Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, identified several shortcomings in the independent investigation commissioned by Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell into allegations of misconduct within the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD). An independent review commissioned by O’Connell to examine whistleblower allegations against the MNPD concluded with major questions still unresolved, particularly those tied to the Covenant School shooting investigation.

The FBI on Monday released new writings by Covenant School killer Audrey Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six on March 27, 2023, revealing the killer listed hatred for religion as reason to attack the Christian elementary school she once attended.  Hale included the motivator in a list of “advantages” and “disadvantages” the killer titled, “The Covenant School – Alternate Target / 2nd Choice,” which also noted her past history at the school, her knowledge of its layout, but also listed that it was a “bigger school,” and a “private school,” as well as a “school/church,” which meant “more revenue real estate.”

The FBI on Monday released another 230 manifesto pages written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological female who identified as a transgender man on March 27, 2023, when the 28-year-old killed six at the Covenant School in Nashville, the Christian elementary school she once attended.  This latest journal appears to have been written sometime in late 2021, and includes lengthy sections about the weapons the killer planned to use to commit a mass shooting at a school sometime that year.

The independent law firm appointed to review the allegations against Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) completed their investigation earlier this month, determining the claims raised last year by retired member of the police department either were not borne out by evidence or did not rise to the level of a policy violation or official misconduct. Enlisted by Mayor Freddie O’Connell last year to investigate the whistleblower complaint submitted by retired MNPD Lieutenant Garet Davidson, the law firm Butler Snow announced on December 18 that it completed its report, which was published December 22 by Nashville Banner. 

A panel of three judges on the Tennessee Court of Appeals on Thursday heard oral arguments for the lawsuit brought by Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Tennessee Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, which seeks to compel Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release the complete writings of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.  Leahy and SNDM initially sued in May 2023, after Metro Nashville refused to comply with a Tennessee Public Records Act (TPRA) request seeking the voluminous writings left by the killer, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation. Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles later allowed a group of Covenant parents to intervene in the lawsuit, as they claimed to own the copyright to the killer’s written works, and claimed that the government could not release them without the permission of the copyright owners.

A panel of three judges on the Tennessee Court of Appeals Middle Section on Thursday will hear oral arguments for the lawsuit brought by Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Tennessee Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy.  Leahy and SNDM first sued in May 2023 to compel Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release the writings left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who killed six at the Christian elementary school she once attended, after authorities initially claimed they would not release the manifesto until their investigation was complete.

Transgender Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale included President Donald Trump on a handwritten “fantasy murder list,” according to newly released FBI documents that Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, says reveal a disturbing mix of political hatred, satanic imagery, and mental instability across approximately 1,500 pages of journal entries obtained by The Star.

The FBI this week released to The Tennessee Star the latest portion of writings by Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Christian school in Nashville on March 27, 2023, which were left in a journal the killer kept from 2019-2020. One entry includes an illustration of the killer standing next to a figure she called the “Devil,” making her the second transgender mass shooter to leave such a drawing behind, after Annunciation Catholic School killer Robin Westman left a similar image in a notebook posted in a video to social media prior to his August 27 attack in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

The FBI on Monday released to The Tennessee Star more pages from the journals written by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023. The newly released pages feature an entry where Hale included President Donald Trump on a “fantasy murder list.”  Containing just four names, including two that were redacted by the FBI prior to their release of the journal, Hale included Trump as the first name in her second column of those who she would like to kill, potentially suggesting she added the name after writing a subsequent journal entry.

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said Covenant killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale was able to obtain the guns used in the attack by secretly spending Pell Grant money she was awarded meant to fund her education at Nossi College of Art behind her parents’ backs.

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, described the mental deterioration of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale as a “slow motion train wreck,” citing newly released journal entries that shed further light on Hale’s psychological decline leading up to the 2023 attack.

In a journal entry released to The Tennessee Star last week by the FBI, transgender Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote that she struggled to save money, often with less than $200 in her bank account. The killer wrote the entry more than a year before she would use funds from a federal Pell Grant to purchase weapons before killing six on March 27, 2023.  The 2019 journal entry adds context to Hale’s decision to use the grant money, as the killer seemed to connect her lack of funds with suicidal and homicidal plans. 

A newly released journal entry written by Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, made public last week by the FBI to The Tennessee Star, reveals that the killer viewed her sexuality, and specifically her status as a self-identified transgender person, as an opposing force to her Christian faith.  Written more than three years prior to her March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School, where she killed six, Hale dated the entry May 6, 2019, and while she began by discussing religion, she concluded by writing about school shooters. 

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, argued that the newly released journals of deceased 28-year-old Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale reveal a disturbing and progressive mental decline over nearly two decades. Last week, the FBI released a new series of writings by Hale, the transgender shooter who claimed the lives of six at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023.

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023, complained in two newly released journal entries about her father’s interest in “dumb politics” and President Donald Trump. Though Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) determined the killer was sane and motivated by a desire for fame in its April report on the Covenant investigation, the journals seem to suggest that Hale’s mental state deteriorated over years, including the weeks prior to her 2019 evaluation for commitment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where MNPD documents obtained by The Tennessee Star last year revealed that Hale told a staff member she fantasized about killing her father. 

The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) said it has “nothing additional to add” regarding its conclusions regarding the March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School, where Audrey Elizabeth Hale, then identifying as a transgender man, killed three 9-year-old students and three staff members at the Christian elementary school she once attended. The department’s Friday statement to The Tennessee Star came despite the release of new journal entries, written by the killer as late as June 2019, in which she claimed to hear the voice of an “imaginary boy,” which demanded to “express himself,” including through a romantic interest in women, for more than a decade.  

Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Christian school she once attended on March 27, 2023, wrote a journal entry to mark her evaluation for potential commitment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in 2019, as revealed new entries released by the FBI to The Tennessee Star last week.  Though The Star last year broke that Hale was evaluated for possible commitment at VUMC, during which time police notes indicate she told a medical professional that she fantasized about killing her father, this entry is the first which reveals how the killer experienced the evaluation in her own words. 

Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote in a newly released journal entry that the world was too hostile to school shooters, arguing the public should have greater empathy for them, as many suffer from various mental illnesses.  The FBI released more than 450 pages written by Hale on Wednesday, nearly a year after The Tennessee Star published the killer’s 2023 journal, with much of the new entries dated to years prior to her March 27, 2023 attack where she killed six.

Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six on March 27, 2023 at the Christian school she once attended, began considering attacking a school as early as 2019, journal entries released to The Tennessee Star by the FBI on Wednesday reveal.  In a journal entry written months after Hale determined she was attracted to other women, and just days after she wrote a written confession of her attraction to a former classmate, the killer seemed to express frustration upon realizing her feelings toward a specific individual were unrequited. 

Nearly 500 pages of journal entries written by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale were released to The Tennessee Star by the FBI on Tuesday, and with many of the entries dated as far back as 2018, these journals offer insight into the killer’s state of mind in the years before she killed six at the Christian school she once attended in Nashville.  Within these journals, Hale seemed to claim that she first experienced same-sex attraction as the result of an “imaginary boy,” which she experienced as a voice inside her head, which expressed a desire to “express himself,” including through romantic relationships with girls, from the time when she was a fourth grade student at the Covenant School. 

The FBI on Wednesday released new files from the journals written by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who killed six on March 27, 2023, including an entry in which the killer appears to accuse her father of demonic possession. Audrey Hale, whose parents told police was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses over her 22-year history as a mental health patient, appears to have written the entry sometime in 2018, based on the dates assigned to preceding entries.

The FBI on Tuesday released to Judicial Watch a new series of writings by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the transgender shooter who claimed the lives of six at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023, including an entry, apparently dated to 2018, in which Hale claimed to have heard a male voice inside her head.  In an entry titled, “Is What I Feel A Mistake,” the killer wrote about the anguish she experienced related to “the truth about myself as to who I really am,” before claiming to have heard a male voice in her head for years. 

The Tennessee Star on Wednesday settled its lawsuit against the FBI over the manifesto written by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she killed six during her attack at the Christian school in Nashville on March 27, 2023. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty announced that its clients, Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Star, and his company, Star News Digital Media, Inc., agreed to settle the lawsuit after more than two years of litigation to secure the release of Hale’s writings.

U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-06) on Thursday said there is “no good justification” for the FBI to block the release of the writings left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she attacked the Covenant School and killed six on March 27, 2023.  In a statement provided to The Tennessee Star, Rose announced that he was given access to “more than 2,000 pages” of documents from the FBI roughly two years after he contacted former FBI Director Christopher Wray to call for the documents to be released.

The FBI on Friday gave Judicial Watch a small portion of the 1,299 pages left by transgender Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale, who killed six on March 27, 2023, with heavy redactions on portions of the killer’s full 2023 journal that was already published in full by The Tennessee Star last year.  The Star last September published about 90 pages that were written by Hale in her 2023 journal, which was recovered by law enforcement in her vehicle after the attack, alongside a spiral notebook that reportedly contained an operational plan for the atatck. In 2023, conservative comedian and pundit Steven Crowder published two pages from the spiral notebook.

The U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) did not respond to multiple press inquiries from The Tennessee Star after the committee reportedly received the 1,299 pages of journals written by transgender Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale from the FBI under Director Kash Patel. Shortly after the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) concluded its investigation into the attack at the Covenant School, where Hale killed six on March 27, 2023, independent journalist Megyn Kelly reported on April 7 that the FBI allowed her to analyze and report the contents of Hale’s writings, while restricting her from publishing the pages. The Star published Hale’s full 2023 journal last September, releasing about 90 pages of her writings from the months before her attack on her former Christian school. Kelly also stated that the FBI, in an effort to engage in transparency, provided the documents to HPSCI so that Congress might review their contents. The Star contacted HPSCI and its chairman, Representative Rick Crawford (R-AR-01), but did not receive a response from the chairman or his committee to its April 8 inquiry. Inquiries to the committee’s vice chairman, Representative Trent Kelly (R-MS-01), and to committee member Representative J. French Hill (R-AR-02), made by…

Phill Kline, former Kansas Attorney General and current law professor at Liberty University School of Law, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) release of the 1,299 pages of writings left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale to independent journalist Megyn Kelly carries legal inconsistencies as a case brought by The Tennessee Star’s parent company regarding the materials continues to be litigated in federal court.

Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) release of the 1,299 pages of writings left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale to independent journalist Megyn Kelly may have legal ramifications as a case brought by The Star’s parent company regarding the materials continues to be litigated in federal court. Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy sued the FBI in May 2023 to compel the agency to release Hale’s writings.

Reports surfaced on Monday claiming that Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man during the March 27, 2023, attack where she killed six, harbored hatred toward white people, following news that the FBI conditionally released her writings to an independent journalist, barring publication of the actual pages. This release came months after The Tennessee Star obtained Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) case files, which revealed that Hale’s parents attributed her feelings on race to her years in Metro Nashville Public Schools.

The Department of Justice and Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) both indicated to The Tennessee Star on Tuesday that they were unaware of the FBI’s apparent decision to conditionally release the 1,299 pages of writings left by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as a transgender man when she killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023, to independent journalist Megyn Kelly last week. Kelly on Monday stated that the FBI provided the killer’s writings to her with permission to analyze and report their contents over the weekend, but that her team was restricted from publishing the materials in their entirety. Excerpts shared by Kelly appear to match the killer’s 2023 manifesto, which The Star legally obtained last June and published in September 2024.