Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote entries in her journal about her social isolation about one month before her devastating attack on March 27, 2023.
The Star confirmed last week it obtained about 80 pages of Hale’s writings from a journal police recovered from her vehicle at the Covenant School from a source familiar with the investigation.
Hale wrote in an entry dated February 20, 2023, “F*** getting old; all that BS… it’s infamous to die young! Dying young is my destiny,” before adding the infinity symbol.
On the same page, an undated entry from Hale appears to have been written using a different pen, potentially indicating it was written on a later date than the previous entry labeled February 20.
“I make no impact,” wrote Hale, “all my success was overcoming my darkness.” She later added, “I know myself / no one knew, no one knows me; this life; reality.”
On the next line, Hale wrote, “College was the only ‘normal’ to achieve,” then added in capital letters, “my death will mean nothing.”
Despite graduating from high school in 2014, it took Hale until 2022 to obtain her degree from the Nossi College of Art and Design. In the entry, Hale then included four lines about her apparent social isolation. Hale repeatedly claimed in the journal to have been diagnosed with autism.
“I am of no society. And I hate society [because] society ignores to see me.” Hale concluded the entry, “I’m a queer; I am meant to die,” and signed the entry Aiden.
Born a biological female, Hale identified as a transgender male and began occasionally using the name Aiden for an unknown period prior to her attack. Hale claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adult staff members at the Covenant School on March 27 before she was fatally shot by police.
Hale also wrote about her desire to gain notoriety with her death in an entry that compared her life to Paige Averianna Patton, a Nashville radio personality who attended middle school with Hale and played together with the killer on the school basketball team.
“She will live a legend and I will die a shooter – hopefully to become infamous. No one will forget neither of us,” Hale wrote. She concluded the entry by declaring Patton “will be the blessing, and I will be the horror to inflict pain” on the world.
Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in lawsuits that seek to compel the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI to release Hale’s full writings, including those some call a manifesto.
Last week, The Star published an FBI memo sent to MNPD Chief John Drake in May 2023, just after Leahy and Star News Digital Media, Inc. filed their lawsuits, which “strongly” discouraged MNPD from releasing “legacy tokens” left by Hale.
An FBI definition published in 2018 suggests all of Hale’s writings, including those obtained by The Star and sought in the lawsuits, are “legacy tokens” the agency maintains should not be released.
Since obtaining the journal, The Star has published dozens of articles including Hale’s own words.
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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].
Please interview Stacey Cameron and her station manager at WSMV as to what their motivation was in soliciting the judge to sanction you all for publishing the truth.
Also, only refer to WSMV as a “liberal media outlet” in quotes going forward.
Thank you!