The following is reprinted with permission from friend Shannon Ashley’s wonderful SubStack publication, The Truth Hurts. Please consider supporting Shannon, a single mother who is struggling with a variety of health challenges. She is a dear and loyal friend.
Apropos Phil Williams and his claim that Angie Solomon is “crazy,” a mother who has lost her son deserves better than this ugly rhetoric.
As for Williams’ claim that he does not believe Grant Solomon was murdered, the word “crazy” comes to mind, especially in light of William’s assertion that he is an “investigative reporter.”
TLD:: It is not physically possible that Grant was dragged by his vehicle 60 feet over a paved parking lot to his death, yet suffered no scrapes or road rash. Moreover, Aaron’s ever-shifting story, his lies at Grant’s funeral (including his fabrication that he and Grant played baseball every week), all suggest culpability.
As to Williams’ claim that there is no evidence that Grant was murdered, the opposite is true. There is ZERO evidence that Grant’s death was an accident.
Gaslight much, Phil?
As for his efforts to lump Angie, this publication, and others in with MAGA extremists, nothing could be further from the truth. While all are welcome on this publication, and we are not a political outlet, we make clear to all that our biases are decidedly liberal, inclusive, and anti-authoritarian.
So Williams’ ugly smear campaigns raise additional questions about his personal and professional integrity and his motivations.
Finally, we find it highly improbable that he does not know Aaron Solomon, a narcissistic chucklehead whose immediate gut reaction is to cozy up to anyone whom he believes could benefit him.
We’ll leave it at that.
###
For at least eight years, News Channel 5’s chief investigative reporter Phil Williams never spoke on the record about the numerous abuse allegations against former Nashville news anchor Aaron Solomon. First, Phil was silent on the allegations of sexual abuse made by Aaron’s daughter Gracie. Then, Phil kept his lips sealed about the many failures of Grace Chapel and Grace Christian Academy staff to report or take many incidents of abuse seriously.
Finally, Phil kept silent amidst eager questioning from viewers who hoped he would finally cover Grant Solomon’s bizarre death.
Behind closed doors, however, multiple colleagues and media personalities claimed that when they asked him about the allegations against Aaron, Phil brushed them off by saying, “Angie is crazy.”
Well… “Angie is crazy” was always Aaron’s line. Every time Angie and their children tried to get away from the abuse they’d endured for years, Aaron denied any wrongdoing, claiming his “crazy” ex-wife was lying.
That accusation meant that Angie, a doctor of pharmacy, was subjected to repeated psychological evaluations and years of separation from her children. Yet every time, those evaluations came back with the same conclusion—Angie wasn’t crazy. Angie was a fit mother.
Instead, the psychologists and psychiatrists all expressed concerns about Aaron’smental health and behavior. Funny, the courts never required a psychiatric evaluation on him, although they did frequently side with Aaron’s baseless accusation.
You might think that’s newsworthy, right? A former news anchor is accused of child sexual abuse and murder, and the court ignored all red flags, including the very experts who feared for his children’s welfare?
Do Nashville residents really want their news anchors to live above the law without so much as a single story acknowledging such events?
Despite frequent requests from viewers, despite Grant and Gracie’s tragic story repeatedly going viral online, despite talk of a media coverup, and even threats made by Aaron and the church against anyone who talked about it, Phil said nothing.
Phil waited four years after Grant’s death to speak publicly about the allegations against Aaron, and when he finally did, it was to dismiss them as an “unhinged” conspiracy theory on social media.
You might recall how two months ago, I shared that Phil finally replied to some of my questions about his silence on Grant and Gracie Solomon. His replies were dismissive and disappointing, although he describes himself as one who “speaks truth to power.”
Ultimately, Phil denied knowing Aaron Solomon beyond saying hello at awards ceremonies, and then he denied having met Molly Secours or Ruth Bashinksy, who have both claimed Phil told them “Angie is crazy” when they asked about Aaron Solomon.
When I asked (politely!) what I had gotten wrong, and told Phil I would happily correct any of my misinformed statements, he blocked me on social media and would not respond to further questions.
For the past two months, I figured that was the end of that. Phil wasn’t going to talk, and I had no idea why. Yes, there have been rumors that he and Aaron had a previous relationship, but I never accused him of that. Instead, I have only asked him about the silence regarding Gracie’s story and Grant’s unusual death, and how they have intersected with OTHER cases he’s covered.
Guess what, friends. Yesterday, I learned that Phil has once again dismissed allegations against Aaron Solomon online.
This time, Phil made a few brief replies to Melanie Hicks, a longtime devoted friend and advocate for Gracie who accompanied Angie to meet with Aaron and Sam Johnson at Ward Performance Institute. Melanie has repeatedly beseeched Governor Bill Lee to look into Grant’s death.
Take a look at their brief exchange.
Melanie: Phil there are 337k signatures from citizens demanding answers to Grant Solomon’s murder. Why have you have not covered this? The public believes Aaron Solomon might be the no. one suspect. Isn’t Aaron your ex colleague? Is Grant’s murder connected to this pedophilia cover up?
Phil: I never worked with Aaron, not sure that I ever met him. And, no, I do not think Grant was murdered.
Melanie: Only witness A. Solomon said Grant was run over. Grant did not have a scratch on him. Just one injury,blunt force trauma. Story doesn’t match the body. Will you meet to see evidence? The attorney General Staff did. This is a big case and reflects your integrity as a journalist.
Phil: What you say is just not true.
Melanie: Phil I know you have an incredible record. But I plead with you t[o] be careful here. My information is true and based off official evidence documents. I don’t know where you’re getting your information from but I would do your own homework. Would you be willing to meet next week[?]
Not surprisingly, Phil has yet to respond to Melanie or anyone else’s questions about what he believes she (or we) got wrong.
When another woman asked about “Grant’s murder,” Phil replied, “There is ZERO evidence that Grant was murdered.”
Phil Williams insists he only deals with facts, yet the fact is that Grant’s death received a 44-min investigation at the incident scene with largely blank or error-filled paperwork. Aaron, the sole witness according to police, changed his story about that day multiple times, and investigators never followed up on those inconsistencies.
There was no autopsy, no toxicology report, and Grant lacked the typical abrasions, burns, or wounds of a dragging victim across gravel and grass. Even the medical death investigation was incomplete, and Grant’s only real injury was blunt force trauma to the back of his head.
Worse yet, there were existing allegations of abuse, an open DCS case after the children ran away from Aaron’s care, and a reasonable motive for the crime. These are not crazy rantings coming out of left field, but legitimate concerns based on real evidence and official documents. Aaron had also been substantiated as the perpetrator of his daughter’s sexual abuse, and he has not succeeded in overturning that finding.
The sheer number of inconsistencies from Aaron’s side is shocking, from his conflicting versions of the morning Grant died to his claim that the truck had to be totaled. His behavior on the 911 call, at the hospital, and his sneaky purchase of the family burial plots for him, his children, and his supposedly “crazy” ex-wife? It is all very suspect.
And terribly under-reported by the Nashville news media.
I am grateful that Ruth Bashinksy at the Daily Mail has been covering the story, so I’m deeply curious why Phil Williams would claim he never “met” her. And I’m curious why he’s now saying he doesn’t know that he’s ever met Aaron.
Is Phil Williams just playing games with his words?
He told me he’s never “met” Ruth Bashinksy when I asked why he called Angie crazy, but failed to mention if he denies ever taking Ruth’s call.
While he previously claimed to have only said hello to Aaron in passing at awards ceremonies, is Phil now denying that two months later by saying he doesn’t know if he even met Aaron? Or does he mean they never “officially” met?
What bothers me about all of this is how manipulative and deceitful it feels. It was bad enough when Phil kept silent as viewers begged him to take the case.
Now, however, it seems that Phil Williams is actively manipulating public opinion by ONLY making his glib replies when prompted on stories that generate ridicule of far right conspiracy theories.
It’s not like last fall when Phil covered Gabrielle Hanson and I told him the corruption in Franklin goes much deeper than the former Alderman and her far-right buddies.
He completely ignored the connections when Hanson and her people were harassing Grant and Gracie supporter Peggy Kingsbury, while the Franklin police were arresting fellow supporter George Brewer for calling out Amy Curle’s failure to report Gracie’s sexual abuse and fear of her father.
To date, Phil only speaks publicly about Aaron Solomon to dismiss the allegations by lumping Gracie and Grant’s story together with far right “nutjobs.”
He also only makes such replies when addressing allegations again HIM and News Channel 5, like covering up stories of child trafficking.
To my knowledge, Phil has never answered questions about Gracie’s (now-substantiated) abuse. He hasn’t answered questions about Aaron’s longtime involvement as a proud board member of the supposedly anti-child sexual abuse organization Our Kids. Is that not all newsworthy?
Even if we set all of the questions and suspicious details of Grant’s death aside, there is still so much more to this story. Grant left behind a sister he was determined to protect from a monstrous and abusive father.
Gracie has already gone through hell with adults protecting her abuser, and nobody at News Channel 5 has ever given her the time of day.
Doesn’t Gracie deserve justice?
How do you think she feels seeing Phil’s flippant and dismissive remarks about her brother’s death on social media threads that debate child sexual abuse cover ups? How is she supposed to feel when Nashville’s “truth to power” investigative reporter is using her family’s pain as a point of ridicule? Or suggests that she and her mother are crazy liars?
That’s what he’s doing by handling questions like this.
It feels as if Phil simply saw an opportunity this summer to write off Gracie and Grant as some whackadoo punchline. As soon as he saw an opportunity to suggest that Freedom for Gracie/Justice For Grant belongs in the “crazy” pile, that’s exactly where he put it. And since so many liberal minds around Nashville trust Phil, they believe him when he says we’re unhinged.
After all, why would Phil Williams lie and protect a man like Aaron Solomon?
That’s precisely what I’d like to know.
Leave a Reply