Ronald Hale, the father of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, confirmed to investigators that Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) did not inform his daughter developed an interest in the April 20, 1999, shooting at the Columbine High School in Colorado, according to a transcript of a July 12, 2023, police interview obtained by The Tennessee Star.
Police documents obtained by The Star previously established that Audrey Hale was a 22-year mental health patient at VUMC, and Ronald Hale and Norma Hale confirmed their daughter was evaluated for commitment for mental health reasons during three separate incidents, including two at VUMC for suicidal ideation.
According to a Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) investigator who interviewed Ronald Hale and Norma Hale, their daughter divulged to an unknown physician or psychologist that “must have been at Vanderbilt” that she “bought Columbine tapes and books and things of that nature.”
Earlier in the interview, as The Star previously reported, the investigator told Ronald Hale and Norma Hale their daughter “saw the documentary for the Columbine shooting and she said something along the lines of how she felt close to them, how she could empathize with them and how they felt,” then purchased “the tapes and the books” using Amazon.
The investigator confirmed, “She was speaking with a physician or a therapist or someone and said those things.”
Both Ronald Hale and Norma Hale confirmed no VUMC staff members informed them of their daughter’s interest in the school shooting.
“They didn’t tell us about that,” Ronald Hale told the MNPD investigators. Norma Hale similarly stated, “I didn’t know anything.”
Ronald Hale similarly told investigators that none of his daughter’s therapists warned him that his daughter shared her fantasies about murdering him, as well as committing a school shooting, with VUMC staff members. Investigators divulged this information in notes after securing at least 75 pages from VUMC about its treatment of Audrey Hale after obtaining a search warrant.
One investigator told Ronald Hale that his daughter had a plan for March 27, 2023, the date she claimed the lives of six at the Covenant School before she was killed by responding police officers; she had a written plan to “wake up early in the morning to slash dad’s tires before the incident happened” then “create a diversion” after her attack “to come back and harm dad.”
A second investigator told Ronald Hale, “We’ll be open; it was she wanted to kill you.”
Though The Star obtained approximately 80 pages of Audrey Hale’s writings from a journal police retrieved from her car, it does not possess the second journal the killer left in her vehicle, which reportedly contained an operational plan for her attack. However, Audrey Hale also wrote of her desire to kill her father in the journal it obtained.
Before learning the details of his daughter’s animosity toward him, Ronald Hale told investigators when asked if medical professionals told him his daughter expressed homicidal ideation, “None of her therapists ever felt that they had like a duty to warn anybody.”
Retired MNPD Lieutenant Garet Davidson told The Star last month that, to the best of his knowledge, no individual at VUMC reported Audrey Hale’s violent fantasies to her potential victims. Additionally, a source told The Star that MNPD Chief John Drake privately acknowledged VUMC neglected its duty to warn the killer’s victims, though MNPD later disputed this claim.
Both Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy were plaintiffs in the Tennessee lawsuit which sought to compel the MNPD release all of Audrey Hale’s writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto.
Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles ruled on July 4 that not one page of the killer’s writings shall be released, citing the alleged copyright ownership claimed by the Covenant Children’s Trust, and Leahy immediately confirmed he and The Star will “absolutely appeal” the judge’s decision.
Leahy and SNDM remain plaintiffs in the active federal lawsuit seeking to compel the FBI to release Audrey Hale’s writings. Last month, they published an FBI memo sent to Drake that “strongly” advised against releasing “legacy tokens” from killers like Hale. An FBI definition suggests that the pages obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits are considered unfit for release by the federal agency.
While the FBI declined to confirm it sent the memo in a statement to The Star, the agency acknowledged it sends such “products” to local law enforcement.
Since obtaining a portion of Audrey Hale’s writings and a tranche of police documents, The Star has published more than 60 articles that include her own words or new details about the Covenant 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].
Now we understand why the writings are not being released .
Vanderbilt has bought off the judicial system!