In the early-morning hours of July 27, 1996, a pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta's Centennial Park, the after-hours meeting place of the 1996 Olympic Games. The bombing killed one person and injured more than 100 others. A Turkish cameraman at the scene died of a heart attack.

A few minutes before 1 A.M., Richard Jewell, an AT&T security guard, alerted officials to a suspicious group of rowdy drunks near a sound tower in the park. Jewell had also noticed a suspicious green knapsack that had been left after the group dispersed. At 1:07 A.M. the police received an anonymous 911 call. The voice on the phone, which investigators would later identify as that of a white male with a slight Southern accent, said, “There's a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes.”

Minutes later, bomb experts identified wire and a pipe bomb ...