1. The bomb exploded about 1:20 a.m. on July 27, 1996, at the end of the first full week of the Summer Olympics, according to a related AJC article. The bomb was contained in a backpack left near a music stage at Centennial Olympic Park.

2. Alice Hawthorne, a 44-year-old spectator from Albany, was killed by the blast. Turkish journalist Melih Uzunyol was rushing to the scene when he died of a heart attack.

3. Security guard Richard Jewell, once the focus of the federal investigation into the bombing, was eventually cleared by the FBI. He died in 2007 at age 44 from a heart attack brought on by heart disease and diabetes, medical officials said.

4. The bomber, Eric Rudolph, was arrested seven years later as he was scrounging for food behind a discount supermarket in a small North Carolina town.

5. Rudolph pleaded guilty in 2005 to a series of bombings, including at Centennial Olympic Park. He is serving four life sentences in a Supermax federal prison near Florence, Colo.

About the Author

Keep Reading

Armed National Guard soldiers from West Virginia patrol the Mall near the Labor Department in Washington, where a poster of President Donald Trump is displayed, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Credit: AP

Featured

An aerial view captures a large area under construction for a new data center campus on Thursday, May 29, 2025. Developed by QTS, the data center campus near Fayetteville is one of the largest under construction in Georgia. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez