The Tennessee Star received a response from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) regarding its apparent treatment of Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, which was revealed in a number of Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) documents obtained by The Star.
After The Star obtained a police summary describing 75 pages of notes retrieved from VUMC following a June 1, 2023, search warrant for information related to Hale’s treatment and asked VUMC president and CEO Jeff Balser for comment, a spokesman said he was unable to confirm Hale’s treatment due to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act of 1996.
The MNPD notes appear to confirm Hale fantasized about killing her father and committing a school shooting at some point prior to her devastating attack, which claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adult staff members at the Covenant school.
“Under federal (HIPAA) and state privacy rules and regulations, without permission VUMC is not in a position to confirm or deny that any particular individual presently receives or previously received health care from VUMC,” wrote Chief Communications Officer John Howser in a Wednesday email.
The Star first contacted VUMC for comment on June 4, the same day retired MNPD Lieutenant Garet Davidson told Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy on his radio program, The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, that Hale’s mental health professionals at VUMC did not warn law enforcement of the killer’s violent fantasies.
Despite not receiving a response, The Star also contacted VUMC for comment after obtaining police documents that showed Hale was a 22-year patient of VUMC, having started receiving treatment for her mental health in 2001, when she was just six.
VUMC likewise did not respond to inquiries that sought to establish whether Hale expressed to her mental health professionals that she identified as a transgender male, nor did it respond when asked whether Hale sought gender-affirming care from VUMC.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule explains that “individually identifiable health information about a decedent” is protected by the law “for 50 years following the date of death of the individual.”
While the agency notes that information about the deceased is generally given the same protections as that afforded to the living during this period, there are also “a number of special disclosure provisions” for disclosing information after death.
According to HHS, these include provisions to alert law enforcement about an individual’s death or when criminal behavior contributed to the death. Exceptions are also afforded for “spouses, parents, children, domestic partners, other relatives, or friends of the decedent,” especially when those individuals were “involved in the individual’s health care or payment for care prior to the individual’s death.”
However, another HHS document explains other exceptions for law enforcement requests.
A HIPAA guide for law enforcement explains individuals and agencies covered under HIPAA may release private information about a decedent “[t]o comply with a court order or court-ordered warrant, a subpoena or summons issued by a judicial officer, or an administrative request from a law enforcement official.”
Both Leahy and Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, are plaintiffs in the ongoing lawsuits that seek to compel MNPD and the FBI to release Hale’s full writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto.
Earlier this month, The Star published an FBI memo that “strongly” advised the department against releasing “legacy tokens” from individuals like Hale. An FBI definition suggests the agency considers both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits to be “legacy tokens” that should be withheld from the public.
In a statement to The Star, the FBI declined to confirm that it sent the memo but acknowledged that it sends such “products” to its law enforcement partners.
Since it obtained dozens of writings from Hale’s journal and a portion of police documents, The Star has published more than 40 articles about her writings and 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].
Background Photo “Vanderbilt University Medical Center” by Vanderbilt University Medical Center.Â
