NASHVILLE – Federal agents targeted a house in Nashville on Saturday and began searching at least 500 leads after an explosion rocked the city center on Christmas Day, injuring three people, damaging dozens of historic buildings and a large part of the city panicked while communication fell off.
The vehicle exploded around 6:30 am on Christmas morning in what the police called an “intentional act”. Officers responded to a call that a shooting was taking place in the area, where they found a motor home that a recording warned that a bomb would explode “in 15 minutes”. The six local officers rushing to evacuate sleeping residents were hailed as “heroes” for saving civilian lives.
CBS News reporter Jeff Pegues reported this on Saturday the police had identified an interesting person– a 63-year-old man named Anthony Quinn Warner. MSNBC confirmed that Warner’s house was being searched in connection with the bombing. Authorities declined to confirm such details at a briefing on Saturday, even after the CBS News report, but said they were not looking for “ another topic. ”
While questions circulated about the circumstances of the bombing, Warner’s neighbors on Bakertown Road were upset by the sudden police activity and shocked at the idea that he could have been involved in the explosion.
“They are one of the best families anyone could ever want to meet,” said Bernice Gilley, who said she has known the Warner family since she and her husband took to the streets 56 years ago.
Like most people in this part of Bakertown, Gilley and her husband were shocked when the local and federal agents showed up Saturday morning. Gilley was concerned that Warner’s mother had fallen or been injured. She told her husband to check on the older woman, but the officers stopped him and told him Anthony Warner was interested in the bombing.
The Gilleys were shocked by the news. “I’m still very concerned about her,” said Gilley. “She’s a very good friend.”
A resident of decades who knew the Warner family didn’t even know Anthony existed before law enforcement arrived and started asking questions.
His current neighbors agreed that Anthony Warner was very quiet. “He’s a very personal person,” someone told The Daily Beast. “As you can see, his whole house is fenced.”
Neighbors had noticed that the camper had disappeared shortly before Christmas. A few of the kids on the street saw the photos of the RV online and asked their parents if it was the same as Warner, but no one really believed it was.
According to public records, the house was turned over from Warner to a woman via a quitclaim deed just four weeks ago. The woman, Michelle Swing, told The Daily Mail that she hadn’t paid anything for the house.
“In the state of Tennessee, you can transfer property to someone else without their permission or their signature or something,” Swing said. ‘I didn’t even buy the house, he just handed it over to me without my knowing. So this is all really weird to me, that’s all I can say. “
Swing did not clarify her connection to Warner, if any. Neighbors interviewed by The Daily Beast said they knew nothing about getting a new owner.
But a second home on Bakertown Road was also transferred from Warner to Swing last year via a quitclaim deed. According to the records, Warner is unmarried.
Davidson County records showed that following an arrest in January 1978, Warner was found guilty of an unspecified crime.
The Daily Beast’s attempts to reach Warner and the attempts listed in ownership records were unsuccessful.
More than 24 hours after the explosion ripped through the city, residents were still struggling for answers.
The three were injured in the explosion all reportedly Released from the hospital on Friday, and authorities repeatedly stressed one point during their briefing on Saturday: the city will continue to function even with curfews and power outages.
In addition to the emergency services and cell phone services that were down in many parts of the city after the explosion, Internet and television reception had also been down throughout the area and some companies were unable to process credit card transactions. At least 41 businesses have been damaged, according to Tennessee governor Bill Lee, who said it was “a miracle no residents were killed”.
An AT&T headquarters was also affected by the explosion, in which one fire ignited overnight, leading to an evacuation of the building, CBS News reported.
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake on Saturday insisted that “Nashville is safe,” and Doug Korneski, FBI agent specially responsible, said there was “no indication” of secondary threats.
But the question of the motive persisted, as did the question of whether anyone was in the RV at the time of the blast: Drake said Friday night that “tissue that we think may be residue” was found at the site. Much more than that, however, the authorities have not yet been able to confirm.
This weekend’s events were particularly poignant for the people living near Warner on Bakertown Road. Most of the other brick duplexes on his street are filled with refugees and immigrants who had come to the United States to flee the violence in Iraq, Africa and Latin America. For them, the explosion sends them back to a reality they were desperately trying to leave behind forever.
“It’s too much,” said a woman who wanted to speak anonymously. “I just can’t get over it.”
“There are people in the world who walk out and think they are going to step on a bomb,” her friend agreed. ‘It’s really scary when you think you’ve gotten rid of it and come to freedom, and then this happens. I guess you just never know what could happen in your area. “
While the neighbors want a solution to the bombing, they hoped Warner wasn’t really involved. They brainstormed innocent statements as they watched federal agents carry out their robbery: maybe he drove his RV to the mountains for the holidays or maybe he sold his RV and went on vacation.
“We didn’t see anything suspicious,” one of them said.