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NASHVILLE: Federal agents investigating a Nashville mobile home explosion searched a two-story suburban home Saturday for clues about the blast, which injured three people in the heart of America’s country music capital on Saturday. Christmas day.
Federal agents were also trying to identify apparent human remains found near the exploded vehicle.
The motorhome, parked on a street in downtown Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday, moments after police responding to the shooting reports noticed it and heard an automated message emanating from the vehicle warning of a bomb.
The thunderous, fiery explosion destroyed several vehicles, damaged more than 40 businesses and left a trail of shattered window fragments.
Following what they said were more than 500 leads, local police and agents from the FBI and the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were searching a two-story red brick home on Bakertown Road. in Antioch. Tennessee, 18 kilometers southeast of Nashville, paying particular attention to his basement, according to a Reuters witness.
Authorities on Saturday declined to name a person of interest in connection with the blast, but CBS News reported that the investigation has focused on 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner, who recently lived at the Bakertown address, officials showed. public records.
According to a document posted online, on Nov. 25 he transferred the property to a woman in Los Angeles at no cost to her. The document was signed by Warner, but not by the woman.
Google Street View images of the house from 2019 show what appears to be a white motorhome in the driveway. Neighbors told local television station WKRN that the RV had been parked there for years and is now gone.
“Once we have processed the scene, we will look at the evidence and everything that we have recovered from this residence and see how it fits into this investigation,” FBI spokesman Darrell Debusk, who was at the home on Saturday, told Reuters. a statement. telephone interview.
“At this time, we are not prepared to identify any individual,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Doug Korneski said at a news conference Saturday.
Korneski told reporters that investigators were “working hard” to identify what appeared to be human remains found among the remains.
He declined to say whether investigators believe the remains belong to the person behind what officials say was “an intentional act.”
Korneski said the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Virginia was helping determine the motivation of the person responsible.
The vehicle was parked in front of an AT&T Inc office, and the blast caused widespread phone, Internet and television service outages in central Tennessee and parts of several neighboring states, including Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia.
A recording, then an explosion
Adding to the cryptic nature of Friday’s incident was the eerie preamble described by police and witnesses: a crackle of gunfire followed by an apparently computer-generated female voice from the RV reciting a minute-by-minute countdown to an imminent attack.
Police rushed to evacuate nearby homes and buildings and called in a bomb squad, which was heading to the scene when the RV exploded.
Later, police released a photo of the motorhome, which they said had arrived in the area about five hours before the explosion.
Authorities said 41 businesses were damaged and three people were hospitalized with relatively minor injuries. City officials praised police officers who they said likely avoided more casualties by acting quickly to clear the area.
Dozens of FBI and ATF agents were inspecting the scene Saturday. Parked cars and trees were blackened, and a burst water pipe that he had been spraying overnight had covered the trees with a layer of ice.
“All the windows went from the living room to the bedroom. The front door broke down, ”Buck McCoy, who lives on the block where the blast occurred, told WKRN. “Blood was coming out of my face, my side, my legs and a little bit from my feet.”
Among those affected by communication problems as a result of the damage to the AT&T building from the blast were police departments, emergency services and Nashville International Airport, which temporarily halted flights on Friday afternoon.
AT&T said Saturday that a fire reignited in the building overnight, forcing it to evacuate, but workers were able to drill access holes into the building to connect generators to critical equipment that they expected to be back online in hours.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee visited the site on Saturday and said in a Twitter post that it was a “miracle” that no one died. In a letter to President Donald Trump, Lee requested a federal emergency declaration to aid relief efforts.
