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    • Tennessee Star publishes diary of Nashville Covenant School shooter
    Duluth

    Tennessee Star publishes diary of Nashville Covenant School shooter

    Eira Gwyneth Posted on

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    A conservative news outlet has published 90 pages of a diary said to belong to the gunman who killed six people, including three children, at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023.

    The shooting left 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs dead, as well as principal Katherine Koonce, janitor Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak.

    Metro Nashville Police have not commented on the leak of the recordings. The Tennessean has not independently verified their authenticity.

    The images of the diary, published by The Tennessee Star, contain entries from mid-January 2023 to the day of the shooting. The content is disjointed and does not provide a motive for the shooting or the choice of Covenant School as the location. The author makes multiple references to her mental health and her struggle with her gender identity. The media outlet said it received the diary in June 2024.

    The Tennessee Star and its editor-in-chief Michael Leahy are among a group of plaintiffs seeking access to several police records related to the mass shooting, including documents found in the shooter’s car and home. The media company has appealed Davidson County Clerk I’Ashea Myles’ decision not to order police to release the requested records at this time. The case is pending in the Tennessee State Court of Appeals.

    A group of more than 100 Covenant School families joined the case to prevent the release of the shooter’s diaries and other records. The families wrote in a brief that they wanted to protect the children who survived the shooting from abuse, harassment and intimidation, and that releasing the records could inspire another shooter.

    At a hearing in April, attorney Eric Osborne, representing the families, read a statement from a parent whose child was killed in the shooting. “May we deny her any victory in death. May her name, her face, her writings be erased from history,” Osborne read.

    Following Myles’ ruling in favor of the families, the families of the six victims reacted with gratitude. Dr. Erin Kinney, Will Kinney’s mother, wrote that an earlier leak of recordings of the shooting “violated our parental right to protect our traumatized and grieving children from material that could destroy their lives.”

    Judge Myles had previously threatened the Tennessee Star with sanctions. After the outlet published articles containing leaked documents in June, Myles ordered Leahy to appear in court and explain why he should not be held in contempt of court and subject to sanctions. However, the judge withdrew his threat at the hearing.

    In the vast majority of cases, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects journalists from criminal prosecution for publishing leaked information, including classified information.

    In November, a conservative media personality published three pages from the shooter’s diaries that had been leaked to him. The MNPD did not disclose the source of the leak.

    The Tennessean is one of the parties that sued seeking records related to the shooting. It has not appealed Myles’ decision.

    In seeking the documents, The Tennessean stated its interest in “uncovering additional facts about this incident, societal and mental health issues, and firearms-related issues more broadly that have not previously come to light through other means,” the newspaper’s complaint states.

    The records requested by The Tennessean include documents in the shooter’s possession before his death, including those in the shooter’s car and home; all police reports on the shooter in the MNPD’s possession; all 911 calls to Covenant School and the shooter’s home from the past five years; and MNPD dispatch reports to the shooter’s home on March 27.

    The Tennessean does not plan to publish the shooter’s writings verbatim and has tried to focus its reporting on public policy, victims and the community.

    Evan Mealins is a justice reporter for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter. @EvanMeAlens.

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    Eira Gwyneth
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