A person of interest has been identified in the Nashville explosion that devastated the city’s downtown on Christmas morning.
Anthony Quinn Warner, a 63-year-old Nashville area resident, is at least one person currently being investigated, CBS News reported on Saturday. The Associated Press confirmed that federal investigators are searching a home associated with an identified person of interest but did not reveal a name.
The residence of an Anthony Warner in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, was identified by the Washington Examiner. A Google Street View image of the home captured in May 2019 shows an RV parked in the yard that looks similar to the one identified by police as the vehicle responsible for the blast.
On Sunday, the Tennessean reported that Nashville Police Chief John Drake “confirmed Anthony Q. Warner … as a person of interest in the Christmas day bombing investigation” and “an FBI spokesman confirmed Warner lives at the home federal agents searched Saturday afternoon.”
FBI Special Agent Jason Pack also told the outlet that FBI agents visited a Fridrich & Clark Realty office in the Nashville neighborhood of Green Hills on Saturday evening as part of their investigation, and its owner, Steve Fridrich, “said the company reported to the FBI that Warner had previously worked for the company” as a “contract laborer for computer consulting for the company.” Fridrich “confirmed speaking with agents Saturday.” Fridrich said Warner was hired four or five years ago, but this month sent an email saying he wouldn’t be working for them anymore without giving any reason.
“He seemed very personable to us — this is quite out of character I think,” Fridrich told the outlet.
News4 in Nashville reported that Fridrich “confirms that agents asked him whether or not Warner had paranoia about 5G technology,” but Fridrich “told the agents that Warner had never spoken to him about that.” The outlet claimed “a source close to the federal investigation said that among several different tips and angles, agents are investigating whether or not Warner had paranoia that 5G technology was being used to spy on Americans.”
Nashville Mayor John Cooper told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday that he believed the RV bombing was strategically designed to occur near a large AT&T facility in downtown Nashville, saying that “to all of us locally, it feels like there has to be some connection with the AT&T facility and the site of the bombing” and “that’s a bit of just local insight in because it’s got to have something to do with the infrastructure.”
BREAKING: This is the RV that exploded on 2nd Ave N this morning. It arrived on 2nd Ave at 1:22 a.m. Have you seen this vehicle in our area or do you have information about it? Please contact us via Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463 or online via https://t.co/dVGS7o0m4v. @ATFHQ pic.twitter.com/JNx9sDinAH
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 25, 2020
Property records reviewed by the Washington Examiner that show an Anthony Q. Warner owned the property searched by federal investigators also showed that the property was sold for zero dollars one month ago.
NEWS4 Nashville reporter Joshua Cole shared video of investigators removing what appeared to be bags of evidence from the Antioch address.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday evening that “investigators identified a Nashville, Tennessee resident as a person of interest” and that police were searching Warner’s home for evidence. NBC News noted, “Authorities said they are investigating whether Warner may have been the person responsible for the bombing.” And ABC News said “multiple law enforcement sources” said, “The FBI is … trying to determine if the human remains discovered after the explosion Christmas morning belong to the person living there” and that “the person in question” was Warner.
Douglas Korneski, the FBI special agent in charge of the Memphis field office, said on Saturday that federal investigators had over 500 leads.
The Daily Mail said it spoke with Michelle Swing, to whom the Nashville property appeared to have been deeded last month, on Saturday.
“In the state of Tennessee, you can deed property to someone else without their consent or their signature or anything,” Swing said. “I didn’t even buy the house he just deeded it over to me without my knowledge. So this all very weird to me, that’s about all I can say … I’ve been told to direct everything else to FBI.” The outlet said that “Swing declined to say whether she had ever met Warner or whether she had family links to him.”
Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance business records show Warner was an alarm qualifying agent specializing in burglar alarms, but his 1993 license expired in 1998, and a business associated with Warner and his address — Custom Alarms and Electronics — was similarly licensed from 1993 to 1998.
USA Today breaking news reporter Natalie Neysa Alund spoke to FBI public affairs officer Darrell DeBusk on Saturday afternoon at the home. “Information developed during the course of the investigation led us to this address,” DeBusk said. “Currently, we have members of the FBI, the ATF, and the Metro Nashville Police Department on scene conducting an investigation. At this time, we cannot release any additional information.” He added that he was unaware of anyone being in custody at that time.
During a Saturday press conference after the name was reported by CBS, Doug Korneski, the FBI special agent in charge of the Memphis field office said, “We can’t confirm any individuals or anybody we’ve identified.” He added, “There are a number of individuals we’re looking at.”
