Has the long-buried “manifesto” of the Nashville transgender mass murderer finally leaked? More than seven months after the massacre of six people inside The Covenant School, which resulted in the death of perpetrator Audrey Hale, the evidence has yet to be officially released for public view. Only hints of the contents of Hale’s writings have emerged, none with any more specificity than in the days after the shooting:

“The ongoing investigation into the March 27 murders of six persons inside The Covenant School continues to show, from all information currently available, that killer Audrey Hale acted totally alone. In the collective writings by Hale found in her vehicle in the school parking lot, and others later found in the bedroom of her home, she documented, in journals, her planning over a period of months to commit mass murder at The Covenant School,” the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) said in an update on Monday.

The update noted that the writings by Hale remain under investigation by officials with the MNPD and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). However, Hale’s motive currently remains unknown, but the update added that “it is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers.”

Seven months later, police and the Department of Justice still refuse to release the manifesto. Now, however, Steven Crowder has published pictures purportedly of three pages of the diary provided to him by an unnamed source. Click over to see the pictures, or simply read them from Steven’s tweet:

🚨 BREAKING: Nashville School Covenant Shooter Audrey Hale’s “DEATH DAY” Manifesto Targeted “Cr*ckers” with “white privlages”

“wanna kill all you little cr*ckers”

“I hope I have a high death count”

"I'm ready…I hope my victims aren't."

"Ready to die."#NashvilleManifesto pic.twitter.com/89Ie6TlgRf

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 6, 2023

At his LWC website, Steven provides a few more pulls from the text:

• Hale: “going to fancy private schools with those fancy khakis + sports backpacks w/ their daddies mustangs + convertibles.”
• Hale: “Wanna kill all you little crackers!!! Bunch of little faggots w/ your white privileges”
• Hale: There were several times I could have been caught especially b—ack in the summer of 2021.
• Hale: “It might be 10 minutes tops. It might be 3-7. Its gunna go quick.”

In one picture, Hale allegedly muses:

My only fear is if anything goes wrong. I’ll do my best to prevent [garbled] of the sort. (God let my wrath take over my anxiety.) It might be 10 minutes tops. It might be 3-7. Its gunna go quick.

The next picture shows a meticulous “DEATH DAY” schedule. The phrase ‘Time 2 die” is circled at the bottom, either celebrating the deaths she would cause or indicating that Hale knew how it would likely end for her — or possibly both. Steven transcribes that page at the end of his post at LWC if it can’t be easily read in the picture.

The question then becomes whether these are pictures of the authentic “manifesto.” It matches up generally with what law enforcement has said about it — that it showed detailed planning, but that it didn’t really have any political message other than psychopathic rage. Steven insists that the pictures are genuine, and for the moment, the Nashville police are refusing to say one way or the other:

Nashville PD spokeswoman just refused to confirm to me whether this was the legit manifesto. https://t.co/Yja6cWfVCo

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) November 6, 2023

That … doesn’t sound like a denial to me. In fairness, the PIO may not have gotten enough time on a Monday morning to check in with detectives to see whether this is legit or not, so it’s best to refrain from reaching conclusions in the moment. If the Nashville PD and the DoJ are still singing this same tune tomorrow, well, that will speak volumes.

If this is legit, though, it points up again the strange decision to keep the manifesto under wraps at all. If the perp survived, it might make some sense to keep it sealed until trial, but Hale died the same day she massacred kids and adults at Covenant School. There was no jury pool to taint with a public release of the manifesto. Assuming these three pages are the worst of the diary, they don’t implicate anyone else, nor do they promote any particular cause. Had they released it immediately, the information would have doused the curiosity over the perp’s sick mental musings quickly and no one would even speak her name at this point.

Plus, the decision to hide this particular manifesto looked political in and of itself, granting some absurd privacy on the basis of the perp’s ‘identity,’ which also seems to have been her motive in conducting the massacre. Would the DoJ or Nashville PD have sealed the manifesto of a dead white-supremacist murderer? We hope never to have to find the answer to that question of course, but it certainly seems doubtful. And if this is legit and the worst of Hale’s rantings, all the secrecy did was just make it appear much worse than it actually was in terms of political motivation.

We should know soon enough whether Steven’s source got this right. If so, then this would be a very good time for law enforcement at the state and federal levels to release the full diary and stop playing around for the benefit of a dead mass murderer.

Update: Nashville PD issued a very strange statement about the pictures posted by Crowder:

pic.twitter.com/lvHdiAe08f

— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) November 6, 2023

No one said they were “crime scene photos,” though. Are they pictures of Hale’s diary? The fact that they won’t say — and that they’re contacting counselors — strongly suggests that they are the genuine article. The local Fox station has also corroborated Steven’s pictures, as has the official reaction:

In a statement release, Mayor O’Connell says “I have directed Wally Dietz, Metro’s Law Director, to initiate an investigation into how these images could have been released. That investigation may involve local, state, and federal authorities. I am deeply concerned with the safety, security, and well-being of the Covenant families and all Nashvillians who are grieving. This incident naturally invokes additional emotional trauma, and families or individuals who need support should reach out to professionals at National Alliance on Mental Illness (615-891-4724), MNPD support counselors (615-862-7773) or MNPS Family Information Center (615-259-INFO).”

Dietz followed O’Connell’s statement confirming a full investigation. “At this time we have limited information about this possible leak of documents related to the tragic shooting at Covenant School. I cannot confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents due to the existing lawsuit,” Dietz stated. “At the request of the Mayor, I am initiating a full investigation with multiple law enforcement agencies to determine exactly what happened.”

If they weren’t legit, the police would have said that explicitly rather than issue a bunch of diversionary statements as a response to a direct question.