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.
Following multiple pages full of weapons to purchase, the journal includes a page labeled “Account Savings Record,” which appears to reference the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). It also records multiple payments received from Nossi during the period when Hale attended the Nossi College of Art and Design in Nashville.
“FASFA [sic] grant checks started at $2,050.86,” wrote Hale at the top of the entry.
The page then lists a series of apparent ledger entries, starting with, “$2,656.87 (x3 checks from Nossi).” The next ledger entry states, “+$530.00 (x1 check Nossi) ($3,186.87).”
This reference to Hale’s federal student aid, located in the writings next to her entries about guns she considered buying, appears to corroborate the claims made by her parents to Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) detectives in 2023, when they told law enforcement their child purchased the firearms using federal Pell Grant money.
Hale’s parents told MNPD that the killer was only capable of taking two classes per semester at the college, requiring her to remain at the school until after she turned 25, when her parents’ income was no longer considered when determining what aid she would receive.
“Because she was 25, and because she’s still a matriculated student, she had to fill out financial aid forms, and when she became 25, she couldn’t use our income,” said Hale’s mother. “So then she had no income and so she got this grant money.”
Former MNPD Detective Bobby Samuels, who left the department and moved out of Tennessee in early 2024, then stated that the investigators were curious how Hale was able to afford the weapons used at the Covenant School, prompting her mother to credit the money received for her education.
“It was the grant money,” the killer’s mother stated.
This latest release from the FBI came after the agency pledged to release redacted versions of the killer’s writings to resolve Biden-era litigation seeking to obtain their release, including the lawsuit filed by Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Tennessee Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy.
The Star legally obtained the killer’s final journal last year and published the unredacted document in September 2024.
An independent review of whistleblower claims alleging misconduct by MNPD leadership recently concluded without investigating allegations about the Covenant School attack, and the investigators did not interview Samuels.
The Star was nominated for a Dao Prize in Best Local Journalism for its reporting on the Covenant case.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
The guy gets an A+ for originality.
Silly me. The little bit of grant money I received in college was used to buy books.