WASHINGTON – The 63-year-old man who killed himself by detonating a homemade bomb in his camper van in downtown Nashville on Christmas Day acted alone and may have been suffering from paranoia, the FBI said yesterday.
Anthony Warner, of Antioch, Tennessee, died in the December 25 explosion, which injured at least three other people.
Warner’s actions are “determined to not be related to terrorism”, the FBI said in a report, and he did not appear to have any “broader ideological motive”.
The camper van detonated on a downtown Nashville street at 6.30am on Christmas morning after playing a taped warning message over a loudspeaker, allowing nearby residents to evacuate.
The FBI said Warner, “acting alone, built and ultimately detonated the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device”.
It said it was “an intentional act in an effort to end his own life, driven in part by a totality of life stressors”.
These, it added, included “paranoia” and “long-held individualised beliefs adopted from several eccentric conspiracy theories”.
The huge explosion in historic downtown Nashville, the United States’ country music capital, damaged about 40 buildings. – AFP, March 16, 2021
