Nearly a year after a trans-identifying woman entered a Nashville Christian school and murdered three adults and three children, a federal judge in Tennessee has ordered the FBI to release the shooter’s manifesto, which has been kept from the public since authorities recovered writings from her car and home.
Shortly after authorities said they recovered the shooter’s diary and manifesto, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) denied requests from The Daily Wire and others for a copy of the writings, replying, “The investigation is still an open case. … Once the case is closed, please re-request at a later date.” Conservative newspaper The Tennessee Star then sued the MNPD and the FBI after its public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act were denied.
The FBI attempted to get the Star’s complaint dismissed, but Judge Aleta Trauger of the Middle District of Tennessee said late last week that there is “significant public interest” in the “materials” and “law enforcement objectives” in the case, and the bureau did not support its position “with sufficient clarity or detail,” Fox News reported.
“The FBI is ORDERED to produce ex parte all documents that are potentially responsive to the defendants’ Freedom of Information Act request for in camera review, with the exception that, based on the plaintiffs’ concessions in this litigation, the FBI need not produce any documents that could not reasonably be construed to bear on (the shooter’s) motives,” the judge wrote.
The 28-year-old shooter, a woman who identified as a man in the months leading up to the shooting, entered The Covenant School on March 27, 2023, gunning down three adults, including the head of the school, and three 9-year-old children in what authorities described as a “targeted attack.” Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9; Cynthia Peak, age 61; Katherine Koonce, age 60; and Mike Hill, age 61, were killed before MNPD officers took out the shooter.
Local authorities, along with the FBI, searched the home of the female shooter shortly after the killings, where they found “a manifesto” along with maps of the school drawn in detail that included points of entry. After the search, MNPD Chief John Drake said authorities have a theory on the shooter’s motive, but they were not ready to share it. Nearly a year later, neither the MNPD nor the FBI has provided any more information on a motive.
A Nashville judge has also allowed parents of The Covenant School students to intervene in the open records requests. The parents say that releasing the manifesto would only cause more trauma for the victims and their families.
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In November, conservative podcaster Steven Crowder obtained and revealed three pages of the shooter’s writings, which show the shooter decried “white privilege.”
“Kill those kids!!! Those crackers going to private fancy schools with those fancy khakis + sports backpacks w/ their daddies mustangs + convertables [sic],” the 28-year-old female shooter wrote in a diary entry dated February 3.
“I wish to shoot you weakass d—ks w/ your mop yellow hair, wanna kill all you little crackers! Bunch of little f—gots w/ your white privileges,” she wrote.