A lengthy manifesto written by the shooter who shot and killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, will not be made public, a judge has ruled.
In her ruling, Judge Iasia Miles of the Court of Chancery explained that the copyright to the materials is currently held by the victims’ families, meaning they will control the release of the documents.
The shooter’s parents employed a copyright strategy as an unconventional way to protect the documents and circumvent Tennessee’s public records law. As part of that effort, they transferred ownership of the materials to the victim’s family.
Interest in the diary stems in part from the shooter’s gender identity: Police say the shooter, Audrey Hale, identified as a transgender man and used the pronouns “he/him.” Some have theorized that the Covenant School shooting was an intentional hate crime against Christians, and hope the diary entries will support that theory.
During the trial, the Covenant parents opposed releasing the documents, arguing they could further traumatize the family and inspire copycat crimes, according to the Associated Press.
In December 2023, Nashville police investigated the leak of the Journal pages but found nothing.
Miles ultimately agreed that the risk of copycats was a legitimate concern.
“Hale drew on the records of other perpetrators of similar crimes to guide how this plan was constructed and executed, imitating not only the methodology but also the choice of weapons and targets,” Miles wrote. “Hale elevated past perpetrators as heroes of their attacks and idolized them.”
The lawsuit will protect many of the documents Hale created, but others in the police file could be made public once the case is closed.
The Associated Press contributed.
