Retired Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) Lt. Garet Davidson told Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, that Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the Covenant School killer, received treatment from the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, where professionals failed to report her violent fantasies to law enforcement. Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital is a part of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center system.
Davidson left MNPD after 13 years and recently filed a 61-page complaint against the department, revealing that the FBI had told MNPD not to release documents from the Covenant School investigation.
During Tuesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Davidson said Hale was “forced committed” to receive treatment from the hospital by the psychologist recently identified by The Star, who closed her practice just 87 days before Hale committed the horrific shooting that claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three Covenant faculty members.
“It appeared, at least detectives believed, that information from that therapist had been sent over to [Vanderbilt] Psych as part of the treatment and that over there, they had specific notes in house regarding specific things she was thinking about,” Davidson said.
“As far as I know, [Vanderbilt Psych] did not report out. So, whether it was from the therapist to [Vanderbilt Psych] or [Vanderbilt Psych] in house obtained that information from the shooter, as far as her ideation and stuff, I don’t believe they reported out. To my knowledge, they didn’t,” Davidson added.
Davidson, who said in an earlier segment on Tuesday’s show that while he was not involved in the criminal investigation into the shooting in his official capacity as a lieutenant, there was a leak of the shooter’s manifesto within MNPD after he had retired from the department which allowed him to view excerpts of the manifesto, totaling approximately “a few dozen pages.”
From those documents he viewed, Davidson said, “My impression from what I was seeing in some documents is that the therapist had actually made a forced committal to them to get treatment [for Hale].”
Davidson went on to note that if Vanderbilt had reported Hale’s violent fantasies – which included murdering her parents and carrying out a school shooting – to law enforcement, then Hale’s firearms may have been seized and the horrendous March 27 shooting may have never taken place.
“I assume [Vanderbilt Psych] attempted to render mental health treatment, psychological treatment, but as far as I know, I don’t think they reported out and said that there were specific ideations with a plan and they didn’t notify the police. That’s where I think the public would want to know, if they had done that, and then had detectives received that information, looked and saw that she had obtained firearms or might’ve possessed them, had a reason to believe that, and then conducted a search warrant, it’s reasonable to believe, now we have the benefit of hindsight, that maybe these firearms could have been seized,” Davidson said.
Davidson also revealed that Vanderbilt Psych was subpoenaed to submit records relating to Hale; however, he was unsure whether or not the hospital had complied and submitted the requested documents.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
