Investigators are looking into whether Nashville bomber Anthony Quinn Warner had his dogs with him when he blew himself up on Christmas Day, officials said Monday.
The 63-year-old loner was known to be devoted to his pups – he even built a wheelchair ramp in his suburban home so they wouldn’t have to use the stairs, his neighbor previously told The Tennessean.
He reportedly told a friend he planned to “spend a few weeks in the woods with his dogs” – while investigators are now investigating if anyone was with him on his suicide mission.
“We don’t know yet,” David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, told reporters Monday when asked if any of Warner’s dogs “perished” next to him.
“That’s still information we’re trying to figure out, all those details,” he said.
Warner had numerous dogs over the years, including two Shetland sheepdogs and a larger dog that he adopted, his 25-year-old neighbor, Steve Schmoldt, told The Tennessean.
He “took very good care of his dogs,” said the neighbor, who thought the dogs were already dead.
But Warner reportedly referred to them in late November when he wrote a letter to Michelle Swing – the woman to whom he donated two houses for free – saying that he “planned to travel on Christmas Eve to spend a few weeks in to spend the forest, “the UK Sun reported.