The Tennessee Star has published 90 pages of the manifesto belonging to the "transgender" Nashville shooter who slaughtered six victims, including three children, at a private Christian elementary school on March 27, 2023.
🚨 BREAKING: @TheTNStar Has Just Released All 90 Pages of The Nashville Manifesto Never Seen Before
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) September 3, 2024
“If God won’t give me a boy body in heaven then Jesus is a f*ggot”
“I can’t be happy. I am meant to die”
“No brown girls, no love”
“Brown love is the most beautiful kind” pic.twitter.com/4UaHEAvMCb
According to the never-before-seen excerpts legally obtained by the local newspaper, Covenant School killer Audrey "Aiden" Hale, a 28-year-old biological woman who identified as a "transgender man," wrote about wanting "a boy body in heaven" and craving "brown love."
“If God won't give me a boy body in heaven, then Jesus is a f*gg*t," Hale wrote on one page.
On another, she said, "Brown love is the most beautiful kind."
Hale had repeatedly questioned, "why does my brain not work right?" Concluding, "Cause I was born wrong," she lamented, "Nothing on earth can save me…never ending pain. Religion won't save."
In an undated entry, Hale wrote, "The [cocoon] of my old self will die when I leave my body behind and the boy in me will be free; in the butterfly transformation; the real me."
Hale often signed off with an octagonal symbol, which first appears on the journal's cover. The shape was drawn on the very first page, opposite where Hale wrote, "Why does my brain not work right? Cause I was born wrong!!!"
The journal, which was written between January and March of 2023, is one of many Hale had in her possession.
Police initially identified this journal, along with a spiral notebook found in the car she used to drive to the school, as the shooter's "manifesto." Authorities also seized approximately 20 additional journals Hale authored over a 15-year period from 2007 to 2022. Those writings are said to span about 1,000 pages.
According to the local outlet, a source familiar with the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) investigation handed over the handwritten journal, which The Tennessee Star is referring to as "The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal" in order to distinguish it from the numerous ones predating 2023, in early June of this year.
"We believe it to be authentic," The Tennessee Star's editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy wrote in a statement on the outlet's website. MNPD further confirmed its authenticity in court, with a court filing submitted by MNPD Lieutenant Alfredo Alevado authenticating it.
"We have had a First Amendment right to publish these unredacted documents from the moment we legally obtained them," Leahy stated.
Leahy then outlined in great detail the legal avenues The Tennessre Star meticulously took to acquire the manifesto:
On April 24, 2023, in compliance with the Tennessee Public Records Act, we formally requested of MNPD, a department within the Metro Nashville Davidson County Government, that they release all of the writings of Audrey Elizabeth Hale they had obtained as part of their investigation into the March 27, 2023 murders. Metro Nashville Government denied that request one day later on April 25, 2023, and in May 2023 we filed suit against Metro Nashville Government in Davidson County, Tennessee Chancery Court to obtain those writings, as provided for by the Tennessee Public Records Act. The case was assigned to Judge I’Ashea Myles. In this matter we are well represented by America First Legal and their outstanding local counsel, Nick Brady.
In May 2023, MNPD provided Judge Myles with all of Hale’s writings obtained through their investigation for her in-camera review. On July 4, 2024, Judge Myles released her decision in the case, which was to deny our request, on two grounds: (1) MNPD’s assertion that they were conducting an ongoing investigation into the murders was a statutory exception to the Tennessee Public Records Act which would have allowed our request and (2) The assertion of ownership of Hales’ writings and a subsequent copyright claim stemming from that purported ownership by an intervening group created a non-statutory exception to the Tennessee Public Records Act.
On July 31, 2024 we appealed the trial court’s ruling to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. We expect to win our appeal.
Though we have had the First Amendment right to publish these writings since early June when we first received them, we have delayed their publication for three months until now for the following reasons.
1. In the first instance, we chose to publish articles beginning on June 5, 2024 that were based on these writings but that did not feature the publication of these writings because we anticipated the Tennessee trial court was close to rendering a decision and we wanted to allow the court sufficient time to rule on our arguments. All told, we have published close to 50 articles at The Tennessee Star that are based on The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal but do not contain the actual pages from that journal. You can find those articles here.
2. On June 10, 2024, five days after we began publishing articles based on The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal, Judge Myles issued a Show Cause Hearing Order to me, requiring me to show up in her courtroom on June 17, 2024 and explain to her why I should not be held in contempt of court for violating a court order. This was a surprising development, given that I have never violated any court order in this case and that the judge never produced the court order upon which the Show Cause Hearing Order was based.
When I appeared in court on June 17, 2024, Judge Myles changed the purpose of the hearing – claiming it was for her to determine “the landscape” of the case – and again refused to identify to my counsel the court order she thought I might be violating. Judge Myles ended that hearing by stating that she would take under consideration both a) her final ruling and b) whether or not she would appoint a “special prosecutor” to investigate and prosecute me for contempt of court – even though there is absolutely no evidence before the court that I have done anything that could be considered contempt of court. This statement, combined with the June 10 Show Cause Hearing Order and the June 17 Show Cause Hearing, have combined to create a chilling effect on my First Amendment rights.
While Judge Myles issued her final ruling on the case itself on July 4, 2024, she has provided no information as to whether she intends to appoint a “special prosecutor” to investigate me. This “Sword of Damocles” has been held over my head by Judge Myles since June 17, 2024, and we have held off on publishing The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal, in part, until our legal defense financial resources have reached a sufficient level such that I can hire counsel to represent me in the event Judge Myles seeks to resurrect this false claim against me. Our legal defense financial resources have just recently reached that level of sufficiency. I am pleased to announce that we are once again ably represented by Daniel Horwitz on the limited issue in which he represented us at the June 17 Show Cause Hearing.
3. Until just recently, the lack of legal representation to address a second potential legal issue also prohibited our publication of The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal. Though they have not registered their copyright claim with the federal government, the intervening group that purports to own Hale’s writings also purports to hold the copyright to those writings. We consider the ownership claim to be dubious at best and the copyright claim to be without merit. We also believe that the fair use doctrine would prohibit the successful litigation of any copyright infringement claim that might be brought against us for publishing this journal. Nonetheless, we chose not to publish the journal until we had secured proper legal representation in the event a frivolous copyright infringement claim were to be brought against us in federal court. I am pleased to announce today that, in the event a copyright infringement claim is brought against us, we are now represented by the Dhillon Group, the premiere law firm in the country representing conservative groups and organizations.
"The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal is now downloadable to everyone at our website, The Tennessee Star. We encourage every interested party, and especially every media organization, to download this handwritten document, read it, and write as many stories as you want about it," Leahy announced.
Download it in its entirety here.
Star News Digital Media, which owns and operates The Star, and Leahy are plaintiffs in both the Tennessee lawsuit that sought to compel MNPD to release Hale's writings as well as the federal lawsuit seeking the same from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The extensive materials were eventually shared with The Tennessee Star after requests for a copy of the documents left behind by Hale were repeatedly refused by MNPD and the FBI. Litigation regarding the release of those records is ongoing.
A portion of Hale's spiral notebook, which reportedly contains details of her operational plan of attack, was leaked by conservative commentator Steven Crowder last year.
"Rather than an ideologically driven composition," The Tennessee Star interprets Hale's trove of writings as a collection of ramblings, "in which Hale sporadically wrote her thoughts in the months and years preceding her devastating attack."
In previously uncovered entries, Hale wrote extensively about her gender identity, including authoring a three-page entry, titled "My Imaginary Penis," in which she divulged her sexual fantasies of experiencing intercourse as a boy.
There, she said she acted out these perverse thoughts by creating sexual scenes with her stuffed animals.
"I can pretend to be them [and] do the things boys do [and] experience my boy self as Tony," Hale said of her "stuffed baby doll," which she wrote "is like the boy I am in another form."
Hale proceeded to describe simulating sex between the "stuffed boy doll" and another toy over the course of hours. She also took pictures of the roleplaying.
"God, I am such a pervert," Hale wrote. "I waste too much time in my fantasies."
At another point, she said, "My penis exists in my head. I swear to god I'm a male."
Also in her journal, Hale expressed frustration over being "misgendered," which makes her "not want to exist."
"I'm just damn [tired] of being called [and] identified by a gender I am not," Hale said, displeased with her female figure.
"So now [because] of you, I wish death on myself cause of the pure hatred of my female gender," Hale declared.
On February 21, 2023, an irate Hale wrote, "I was called a woman, lady, and ma'am all in the same day." In capital letters, she penned, "I hate everything about my gender," adding, "everything hurts."
Later, she expressed glee over being greeted with male pronouns.
"I was actually identified as a male today and it felt right but embarrassed of my female body," Hale wrote. In uppercase letters, she exclaimed, "I should not be in this body!"
Hale recounted a clerk at a nearby store using masculine language, such as "bud, bro, and man," when talking to her. Hale described the interaction as "accurate to who I am as a guy inside."
"If only all other men [and] boys could see me that way, that my body doesn't make me a female," Hale mused.