Nashville Police Say ‘We Know Nothing of’ Bombshell Claim Some Evidence from Covenant Killer Residence Was Excluded from Official Documentation, Secretly Turned Over to FBI
February 8, 2025 Tom Pappert
Audrey Hale
A source familiar with the investigation into the March 27, 2023, attack by Audrey Elizabeth Hale on the Covenant School told The Tennessee Star on Thursday that a Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) captain, who led the department’s search of the killer’s residence, ordered police officers not to complete the required evidence documentation form (identified as a “110 form” in the Evidence Procedures manual for the MNPD Crime Laboratory and referred to by our source as a form 110) for some of the items obtained during the search conducted on the day of the attack. According to that manual, a completed form 110 is necessary for all evidence examined by the laboratory, with exceptions only for evidence sent to Nashville from an outside law enforcement agency.
This source additionally told The Star that these items not captured by the required form 110s were carted away by the FBI, and that no chain of custody exists for the digital evidence associated with these items obtained during the search of Hale’s home.
In a brief response to a Thursday press inquiry, MNPD Public Affairs Director Don Aaron denied these claims made by the source to The Star.
Pressed for more information, Aaron told The Star on Friday that MNPD had no knowledge of the claim that officers were ordered not to complete form 110 documents during the March 23, 2023, search of the killer’s home, or that the FBI absconded with evidence without providing a clear chain of custody.
“Just to confirm, were MNPD officers ordered to not fill out a form 110 during the search?” The Star asked.
“We know nothing of this,” MNPD responded
“Did the FBI take possession of evidence without clear chain of custody?” The Star asked.
“We know nothing of this,” MNPD said again.
Aaron’s denial that the department knew of the alleged orders from an MNPD police captain comes despite the source naming the individual who purportedly delivered the orders to The Star, which is withholding the individual’s identity.
The FBI, in response to a press inquiry seeking confirmation of these claims, referred The Star to MNPD.
The Star also asked MNPD when the investigation, which began nearly two years ago, will conclude. MNPD did not provide an estimate, with Aaron initially stating, “The case file has not been finalized.”
Pressed for more details, Aaron on Friday attributed the length of the investigation to a staff change at the police department.
Aaron made the surprising statement, which appears to not have been previously reported, that the lead detective who had been in charge of the case from its inception on March 27, 2023, is no longer employed by MNPD, with Aaron then clarifying on Saturday that this officer left the police department and moved out of state in early 2024.
“To clarify after reading your article, lead Covenant detective Samuels left our department as part of a planned move to another state at the beginning of 2024. Detective Mathis assumed the lead role and worked to complete the investigation during 2024,” he told The Star.
Aaron also said the Covenant “case file is nearing finalization.”
Aaron made the surprising statement, which appears to not have been previously reported, that the lead detective who had been in charge of the case from its inception on March 27, 2023, is no longer employed by MNPD, having resigned and moved away at the end of 2024.
“As you may be aware, the lead detective in the Covenant case resigned at the end of the year and moved out of state to be closer to family. Another lead detective was assigned. He has been working extra duty to complete the case file while working other homicide cases,” said Aaron.
Since June 2024, The Star has asked MNPD about the status of its investigation at least five times, with the department repeatedly offering vague answers and no firm date for detectives to conclude their work.
This briefly changed last November, when The Star asked MNPD if it anticipated the Covenant investigation would conclude prior to the end of 2024, and Aaron replied that it was the department’s “goal” to finalize the case before the start of 2025. Aaron later told The Star the case remained ongoing.
New information about the Covenant investigation was provided to The Star after both Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy and Star News Digital Media Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, reported that the Department of Justice confirmed the FBI is considering a settlement offer to end over a year of litigation seeking the release of Hale’s full manifesto.
SNDM and Leahy offered to drop their lawsuit in exchange for the FBI dropping its objection to the release of Hale’s writings.
Both Leahy and SNDM filed state and federal lawsuits to obtain the manifesto in May 2023, seeking to force both MNPD and the FBI to release their copies of the manifesto, which is reportedly approximately 1,000 pages long and was handwritten by Hale over a decade or more.
The Star ultimately obtained a digital copy of Hale’s 2023 writings from a source familiar with the investigation last June and, after obtaining legal representation, published the manifesto in its entirety in September 2024.
In addition to the killer’s 2023 journal, The Star obtained a series of police documents from the Covenant investigation, including an FBI memo that was sent to the department within days of SNDM and Leahy filing their lawsuits.
The memo “strongly” advised MNPD not to release “legacy tokens,” which an earlier FBI document defined as any written evidence that could explain a mass killer’s actions. Instead, the agency raised the precedent for their destruction, noting that a portion of the videotapes recorded by the Columbine High School killers were destroyed to prevent a future release.
According to the FBI, the release of such documents could lead to “future attacks” from individuals who “immerse themselves in and study these materials for inspiration and tactics.”
The agency also claims the American public is ill-equipped to understand the nuances held within the writings of mass killers, writing, “Public access to legacy tokens will also facilitate false narratives and inaccurate information,” especially from “pontificators” and “self-professed experts” who “proffer their perspectives,” potentially leading to wider outrage.
When questioned about the memo last year by The Star, MNPD did not confirm receipt of the document, but Aaron acknowledged the FBI unit behind its publication “has assisted in this Homicide investigation.”
Similarly, the FBI did not confirm it sent the memo, but told The Star it regularly sends similar materials to local law enforcement. The agency later denied the existence of the memo in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, despite The Star publishing the memo.
The source also told The Star that firearms were plainly visible in the killer’s bedroom when police conducted their search. WKRN reported in June that during the March 27, 2023 search, “Inside the home, officers found two shotguns, one in a bedroom closet and another next to a desk in a bedroom.”
“Items of interest, to include a firearm, were found and collected pursuant to a search warrant,” MNPD told The Star on Friday.
In June, The Star reported that it had legally obtained an image of what appears to be an inventory list of some of the items obtained in that March 27, 2023 search of the residence Hale shared with her parents in Nashville. Item one in that list was a firearm found in location “B2,” which was Hale’s bedroom. Item 26 was a Winchester shotgun found in location “B3.”
This inventory list contains 47 items of evidence found in the shared residence, in contrast to the form 110 documents, which MNPD evidence manual indicates relate to specific pieces of evidence.
