Kathy Scruggs

Kathy Scruggs was an American journalist, based in Atlanta, Georgia, best known for her role in the case of hero Richard Jewell.

Scruggs broke the story that the FBI were investigating Jewell as a suspect in a deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Jewell was a security guard at an Olympic event and initial reports describe him noticing a suspicious package and taking key steps to clearing potential victims from the area, saving lives. However Scruggs ran wiht a leak that the FBI's main suspect was Jewell, based on the theory he set up the bombing specifically so he would be regarded as a hero.

Other reporters surrounded Jewell's home, and he lived under a cloud of suspicion for years - until the real bomber was found, after he was caught for another crime. The real bomber had been an anti-abortion kook, and protesting abortion had been his motive. Jewell had been a hero, all along.

After he was cleared Jewell sued. Scruggs faced jail if she did not reveal her source. Scruggs refused, and appealed the jail term. While her appeal was in process she was found dead of a drug overdose.

In a 2013 profile of her Doug Monroe, who had been a colleague of hers, at The Atlanta Journal, described her a hard-drinking, hard-partying, risk-taking crime reporter that the Police loved. Monroe described her going to the scene of a murder, and arriving before the Police, only to ask them what had taken them so long, to arrive.

"She was blonde and wore miniskirts and gaudy stockings. She smoked. She drank. She cussed. She flaunted her sexuality. She dated Lewis Grizzard. She dated an editor who allegedly beat her with a telephone. She dated cops, including one who was accused of stealing money from the pockets of the dead. 'Kathy was a bigger-than-life figure,' Coram says. 'She was over the top in many ways.'"