A Quiet Life, a Thunderous Death, and a Nightmare That
Shook Nashville
DNA tests show that Anthony Warner blew himself up
along with a chunk of downtown Nashville on Christmas morning.
By Rick
Rojas, Adam Goldman and Jamie McGee
Dec. 27,
2020, 8:08 p.m. ET
NASHVILLE —
Anthony Warner had a solitary job as an information technology specialist,
stopping in to various offices to fix computers. He was 63. He was not married.
His neighbors barely knew him.
He sent an
email to one of his clients three weeks ago to say he was retiring. He started
shedding possessions: He told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her
his car. Records show that he signed away his home on the day before
Thanksgiving.
But he made
sure to hold on to one last thing: His R.V., a Thor Motor Coach Chateau that he
kept in his back yard.
He parked
the vehicle around 1:22 a.m. Christmas morning on Second Avenue North in
downtown Nashville, in the heart of a district of honky-tonks, restaurants and
boot shops that would often be packed but was quiet in the small hours of a
holiday morning. The R.V. had been rigged with explosives and a speaker set to
play a warning and a song: “Downtown” by Petula Clark, a hit released in 1964
celebrating the bright lights and bustle of a vibrant city.
The lights
are much brighter there / You can forget all your troubles, forget all your
cares
A few hours
later, police officers heard the speaker’s message and rushed to clear as many
people out of nearby apartments and hotels as they could. Just before dawn, the
R.V. exploded, its concussion reverberating for blocks. Debris was flung
several blocks away. Mr. Warner was inside the R.V. It is believed that he was the
only person who died.
“We’ve come
to the conclusion that Anthony Warner is the bomber,” Donald Q. Cochran, the
U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said at a news conference
on Sunday. “He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the
bombing.”
Investigators
said they believe that he acted alone. He was identified through remains found
scattered among the wreckage.
Hundreds of
federal investigators had flocked into Nashville after the blast, chasing the
leads that poured in by the hundreds to locate the culprit. Now that they have
found him, they are still trying to make sense of who he was and why he would
set off an explosion that shattered a district where the lights are indeed
bright and people flock to forget their trouble and cares in a year with no
shortage of them.
“These
pieces of information will help us understand the suspect’s motives,” Douglas
Korneski, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. field office in Memphis,
said at the news conference. He added, “None of those answers will ever be
enough for those who have been affected by this event.”
The
authorities said Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, detonated an R.V. in downtown
Nashville on Christmas and died in the explosion. Law enforcement officials
said they did not believe anyone else was involved.
“Based on
the evidence that we’ve gathered at this point, we’ve come to the conclusion
that an individual named Anthony Warner is the bomber, that he was present when
the bomb went off and that he perished in the bombing. We based this conclusion
on forensic evidence, including DNA evidence that you’ll hear about, as well as
evidence that was gathered at the scene of the bombing.” “Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation, as well as the F.B.I. laboratory in Quantico, Virginia,
completed their DNA testing of a sample of human remains recovered at the
scene. Those results were consistent with the suspect identified by U.S.
Attorney Cochran.” “Anthony Warner is the man believed to be responsible for
this horrible crime. There is no indication presently that anyone else was
involved in this crime. As I said earlier and several times before, Nashville
is considered safe. There are no known threats against this city.”
Mr. Warner
emerged as a person of interest after investigators from the Tennessee Highway
Patrol were able to find a vehicle identification number for the R.V. among the
rubble.
That led
federal agents to a brick duplex belonging to Mr. Warner in Antioch, a
community in the Nashville area roughly 11 miles from where the explosion
occurred. On Saturday morning, a bomb team swept the duplex to check for
explosives, and then dozens of federal investigators combed the property for
evidence.
Images of
the same duplex, captured on Google Street View in March and May 2019, show an
R.V. in the yard that appears similar to the one that the police say was
detonated.
Mr. Warner
had experience working with electronics as an information technology contractor
for Nashville area businesses, and also had a burglar alarm business that was
registered in Tennessee from 1993 to 1998, according to state records.
Steve
Fridrich, president of Fridrich & Clark Realty in Nashville, said that he
had been in contact with the F.B.I. about Mr. Warner, who he said he hired
occasionally, usually around once a month, to work on computers. Mr. Fridrich
said that Mr. Warner was not an employee and that he believed he provided I.T.
support for several businesses.
Mr. Fridrich
said Mr. Warner sent the firm an email on Dec. 5 saying that he was retiring.
“He’s a
nice guy, and this seems uncharacteristic of the Tony we know,” Mr. Fridrich
wrote in a text message. “He was very professional and knew his stuff.”
The
two-bedroom duplex searched by investigators is one of several on a quiet
cul-de-sac. Children played tag nearby and neighbors looked on as agents from
the F.B.I. and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives streamed in
and out of the house. “It’s a quiet neighborhood,” said Diana Hernandez, who
lived a few blocks away. “It’s very surprising. It’s like a movie scene.”
Across the
street from the duplex, Anna Blackmon, who has lived in the neighborhood for 30
years, said she did not know the person who lived there, or anyone in the
duplexes, as they were largely rental properties with a near constant churn of
residents. “You have everybody in and out all the time,” she said.
Neighbors
said that Mr. Warner grew up in a home roughly a quarter-mile away. No one
answered when a reporter visited the property on Saturday, and other efforts to
reach Mr. Warner’s family were unsuccessful.
Bernice
Gilley, who has lived across the street from the Warner family for 56 years,
said she remembered Mr. Warner and his brother playing football in the yard as
children. The family worshiped at a Roman Catholic church a few miles away, Ms.
Gilley said.
“They were
one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet,” she said. “They’ve
always been a fine family.”
Nashville
was still trying on Sunday to grapple with the consequences of the bombing. The
street was charred and littered with mangled debris. At least one building
collapsed, and dozens of others sustained damage. The force of the blast blew
out windows and doors for blocks.
Investigators
have not said whether there was any significance to the specific location where
the R.V. was parked, in front of an AT&T transmission facility. The
explosion caused disruption that reached across the region, cutting off
cellphone and internet service to homes and business across parts of Tennessee
and into Kentucky and Alabama. Flights were grounded and 911 operations were
knocked offline. Mr. Warner’s only apparent tie to the company to come to light
so far is a rather tenuous one: His father once worked for Southern Bell, which
eventually merged into what is now AT&T. Law enforcement officials have
said they are unsure whether there was any other connection.
AT&T
said on Sunday that its crews were able to make considerable progress,
restoring electricity to four floors of the building and pumping out three feet
of water in the basement from firefighting efforts. The company had set up a
portable cell site to help return some service, and had more crews heading into
Nashville.
The police
released a photograph of the R.V. that shows the vehicle heading through
downtown with its headlights on, the white camper illuminated by streetlights
and glowing storefronts.
Officer
James Luellen of the Nashville Department came upon the vehicle several hours
later. He was responding to reports of gunfire. Instead, he found the R.V.,
with its speaker warning that a bomb was inside and that it was about to
detonate.
He also
remembered the song that was interspersed with a countdown. Lyrics about bright
lights stuck in his mind.
He called
for backup and was quickly joined by five other officers: Brenna Hosey, Michael
Sipos, Amanda Topping, James Wells and Sgt. Timothy Miller. Other than Sergeant
Miller, an 11-year veteran, none had been with the Police Department longer
than four years.
Since
Friday, they have been held up as heroes, with officials saying that the
bombing could have created far more carnage without their quick action.
“I think
they may consider what they did a regular part of their duties,” Mayor John
Cooper said as he stood beside the officers at a news conference on Sunday.
“But we in Nashville know it was extraordinary.”
At the news
conference, the officers spoke publicly about their work on Christmas morning
for the first time. They described rushing into buildings and rousting
residents — “scaring the bejesus” out of at least one of them.
Then there
was a burst of orange, and the officers remembered temporarily losing their
hearing from the concussion of the blast. They remembered searching for their
colleagues afterward, worried that they had been hurt or killed, and then
feeling grateful that they and others in the neighborhood had survived.
“That was
God,” Officer James Wells said. “I’m not going to shy away from that.”
Rick Rojas
and Jamie McGee reported from Nashville, and Adam Goldman from Stowe, Vt. Steve
Cavendish contributed reporting from Nashville, and Katie Benner from
Washington.
Rick Rojas
is a national correspondent covering the American South. He has been a staff
reporter for The Times since 2014. @RaR
Adam
Goldman reports on the F.B.I. from Washington and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize
winner. @adamgoldmanNYT
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