The Tennessee Star’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy described the Tennessee Court of Appeals’ ruling on Wednesday in the lawsuit seeking to obtain the writings left by the Covenant School killer as “a major victory.”
The lawsuit, filed by Leahy and Star News Digital Media in May 2023 under the Tennessee Public Records Act, sought the release of writings related to Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale.
In an opinion released on Wednesday, nearly three years after Hale killed six at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023, the Court of Appeals determined Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles incorrectly determined in a previous ruling that the killer’s writings could not be released due to copyright and school safety exemptions.
The Court of Appeals also determined that most of Hale’s writings are public records and therefore subject to release under Tennessee’s open records laws.
Speaking on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show one day after the opinion was issued, Leahy said the appellate decision corrected “errors made by the chancery court judge” who had previously blocked the release of the records.
Tom Pappert, lead reporter for The Star, said the appeals court ruling dismantled the July 4, 2024 decision that had blocked the disclosure of the killer’s writings.
“The Tennessee Court of Appeals essentially tossed out every relevant part of the decision from July 4th, 2024 that blocked the release of the Covenant Manifesto and all of the case files,” Pappert said.
He explained that the trial court had ruled “that not one page of the manifesto can be released because of a spurious copyright claim and for the potential that maybe there’s some school safety issues,” but the appeals court found that reasoning “totally and totally tossed out.”
Noting how the case has been remanded to Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles, who will now oversee the redaction process within a limited scope, Pappert said the Metro Nashville Police Department will be required to propose redactions for the killer’s writings, which include more than a dozen journals.
Those proposed redactions will be reviewed by The Star and the other plaintiffs before returning to the court.
“If we can all agree, we’ll go before the judge and say, let’s release these documents,” Pappert said, adding that the process could ultimately result in the release of “every single writing that the killer left,” shedding new light on the investigation.
Leahy also highlighted the potential release of investigative documents.
“We can also get from the Metro Nashville Police Department all of the investigative documents involved in this now,” he said.
He focused on a document he believes may be a holographic will written by Hale, noting that “she claimed in documents we saw she had a will” and wrote in all caps, “PLEASE READ MY WILL.”
Leahy said the document could undermine claims that Hale died intestate and that her parents owned her writings.
Leahy concluded that while the Covenant Children’s Trust may attempt to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, he doubted it would succeed.
“We are going to get these documents,” Leahy said, “and we will tell everybody the truth about it.”
Live February 05 https://t.co/WyeGVMZxa4
— Michael Patrick Leahy (@michaelpleahy) February 5, 2026
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
