Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, detailed new developments in The Star’s ongoing legal fight to obtain records related to the 2023 Covenant School shooting, including a table of contents identifying documents Metro Nashville officials may soon release and correspondence between the police department and the FBI concerning a memo about mass shooters’ writings.
During Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert said The Star has yet to receive the records despite prevailing in the Tennessee Court of Appeals earlier this year and the Tennessee Supreme Court declining to hear Metro Nashville’s appeal in August.
“We have no documents, but we do…have a table of contents that shows the documents which we may soon have if this chancellor judge, who is like a district court judge for the state of Tennessee, should expeditiously move forward,” Pappert said.
Leahy said the Davidson County Chancery Court has scheduled an October 28 hearing concerning the records. He said attorneys for The Star recently met with Metro Nashville representatives and received a list identifying documents that are ready for release and others still under review.
Leahy said Metro Nashville is taking the position that it will wait for an order from the trial court, despite the appellate court’s directive to move expeditiously.
One notable omission from the list, Pappert said, is interviews with mental health professionals who treated Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological female who identified as a transgender man and killed six people at The Covenant School in March 2023.
“One of the first things we learned after we legally obtained a series of investigative files and writings by the killer back in 2024 was that she, this 28-year-old killer, born a biological woman, identified as a transgender man, she was a 22-year patient of the mental health practice,” Pappert said.
He noted Hale had seen mental health professionals from childhood until shortly before her death, but none appeared in the table of contents as having been interviewed by Metro Nashville police.
“Now, you could say perhaps it was doctor-patient confidentiality, so they could not release the interviews, but the existence of the interview should be a public record if it took place,” Pappert said.
Pappert also discussed anticipated records concerning communications between Metro Nashville and the FBI about a memo from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit known as the “Legacy Token Memo.”
Leahy explained how The Star first reported on the memo in June 2024, describing it as advising officials against releasing writings and other materials created by mass shooters and suggesting they could be destroyed.
Pappert said the newly identified correspondence could help explain the agencies’ discussions after The Star publicized the memo.
“And we are greatly looking forward to finding out what on earth…prompted this, and what was the topic that was discussed just one month, less than one month, weeks after the Tennessee Star discovered this memo and broke it to the public,” Pappert said.
He added that the correspondence could provide insight into the FBI under the previous administration, noting that the unit involved had since been fired by FBI Director Kash Patel.
The document list also does not specifically identify Hale’s purported will, which Metro Nashville police described in a 2025 investigative report as containing instructions about distributing her possessions and writings.
“Also, on the list of documents there’s no thing that specifically says will. Although verbally they said there’s a will. So we’ll get it maybe in a month, two months, three months,” Leahy said.
The Star has pursued records related to the shooting for more than three years. In August, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal challenging the appellate court’s ruling directing the lower court to review the requested materials and limit redactions to actual school-security information.
Last month, The Star was named a finalist for the 2026 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism for Best Local Reporting for its series of reports that ultimately resulted in the release of the Covenant shooter’s writings.
Tune in now to The Michael Patrick Leahy Show – your AMERICA FIRST news talk!
– Watch LIVE here on X
– Watch LIVE on YouTube / Rumble / Roku / AppleTV
– Listen on Spotify
– Listen on WENO AM760 in Nashville
– Read more at @TheTNStarhttps://t.co/SeFTbKrbfZ— Michael Patrick Leahy (@michaelpleahy) October 9, 2026
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
