New pages from the Covenant mass shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale’s manifesto appear to confirm the theory that she did indeed buy the guns for her mass shooting with money from a Pell grant.
The theory about Hale, who opened fire at The Covenant School in Nashville in March of 2023 while dressed as a so-called transgender man, emerged in June of 2024 courtesy of Nashville radio show host Brian Wilson.
Wilson reported at the time that Hale “took money from an education grant she received to purchase her weapons and to pay for training at a local gun range.”
(Video Credit: SuperTalk 99.7 WTN)
A year and a half later, the FBI has released new pages from Hale’s manifesto that appear to buttress this theory.
The pages include a list of weapons to purchase, in addition to a page labeled “Account Savings Record.”
The second page contains references to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program, according to The Tennessee Star.
The second page also contains records for multiple payments that Hale had received from Nossi College of Art and Design in Nashville while she was reportedly in attendance between 2018 and 2022.
“FASFA [sic] grant checks started at $2,050.86,” Hale wrote at the top of the page.
“This reference to Hale’s federal student aid, located in the writings next to her entries about guns she considered buying, appears to corroborate the claims made” about her gun purchases, the Star notes.
So does a transcript the Star obtained of what Hale’s parents told the police when they were interviewed after the 2023 mass shooting.
They told the cops that Hale started receiving Pell grant money in 2018, which she then stored in a savings account.
“Students can continue to receive Pell grants yearly until they receive their degree or until their eligibility runs out,” the Star notes. “Pell grants can be applied to a student’s cost by the school or be given to a student directly.”
When asked how Hale had afforded the guns used during the 2023 mass shooting, her mom bluntly said, “It was the grant money.”
🚨🇺🇸 FBI RECORDS REVEAL NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTER USED FEDERAL STUDENT AID TO BUY GUNS FOR ATTACK ON CHRISTIAN SCHOOL
Your tax dollars funded a massacre.
Newly released FBI records reveal Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale used federal Pell Grant money to purchase the firearms… pic.twitter.com/Q9dWOswHJN
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 30, 2025
All this is just now coming out because of the effort made by left-wing lawmakers to keep Hale’s manifesto hidden for as long as possible.
Indeed, in April of 2023, just a month out from the shooting, Nashville City Council member Courtney Johnson told the New York Post that it was too risky to publicly release the manifesto.
“What I was told is, her manifesto was a blueprint on total destruction, and it was so, so detailed at the level of what she had planned,” Johnston told the Post after reportedly speaking with the FBI.
“That document in the wrong person’s hands would be astronomically dangerous,” she continued.
She added that “parts” of the manifesto would eventually be released, but stressed that “the vast, overwhelming majority of it” posed too much of a danger to the public.
“I personally don’t want to know the depths to which her psychosis reached … When I’m told by an MNPD high-ranking official that it keeps him up at night, I’m going to defer to that person in that agency that I don’t need to read that,” she said.
At the time, Joseph Giacalone, a former police officer who’s now an author and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argued to the Post that the public “has a right to know” what’s in the manifesto, even if it’s heavily redacted.”
That said, he believes he knows why the FBI was delaying releasing the manifesto.
“I think what the FBI is really concerned here with, and I think law enforcement, is that if there is something in there that is truly damaging for the transgender community, I think they are hesitant to do it because they are afraid of a violent backlash against that protected class of people,” Giacalone said.
Exactly.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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