In March 2024, just before the one-year anniversary of the Covenant School shooting, a woman left a voicemail for Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville.
She mentioned terrorist attacks and quoted a violent movie. Then said the school would “know exactly what [she was] talking about.”
This was part of a pattern. She had been posting about the school and church on social media for months…sometimes daily. She filmed herself walking the CPA campus, trying locked doors, taking photos of campus maps, and talking about watching the school “burn on 9/11.”
After the voicemail, the school shut down for the day. They reviewed surveillance footage and online posts. They saw the pattern and they called law enforcement.
Deputies found her and sent her for mental health treatment. She agreed to stop, but she didn’t. She was back online the day she got out of the hospital, still posting about the school and church.
She kept going for weeks.
Now, she’s been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.
This is a warning case
She never fired a shot. But she showed fixation, surveillance, and escalation. She ignored law enforcement. She ignored warnings.
CPA had to spend over $140,000 to increase security. That includes staff protection, building upgrades, and trauma response.
Some think this is just a digital threat, but it’s not. It’s a mix of online stalking and in-person actions that looked like attack planning.
Three takeaways for schools and churches:
- Watch for patterns, not just posts. One message might not trigger action. A pattern of behavior should.
- Don’t wait for violence to take threats seriously. This school shut down, called law enforcement, and documented what they saw. That helped build a solid case.
- Fixation is a major warning sign. When someone obsessively targets a school or church, that’s not random. It’s a threat behavior.
Want help reviewing your security posture or threat protocols? Contact us. We’ve helped schools and churches handle real threats like this.
