The journal police recovered from the vehicle Audrey Elizabeth Hale drove to the Covenant School, where she claimed the lives of six on March 27, 2023, does not contain evidence Hale harbored “resentment” the five years she spent as a student at the school.
The Tennessee Star confirmed on June 5 it obtained approximately 80 pages of Hale’s writings, in the form of Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) photos, from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation.
MNPD Chief John Drake told the media on the date of the shooting, “there’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school,” though Hale’s journal only includes one direct mention of the Covenant School. The entry does not contain evidence of any “resentment.”
Hale wrote in the February 18, 2023 entry, “Covenant was closed yesterday. I guess it was [because] the weather.”
She wrote this entry just two days before writing a lengthy political rant about the alleged failure of the United States to respect the rights of transgender people, gun owners, and non-binary people.
Even in Hale’s final, “Death Day” entry in the journal, which was dated March 27, the killer did not directly name the school.
Though Hale’s journal only includes one entry that mentions the Covenant School, one of the two pages of of Hale’s writings that appear to be retrieved from another journal which contained her operational plan for the attack, and were published last year by conservative comedian and commentator Steven Crowder, seems to reference the children who attended Covenant School.
“Kill those kids,” Hale wrote. “Those crackers going to private fancy schools with those fancy khakis [and] sports backpacks [with] [their] daddies mustangs [and] convertibles.”
The killer continued, “I wish to shoot you weakass d**** [with] your mop top yellow hair, wanna kill all you little crackers… [with] your white privlages [sic].”
Hale killed three children and three adult staff members at the Covenant School before two MNPD officers heroically shot and killed her.
In the only journal entry that may suggest a motive, Hale wrote that she hoped to achieve infamy comparable to the celebrity achieved by her middle school basketball teammate, Paige Averianna Patton, who is now a Nashville radio personality.
“Little does she know now we will soon share the same fate,” Hale wrote in a March 2 entry. The killer continued, “She will live a legend and I will die a shooter – hopefully to become infamous. No one will forget neither of us.”
Hale later added that Patton “will be the blessing, and I will be the horror to inflict pain,” before signing the entry Aiden, which is the name Hale, a biological female, adopted when she began identifying 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 the ongoing lawsuits that seek to compel both the MNPD and the FBI to release about 1,000 pages of Hale’s writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto.
The Star recently published a May 2023 memo sent by the FBI to MNPD, which “strongly” advised against releasing “legacy tokens” from killers like Hale. An FBI definition suggests both the documents obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits are considered unfit for release by the federal agency.
The FBI declined to confirm in a statement to The Star that it sent the memo but confirmed it sends such “products” to local law enforcement partners.
Since it obtained Hale’s writings and a portion of police documents, The Star has published more than 60 articles that include the killer’s words or provide new details about the Covenant investigation, including the revelation Hale was a 22-year mental health patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
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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].
