1,000 Attend Rites for Woman Killed by Bomb at Olympics

ATLANTA — As more than 1,000 people packed a Baptist church in Albany, Ga., to mourn a woman killed in the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, investigators descended on a small college campus Friday to seek evidence that might link security guard Richard Jewell to the explosion.

The 2 1/2-hour funeral service, punctuated by cries of grief from family and friends of Alice Hawthorne, 44, was attended by senior officials and a representative of President Clinton, who sent word that her killer or killers would be brought to justice.

Hawthorne’s 14-year-old daughter, Fallon, who was wounded in the blast, wore all white clothes and dark glasses to the funeral at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Albany, south of Atlanta.

White House official Alexis Hermann read a letter from Clinton, which vowed to bring the bombers to justice and added: “I hope you will take some comfort in the knowledge that all Americans share your grief.”

The Rev. H.C. Boyd of Atlanta told the congregation in a eulogy: “It’s not how long but how well you live. And she epitomized that spirit by living well.”

Her husband, John Hawthorne, said afterward: “It was so refreshing, so uplifting. I couldn’t ask for a better send-off for Alice from this community.”

Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, who co-chairs the Olympic organizing committee, attended the service, along with Georgia Gov. Zell Miller. Burial is scheduled for today in Atlanta.

A Turkish cameraman suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of the crude pipe-bomb blast early Saturday during a rock concert in the park, and 111 people were injured. Eight remained hospitalized Friday.

A huge FBI investigation of the bombing has so far produced no arrests or charges. But Jewell, 33, is considered a suspect.

Among other things, investigators were trying to determine whether the former campus guard had tapped into the Internet via Piedmont College computers, said a source at the campus in Demorest, 80 miles northeast of Atlanta. Bomb-making instructions available through the global computer network have contributed to an increase in bombings in the United States, authorities say.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said the college security chief has told investigators that Jewell boasted, when leaving Piedmont to work as a private guard at the Olympics, that he would become a hero at the Atlanta Games.

He did, at least briefly. Jewell was hailed for his alertness in notifying police of the suspicious knapsack containing the bomb and helping move a crowd away before it exploded.

But within days, federal law enforcement officials said Jewell had become a suspect.

They were believed to be intrigued by the possibility that the onetime sheriff’s deputy fit a common “lone bomber” profile--a former police officer, military man or aspiring policeman who seeks to become a hero.

“If that’s the ‘probable cause,’ I think it’s ridiculous,” Jewell’s lawyer, Watson Bryant, said Friday. He said any person interested in law enforcement might remark that he wants “to be on the spot so they can help people.”

Jewell has not been charged or arrested, and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said Thursday that “a number” of other possible suspects, none publicly identified, are being looked at.