Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, said the Metro Nashville Police Department’s (MNPD) 48-page report, which concluded that the Covenant School attack committed on March 27, 2023, by 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, was fueled by the killer’s desire for notoriety appears to be “whitewashed.”
On Wednesday, MNPD announced the conclusion of its more than two-year investigation into the attack by releasing the report, which ultimately concluded that Hale, despite identifying as a transgender man before killing six at the Christian school she once attended, carried out the pre-planned attack based on her desire for “notoriety.”
On page 37 of the report, MNPD writes:
In short, the motive determined over the course of the investigation was notoriety…Hale longed for her name and actions to be remembered long after she was dead. She wanted absolute control of the narrative surrounding the attack, particularly her motives.
While MNPD did not use the word “transgender” in its report to describe Hale, the department acknowledged Hale’s “gender identified as male and used he/him as preferred pronouns” prior to her death.
Leahy, who, along with Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, are plaintiffs in two separate cases seeking to compel MNPD and the FBI to release Hale’s full writings seized by law enforcement after the attack, said MNPD’s failure to consider how Hale’s identification as a transgender male was a contributing part of her motive appears to be “whitewashed.”
“I don’t see the term transgender here at all or any reference to how her identification as a transgender male was a contributing part of the motive here,” Leahy said while reviewing the 48-page report during Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“They just said the motive was notoriety. That looks to me like a bit of a whitewash,” Leahy added.
Leahy continued, noting how The Star’s extensive reporting on the exclusively and legally obtained killer’s 2023 journal leading up to the attack provided that Hale’s transgender ideology was clearly a “key element” that drove her psychologically.
“As we know, because we legally obtained about 90 pages of her journal that she wrote from January 1st until March 27th, the day of her death and the day in which she killed six innocent Tennesseans, that the transgender ideology and her focus on her transgender nature was a key element in everything that drove her psychologically,” Leahy said.
“How can you write a 48-page report about a self-identified transgender male whose writings that we’ve seen all indicate anger around the issue of transgenderism and her desire to be fully transgender? How can they issue a report and not mention the word transgender? That is one of the fatal flaws I think of this report,” Leahy added.
Tune in now to the Tennessee Bonus Hour on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show – your AMERICA FIRST news talk
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
