A motion to intervene filed on Monday in the court case seeking to compel the release of the manifesto written by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale claims the shooter’s motivation for committing the attack may stem from an alleged child abuse coverup at the school.
The motion was filed by Austin Davis, who claimed in a signed affidavit to be “a former Covenant Presbyterian deacon and church member, and a former Covenant School father” who also purports to be a “child sex abuse whistleblower.” The Tennessee man claimed to face retaliation for the claims he made against the school.
The former deacon and his daughter Daisy Davis, who he claims was a classmate of Hale in the early 2000s, previously sued the church in 2013 with claims it concealed the crimes of a “confessed child molester” in a “cult-like fashion” placed children in the predator’s “safe house.” The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and in 2016, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal.
In his motion, Austin Davis claims he and his family resigned from the church in 2006 after receiving unsatisfactory answers about “the safety and welfare of vulnerable children” he claims were placed in a “safe house” owned by John Perry, “a former chairman of the Covenant Presbyterian Church Diaconate.”
Perry, the man Austin Davis claimed to be the beneficiary of the coverup, previously co-authored books with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore.
Austin Davis claimed in a memo in support of his request to intervene that Hale’s purported final message before her attack, in which she reportedly wrote that she “left more than enough evidence behind” to explain her attack that claimed the lives of three children and three adults, left him “persuaded that a reasonable possibility does exist that Audrey Hale returned to the Covenant School campus” to commit her attack “as possible ‘revenge-vengeance’ for her own sexual abuse and/or bullying as a child.”
In addition to requesting the court accept his motion to intervene in the case, Austin Davis likewise asked the court to allow or compel the testimony of a group of current and former Covenant parents, administrators, MNPD police officers, and government officials.
Hale, who reportedly identified as a transgender man before her death, committed the shooting on March 27, 2023.
Star News Digital Media Inc., the parent company of The Tennessee Star, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit seeking to compel the manifesto’s release, and the amicus brief came as the court issued a series of court deadlines ahead of a hearing scheduled for April 16. Plaintiffs are expected to receive a trial date during that hearing.
A separate lawsuit by Star News Digital Media Inc. against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) similarly requests the law enforcement agency release the manifesto to the public. Despite the leak of three pages from Hale’s manifesto last year, the FBI previously claimed releasing even one page from the document would jeopardize an ongoing investigation.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
sounds like Covenant is trying to hide the facts…..
Given the obvious influence the attorney/members of Covenant have on the state courts and our legislature/executive to hide evidence, introduce bills to hide future evidence, introduce red flag bills….it has reinforced Davis’ prior claims of Covenant collusion with both law enforcement in his false arrest and the feet-dragging by the court to let the sexually abused girl be “too old” for the abuse by a Covenant elder to count- despite the knowledge and failure to report the abuse by Covenant.