63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner has been identified by federal and state officials as the suspect who detonated a bomb in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning. The explosion took place when downtown streets were essentially empty of people and activity.

Prior to the blast there was a recorded announcement warning anyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonate. Then, for reasons that may never be known, the broadcast audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown” shortly before the blast.

Officials now say Anthony Warner was killed in the blast. “We hope to get an answer. Sometimes, it’s just not possible,” David Rausch, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said Monday in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. “The best way to find motive is to talk to the individual. We will not be able to do that in this case.”

Warner’s only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related charge.

According to the Daily Mail – “A Sunday report from the New York Times details preparations Warner made in the weeks prior to his suicide attack, including telling his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and giving her his car.

On December 5, he also told a real estate agent that he worked for as a tech consultant that he planned to retire, according to the newspaper.

A month before the bombing, Warner gave away the $160,000 home he lived in to a woman in California whose link to him remains unclear, DailyMail.com first reported Saturday.

[…] Warner’s actions leading up to the bombing are now under scrutiny as investigators try to piece together his motive in the unusual attack.

The freelance IT consultant, whom neighbors described as an ‘oddball’, was ‘heavily into conspiracy theories’, a source close to the investigation told DailyMail.com.

Warner believed 5G cellular technology was killing people, and may have been spurred on in the conspiracy theory by the 2011 death of his father, who worked for telecom BellSouth, which later merged with AT&T. (read more)

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