A Nashville police camera captured the fiery blast on Christmas morning of an RV camper packed with explosives, a blast that investigators say killed the bomber, Anthony Quinn Warner.
CBS posted a photograph it says is Warner, a 63-year-old self-employed IT worker who gave his house away a month before the bombing.
Warner’s RV detonated at about 6:30 a.m. on Friday, after broadcasting a warning about a bomb, a countdown, and Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown.”
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Streets were largely deserted at that time on Christmas morning, and police had already responded to a report of shots fired. They found no evidence of gunfire, but they did find the suspicious RV and its ominous message. Officers called for the bomb squad and set about evacuating anyone who was around.
Warner was the only fatality.
This is video of Friday morning's explosion recorded by an MNPD camera at 2nd Ave N & Commerce St. pic.twitter.com/3vaXhoUOAR
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) December 28, 2020
In the video police released, a single officer is seen near the camera, and flashing police lights reflect in windows. The RV can be seen in the distance before the fiery explosion.
Details about Warner, who had no readily identifiable social media footprint, are slowly filtering out.
Warner’s family has lived in the Nashville area for decades, according to data on Ancestry.com.
CBS News has obtained a photo of Nashville bombing suspect Anthony Warner. He is believed to be dead, according to authorities, killed in the bomb blast that he’s suspected of causing. https://t.co/CKoYSaqEB2 pic.twitter.com/2neVO81S8q
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) December 28, 2020
The Tennessean reported that he grew up in Antioch, just outside Nashville, and graduated from Antioch High School in the mid-1970s and worked various IT jobs for decades.
But on the day before Thanksgiving, Warner signed a quitclaim deed giving his home to Michelle L. Swing, a Los Angeles resident who is artist development director at AEG Presents, Deadline reported. Swing told the Daily Mail she had no idea why he did so.
As CrimeOnline reported, Warner had previously signed another home over to Swing, also using a quitclaim deed, in January 2019. She told the Daily Mail that she used a quitclaim deed to give that property to another person, and it now belongs to Warner’s 85-year-mother, Davidson County records show.
Swing declined to say if she’d ever met Warner or explain their relationship, saying she’s been told to refer questions to the FBI. The FBI has not described their relationship.
Deadline reported that Swing worked in Knoxville, Tennessee, from May 2011 to May 2012 for AC Entertainment, which handles marketing for the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, among others. She worked at several other entertainment related companies, including a lengthy stay in San Francisco until she joined AEG in Los Angeles in 2018.
The US Sun reported, without sources, that Warner told Swing about the home he was gifting her in a letter he sent in November. “The attic has plywood and lighting, take a look,” he reportedly wrote. “The basement is not normal, take a look. Woof woof Julio.”
The Sun said that Swing turned the letter over to the FBI.
Nashville real estate agent Steve Fridrich told The Tennessean that he contacted law enforcement when he heard Warner’s name as a person of interest, because Warner had done computer work for his firm for years. But in December, he said, he sent an email saying he would no longer be doing computer work for them. He gave no reason.
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[Featured image: Metro Nashville Police Department]
