The Tennessee Star has obtained the suicide note left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale to her parents before her devastating March 27, 2023 attack that claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adults.
Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) investigators found the note posted to Hale’s bedroom wall, which The Star has learned was adorned with childhood memorabilia and photos.
Addressed to her parents, Hale also mentioned her brother Scott in the two-paragraph note.
“If I don’t survive my massacre, I want my room to be left exactly as it is left,” Hale began her note. She instructed her mother and father, “I don’t want any of my possessions down in that dingy basement.”
In all capital letters, Hale continued, “Please read my will,” where she explained her parents would find instructions “about what to do [with] my stuffed animals [and] possessions.”
While Hale did not offer details about her planned attack in the suicide note, she signified concern about repercussions for her surviving family members.
“I’m worried what you [and] Scott will have to go through,” wrote Hale.
She concluded the note, “I’m sorry, but it is my time to go… I love you, Aiden.”
Hale was born a biological woman but identified as a transgender man at the time of her death. She adopted the name Aiden when she began identifying as transgender.
The existence of the suicide note was confirmed on April 4, 2023, when an inventory of items seized from the search warrant on the Hale family home was published.
The Star last Wednesday confirmed it obtained about 80 pages of Hale’s writings that police retrieved from her vehicle after the attack. Since then, The Star has published more than a dozen articles with excerpts of Hale’s own writings.
Among Hale’s writings are journal entries that suggest she previously planned her attack in January 2023, planned the attack for at least five years, fantasized about and reportedly planned to kill her father, and repeatedly called a phone number identified as the National Suicide Prevention Helpline.
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy, are plaintiffs in lawsuits which seek to compel the FBI and the MNPD to release Hale’s full writings, including those some call a manifesto.
Last week, The Star published an FBI memo sent to MNPD John Drake in May 2023. The memo warned Drake against the release of “legacy tokens” from individuals like Hale, and an FBI definition of “legacy tokens” suggests the federal agency is opposed to the release of both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits.
The Star has additionally confirmed Hale was treated by mental health professionals at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for nearly 22 years, with VUMC taking Hale as a patient in 2001, when she was just six-years-old.
Communication professionals at VUMC and its Program for LGBTQ Health have remained silent on whether Hale expressed an interest in gender affirming health or whether they provided such care prior to her attack.
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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].
Image “Audrey Elizabeth Hale” by Nossi College of Art and Design and “Covenant Shooting” by Metro Nashville Police Department.
