Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote about drinking Bud Light around the time she published a now-deleted “suicide note” on social media, according to a journal police recovered from her vehicle.
The Tennessee Star confirmed last week it obtained about 80 pages of Hale’s writings from a source close to the Covenant investigation, including an entry that mentioned consuming alcohol less than two weeks before her devastating attack that claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adult staff members on March 27, 2023.
Hale wrote in an entry dated March 14, 2023, “I really should not drink more than (1) bud Light… It put me in a funk since Sunday.”
She concluded the note, “Damn Syd, I just want 2 hug you… (hopefully soon once I die),” in an apparent reference to her former middle school basketball teammate Sydney Sims, who tragically died following a 2022 vehicle accident.
Hale did not write an entry on Sunday, March 12, when she claimed to have been drinking, but on the previous day composed a three-page entry to her journal, titled “My Imaginary Penis,” in which she wrote about her struggles with gender identity and exploration of sexual fantasies using a “stuffed boy toy” and other stuffed animals in her bedroom.
On March 13, the day after she claimed to have consumed more than one Bud Light, Hale wrote a goodbye letter to an unnamed recipient.
“When it’s all said and done; I said my last goodbye to you today,” wrote Hale. She added, in parenthesis, “that post was not a post; it was my last suicide note,” and then in brackets, “I’ll be dead in 2 weeks!”
The killer appeared to reference a now-deleted social media post directed at Paige Averianna Patton, a former middle school teammate who Hale wrote about experiencing unrequited love for extensively in the journal.
On the day of Hale’s attack, she sent Patton a series of Instagram messages, one of which informed Patton, “So basically that post I made on here about you, that was basically a suicide note. I’m planning to die today.”
Patton is a Nashville radio personality, and Hale also expressed in her journal a desire to achieve similar celebrity by enacting the horrific attack on the Covenant School.
In her journal entry, Hale continued, “I love you but you can’t tell me that. (Although I wish you could…),” and concluded the entry, “I’m sorry innocent lives will be taken,” before signing it as Aiden.
Born a biological female, Hale identified as a transgender man at the time of her attack on the Covenant School and began using the name Aiden in some settings.
On Wednesday, The Star confirmed Hale was prescribed at least five medications, including three anti-anxiety drugs, an antidepressant, and a sodium chloride nasal spray.
The antidepressant Lexapro or Escitalopram belongs to the family of antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that Medical News Today explains doctors do not recommend combining with alcohol.
According to the website, “People who drink alcohol while taking Lexapro may feel more depressed or anxious, and these symptoms may then become more challenging to treat.”
The combination of Lexapro with alcohol can potentially lead to an increase in suicidal thoughts, according to the outlet, which noted doctors generally suggest women taking Lexapro should consume no more than one alcoholic drink per day.
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in the Tennessee lawsuit to the full release of Hale’s writings, including those previously called a manifesto, by the Metro Nashville Police Department. SNDM and Leahy are additionally plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit to compel the FBI to release Hale’s writings.
An FBI memo published by The Star last week revealed that the federal agency “strongly” advised MNPD against the release of “legacy tokens” from individuals like Hale. An FBI definition suggests such “legacy tokens” include both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits.
The FBI declined to confirm it sent the memo earlier this week in a statement to The Star, but acknowledged the agency sends such “products” to local law enforcement.
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
If there is not enough evidence already of the state of her depravity, drinking Bud Light seals the deal.
it’s not that Trans people drink Bud Light, it’s that Bud light makes you Trans.