Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote in the journal police recovered from her vehicle about training at a Nashville gun range with one of the weapons she purchased using federal Pell Grant funds and concealed in her family home.
The Tennessee Star confirmed on June 5 it obtained Hale’s journal and a portion of police documents from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation, and on June 6, including a journal entry in which Hale claimed to witness an accidental firearm injury while training at a Nashville gun range just two days prior to her devastating March 27, 2023 attack.
Hale wrote in the journal entry dated March 25, “I will use guns in my suicide.”
The killer then wrote, “after the time in range (while cleaning my AR), a lady got [ricocheted] in the leg [and] ankle.”
A source told The Star earlier this month that at least 30 individual pieces of equipment, including seven guns, were purchased by Hale before the attack, with the items totaling around $2,600.
Based on the list of weaponry provided by the source, Hale was apparently referring to her Lead Star Grunt-15 Rifle, which retails for about $850.
The gun range Hale claimed to have visited on March 25 is not the same gun range where she was reportedly photographed by another customer who claimed to be unnerved by the killer’s presence.
99.7 WTN radio host Brian Wilson additionally reported that Hale financed her purchases of weapons, ammunition, and equipment with federal Pell Grants she received as an undergraduate student at Nossi College of Art and Design, where the killer graduated in 2022.
The Star previously reported, citing the police interview with Hale’s parents, that she used her own income to fill out federal student aid forms in 2020 when she turned 25. Hale received the federal Pell Grants as a result, and her parents told police she had control of the money in a savings account.
Hale ultimately used three of the weapons on March 27, when she claimed the lives of three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members at the Covenant School before she was heroically shot by responding police officers. The rest were found concealed inside her family home.
Police explained in 2023 that Hale’s parents previously discovered her weapons and required the killer to sell them but did not know about the rest of her arsenal.
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuits seeking the release of Hale’s full writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto, from the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI.
The Star recently published a May 2023 memo sent by the FBI to MNPD Chief John Drake. The memo “strongly” advises against releasing “legacy tokens” from killers like Hale, and an FBI definition suggests both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits are considered unfit for release by the agency.
While the FBI declined to confirm that it sent the memo in a statement to The Star, the agency confirmed that it sends such “products” to local law enforcement.
Since The Star obtained Hale’s journal and the police documents, it has published over 50 articles that include the killer’s words or new details about the investigation.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
So with the Crumbley precedent from Michigan, are now both the Hale parents and the Department of Education culpable in these deaths? The parents since the weapons were hidden in their home and the DoE because it funded the purchase of them?
Were there straw purchases involved?
Did Audrey Hale lie on the Federal 4473 Form in order to pass the FBI background check?
Hunter Biden lied on his Federal 44473 Form.