Tom Lundborg was a teenager in the late 1970s when he worked for Nashville bomber accused Anthony Quinn Warner, who was a technician for an alarm company.
At that time, Lundborg’s father owned ACE Alarms, a company that provided systems against commercial and residential thieves, but was disabled in a car accident. This left a young Lundborg and 20-something “Tony” Warner to run the business, and they drove to different locations to make burglar alarm installations and service calls.
“I worked with Tony as his assistant. I kind of admired him. He was kind of a hippie. He had long hair, a Magnum, PI mustache, ”Lundborg told The Daily Beast. “He was a kind of smart and arrogant guy. I walked with him all day, every day – during summers, at least for a few years. “
Lundborg said that Warner did not like authority, loved to smoke marijuana and claimed that he had just left the Navy. (It is not clear whether Lundborg was ever in the U.S. Armed Forces, but records show that he was arrested for marijuana possession in 1978.)
They drove listening to 103 KDF, formerly Nashville’s main rock station, and if Warner saw a policeman, he would break the silence to lecture teenager Lundborg.
“I hate policemen. They are all corrupt, ”said Warner. “Never trust a policeman.”
Lundborg said he talked to the FBI about Warner, while officials are trying to find out the reason for the Christmas Day explosion, which injured eight people and destroyed several buildings. Warner, 63, died in the explosion.
Earlier that morning, a recreational vehicle registered in the name of Warner detonated after playing a recording with a bleak warning: a bomb would go off in 15 minutes. The RV also played Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown”, a song that begins with the words: “When you’re alone and life is leaving you lonely / You can always go downtown”.
“He was short, the quiet type, but handsome with the girls … My dad was going to dive in bars with him. He was popular with the women there, you could say.“
The motive for the bombing remains unclear, although investigators are investigating whether Warner has accepted conspiracy theories about 5G technology. Warner parked his RV near an AT&T building before the vehicle detonated.
“It seems that the intention was more destruction than death. This is all still speculation at this point, as we continue our investigation with all of our partners, ”said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, on Monday.
Authorities are also investigating why Warner, who was single and did not appear to have children, had transferred two of his homes to Michelle Swing, a 29-year-old music executive from Los Angeles. One of quitclaim’s suits was filed on November 25, while the other was in 2019.
A neighbor, Rick Laude, told the Associated Press that he and Warner talked a few days before the bombing, and Laude asked, “Is Santa going to bring you anything good for Christmas?”
“Oh yes, Nashville and the world will never forget me,” replied Warner.
Laude said he didn’t find anything strange in their conversation and that “nothing about this guy raised red flags”.
Meanwhile, another neighbor, who declined to be named, told a reporter for the Daily Beast that when a peacock was roaming last month, Warner left his home to feed him. “My daughter was telling me that he was like, ‘I want this peacock,’” said the neighbor.
Warner was known for having dogs, and it is not clear whether they also died in the trailer explosion.
“I was extremely shocked,” said Lundborg of Warner’s seemingly intentional bombing. “You don’t expect someone with whom you have normal thoughts to do something so abnormal. My memories of him are very distant, but still, those were the memories I had. “
“I guess he was mad about something. You would think he was doing what he did, ”added Lundborg, whose family security business is now called Symspire.
Warner was the only technician for the oldest Lundborg and they worked at the Lundborg family residence in Antioch, Tennessee, where Warner attended high school.
“He was a small boy, the silent type, but cute for girls,” said Lundborg. “My father would go diving in bars with him. He was popular with women there, you could tell. He didn’t flirt much, but you could tell they liked him. ”Lundborg said that Warner had a girlfriend at the time.
Lundborg said that Warner “cheated” his parents and started his own alarm company, taking one or two ACE customers with him. But the business sank, Lundborg said, because “he had no personality” to deal with customers.
The last time Lundborg saw Warner was in 2007, when the technician took care of the IT work for a Chevrolet dealership in downtown Nashville.
But more recently, Warner was dealing with technology for Fridrich & Clark Realty. The company’s owner, Steve Fridrich, said he hired Warner four or five years ago as an independent contractor and that Warner repaired the company’s computers and installed machines for new employees.
Fridrich said Warner had other customers in the area, but did not know their names.
“Tony Warner was never an employee of our company, but he occasionally came to our office to maintain our computers. Earlier this month, he warned us that he was retiring and that Fridrich & Clark has had no contact with him since, ”said Fridrich in a text message.
“Upon learning that Tony is a suspect in the 2nd Avenue bombing on Christmas morning, Fridrich & Clark notified the authorities that he had provided IT services for our company. The Tony Warner we knew is a good person who never exhibited any behavior that was less than professional. “
– with additional reporting by Steven Hale