Federal investigators have confirmed the identity of the man said to be responsible for the Nashville bombing, and also claimed the suspect died in the Christmas Day explosion.
“Anthony Warner is the bomber. He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the bombing,” U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Don Cochran said during a Sunday press conference.
John Drake, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, also confirmed the bomber’s identity, “We can tell you Anthony Warner is the man believed to be responsible for this horrible crime.”
Investigators used forensic testing to match the human remains found at the scene where the RV camper was detonated in downtown Nashville. Agents were able to collect the human tissue at the blast site and match it up with DNA samples from relatives of Anthony Quinn Warner.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol confirmed the RV’s VIN was registered to Warner, a resident of Antioch, Tennessee. Multiple law enforcement agencies participated in a raid of Warner’s home in the suburb of Nashville on Saturday.
FBI agents visited the Fridrich & Clark Realty’s Green Hills office on Saturday evening, which is Warner previously worked, FBI Special Agent Jason Pack told The Tennessean. Owner Steve Fridrich said Warner was hired four or five years ago as a contract laborer for computer consulting for the company, but he quit this month via email.
“He didn’t have a computer or office here. If a computer went down he would fix it or if we got a new one in he’d put it together for us,” Fridrich said. “He’d come by once a month to the office to do work. But there were also months we went without seeing him. He also worked for other companies doing computer work.”
Officials believe that Warner, 63, was the lone perpetrator of the bombing near the AT&T transmission hub based on hours of surveillance footage. Douglas Korneski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Memphis field office, said there was no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack and that there are no further threats to the public.
Authorities believe the RV was parked in front of an AT&T building at 1:22 a.m. on Friday, but were not certain if the telecommunications company was the target of the explosion. FBI is investigating if Warner was paranoid of 5G technology, and if that was a possible motive in the bombing.
Korneski said his team is “are aware of certain things online and we’re looking at every possible motive.”
The RV played an eerie message warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, and blared the 1964 song “Downtown” by Petula Clark song early Christmas morning.
Warner had been rumored as a “person of interest” on Saturday in several media reports.
“These answers won’t come quickly and will still require a lot of our team’s effort,” Korneski said. “None of those answers will ever be enough for those who have been affected by this event. We still have work to do.”
The FBI said Warner wasn’t on the radar of any law enforcement agencies before Friday morning’s explosion.
The investigation is ongoing, and authorities are urging anyone with any information about Warner to utilize the FBI’s tipline.
“I cannot truly describe all the hard work that has gone into this investigation since Friday’s explosion,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake declared. “Nashville is considered safe.”