The final report on the Covenant School shooting, released by the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) on Wednesday, seems to contradict a key claim made by the parents of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the biological woman who identified as a transgender man when she killed six on March 27, 2023.
According to the report, Ronald Hale and Norma Hale became aware that their daughter legally purchased her first firearm in December 2020, and her father was aware that she subsequently purchased a shotgun the following year. MNPD claimed that Norma Hale objected to her daughter’s ownership of the weapons but that Ronald Hale supported responsible gun ownership.
The future killer’s parents accepted her ownership of firearms until late June 2021, when the report states that Norma Hale discovered her daughter’s interest in the Columbine High School shootings committed in Colorado more than 25 years ago.
“Hale’s mother discovered Hale purchased a copy of the book The Columbine Diaries from Amazon, which was delivered to their home,” in late June of 2021, according to the report. “After learning what Hale was reading and remembering her daughter owned at least one firearm, Hale’s mother brought her concerns to Hale’s therapist.”
Norma Hale and the therapist then arranged “a meeting between Hale, her parents, and her therapist regarding Hale’s firearms,” and it was during this meeting that “it came to light how Hale had been experiencing homicidal fantasies towards her father,” and she killer was convinced “to surrender her parents, who would then store the firearms at a safe location.”
This contradicts the responses offered by Ronald Hale and Norma Hale to former MNPD Detective Bobby Samuels, who The Tennessee Star recently reported quietly left the department and State of Tennessee at the beginning of 2024.
Samuels questioned the parents whether Audrey Hale ever mentioned her affinity to the Columbine killers during the parents’ July 12, 2023, interview with police.
He asked Ronald and Norma Hale, “She was speaking with a physician or a therapist or someone” at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where she was twice considered for commitment, “and said those things. I believe she bought them off Amazon… I was just curious of what you guys thought about that, if you guys heard about it, or knew about it?”
Norma Hale first replied, “We had heard since this happened,” but eventually told Samuels, “I didn’t know anything.”
The killer’s father, Ronald Hale, similarly told Samuels, “They didn’t tell us about that.”
This appears to be the second claim by Ronald Hale and Norma Hale that is contradicted by MNPD’s final report on the Covenant case, after the report confirmed that Audrey Hale left a will containing specific instructions for her family to distribute the killer’s “possessions, thumb drives, writings, and artwork.”
While MNPD confirmed the existence of a will, Ronald Hale and Norma Hale claimed through a probate court filing that their daughter died intestate, which gave them the legal authority to transfer ownership of the killer’s intellectual property to the Covenant Children’s Trust.
After Star News Digital Media Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy sued to compel both MNPD and the FBI to release Audrey Hale’s writings, Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles allowed the Covenant Children’s Trust to intervene in the Tennessee lawsuit.
Myles ultimately ruled against releasing any of Audrey Hale’s 1,299 pages of handwritten journals, which law enforcement previously described as a “manifesto,” in a decision announced July 4, 2024. Leahy and SNDM expect to win their appeal of her decision.
Leahy and SNDM have recently offered to drop their lawsuit against the FBI in exchange for Director Kash Patel dropping the agency’s opposition to releasing the killer’s writings, as he suggested his predecessor should have done in December 2023. The Department of Justice has confirmed the FBI is considering the offer.
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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].
