Nashville Christmas bomber claimed he had cancer before the attack

The Nashville Christmas bomber claimed to have cancer and appeared to be winding up his affairs before Friday’s attack outside an AT&T building, according to a new report. 

Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, was named by the FBI on Sunday as the perpetrator of the Christmas Day bombing, after DNA showed he perished in the attack carried out with an RV rigged to explode.

The bombing took place well before downtown streets were bustling with activity and was accompanied by a recorded announcement warning anyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonate. Then, for reasons that may never be known, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit ‘Downtown’ shortly before the blast. 

In the weeks prior to the suicide attack, which also injured three and caused massive damage, Warner told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car, according to the New York Times.

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 also gave away the $160,000 home he lived in to a woman in California whose link to him remains unclear, DailyMail.com first reported on 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.

The bombing badly damaged a critical AT&T transmission center, wreaking havoc on phone communications in multiple states that the company is still racing to resolve. 

Electronic devices seized from Warner’s former home in Antioch, a suburb of Nashville, have been sent to a digital forensics laboratory to unlock his online activity and find out where he discussed his warped views.

‘We are waiting on the digital footprint that should finally provide us with some answers,’ the source explained.

‘The unofficial motive thus far is the suspect believed 5G was the root of all deaths in the region and he’d be hailed a hero.’ 

Warner, 63, was named by the FBI on Sunday as perpetrator of the Christmas Day bombing outside an AT&T building, after DNA showed he perished in the attack carried out with an RV

In the weeks prior to the explosion, which injured three and caused massive damage, Warner told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car – but kept his RV (above)

Warner appeared to target the AT&T transmission building in Nashville (above). His father worked at BellSouth, later acquired by AT&T, before his death in 2006 of dementia

Agents are also investigating whether Quinn’s paranoia over telecommunications began with the death of his father Charles B. Warner in July 2011, aged 78.

A death certificate obtained by DailyMail.com notes that Charles, nicknamed Popeye, died of dementia after spending his career working for BellSouth, a former AT&T subsidiary which re-merged with the company in 2006.

Officially, the FBI has refused to comment on Warner’s possible motivations. 

‘These answers won’t come quickly and will still require a lot of our team’s efforts,’ FBI Special Agent Doug Korneski said at a Sunday news conference. 

‘Though we may be able to answer some these questions as our investigation continues, none of those answers will be enough by those affected by this event,’ he added. 

Over the weekend, new details emerged about Warner’s eccentricities, including the fact that his own mother sued him last year in a property dispute.

According to Davidson County court records, Warner’s 62-year-old brother, Steven Warner, died in September 2018, without leaving a will.

Their mother, Betty Christine Lane, who divorced father Charles B. ‘Popeye’ Warner years before his 2011 death, argued that the former family home, which had passed from Charles to Steven, should then legally belong to her – but Anthony Warner seized it using power of attorney.

Electronic devices seized from Warner’s former home (above) in Antioch, a suburb of Nashville, have been sent to a digital forensics laboratory to unlock his online activity

Betty Christine Lane, the mother of Nashville bomber Anthony Warner, was seen on Sunday for the first time since the Christmas Day attack. She sued him in 2019 over a property dispute

Anthony Warner claimed possession of the family home where his mother lives (above) in 2018 and then transferred the deed to California woman Michelle Swing, who ended the dispute by transferring ownership back to his elderly mother Christine Lane  

But Lane says in her lawsuit that Anthony, acting as ‘attorney-in-fact’ fraudulently claimed the $250,000 home for himself in an August 2018 quitclaim deed transfer. 

Lifelong bachelor Anthony then mysteriously gave the home to a 29-year-old, Los Angeles-based woman named Michelle Swing, whose ties to him are unclear.

The mother-son suit appeared to have been resolved by November of this year, however, after Swing used the same transfer process to give the three-bed, single story property back to Lane, who is still residing there today.

When DailyMail.com asked the 85-year-old Lane on Sunday about her son Anthony Warner she said she could ‘not talk about it’.

The retiree also posted signs in her yard warning she would call the cops if anyone trespassed on her driveway.

On Sunday afternoon, Lane was being comforted by her 59-year-old daughter Teresa Wardrop, who told DailyMail.com: ‘We are not going to speak to you.’ 

Swing is also the woman to whom Anthony deeded his primary residence on November 25 of this year.

When DailyMail.com reached out to Swing on Sunday to confirm details of what happened in the earlier property dispute she declined to answer. 

Swing also failed to respond to questions over what sort of relationship, if any, she or her family had ever had with Anthony Warner.

DailyMail.com revealed Saturday that Anthony Warner also passed on his primary residence to Swing for nothing, just a month before launching his bomb plot in downtown Nashville.

Swing, who has family in Knoxville and studied business and marketing at the University of Tennessee, told us she knew nothing about the acquisition despite being involved in the earlier property transfer.

Bizarrely, her cell phone number is scribbled on a note currently pinned to the back door of the neatly-kept duplex, a 15-minute drive south of central Nashville.

Warner was a retired burglar alarm installer who continued to work as a freelance IT consultant. 

Neighbors described him as an eccentric loner who was often spotted tinkering with unusual antennas outside of his home in Antioch, a Nashville suburb.

The home on Bakertown Road is festooned with security cameras, spotlights, and ‘no trespassing’ signs, as well as odd antennas. 

Lifelong bachelor Anthony Warner  mysteriously gave his family’s home to 29-year-old, Los Angeles-based woman Michelle Swing (above), whose ties to Warner are unclear

The RV used in the bombing was normally parked in this fenced-off area next to Warner’s duplex in Antioch, a Nashville suburb

Warner was often spotted fiddling in his yard with odd antennas, including this one behind his house, which appears to be a ClearStream HD digital television antenna

The home was festooned with security cameras and ‘no trespassing’ signs, particularly in the area where Warner kept the RV parked

Several neighbors have described Warner as an ‘oddball’ and said they’d seen an RV parked outside the home which matched the one used in the attack. 

The RV had been outside of Warner’s home since at least the spring of 2019, images from Google Street View show. 

Three were injured in the massive explosion early on on Christmas Day, after the RV played a warning to evacuate minutes before the explosion.

In a bizarre twist, the RV’s loudspeakers then blasted Petula Clark’s 1964 soul hit ‘Downtown’ immediately before the bomb went off.

The attack devastated the heart of Nashville’s tourist scene, a downtown strip packed with honky-tonks and bars. 

Authorities said Warner was not known to law enforcement before the Christmas blast.   

REVEALED: Nashville bomber, 63, told LA mother, 29, he planned to spend Christmas ‘in the woods with his dogs’ and warned her basement of home he gave her for free was ‘not normal’   

Nashville bombing suspect Anthony Quinn Warner allegedly sent a letter to Michelle Swing (above) telling her that he had transferred ownership of his home in Antioch to her last month

A letter allegedly sent by the suspect in the Nashville Christmas Day bombing to a woman he transferred ownership of his house to has been revealed. 

Police on Sunday confirmed that Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, is a person of interest in the investigation launched when an RV exploded outside Nashville’s AT&T building on Friday morning, leaving three people injured and dozens of structures damaged. 

FBI agents were seen raiding Warner’s home in Antioch on Saturday as DailyMail.com exclusively revealed that he had given the property away for free to 29-year-old Michelle Swing of Los Angeles in a quitclaim deed dated November 25. 

Swing told DailyMail.com that she was unaware that Warner, a self-employed IT contractor, had signed the $160,000 home over to her. 

But a new report claims that Warner informed Swing of the transfer in a letter last month, writing: ‘The attic has plywood and lighting, take a look. The basement is not normal, take a look. Woof woof Julio.’ 

In the letter Warner also shared that he ‘intended to travel on Christmas Eve to spend a few weeks in the woods with his dogs’, according to The Sun. 

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Swing declined to disclose whether she had ever met Warner or if she had any family links to him, saying: ‘I’ve been told to direct everything else to FBI.’

The Sun reported that police believe Warner may have had a relationship with Swing’s mother. 

The outlet said Swing told investigators that she last spoke to Warner a week before Thanksgiving and that she had never met him in person.  

Adding to the mystery over Warner was the revelation that he had transferred his Antioch home to Swing late last month via a quitclaim deed. 

Swing, who lives in Los Angeles, insisted that she was unaware of the transfer and her signature does not appear on the deed dated November 25.  

Warner’s two properties are located just a 15 minute drive from where the bomb exploded

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

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

‘I didn’t even buy the house he just deeded it over to me without my knowledge. 

‘This all very weird to me, that’s about all I can say.’ 

Records show Warner also transferred another home on Bakertown Road to Swing via a quitclaim deed in January 2019. 

Swing has claimed that she had no idea that the house had been transferred to her at no cost on November 25

The $249,000 house had previously belonged to a member of his family and Warner had only been in possession of it for five months before again giving it to Swing for free. She later also used a quitclaim to give the house to another person.    

The house was originally owned by Warner’s father Charles but was passed to Warner’s brother Steve after Charles’ death in 2011.   

Steve died of cancer in September 2018, a month after Warner acquired the house. 

Court records show Warner’s mother Chris tried to stop the transfer of the second home last year after accusing her son of acting in his own interest as Steve’s power-of-attorney before his death, according to the Tennessean. Chris later dropped the case against her son. 

Swing’s address in the record for the transfer is listed as Lenoir City, Tennessee, a two-hour drive from Nashville. 

In March 2019, she also used a quitclaim to give away the house to a person named Betty Lane, according to county records. 

According to her LinkedIn profile, she studied Marketing and Business and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she remained working until 2012 when she moved to California. 

Swing first lived in San Francisco before a move to Los Angeles in October 2018, where she works in artist development for Anschutz Entertainment Group.