. That was a really fun year for America. What else? So just in general, 2012. Gabby Douglas. She's the first African American woman to win the gold medal in gymnastics, which is super exciting. They're in Russia in 2014. They're in Rio in 2016 where Simone Biles comes to stage. She wins four gold medals and one bronze. Usain Bolt competed the completed the triple. Triple. He won the 100, 204 by 100 relay for the third Olympics in the row. Like, he's just insane. He's so fast.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Out of control. Then they were in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and then they were in Tokyo. I think it's super cool of Simone Biles that she withdrew because she was having mental health issues. I think that was a good, you know, thing for her to do, to take care of herself. So she did that. But she's back this year. And then in 2022 they were in Beijing. And then this year, of course, they're in Paris. I'll let you know. I'll do a follow up if anything crazy happens. But I'm, I'm following so many Olympics accounts on our Instagram. It's wild. And I'm excited about track, of course, and swimming. Katie Ledecky is back. She's insane. Every, like the top 15 records for her events are all her. She's just like out of control. There's also a woman's rugby player named Alona Mayer, who I love. She has a great Instagram account. She's super making me super excited about that. And I only know about women. I don't know. That's also what's happening on our algorithm. But a woman named Sunny Choi is on our breakdancing team. There's 16 men and 16 women. And Sunny Choi, I watched a little documentary on her. She was a global marketing act director at Estee Lauder and quit to be on this breakdancing team, which is really fun for her and I'm excited. Breakdancing? Yeah. Yeah. So that's what's coming up in the next, I don't know, a couple weeks when it actually starts.
On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded 12 minutes after takeoff
But let's talk about 1996. So Fars it's 1996. You are a preteen.
>> Farz: I'm a little 12 year old. Fars.
>> Taylor: Little farce. So lest we start thinking that our times are uniquely turbulent, all times are turbulent. And a lead up to the 1996 Olympics, a bunch of crazy s***'s happening, like in the world. So there's a few things that you have to remember that backdrop this story. And they happen in quick succession. So in August 1992, there's Ruby Ridge. You know about that, right?
>> Farz: Oh, yeah. Yep.
>> Taylor: Do you want to say what that is?
>> Farz: That was when the FBI and the Bureau of Tobacco Firearms raided this compound where this white nationalist was living with his family, off the grid. And sure, he's a bad person overall, whatever, but he wasn't actually committing any crimes. It was entrapment. And they ended up actually killing his wife. I think they might have killed his kid. And arrest the guy.
>> Taylor: He. He.
>> Farz: Ruby Ridge was basically the precursor in the setup to domestic terrorism as we know it. Like, that was the tee up to the Olympic or the. The. God. What was it? Timothy McVeigh bombing. Yeah. And all that stuff, so.
>> Taylor: Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Exactly right. Because in April 1993 is the Waco Branch Davidian standoff that ended up, you know, killing a bunch of those folks in that cult. In April 1985 is Oklahoma City bombing. So there's a lot of, like, domestic terrorism, like you said, and a lot of, like, tension between the government and people who want to live off the grid. So that's what's happening right now. And so that's in those, like, Geist. There's also one thing that happens right before the olympics start. On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded 12 minutes after takeoff. Have you heard about this one?
>> Farz: That's. That's not Lockerbie, is it?
>> Taylor: No. So it's. It. It was flying to Rome from JFK via Paris. So it was headed to Paris for a layover, and it ended up being just like a short circuit in the engine. So the flight took off fine. Twelve minutes later, other planes were calling in, saying they saw an explosion in the sky and the. The burning wreckage was on. On the ocean. Everyone died. Like, almost 300 people died. In addition to the people on the plane, like, you know, one of the groups on the plane was a group of 16 students and five adult chaperones from the French club of Montoursville High School in Pennsylvania. And that is inspiration for Final Destination.
>> Farz: No way.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Which is kind of fun because foundation is fun because it's like a group of kids going to France, you know, and then their plane explodes. So great.
>> Farz: Those movies are awesome. Everybody should see it.
>> Taylor: They're so good. They're great. I love all of them. The first time I saw them, I was so scared. I want. I didn't know what to do. But then I was like, I need to face my fear and watch them. And they're great.
>> Farz: When they tied the last one.
>> Taylor: Exactly. They Pinned it all together.
>> Farz: Yeah. I was like, this is way. You didn't have to do that, but you did. We, we loved it anyways. But man, you all really care about us. Thank you, Final Destination creators.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So this is, this is the inspiration for it, which is a terrible tragedy. But noding out, it's a tragedy. I think Andy Warhol's boyfriend was on the flight. A couple other like higher profile people were on it. So definitely a tragedy, but fun that we got. Final Destination. But by the time the Olympics start, the investigation is not done and they think it might be a terrorist attack. Like it isn't, but it's still out there that it could be, you know, basically.
>> Farz: Are you just framing it as like the world is topsy turvy?
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: And nobody. Okay, got it.
>> Taylor: And no one knows what's going on, you know, so that's like in the background. But the games are in Atlanta and there's a lot of background reasons to why.
Atlanta was everyone's second choice for the Modern Games in 1990
But you know, some, a couple of people were like, we really wanted to be in Atlanta. They put out the bid. They spent a lot of money like wooing the people who get to vote. It's the 100th anniversary of the Modern Games. So Athens was like the favorite to get it because, you know, Greece, 100 years, all the things. And Atlanta did the Abraham Lincoln thing and made themselves everybody's second choice, you know, so that's how you win things. So in 1990, it's like 200 people on this committee get to vote on which city and the, the vote like all 10 and then the two of the least votes are out and they do it again, and they do it again and they do it again until finally it was Atlanta. And they got that in 1990. The games are in Atlanta now. They got voted in. They were everyone's second choice. They wanted the park and Olympics to be open to everyone. They expected bomb threats, but they had a lot of security. They did a training in the airport before with like fake gas. Like there was, there was a bomb in the airport. So everybody was like really ready. Lots of famous people from the 90s were there. The Brian Setzer Orchestra played. That's fun. It's very nice.
>> Farz: I know who that is.
>> Taylor: It's like, it's like 90s swing. Remember whenever we like swing in the
>> Farz: 90s again, everybody was swinging.
>> Taylor: Yeah. There's a very on brand story that Donald Trump was at the Cheesecake Factory and he dropped his wallet and a kid picked up his wallet and gave it back to him. And to thank him, Donald Trump asked the kid for a 20 bill, and he signed that one.
>> Farz: I mean, I guess that's kind of nice.
>> Taylor: He didn't even give him any money for returning his wallet. He took the kids money and signed it.
>> Farz: Oh, he took. I thought he meant he took money out of his own.
>> Taylor: No, no, no, no. The kids.
>> Farz: That's funny. That is funny.
>> Taylor: It's very. It makes sense. So all that's happening. Everyone's excited. Atlanta is excited, and so is a security guard named Richard Jewel. And if you have seen this man or heard any of this story, for better or worse, Richard Jewell is Rod Farfa, essentially.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And I mean that in a very loving and endearing way.
>> Farz: He looks like him, too.
>> Taylor: Well, so Jay Leno is being an a****** this whole time and, like talking about Richard Jewell when he's not convicted. But Jay Leno will liken Richard Jewell to the person who hurt Nancy Kerrigan, you know, with the bat or whatever he hit her with. And the same actor, Paul Walter Hauser, plays both those men in the movies. So it does make sense that those two looked alike. The same actor plays him, and Paul Walter Hauser also plays Lonnie Lelouch, who's the Canadian Farva in Super Dupers 2. So.
>> Farz: Right. Well, then he was. He was right.
>> Taylor: It's a brand. So he's like a fat guy with a mustache who just, like, loves being a cop. And that's all he wants to talk about. You know, like, he's so excited about it. He wants to tell you about his training. He wants to tell you how he could. He could stop a bomb. He could do these things, all of that. That's just, like, his personality. So he's probably, like, a little annoying, but he's. That's just who he is, you know,
>> Farz: he just likes what he likes and. Yeah, we don't have to understand it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Richard Jewell was born Richard White on December 17, 1962
So Richard Jewell was born Richard White on December 17, 1962. His mom, Bobby, and his dad, Robert, divorced when he was 4. His mom remarried a man named John Jewell, which is why he changed his name, because he adopted. Ended up adopting Richard. Things are going well until one day, John Jewell, his stepdad, just leaves. He just abandons the family. He leaves a letter that says, I think I'm a failure. I can't do this anymore, and just leaves. So Richard, who had just started college, moves back in with his mom to help her. And he has some law enforcement jobs. He got fired from two of them. One Was because he pretended to be like an on duty officer when he was being a security guard. He had like a side gig doing security at an apartment building, and he sort of overstepped. So he got in trouble for impersonating an officer. And then he also wrecked a police car because he was kind of a reckless driver. So he always considered himself law enforcement, but he had been fired from a couple law enforcement jobs
>> Farz: at this point. He kind of sounds like that Zimmerman guy.
>> Taylor: Like, who?
>> Farz: Zimmerman. Whatever was. The guy was like just a fake police officer and he shot Trayvon Martin, remember?
>> Taylor: Yes, but like, minus the racism. Yeah, right.
>> Farz: Yeah, I wasn't going with that. I was just being like, he's a rent a cop who's just like, thinks too highly of himself in that capacity.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. And he. His goal is to go back into law enforcement and get a police officer job eventually. He's also overweight, which doesn't help. You know, like, you can be a fat cop if you've been a cop for like 25 years, but like, and your first day, you can't be.
>> Farz: You'd be a fat detective.
>> Taylor: That's true. That's fair. But he wanted to be like a cop. He wanted to be like a. On the ground, right? So during the Olympics, he got a job as a night guard at. On a tower at Centennial Olympic park, which was this big park that was supposed to be like the central park of the Olympics, where there were bands and there were gatherings and there were parties and all the things. He had the night shift, which was like, not boring because things went into really, really late and at night. So it wasn't like just quiet evenings. But he had like a very strict thing that he would do every day. He would, like, check the perimeter. There was a bench next to him where he would let. Let police officers sit there, and he wouldn't let anybody else sit there. He'd be like, that's reserved for the police, you know, just like a little bit annoying. Taking his job a little bit too seriously is how people, like, had perceived him.
>> Farz: He sounds very obnoxious. He sounds like an absolute f****** dweeb.
>> Taylor: He's a dweeb, but he's like, not a bad guy. He's just a dweeb, you know? So on July 27, 1996, Richard took a break from work. He usually never took breaks, but he had food poisoning and he had to go to the bathroom. So he went to the bathroom, which is, like, gonna be suspicious later because he never took breaks, but he had food poisoning. He would remember everything in, like, such intense detail because that was his, like, I'm gonna quote, quote training, you know, like, he was like, I'm trained to remember faces and remember this. And it's like, annoying, but also helpful if you want to do those things, you know.
>> Farz: Such a dork.
>> Taylor: So he remembered that there were some drunks and he was trying to get them to move. It was like one o' clock in the morning, and there was a band called Jack Mack and the Heart Attack playing. And Richard noticed that there was an Alice pack, which is a very big green army backpack, underneath a bench. And they had had people leaving their bags, you know, like they do, like, all over the place before. But he got closer, closer to it with another guard, and they kind of opened it, like, poked at it and saw that it really was a bomb. So Richard alerts the gbi, which is the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, like the state place. And meanwhile, so this is happening and him and the guy that he's with are trying to get people to leave, but also not cause a panic. So he's like, trying to get people to move from. From the bench, trying to get back up, try to figure out what to do next. He's doing everything right. He is trying to get people to. To move. And Meanwhile, someone calls 911 from a pay phone and says, there's a bomb in the Olympic park. You have 30 minutes. And this is like one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. But the 911 operator doesn't have the street address for Centennial park because it's a brand new park. So she has to call around for like 13 minutes to find someone who will tell her the address because she can't send people there if she doesn't have an address.
>> Farz: Kind of wild. It also. It also sounds very like Die Hard.
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly. Like someone's on the phone, they can't do it. Everyone's panicking. And so Richard Jewell and another guard are trying to get people to move, but the bomb explodes at 1:20am and it is a shrapnel bomb. So like the. The boom, obviously people hear it from all over, but the real damage is going to be in the shrapnel. So people get like, you know, nails and pieces of metal, like, thrown into their bodies. Only one person dies from the bomb. Her name is Alice Hawthorne. She's 44 years old. She was there with her daughter, who was also injured. A cameraman with Turkish Radio and Television. His name is Melia uzino. He was 40. He, quote, survived coverage of wars in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf, but died of a heart attack running to get coverage of the bombing. So technically only two people died, but 111 people were very severely injured. So Richard is there, you know, from before the bomb went off and after the bomb went off. He's doing everything right. So he's like, if you can walk, come with me.
A security guard rescues people from a raging inferno
Like, getting the people who are okay out of the way so that anyone else can get help quickly. And he is just being a hero. Like he, you know, got people away from there. He helped people who needed help. He had all this information that he had remembered from when he scanned the perimeter. You know, all those things. And everything that he does is very helpful. And, you know, everything that you should do, what you would expect an officer or a security guard to do, he did. He did all those things. But then people start thinking maybe he's helping too much, maybe he knows a little too much, you know, and that starts the whole thing.
Two people who deserve blame for this debacle are reporter Kathy Scruggs
So the two people who deserve blame for this, for this debacle are reporter Kathy Scruggs and FBI agent Don Johnson. So Kathy was like a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She was like a. Like a cute female reporter who would always be at the bar with the police trying to, like, get there, get them to give her information and tell her things. She was the first person report that Richard was a suspect. And was it true? It was. But she's going to be in court later when this is all kind of over, and they try to get her to tell her source because someone involved in the case told her at a bar that Richard Jewel, the hero, was the main suspect. And it finds out later that the person who told her this was Don Johnson, the FBI agent in charge. So Don Johnson thinks that Richard Jewell did it, and he will not give that up. He won't even look at anybody else. You know, Johnson had, you know, had some, like, kind of bad moves in when he was in the FBI in New York and ended up in Georgia. And Kathy, her career is going to be destroyed by this. She eventually is going to die by suicide in early September 2001, and Don Johnson is going to die of lung disease. Disease. And they both die before this case is closed. They. He. Don Johnson dies thinking that Richard Jewel did it, even after he was let go.
>> Farz: What was the name of the woman again?
>> Taylor: Kathy Scruggs. S C R U G G S I mean, it's sad, yeah, it ruined her life, essentially, but it probably shouldn't
>> Farz: have because she was taking the advice of an agent or an investigating officer.
>> Taylor: Yeah, he sounds like a real piece of work, this guy.
>> Farz: Yeah, it sounds like it was mostly his fault.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So. But Richard was, like, on Good Morning America. He was on Katie Couric. He was, like, a hero, like, in the news in America, all over the world, and. But once he becomes a suspect, they make his life like a living h***. The FBI goes to his house. They take all of his things. They. It takes him 10 hours to go through his house and, like, take all this evidence. Evidence out. It takes them four minutes later to return it. They just give it back to them in boxes. His poor mother, Bobby. She's not just, like, a dumb woman. Like, she's very smart. She has a career, all these things. She had a Tupperware collection that she'd been, like, working for, like, 30 years, and they ruined it. They, like, wrote on it with the Sharpies. Isn't that terrible?
>> Farz: Mean.
>> Taylor: So mean. And so she ended up suing them and got $2,000 in the end. But Bobby is. Is, you know, a great mother to. To Richard, and he's there to help her, and. And. And, you know, she's going to be with him during this whole thing. So after they do this raid on his apartment, he lives with his mom. They do this raid. They bring him in. And Don Johnson, the FBI agent, is the one that interviews Richard for the first time, and he does something weird. He does the Miranda rights in the middle of it, which you can't do. You know, he, like, does it at the wrong time. And at first, Richard is like, I'm here to help. Like, I'm super excited to be with fellow law enforcement and help you find this person. And then he realizes that they are interrogating him, thinking that he did it, and then they do the Miranda rights, and then it's just like, that's going to be part of the reason that Don Johnson's career gets destroyed, as it should be, because he did this in absolutely the wrong way. He will. Richard will call his lawyer, Watson Bryant, who's, like, a person who he had known at a previous job, like an older man who was. Who. Who he had a friendship with. And Watson's going to be in over his head. He's not really a criminal lawyer, but he's his first lawyer, and he's like, stop talking to the FBI right now. You know, as a lawyer would tell you to do.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: When he gets home after his first interrogation by the FBI, Richard Jewell's mom Bobby asks him if he did it. He said, no, Mom, I didn't do it. And she never asked him again. She believed him, you know, the whole time.
>> Farz: I'd be p***** my mom even asked me that. What are you talking about?
>> Taylor: Like, I know she's like, kind of like, she's. I think she's like, how can I help you, you know, from here on?
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. It's tough situation.
Norm: The FBI is constantly trailing Richard Jewell
>> Taylor: She believed him. You know, they are like 100% sure that it's him. And the media loves it. At one point, there's a reporter on TV kind of yelling about it. This woman in. In Atlanta yelling about it. And the Assistant U.S. attorney calls the Attorney General in Atlanta and says, get this woman off the air now. She's making this into a scandal. That it, like, she's like, way going overboard. And guess who that woman was?
>> Farz: No clue.
>> Taylor: Nancy Grace.
>> Farz: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.
>> Taylor: That was her first. Her first big thing. And by the end of the year, she'll have her job on Court TV and become, you know, be the yeller that she is.
>> Farz: So annoying.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So now people are interviewing Richard Jewell's friends as well, and they are saying things like. Yeah, it's weird. They talk about being a police officer so much, you know, like, he does want to be a hero. That is true. So things like that, I think, make it more suspicious, especially because the guy who did it in la, you know.
>> Farz: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He kind of set the precedent.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So he gets a new lawyer named Jack Martin, who's a. More of a criminal lawyer, to help him. They're making him do things like pretend to make the phone call, like, there's a bomb in the park. You have 30 minutes. But like, it doesn't match his voice. When he does meet with his new lawyer, his lawyer does the thing where he's like, is there anything that you want to tell me before we go off, you know, and do this, like, at the end? And Richard Jewel says, yes, I haven't done my taxes in two years.
>> Farz: Poor guy.
>> Taylor: Yeah. The FBI is constantly trailing him. They are at his house, they're listening to his phone calls, like he has a friend who's in the gbi, and he wants his friend to come over because he's like, hey, I made a lasagna. Will you come over so we can chat about this? And his friend is like, okay. He comes over, but his friend is wired, you know, so he can't even trust anyone. And they, like, you know, he orders pizza and they bribe the delivery guy. To hold the door open so that he can, like, they can get pictures of him. They're just, like, camped outside of his apartment making. He can't. Also, he doesn't have a job, you know, so he's like, he doesn't have a job. He's, like, really trying to figure out, like, how he's going to live his life. Now there's jailhouse informants who are saying that they know that he did it, but all those didn't. Obviously didn't pan out. And then he also passes. Passes a lie detector test. There's just no evidence that richard jewell did this. You know, like, there's nothing.
>> Farz: No, it's just. It's just if you're kind of like an annoying pain in the a**.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: You're just an easy target. Don't be an annoying pain in the a**.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's definitely an easy target on this. So also, just to note, he has a best friend named dave dutchess, and he's often there to help him. Dave Duchess died in 2021 of COVID But I just want to bring up that he was a good friend to richard jewell, like, during all of this. So this is only a few months. So the bomb goes off in july. By october, the u. S. Attorney general in atlanta sends him a letter saying that he is no longer a suspect. Like, they don't apologize. They don't. Like, you know, they just say, you're not. You're not a suspect anymore. In 1997, Janet Reno did apologize. She said, quote, I'm very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology. I regret the leak. The leak being the leak that, like, he was a suspect at all. So he didn't. He's.
>> Farz: Jan reno didn't leak it.
>> Taylor: No, no, no. But like, the FBI did.
>> Farz: Right, okay.
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly. So richard tries to get his life back. He does get a job offer in pendergrass, georgia, which is like, a very, very small town. He becomes a police officer there. Eventually he'll be deputy sheriff in meriwether county, georgia. He gets to be on Saturday night live. Norm macdonald interviews him during weekend update and asks him if he also killed lady teresa and princess diana or about the Teresa, princess diana because they just died as well. It's a joke, right? He does sue the atlanta journal constitution, which is the newspaper, because they were comparing him to wayne williams. Like, the guy who killed a bunch of children. Like, they were, like, doing all this stuff. Like, jay leno apologized to him. Tom broka had to apologize like, they.
Richard Jewel died of heart disease in 2007 at the age of 44
He did make some money from those things, but he had a. A hard time, you know, meeting women. And like, one time he met a woman on a plane, and they went on a date, and she turned out to be a reporter who's wanted to write an article about him, which is s*****, you know, he does meet a social worker named Dana, and they get married in 1998. They move to a farm. He's deputy sheriff. He's. He's doing great. He's actually feeling healthier. He lost a bunch of weight, but he still has diabetes. And on August 29, 2007, his wife called him a couple times, and he didn't answer. And she rushed home and found that he was dead in. In bedroom. He had died of a heart attack. He had heart disease. And he. Richard Jewel died at the age of 44.
>> Farz: I mean, kind of a sad life.
>> Taylor: Overall, I would say, very happy that he met Dana. It sounds like they had a lot of fun. He was very sweet to her. Richard would bring a rose to the spot where Alice Hawthorne was killed by the bomb every year. And Dana continues to do that the years since Richard passed.
>> Farz: It's very sweet.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So, I mean, he sounds like. I mean, he was in the right place at the right time to help, but he was, like, the kind of guy that was easy to pick on, and obviously they wanted to, like, get this solved really fast and all of that, so they just, like, focused in on him and really just, like, ruined his life for the rest of it.
>> Farz: I mean, he probably wasn't gonna last that long anyways. Yeah, pictures of him. He does not look like he's doing good.
>> Taylor: He looks good toward the end. He looks thinner when he doesn't have his mustache on. He looks. He's a little bit healthier, but it, like, wasn't enough. You know, he's just like a guy. He's just like Farva.
>> Farz: You know, he lost £40.
>> Taylor: Yeah. But Fars, what are you thinking right now at the end of the story?
>> Farz: Who actually did it?
>> Taylor: Who actually did it? That's a great question. This isn't like, oh, God, there's a murderer out there that murders children and killed Casey Anthony's daughter. You know, like, she did it. Like, it's not like O.J. simpson, where you're like, there's a murderer out there if you didn't do it, dude. But of course there isn't, you know, but in this case, like, there is someone out there who planted this bomb, and guess who it is.
>> Farz: It's gonna Be one of those white nationalist groups, right?
>> Taylor: A thousand percent. It's a dude. It's one dude, but he is a white nationalist dude. His name is Eric Robert Rudolph. So Eric Robert Rudolph is mad about everything in his life. He joins the army, but he gets kicked out. While he's there, he just says a bunch of racist s***. You know, he's just, like, a piece of s*** guy. He is mad at the Olympics later, he says this because of global socialism. He also hates the official Olympic song was imagined by John Lennon, and he hates that song so much.
>> Farz: Like, I mean, I kind of get it.
>> Taylor: And he wanted them to cancel the Games, but they. And they did not cancel the Games for the bombing. They just amped up security, and people were okay with that. So the FBI, in trying to find this person, actually did some, like, funny things. One thing that I thought was hilarious is so he had. He was kind of on the run for a while. He. Eric Rudolph, like, lives in the forest. Like, he only has a driver's license. He has no other identification identifying, you know, information. Like, he's very, like, as off the grid as you possibly can be. Literally, like, starving to death in the woods for a big part of the story. But he. When he snuck into or, like, walked into Centennial park to plant the bomb, he has a goatee, and he has, like, a hat on. And the FBI has, like, pictures where they think they might see someone dropping off the backpack and they send them to NASA to enhance them. And NASA can't. Isn't that hilarious?
>> Farz: I mean. Yeah. I mean, what. What. I don't think their technology is gonna help in.
>> Taylor: But I just, like, imagine. Yeah, they do it in Super Troopers where he's like, enhance. Enhanced. Enhanced, yeah.
>> Farz: That's why they did do it in Super Troopers. You're right.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So he would do a couple other things. So he's just like, basically a white supremacist nationalist piece of who, like, you know, wants to make this global statement. He sets out this bomb. He also will do two other bombs in the next couple years because they don't find him for years. He bombs a lesbian nightclub. He bombs an abortion clinic, killing a security guard, which is the first murder at an abortion clinic in America. And then. But he, like, really, really is on the run.
The Atlanta bombing happened two years after the abortion clinic bombing
So he, like, camps in the. In the woods. He first becomes a suspect in the. The abortion. The abortion clinic bombing on February 14, 1998. So it's two years after the Atlanta bombing. He's not a suspect there yet, but he is in. In Alabama for this one, because two witnesses, and these two are also heroes. So Jeffrey Tikal and Jermaine Hughes, they see him leaving this place where they're like, a bomb went off. And they, like. They're like, that guy's weird and suspicious, so they follow him. Like, one of them follows him, and they get his license plate, and then they were able to find that the car was registered to him. And that's how they get his name for the first time. Which is fun that they, like, went out and did that.
>> Farz: Sorry, what year was that?
>> Taylor: 1998.
>> Farz: Okay, so two years later.
>> Taylor: Okay, yeah. So two years later, he also does stuff where, like, he's planting bombs all over, but he remembers where they are. But when they do end up catching him, they have to, like, make deals with him for him to tell them where all this hidden dynamite is, because he's like, oh, this is at, like, the FBI headquarters in Birmingham, or this is, like, somewhere else. And, like, at one point, he gets scared, and he has, like, a bunch of other bombs, and he just, like, like, sets them off in a garbage can. So he, like, there was a chance that he has bombs, like, in parks and in forests and someone else could, like, accidentally set them off. You know, like, that's. That's dangerous. So on May 5, 1998, he becomes the 454th person on the 10 most wanted list. So he's like, the 454th person to get on the list. He's on the 10 most wanted list. They're looking for him. They know he's dangerous, and he spends five years in the wilderness. He does stuff like he kills animals to live. He has a friend who lives in, like, who owns, like, a food store, and he, like, starts stealing stuff from him and ends up, like, stealing his car. And his friend calls the police and says, like, you know, he's out here. He's out here in the woods. Eventually they. Eventually they find him. And when they find him, he kind of, like, walks out of the woods and he's, like, behind a convenience store, like, dumpster diving. And in the middle of the night, a cop, like, sees him and finds him and, you know, and apprehends him. And then they figure out who he is while they're trying to find him. Just as an aside, like, how we were saying how a lot of these, you know, people come from families that are f***** up. His brother. His. His brother Daniel recorded himself cutting off his hand with a saw to send a message to the FBI.
>> Farz: What was the message?
>> Taylor: I have no Idea like, just to be like, I don't know, honestly. And then like, his hand got reattached because someone went and found it and they put it back on and it was fine, but he was just like. I guess doesn't come from a great background.
>> Farz: Maybe the message. Maybe the message is, if I'm gonna do this to me, imagine what I'll do to you.
>> Taylor: I guess. But it's not even the guy. It's his brother.
>> Farz: So weird.
>> Taylor: You know what I mean? So they end up, you know, they find him. He would do things. Like, one thing he was like. He was like eating salamanders and acorns and like, stealing food from people's houses and dumpsters and things. And eventually they catch him and he goes to court and he is convicted and he is at the ADX Florence Supermax in Florence, Colorado, which I think we've talked about before.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's like the crazy prison and that.
>> Taylor: That's where Eric Rudolph, I think that he has been there since 2003. Like a lot later. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar vibe. Like, I'm living in the. I'm living in the woods, you know, he was caught on May 31, 2003. 3. Which is wildly late. Yeah.
>> Farz: He had seven years.
>> Taylor: Yeah. To like. But he, like, those were s***** seven years for him because he really was starving to death in the woods.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Just like Ted Kaczynski, though, also serving to death in the woods.
>> Farz: Yeah. It's. It's interesting how s***** these guys live and how much they take and how s***** they live.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Who are you doing this for?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Losers.
>> Taylor: So. Yeah, that's it. That, that. That's the story.
Taylor: Richard Jewell died at 44 from a heart attack
That's the. The 1996 Olympics. And, you know, Richard Jewell, I'm glad we can remember him as a hero because he was. Even though he's a dork, you know, he. He did. He did save lives by moving people out of there. And he was just a guy who wanted to be a cop in like a. I want to help people way.
>> Farz: Tragic, tragic existence. I mean.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: 44 years and so young to die
>> Taylor: of a heart attack.
>> Farz: You know, in a big. I mean, a not insignificant chunk of that was spent being harangued 24, seven from all angles.
>> Taylor: Oh, another thing I forgot to say is he did. There was. Remember when in Japan, when the auction Rikyo cults gassed that subway line in Tokyo, there was something else that they had gassed like a suburb and a man had found it in, like a weird way, and he was wrongly accused as well. And he reached out to Richard to be like, hey, like, this happened to me in the media, just like it happened to you. And Richard went to Japan and did spend some time there. Some time with him, too. He hated the food.
>> Farz: Nice. Wait, you said he hated the food?
>> Taylor: He did, yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. He looks like a Pizza Hut kind of a guy.
>> Taylor: Exactly. I think he found all the Pizza Huts in Japan. But that was cool that he got to travel to Japan, you know, and like, meet another person who had the same thing happen to him. So, you know, I think. I feel like. I don't know, I feel torn about it because he also, then now we know about him, you know, wouldn't have if. If this hadn't happened to him, he would just be, you know, another. Another guy. But we know about him because of this story. Which is, you know, kind of fun.
>> Farz: No, I mean, it's, it's. Yeah. Like it adds something to the lore of the Olympics, you know?
>> Taylor: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, yeah. Wild. So there's something wild, I think, every single time there's an Olympics. And I think because, you know, people want to make a statement. You know, people want to like, you know, the world is watching. It's. It's not ever going to be like the dream of like a. A lovely. Everyone gets a long sporting event. It's always something else happening. And they're at times very, very tragic. But I don't know, hopefully everything goes smoothly this year. We'll see what happens. But we also live in turbulent times, so I don't know,
>> Farz: reminds me of those people who threw, throw like soup or whatever or paint on.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Art. It's just like they just need to get attention in whatever way they need it, I guess.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully there's some cool sporting things that are gonna happen. I'm excited for gymnastics. I'm excited for this breakdancing to start. Yeah. I want to see. Hopefully. It's easy to see. Also, I'll keep you posted on how I'm gonna watch it, but I also have not received my Team USA sweatshirt yet from Old Navy. So that's a tragedy.
>> Farz: We'll wait with bated breath.
>> Taylor: Yeah, wait till I. I posted something on Instagram because it was someone who's like, how you judge people who wear like, anything with the American flag on it, but then during the Olympics they're like, woohoo.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Which is me.
>> Farz: You gotta, you gotta flex that pride.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Exciting. Well, very, very fun story, Taylor. Fun little series, little four parter.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I feel like I learned. I learned so much. And I feel excited because I feel like I can take these little tidbits of things that I learned about the Olympics with me for the rest of my life.
>> Farz: Yeah. And the rest of us will as well, now that we have it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And probably some really fun, exciting things that are going to be happening here a little bit with the Olympics starting up in Paris. When does it start?
>> Taylor: Oh, that's a good question. I think the 27th.
>> Farz: So end of this month.
>> Taylor: Yes. At the end of July. Yeah. I wonder when the opening ceremony is. It is July 26th at 10:30am Pacific Time.
>> Farz: So convenient to be watching TV.
>> Taylor: I mean, honestly, who knows?
Farz and I will be broadcasting live from Los Angeles during 2028 Olympics
I hope I. Hopefully I can have it on one of my monitors because I really, I do want to see it. And then, you know, stay tuned for 2028, when Farz and I will be broadcasting live from Los Angeles during the Olympics. And that will be very fun.
>> Farz: We're going to be correspondents at that Olympics, I believe. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yes. So that would be super exciting. We're going to get. Have wear blazers and American flag ties and. Yeah, it's gonna be really fun.
>> Farz: Totally. I'm so in.
>> Taylor: Can't wait for that.
>> Farz: Very in. Sweet.
Taylor: Thanks for sharing Operation Pastorius. That was a fun one
Well, Taylor, thanks for sharing. Is there anything else you want to read off for the. For the folks before we.
>> Taylor: I have one note from. From a listener. Nadine wanted me to tell you that she loved the Operation Pastorius and likes the idea of like bumbling spy keepers. So. Plus one for those.
>> Farz: There's actually quite a few of those.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Those are so fun.
>> Farz: They might have to be like mini episodes or like I just string a couple of to make it a full episode. But there is. There's a lot of content there.
>> Taylor: Yeah, those are. They are really fun. So thank you, Nadine. I agree. That was a fun one. Cool. Yeah. So please find us on all the social media at Doom to Fail pod. Email us doom to fail pod gmail.com if you have any suggestions. And please, please, please tell your friends. Thank you to my friend Jen who left us a review on Apple Podcasts. Really appreciate it if you can do that for us, that'd be awesome.
>> Farz: Sweet. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Thank you. Thanks, Rice.
>> Farz: Yep. Bye.