The Nashville Bomber: Anthony Quinn Warner
On December 25, 2020, at approximately 6:30 am, Anthony “Tony” Warner detonated an RV bomb in Downtown Nashville, killing himself and injuring three others.
What happened and why?
Anthony ‘Tony’ Quinn Warner was born on January 17, 1957 to Betty Christine ‘Chris’ Wilburn and Charles Bernard Warner in Nashville, Tennessee. Anthony was one of three siblings, attended local Christian schools, and graduated from Antioch High School in 1975. After graduation he reportedly served in the U.S. Navy for two years.
He then worked as a self-employed computer repair technician and owned an alarm company, but socially kept mostly to himself.
Throughout his life he had few friends, even fewer girlfriends, and there’s no public information mentioning a wife or child. It’s also unknown how close Anthony was with his family.
At some point, his parents had divorced and his father, Charles, never remarried.
On July 5, 2011, his father passed and left Anthony’s brother, Steven, a property on Bakertown Road in Nashville, Tennessee.
On September 7, 2018, Steven Warner passed away of cancer and Anthony received the Nashville property.
On January 31, 2019, Anthony transferred ownership of the Nashville property to a Michelle Swing, a woman who was reportedly living in California, but had ties to East Tennessee. However, after Anthony’s mother filed a suit against Michelle and Anthony, Michelle transferred ownership to her on August 7, 2019.
According to news reports, this might have been the start of Anthony trying to get “his affairs in order”.
It was also in August 2019 when Anthony’s girlfriend, Pamela Perry, was so distraught about things Anthony had apparently said to her, that she contacted her lawyer. On advice from her lawyer, Pamela contacted the Nashville Metro Police Department to report that Anthony was building bombs inside of an RV parked in the backyard of his property at 115 Bakertown Road in Antioch, Tennessee.
However, even though Pamela’s lawyer asserted that Anthony was capable of building explosives, police officers reportedly never made contact with him.
In early 2020, he visited a Nashville Waffle House and befriended one of the waitresses, Crystal Deck. According to her, he seemed nice, however,
“The first time I met him, I just thought his cornbread wasn’t really done in the middle and he was off a little bit.”
According to an interview with the New York Times, Crystal Deck thought that there were two sides to Anthony. One side that was always glued to his computer, delving into numerous conspiracy theories, and another side that would fix her windshield wipers, repair her computer, or take her dog out for a walk. He also had a deep distrust in the government, and believed the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was “an inside job” rather than an attack by Al Qaeda.
During one of their conversations, Anthony mentioned that he had recently been diagnosed with cancer, implying that he didn’t have much time left.
On November 25, 2020, Anthony transferred ownership of his Antioch property to Michelle Swing. The following weeks, he got rid of most of his possessions, including his white 2007 Pontiac Vibe.
The Bombing
On December 25, 2020, at 1:22 am, Anthony parked his RV on Second Avenue in downtown Nashville, right in front of the AT&T building.
At 4:30 am, multiple downtown residents reported repeated gun fire.
At 5:32 am, residents report more gunfire, and the responding police officers report a suspicious RV, parked in front of the AT&T hub. Crystal Deck later recalled that Anthony had used a gun fire sound as his ring tone.
At 5:38 am, a female voice recording started playing from the RV’s speakers, warning residents to not approach the vehicle and to evacuate the area.
At 6:00 am, a 15 minute countdown began, warning residents of an impending explosion. Between the warning, the speakers played the song “Downtown” by Petula Clark.
“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go — downtown.
When you’ve got worries all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help I know — downtown.”
Then, at 6:30 am, the bomb inside the RV exploded. Initially law enforcement assumed that the explosion was due to a propane leak inside the RV, however, it quickly became clear that this explosion was not an accident.
Following the explosion, police officers blocked downtown streets and three people were transported to nearby hospitals for non-critical injuries. At least 45 businesses were damaged.
While many AT&T customers reported internet and mobile phone outages, 66 emergency communications districts in Tennessee also experienced service interruptions.
Hours after the explosion, Pamela Perry, who had reported Anthony to authorities in 2019, realized that her ex-boyfriend might have followed through with his plan. Still in shock, she contacted the FBI to provide information about Anthony.
At this point, it was still unclear if Anthony had left the RV or remained inside when the bomb went off.
At around 5 pm, after analyzing the crime scene and searching for potential victims, law enforcement announced that “possibly human tissue” was found near the RV.
The Aftermath
After speaking with Pamela Perry, her lawyer, and others who knew Anthony, the FBI and ATF arrived at his Bakertown Road home in Antioch, Tennessee.
The AT&T outages included customers in 5 different states, debit and credit card services, gas pumps, and lasted for about 95 hours.
On December 27, 2020, investigators confirmed that the person of interest in the bombing was Anthony Warner. Later that day it was also confirmed that the “human tissue” found at the scene, was that of Anthony, who had died during the explosion.
On December 30, 2020, Nashville Metro Police Chief John Drake shared that they had received a tip about Anthony in 2019, but that officers never made contact and didn’t apply for a search warrant for Anthony’s home or RV. Drake defended officers saying that they didn’t have enough evidence, and that “at no time was there any evidence of a crime detected and no additional action was taken.”
Following a federal investigation, the FBI announced that evidence indicated that Anthony didn’t intent to kill others in the bombing, but cause “more destruction than death”. However, an exact motive was still unknown.
On January 1, 2021, some of Anthony’s acquaintances received packages, postmarked two days before the bombing. The packages included letters and USB drives. In those letters, he spoke about 9/11, the moon landing, and how September 2011 was supposed to be the end for the planet. He also discussed reptilians, lizard people, and alien attacks.
“They put a switch into the human brain so they could walk among us and appear human.”
On March 15, 2021, the FBI released their report on the bombing. Regarding a motive, federal investigators concluded that
“Warner’s detonation of the improvised explosive device was an intentional act in an effort to end his own life, driven in part by a totality of life stressors — including paranoia, long-held individualized beliefs adopted from several eccentric conspiracy theories, and the loss of stabilizing anchors and deteriorating interpersonal relationships […] The FBI’s analysis did not reveal indications of a broader ideological motive to use violence to bring about social or political change, nor does it reveal indications of a specific personal grievance focused on individuals or entities in and around the location of the explosion.”
