Covenant Killer Audrey Hale Wrote Journal Entries Blaming Her Brain for Planning Covenant School Attack

Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale expressed frustrations in her journal with her brain in entries that appeared to reference her purported autism diagnosis and struggles with gender identity.

The Tennessee Star reported last Wednesday it obtained 80 pages of Hale’s writings, in the form of 40 photographic images of her journal captured by law enforcement.

Hale seems to have started writing in this journal in January 2023 and continued until her March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School, where she claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three staff members.

In several entries, Hale claimed there were issues with her brain, which she at various points suggests led to her autism diagnosis and her decision to identify as a transgender man. Hale was born a biological female.

In a two-page entry titled “My Brain… This Life,” she wrote that she needs her “brain for creativity and to live out my passions. I need my brain to survive.”

Hale then claimed her brain “just process[es] information differently,” causing her to “think differently” than other people.

“I’ve always been different. A lot of people run away from my difference,” she wrote, “Because of my brain that I think different, say words that make no sense to the neurotypical minds of others.”

She then wrote that her brain makes her both “smart [and] brilliant,” but also “makes me suffer every day.”

Hale questioned, “Why did God make me this way? I feel wrong. I feel wrong. I was born wrong,” and then wrote that problems were not a matter of perspective.

“My brain taunts me,” wrote Hale. “My thoughts are never ending abyss. A dark one.”

As The Star previously reported, on the reverse side of the journal’s cover, Hale also questioned, “why does my brain not work?”

She answered, “Cause I was born wrong,” and later wrote, “Nothing on earth can save me… never ending pain. Religion won’t save.”

In an undated entry, Hale also wrote that she hated her thoughts. This entry immediately follows remarks where Hale divulges her romantic attraction to black women.

“I hate my thoughts,” Hale wrote in the entry after first writing, “Brown girls have the nicest skin… To touch it, I’d rather die.”

Hale also wrote an entry dated January 25, which did not directly mention her brain or thoughts but suggested she should be placed in a residential facility for adults with special needs.

“I pay no rent or bills… still live [with] parents, might as well throw me in a retard home,” wrote Hale.

In a flowchart Hale made for a journal entry titled “White Nothingness,” she drew arrows connecting the word “brain” to the words and phrases “white privilege,” “embarrassment of self,” and “no one.”

Hale appeared to question in another entry whether her purported autism diagnosis could be a result of her “male brain.”

Hale was a 22-year mental health patient at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), according to documents from the Covenant investigation published by The Star, and was prescribed at least four medications by staff associated with VUMC, including anti-anxiety medications and the antidepressant Lexapro.

VUMC has yet to reply to multiple comment requests from The Star, including one which sought to establish whether Hale sought or received gender-affirming care after she began to identify as a transgender man.

Both 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 full release of Hale’s writings by the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI.

Leahy will appear in court on Monday for a show cause hearing following a media inquiry to Tennessee Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles, which questioned whether he would be held in contempt after The Star published more than 30 articles about Hale’s writings and the Covenant investigation.

The Star published an FBI memo last week, addressed to MNPD Chief John Drake, which “strongly” advised against releasing “legacy tokens” left by people like Hale. An FBI definition suggests both the writings left by Hale obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits are considered “legacy tokens” that should be withheld from the public and potentially destroyed.

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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].
Background Photo “Covenant School Shooting” by Metro Nashville Police Department.