The second season of the show will star Jack Houston and Cameron Britton. It’s set to premiere later this year.

Good news for fans of Manhunt (2017-), the largely underrated anthology series. The show is coming back after the first wrapped up in 2017.

Its first season told the story of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous bomber played by Paul Bettany. The plot was based on the factual story, where an FBI profiler Jim Fitzgerald (Sam Worthington) led the investigation through linguistic analysis of Unabomber’s Manifesto – Kaczynski’s famous essay on the societal issues.

Although the first season went largely unnoticed, I was among its ardent fans (here is the article I wrote about Manhunt: Unabomber). And it’s great news to see the show coming back in 2020.

Manhunt: Lone Wolf (2020) and the story behind it

Now, the second season of Manhunt, called Manhunt: Lone Wolf, will depict another true story.

This time, it’s the Atlanta Olympics Bombing which took place in 1996. It’s known to be one of the biggest bombings in the history of the U.S. The real bomber, Eric Rudolph, will be played by Jack Huston – an actor mostly known from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, where he played a war veteran Richard Harrow.

The role of Richard Jewell – a guard who was falsely accused of the bombings – will be played by Cameron Britton.

Britton’s most recognizable role was a stunning portrayal of Edward Kemper on Mindhunter by Netflix. He also starred in a Netflix-produced show called The Umbrella Academy (2019-).

The series will be produced by Lionsgate Televison.

The real story of Richard Jewell

You might have heard that name already, mostly in relation to the Oscars. The story of Jewell has been also adapted into a drama feature, directed by Clint Eastwood. In the film, Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser, known for a supporting role in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018). Eastwood’s film has received soul-stirring reviews, and it joined the Oscars race scoring a nomination for Kathy Bates, who played Jewell’s mother.

Firstly a hero…

Jewell became a national martyr after the bombings back in 1996, known as Centennial Olympic Park bombing. At the time of the tragic events, Jewell worked as a security guard. He found a backpack filled with pipe bombs, and helped evacuate people from the open-air area of the park in Atlanta. Although two people died as a result of the attack, more than 100 injured spectators were rescued.

… then the main suspect

Richard Jewell was firstly announced as one of the heroes, who bravely supported the evacuation right after the bombs went off.

However, the public demanded a perpetrator, and during the investigation, it was Jewell who somehow became one of the suspects. The profile mentioned a “lone wolf” (therefore the second season’s title), and Jewell – without family and any hard evidence on the investigators’ side – joined the circle of possible suspects. It was in fact the press (NBC and New York Post among others) that then blew this suspicion out of proportions, turning Jewell into the actual bomber.

Although Jewell was never actually charged throughout the course of the investigation, he went through a media life-shattering crossfire, and later on became an example of a largely mishandled investigation and scapegoating on a massive scale. After three months of his forced home arrest, when Jewell’s house was raided twice (with television depicting the events live), Department of Justice finally issued an official statement that Richard Jewell wasn’t the bomber.

Jewell admitted in an interview, that – among other things related to the case – he regretted that the entire press machine has forever halted his dream of being a cop. “I don’t think I’ll ever get to do the job I love ever again. I’ll have to deal with it every day.“

The entire interview is below.

The aftermath of Jewell’s false accusations were tragic. His health was severely damaged by all the stress he underwent and the firestorm caused Jewell to pass away at the age of 44. FBI The real bomber, Eric Rudolph, who was also responsible for several other acts of terrorism, was eventually sentenced to four life sentences in 2005.