A Nashville, Tennessee, judge ruled on Thursday night that shooter Audrey Hale's writings cannot be released to the public in a move supported by the victims' families.
On March 27, 2023, Hale entered Nashville's private The Covenant School with three firearms and shot and killed six people. The victims were three 9-year-old students and three adults. The 28-year-old Hale, who was identified by police as transgender and was once a former student at the school, was fatally shot by Metro Nashville Police Department officers.
Just before midnight on Thursday, Judge I'Ashea Myles ruled that "the original writings, journals, art, photos and videos created by Hale are subject to an exception" to the Tennessee Public Records Act, and that The Covenant School children and parents hold the copyright to Hale's writings.
The judge called Hale's reliance on similar past shootings as "a blueprint" for the attack to be "of grave concern" and noted "that the contagion and risk of copycat behavior to be real, present and credible."
Myles said "Hale used the writings of other perpetrators in similar crimes to guide how this plan was constructed and accomplished, mimicking some not only in their methodology, but also choice of weapons and targets."
The judge's decision comes after several groups, including Star News Digital Media and the Tennessee Firearms Association, as well as Tennessee State Senator Todd Gardenhire, filed public records requests for Hale's documents.
The documents, seized by Metro Nashville Police during the investigation into Hale's school shooting, include at least 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir. When the public records requests were denied due to an open investigation, the parties sued for immediate release of the documents.
Previously, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that victim's parents, the Covenant School and the affiliated Covenant Presbyterian Church can seek a court order to prevent Hale's writings from being released. The parents and the school were granted intervention and sought to keep the documents private for security reasons, to prevent additional traumatization and to avoid encouraging copycat shootings.
Over the course of the court case, several pages of the journal have been leaked and published on social media and in The Tennessee Star.
In statements released by their attorneys and obtained by the Associated Press (AP) and The Tennessean, family members applauded Judge Myles' ruling, noting that it protects them from re-traumatization and potentially prevents future shootings.
The Tennessean reported that Dr. Erin Kinney, mother of student Will Kinney, called Myles decision "an important first step to making sure the killer can't hurt our babies anymore."
"The importance is even more clear due to the leaking of stolen police documents, which has violated our parental right to protect our traumatized and grieving children from material that could destroy their lives," Kinney said. "We are more resolved than ever to fight to keep our children and everyone's children safe from this murderer."
According to the AP, the family of Cindy Peak, who was a substitute teacher at the school, said in a Friday statement: "The last year and a half without Cindy has been difficult. But today brings a measure of relief in our family. Denying the shooter some of the notoriety she sought by releasing her vile and unfiltered thoughts on the world is a result everyone should be thankful for."
Newsweek left a phone message for The Covenant School for comment on Friday. Newsweek also reached out to State Sen. Gardenhire and the Covenant Presbyterian Church for comment via email.
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Mandy Taheri is a Newsweek reporter based in Connecticut and Brooklyn. She joined Newsweek as a reporter in 2024. She ... Read more
