Nashville Christmas bomber claimed he had cancer before the attack

The man behind the bombing in downtown Nashville, Anthony Warner, told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car shortly before blowing up his recreational vehicle (RV) while still inside it, damaging as many as 40 buildings.

Warner also gave away his house to 29-year-old Los Angeles resident Michelle Swing whose ties to the dead man are still hazy. Police believe Warner may have dated Ms Swing's mother, The Sun reported. He also emailed a client on December 5 to say that he was retiring, according to The Washington Post.

This all seemed to be in preparation for his Christmas Day actions which included rigging his motorhome with explosives and parking outside an AT&T transmission centre. Authorities believe Warner may have been worried about 5G technology and that his motive was property destruction and not to harm anyone but himself.

The director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation David Rausch told NBC's Today programme that it looked like "the intent was more destruction than death".

Before the blast, a recording was coming from the RV saying that the vehicle would explode and a countdown was spliced into the song "Downtown" by Petula Clark, The New York Times writes.

"The audio from the vehicle warning people that an explosion was imminent, the opportunity to clear the area, certainly gives you that insight that the top possibility was that he had no intention of harming anyone but himself," Mr Rausch told Today.

Neighbours told The Washington Post that Warner was a lonely "oddball" who often fiddled with antennas in his yard. His house was covered in "No trespassing" signs, spotlights and security cameras.

After running a burglar alarm business whose licence expired in 1998, Warner worked as a freelance IT consultant, fixing computers in various offices around the Nashville area.

Steve Fridrich, president of Fridrich & Clark Realty in Nashville, who hired Warner to fix computers about once a month, told Nashville's News4 that Warner was a "nice guy". Warner told Mr Fridrich in an email on 5 December that he was retiring.

"He's a techie guy, I don't mean that as negative it's just, he kind of did his thing, he'd come in, do it, and leave. And the guy we know was a nice guy. I cannot imagine that that's what he would do," Mr Fridrich said about the explosion.

Warner's father Charles Warner worked for BellSouth before his death from dementia in 2011. BellSouth was a subsidiary which merged with AT&T in 2006. Authorities are now investigating whether conspiracy theories about 5G technology could have been what spurred Warner to blow up his RV outside an AT&T transmission centre. They're also investigating whether Warner's paranoia may have started when his father died in 2011, The Daily Mail writes.

Warner's mother sued him in a property dispute, arguing that the house he grew up in should have passed to her after the death of his father whom she divorced years before his death in 2011. Warner seized the house using power of attorney, an authorisation allowing someone to act on another's behalf. His mother said in her 2018 lawsuit that Warner's claim on the house was fraudulent.

He then gave the house to Ms Swing. She later transferred the house back to Warner's mother, who still lives there. The dispute was settled by November of this year. Ms Swing was also given the deed to Warner's duplex in Antioch, a Nashville suburb, where he was living until the attack, The Daily Mail reported.