Nashville bombing ‘person of interest’, 63, mysteriously gave his house away before blast

2.4k

View
comments

The man identified as a person of interest in the Nashville Christmas Day bombing gave his house away for nothing a month before the blast, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, signed the property away via a quitclaim deed to Lisa Swing, a 29-year-old woman living in Los Angeles, for $0.00, according to county records.

Quinn’s signature does not appear on the November 25th transfer and she told DailyMail.com she knew absolutely nothing about it.

FBI agents swarmed the $160,000 property on Saturday morning in their hunt for the mystery RV driver behind the devastating blast outside Nashville’s AT&T building.

They did not identify a suspect but unmarried Quinn has been named in media reports and a vehicle matching the one used in the bombing is seen parked up beside the two-bed house in Google street view images.

‘In the state of Tennessee you can deed property to someone else without their consent or their signature or anything,’ Swing told DailyMail.com

‘I didn’t even buy the house he just deeded it over to me without my knowledge. So this all very weird to me, that’s about all I can say.’

Swing declined to say whether she had ever met Warner or whether she had family links to him, adding: ‘I’ve been told to direct everything else to FBI.’  

 Friday’s blast emanated from a white RV parked outside the AT&T building on 2nd Avenue at 6.40 am. The explosion injured three people and caused severe damage to the city’s downtown area. 

The event had led investigators on a frantic chase to determine who the vehicle belonged to.  

On Saturday afternoon, a swarm of federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were seen outside an address listed to Warner in the Nashville neighborhood of Antioch. 

Neighbors reported seeing a white RV parked outside his property within the past two weeks. A similar vehicle can also been seen on a Google Street View search of Warner’s address. 

According to CBS, ‘at least two tips were called in to the FBI about Warner  prior to the explosion.’  

During a press conference on Saturday afternoon, the FBI refused to identify any person in their investigation. 

They say they are still pursuing approximately 500 leads and have close to 250 agents and analysts assigned to the case.  

The Bureau is also investigating whether the blast was deliberately designed to target law enforcement officers.  

Cops had been called to 2nd Avenue shortly before the explosion amid reports of a shooting. However, they arrived to find the white RV playing a recorded announcement saying that it would explode in 15 minutes.

One expert is now theorizing that the spooky recording was designed to bring as many cops and first responders as possible into the area with the intention of killing or maiming them.  

‘I kind of think it was probably an idea to get first responders to come in,’ ex-NYPD Detective Bill Ryan told Fox News on Saturday.  

Six cops have now been hailed as heroes after the descended on the area and tried to clear out pedestrians and residents before the bomb went off.    

On Saturday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee revealed that he has requested an emergency declaration from President Trump to support ongoing efforts and relief. 

‘This morning I toured the site of the bombing. The damage is shocking and it is a miracle that no residents were killed. I continue to pray for those who sustained injuries from the blast,’ he wrote on Twitter. 

It comes as Nashville police confirmed that they are investigating whether human remains have been found at the site of the bomb blast. 

According to CNN, tissue was discovered at the scene, and forensic experts are now working to determine whether it is human. 

It is unclear whether anybody was inside the RV at the time it detonated. 

The gigantic blast caused damage to more than 40 buildings, with new videos showing the widespread impact it created. 

One shocking clip shared on social media shows an apartment building violently shaking during the blast. 

A resident told CNN on Saturday: I’ve never seen anything like it. It shook everything’

Meanwhile, other videos being shared widely on social media show people hiding for cover in buildings along 2nd Avenue as they were warned by cops that the RV could explode.  

One man was walking his dog right by the RV and heard the warning message emanating from the vehicle. 

Quick thinking cops quickly told him to get back just before the bomb went off. He told WKRN that it is a ‘Christmas miracle’ he is still alive. 

On Saturday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration  classified the airspace over the site of the bombing as “National Defense Airspace’. 

The order prohibits pilots from flying over the site and a surrounding area of one nautical mile. The restriction will stay in place until December 30. 

Meanwhile, the area on the ground has still been cordoned off and there is a strong police presence.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper says it will be ‘some time’ before 2nd Avenue is open as normal. 

On Friday evening, he  announced curfew on the area around the bomb site as the investigation continued. 

‘A curfew will start at 4:30pm, Friday Dec 25. and be lifted Sunday, December 27 at 4:30pm,’ he revealed in a tweet. 

The blast blew in windows from at least 41 buildings, according to CNN. One building is now partially collapsed. 

The RV was parked outside an AT&T facility, with the explosion causing network outages to the company’s phone and internet services. 

That issue sparked safety fears as 911 dispatchers were reportedly having trouble identifying the location of callers.  

USA Today reports on Saturday that outage issues lasted into the evening. It is now believed they have all been resolved.  

Meanwhile, more information is being learned about the hero cops who tried to clear the area after they arrived to find the RV playing a recording saying it would explode. 

They were named by Metro Police Chief John Drake as Officer Brenna Hosey, Officer James Luellen, Officer Michael Sipos, Officer Amanda Topping, Officer James Wells and Sergeant Timothy Miller, as he praised them for rushing into danger to save others. 

The officers had been responding to reports of shots fired 40 minutes before the explosion when they found an RV located outside of an AT&T transmission building which was playing an announcement featuring a woman’s voice saying it would explode in 15 minutes.  

There was no evidence of shooting at the scene and it is not known of the sounds could also have come from the RV’s recording. Cops have not revealed who made the initial shooting report. 

They rushed to get people out of their homes while the ominous, pre-recorded message played over and over again with music playing inbetween each countdown, before the van eventually exploded at round 6.40am.  

‘These officers didn’t care about themselves,’ Chief Drake said. ‘They didn’t think about that. They cared about the citizens of Nashville. They went in and we’d be talking not about the debris that we have here but potential people.’  

Despite the devastation of the blast, miraculously only three people were injured. 

They were rushed to hospital in non-life threatening conditions.  

FBI Special Agent in charge Matt Foster made a plea to the public for information on Friday night. 

‘The FBI stands with the city of Nashville today in this very tragic Christmas Day event.

‘This is our city too. We live here, we work here. We’re putting everything we have into finding who was responsible for what happened here today.  

‘There are leads that need to be pursued and technical works need to happen.’ 

Anyone with information about the incident has been asked to contact the FBI at www.fbi.gov/nashville or by calling them.  

On Friday night, star of CNBC’s The Profit Marcus Lemonis also offered a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the culprit. 

It brought the reward total to $300,000 after previous smaller reward offers from Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp., FOX Sports host Clay Travis, and Lewis Country Store.