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NASHVILLE: The 63-year-old suspect in the bombing that rocked Nashville on Christmas morning was killed in the explosion that destroyed his motor home and damaged more than 40 businesses, authorities said Sunday (December 27).
FBI forensic experts compared DNA samples recovered from the scene to those of Anthony Q Warner, whose home in nearby Antioquia was searched Saturday by federal agents.
“We concluded that an individual named Anthony Warner is the attacker and he was present when the bomb went off and that he was killed in the bombing,” Donald Cochran, US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, told a news story. conference.
Authorities said it was too early in the investigation to discuss the suspect’s motives.
Warner’s motor home, parked on a downtown street in Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn Friday, moments after police responding to shooting reports noticed it and heard music and an automated message emanating. of the vehicle warning of a bomb.
The explosion in the heart of America’s country music capital injured three people and damaged businesses, including an AT&T switching center, disrupting mobile phone, Internet, and TV services in central Tennessee and parts of others. four states.
While investigators followed up with hundreds of tips from members of the public, they searched Warner’s home on Saturday and visited a Nashville real estate agency where he had worked with computers.
Fridrich & Clark Realty owner Steve Fridrich told the Tennessean newspaper that for four to five years Warner had been to the office about once a month to provide computer consulting services, until this month Warner told the company in an email that he would no longer work for them. He gave no reason, according to Fridrich.
“We found it very nice, I think this is quite out of place,” Fridrich told the newspaper.
A neighbor watches as law enforcement officers gather to investigate information emerging the day after an explosion in downtown Nashville outside a duplex home in Antioch, Tennessee, on December 26, 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Harrison McClary).
Nashville Mayor John Cooper said Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation show that local officials felt there had to be some connection between the bombing and the AT&T Inc. building.
The damage to the switching center was so extensive that AT&T crews had to drill access holes in the wreckage to connect generators to critical equipment, as well as pump three feet of water from the basement. The company said in a statement Sunday that it made “significant progress” overnight and had restored power to four floors of the building.
At a news conference Sunday, five Nashville police officers who were on the scene early Friday recalled the dramatic moments leading up to the blast, as they rushed to evacuate homes and buildings and called out a bomb squad, which was on the way when the home engine blew up.
“They threw me forward, they threw me to the ground,” Officer Brenna Hosey told reporters about the timing of the blast. “But I was able to hold back, it was fine.”
Officers have been hailed as heroes by city leaders.
