Aaron Gulbransen, executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, discussed The Star releasing 90 pages of writings left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale on Tuesday, both agreeing that the case is an example of how the mental health system is “destroying children.”
On Tuesday morning, The Star published all 90 pages of the journal written between January and March of 2023 by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the 28-year-old biological woman who self-identified as a transgender man and who, on March 27, 2023, murdered three 9-year-old students and three staff members at the Covenant School in Nashville before being subsequently killed by officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD).
The pages released by The Star, which were legally obtained, are part of the journal obtained by MNPD in Hale’s vehicle on the day of the March 27 shooting.
On Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, approximately one hour after the journal was published, Gulbransen said he believed The Star’s publishing of the pages was “in the interest of public policy.”
Leahy agreed, saying, “It’s in the public interest to see this information.”
“There are groups that believe that somehow there would be harm to the children if these documents were released. That is just not a correct claim at all. This will be helpful to the public and to the Tennessee General Assembly and to the Congress of the United States in forming policies and laws that can stop this sort of heinous crime from happening again in the future. That’s the whole point,” Leahy added.
Gulbransen went on to explain how The Star’s publication of the journal has led to multiple rumors surrounding Hale’s case being squashed, including one that circulated that the former Covenant School student targeted the school due to an incident that may have happened to her at the school in her youth.
“I think it is very important to bring this up on the air because the families and anybody, really, related to the Covenant School have had to endure that speculation for a prolonged period of time because this wasn’t released. And it’s compassionate. Not only is it important to have the truth out there, but it’s also compassionate to those people to actually be able to put that speculation to bed,” Gulbransen said.
Leahy also pointed out how the details of Hale’s case, as laid out in the journal, have refuted the argument following the March 27 shooting that the crime was a “gun control” issue.
“This is where they’re so off point…Gun control would have absolutely nothing to do with stopping these sorts of crime in the future. It’s a mental health system failure,” Leahy explained.
Leahy said the journal had proven Hale’s case, and others similar in nature, to be the result of a failed system for children and adults with mental illnesses.
“It’s not just mental health failures. It’s the way that we’ve failed our children who have psychiatric problems, emotional problems. And then, as was the case with Audrey Elizabeth Hale, they are given all these powerful drugs. We’ve documented that previously. This is what the problem is. This is the mental health system that is really destroying children. And that’s what needs to be fixed. And it’s not just children, but others as well,” Leahy said.
“If you look at this, honestly, this information is in the public interest and it needs to be out there so that policymakers can understand how difficult the failures of the mental health system are in the U.S. and here in Nashville,” Leahy added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
