According to Rick Laude, on Dec. 21, he saw Anthony Quinn Warner standing at his mailbox and pulled over in his car to talk to him. After asking how things were with Warner’s elderly mother, Laude said he casually asked him, “Are you going to bring Santa something good for Christmas?” Laude said Warner smiled and then said, “Oh, yes, Nashville and the world will never forget me.”
Laude, 57, a commercial truck driver, said he did not think much of the remark and thought Warner only meant that “something good” was going to happen to him. He said he was later “speechless” when he read that authorities had identified Warner as the suspected bomber.
“Nothing to this man raised any red flags,” Laude said. “He was just quiet.”
This is a recent update. An earlier version of this report is below.
As federal officials identified the man suspected of being behind Nashville’s Christmas Day bombing, authorities are now turning to the monumental task of putting together the motive behind the blast that severely damaged dozens of downtown buildings and injured three people.
While officials on Sunday identified Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, as the man behind the mysterious explosion in which he died, the motive remained elusive.
“We hope to get an answer. Sometimes it’s just not possible,” David Rausch, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said in a Monday interview on the NBC program “Today.” “The best way to find motives is to talk to the individual. We will not be able to do that in this case.”
Within a few days, hundreds of tips and clues were submitted to law enforcement agencies. So far, officials have not provided information on what Warner may have driven to lighten the blast. According to officials, he had not been on the radar before Christmas. A TBI report released Monday showed Warner’s only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related affair.
“It appears that the intent was more destruction than death, but that is still a speculation at this stage as we continue with our partners with our investigation,” Rausch added.
Furthermore, officials did not provide insight into why Warner chose the specific location for the bombing, which damaged an AT&T building and still wreaked havoc on the telephone service and police and hospital communications in several southern states, while the company worked to restore service.
KYK | Police camera shows the moment the Nashville bomb goes off in the city center
Forensic analysts have reviewed evidence gathered from the blast site to try to identify the components of the explosive, as well as information from the U.S. Bomb Data Center for Intelligence and Investigations, according to a law enforcement official who said investigators were investigating Warner’s digital footprint and financial history, as well as a recent deed transfer of a suburban home in Nashville that they were looking for.
The official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said federal agents were investigating a number of potential clues and following several theories, including the possibility that the AT&T building is targeted.
Korneski said Sunday that officials are looking at all the motives and interviewing acquaintances of Warner to try to determine what motivated him.
The bombing took place on a holiday morning before the streets in the city center were teeming with activities. This was accompanied by a well-publicized announcement warning someone nearby that a bomb would explode soon. For reasons that may never be known, the sound switched shortly after the explosion to a recording of Petula Clark’s hit “Downtown” in 1964.
Warner, who according to public records had experience with electronics and alarms and who also worked as a computer consultant for a Nashville realtor, has been considered a person of interest in the bombing since at least Saturday, when federal and local investigators across the house linked to him.
Federal agents could be seen looking around the property, searching the house and the backyard. According to an Associated Press reporter at the scene, a Google Maps image taken in May 2019 showed a similar recreational vehicle to the one parked in the backyard, but it was not at the property on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, police formally investigated Warner as an investigation.
KYK | Video shows the aftermath of the explosion:
Officials said their identification of Warner is based on several key pieces of evidence, including DNA found at the blast site. Investigators earlier revealed that human remains had been found in the area.
In addition, Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators recovered parts of the RV between the wreckage and were able to link the vehicle identification number to an RV registered with Warner, officials said.
“We are still following clues, but at the moment there is no indication that any other persons were involved,” Korneski said. “We watched hours of safety video around the recreational vehicle. We did not see any other people.”
Police responded to a report of shots being fired on Friday when they encountered the RV, eliminating a warning that a bomb would explode within 15 minutes. Suddenly the warning stops, and “Downtown” starts playing.
The RV exploded shortly thereafter, sending black smoke and flames billowing from the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene, an area full of honky-tonks, restaurants and shops.
Buildings shook and windows shattered streets from the blast near a building owned by AT&T, located one block from the office tower, a beacon in the city center.
But on Sunday, just blocks from where the bombing took place, tourists had already started filling the sidewalks on Lower Broadway, a central entertainment district. Some took selfies, while others tried to get as close to the blast site as possible, blocked by police barricades.
Earlier Sunday, the officers who responded provided disturbing details and sometimes suffocated, while reliving the moments that led to the explosion.
“It’s going to bind us together forever for the rest of my life,” Metro Nashville police officer James Wells, who suffered hearing loss due to the explosion, told reporters at a news conference. “Christmas will never be the same again.”
Officer Brenna Hosey said she and her colleagues knocked on six or seven doors in nearby apartments to warn people to evacuate. She especially remembers a shocked mother of four children.
“I do not have children, but I have cousins and nieces and nephews I love,” Hosey said, adding that she had to plead with the family to leave the building as soon as possible.
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