The journal recovered by police from the vehicle driven by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale contains more than a dozen entries about Paige Averianna Patton, a Nashville-based radio personality who Hale previously befriended as a middle school student.
The Tennessee Star reported last Wednesday it obtained about 80 pages from Hale’s journal via a source close to the Covenant investigation, including a total of 18 that appear to mention Patton either by name or indirectly.
No evidence exists suggesting Patton was ever romantically linked to Hale, who was born a biological woman but identified as a transgender man at the time of her attack. There is also little to no evidence that Hale and Patton communicated regularly after they graduated high school in 2014.
Patton was first mentioned by Hale on the reverse side of the journal’s front cover, where Hale drew a heart around the initials P.A.P. and included what appears to be Patton’s birth date.
In an entry on the second and third pages of the journal, dated January 15, 2023, Hale wrote variations of the phrase, “If I ever cry all day it’s cause I need your love.”
Next to one of the sentences, Hale drew an image of a broken heart, then a second heart that again contained the initials P.A.P.
Later in the journal, in an undated entry, Hale drew a circle around the name Paige and wrote, “I yearn for you… P.A.P.”
Hale then wrote that Patton was “the most beautiful girl,” and added, “everything of me will be gone only if you remember me.”
On the next page, Hale drew a large broken heart, and in the area between the broken sides she wrote, “In all your darkest moments, in all your tears, pain and all that was against you, I wish I was there 4 you.”
The next entry that mentions Patton appears to have been written on January 16, 2023, the day before Hale previously planned her attack on the Covenant School, according to her journal.
In a letter addressed to “Paige,” Hale wrote, “I’m going to kill people tomorrow. Please don’t be mad… I’m going to do something bad tomorrow. It’s too sad to even think what you might feel… I’m so sorry I love you.”
Apparently at a later date, Hale drew lines through both instances of the word “tomorrow” and wrote “(someday)” in the margin of the page.
In a post script, Hale wrote, “I think God will enter me in heaven. If I do get there I’ll be waiting for you.”
Hale, in a second post script, wrote to Patton that her then-current hairstyle was “so similar to the one from middle school, it’s like seeing you a child again.”
An entry dated February 10, 2023 similarly contains the initials P.A.P. inside a heart, but also includes hearts around the names Britt and Nik.
“(And) f*** everybody else.” Hale wrote, “No really… I’m gonna die no matter what.”
Just a few pages later in the journal, in an entry dated February 17, Hale again wrote Patton’s initials and drew a heart around them, but added in capital letters, “You are infinite!”
“Society [and] politics are scum in this world that nature should wipe clean; oh no way you don’t compare,” Hale wrote in this entry. “Scum [versus] you – no way! It can’t compete.”
Hale then wrote, “when your name is heard, I love you,” and added, “when your face smiles the sun smiles with you, and all the earth sings your love makes the world go round.”
Patton’s initials appear again, written inside a heart, two pages later in an undated entry. Another two pages later, Hale wrote, “Paige, I love you. It all hurts.”
In an entry, dated February 26, Hale indicated she planned to attend one of Patton’s live events the next day.
“Tomorrow I will see my beautiful brown girl at the happiest she has ever been. She deserves it most!”
Hale then drew two illustrated logos featuring Patton’s professional name, Averianna The Personality. She also once again drew Patton’s initials in a heart, but added, “your light amist [sic] my darkness.”
Despite the event purportedly taking place on February 27, Hale did not write a journal entry about attending it until March 2.
“The 27th was a beautiful night, just like my brown girl. She looked so beautiful that night, I could not take my eyes off her,” wrote Hale. She continued, “It’s like my soul is bound to her spirit or something.”
Hale continued, “Call it lust or pervertedness, I know who I am attracted to, and I can’t unchange [sic] that.”
While Hale wrote that she spoke to Patton during the event, the journal entry seems to indicate the meeting was short-lived.
“I just wish I was more apart of it,” wrote Hale. She later wrote, “for the life of me I cannot help but gaze into her beauty… so when her hand layed [sic] onto me after the show, it’s being touched by an angel.”
Just three pages letter, Hale wrote another letter to Patton, this time about her parents, Ronald Hale and Norma Hale.
“Paige, aren’t parents manipulative? It’s total ignorance when parents step in to try to change [their] child’s environment, make them go to youth group [and] force Christian friends in [their] life because the old ones were a ‘bad influence,” wrote Hale.
Hale later wrote, “Parents actually believe religion can change nature. That could explain why I don’t practice religion anymore.”
At the end of this entry, Hale wrote, “I admire you, so independent, so young. Me, young too, and what I desire; to die [and] be with you.”
Hale next mentioned Patton in passing in a March 16 entry.
She noted, “another black girl who hung out at the center had the eyes [and] lips, braces similar to Paige’s physical features [and] even showed the personality similar to Paige.”
On March 17, just ten days prior to the Covenant School attack, Hale wrote, “Dear Paige, the biggest hurt of them all; I love you.”
An additional four entries in Hale’s journal do not mention Patton by name but appear to describe her or be directed to her.
In an undated entry near the beginning of the journal, Hale wrote, “Audrey is not my name but when you say it I am just as the little I was back then. I can be a kid again with you, alongside you, even if I can’t really be [with] you.”
Hale signed this entry Aiden, the name she used when she began identifying as a transgender man, but then wrote the name Audrey in parenthesis.
In another undated entry, Hale wrote to an unnamed person, “You give the best hugs. But a strong hug of yours would take a strong connection. Something I am unable to give.”
On the next page, Hale wrote an entry titled “Longing” about an individual that could be Patton.
“Seeing you dance, love on your friends, even as a stranger. I saw the child I used to know again.” Hale wrote, “the child that knew how to smile, to be funny, to pour out your soul into what you love, who you love the most.”
The final possible reference to Patton came on the reverse side of the journal’s back cover.
After covering the page in a combination of red and black, Hale drew what appears to be an envelope titled “Torn Apart.” It is addressed to “my (2) loves.”
Both Patton and Hale attended Isaiah T. Creswell Middle School in Nashville, and Patton was previously identified as the former basketball teammate of Hale who received multiple messages from the killer less than 20 minutes before Hale claimed the lives of three 9-year-old children and three staff members in her attack at the Covenant School.
Patton later released the messages to the New York Post, revealing Hale claimed a now-deleted post to social media was “a suicide note,” and told her former teammate, “I’m planning to die today.” Hale informed Patton, “You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die.”
Hale rebuffed Patton after she was urged to reconsider, but told her former classmate, “I wanted to tell you first because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and known all my life.”
After receiving the message, Patton quickly called the police in a 911 call that has since been released, but The Daily Mail reported that law enforcement was already responding to Hale’s attack on the Covenant School by time the call was placed.
The Star attempted to contact Patton to discuss her interactions with Hale but did not receive a response prior to press time.
Hale, in addition to Patton, was also reportedly infatuated with Sydney Sims, another former classmate and teammate who died suddenly following a vehicle accident in 2022.
Near the beginning of the journal, Hale wrote, “I know Sydney is waiting for me. My time is coming soon to leave this realm behind – all my pain,” and added, “no more wounds to heal, because we will become whole.”
In a February 7 entry, Hale wrote, “I can’t be consistent [with] anything since I left school. And since Syd died – all my efforts feel meaningless cause I don’t work enough, don’t make enough, don’t do enough.”
Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy are both plaintiffs in lawsuits seeking to compel the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI to release the complete writings left by Hale, including those previously called a manifesto.
Last week, The Star published an FBI memo addressed to MNPD Chief John Drake which “strongly” urged him against releasing “legacy tokens” left by people like Hale.
An FBI definition suggests both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits are likely considered “legacy tokens” by the federal agency.
– – –
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].
Photo “Audrey Elizabeth Hale” by Nossi School of Fine Art. Background Photo “Averianna the Personality” by Averianna the Personality.
I have not read your article – only scanned down to find a way to leave this for you. Having had a family member murdered several years ago in a very different scenario, I can honestly say that the intrusion of the press and from people who just wanted salacious details caused me and my family terrible pain. I am horrified for the victims’ families that you continue to pursue publishing this material, using the public’s right to know as an excuse. You have no idea how much pain you’re causing these families.
Concerning the FBI, what the heck is a “legacy token”?