In a journal entry released to The Tennessee Star last week by the FBI, transgender Covenant School shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote that she struggled to save money, often with less than $200 in her bank account. The killer wrote the entry more than a year before she would use funds from a federal Pell Grant to purchase weapons before killing six on March 27, 2023.
The 2019 journal entry adds context to Hale’s decision to use the grant money, as the killer seemed to connect her lack of funds with suicidal and homicidal plans.
“I’m always so f***** broke. Only $1-200 in my bank account,” she wrote. “I’m at times f***** homicidal. Wish to turn the gun on myself.”
In what may represent Hale’s first reference to the “dark abyss,” which appeared throughout the killer’s 2023 journal, she then contemplated an attack on the Nashville middle school she attended a decade prior.
The Star published a legally obtained, unredacted version of Hale’s 2023 journal last September.
“I’m going down the road to abyss darkness has become my middle name,” wrote Hale in 2019. “Homicidal thoughts to kill [redacted] or born to pointing AR-15 shot at 62 helpless kids.”
Despite turning to her suicidal and homicidal fantasies, Hale returned to writing about her financial situation on the next page, before transitioning back to her desire to commit a school shooting.
“I f***** hate being broke being dependent on [redacted] for money,” wrote Hale. “I just want to outline plans for… a school shooting! Cause… I was born to die.”
It was previously reported that Hale began contemplating an attack when she was a middle school student, and the killer elsewhere claimed she planned her attack for five years, and this FBI release to The Star also included a March 2019 journal entry that confirmed the killer was contemplating committing a mass shooting by that date.
Hale’s parents confirmed their daughter obtained at least part of her collection of weapons using Pell Grant she was awarded during her time at the Nossi College of Art in Nashville. An analysis of the weapons owned by Hale suggests she spent more than $2,500 on equipment prior to her attack.
Though she began collecting the weapons in 2019, the killer was persuaded to sell them after her mother discovered them. Hale later purchased four more firearms prior to her attack on the Christian elementary school she once attended.
Though undated, the entry is notably located within the journal after Hale’s earlier entry about being evaluated for commitment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where police notes obtained by The Star suggest the killer told a mental health professional that she experienced thoughts of committing a mass shooting and killing her father.
Despite Hale allegedly making such statements to a mental health professional in 2019, her parents were not informed of the homicidal fantasy until they were interviewed by police months after their daughter’s attack.
The FBI released this latest tranche of Hale’s writings after more than two years of litigation from Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Star, and Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), the publication’s parent company. Leahy and SNDM settled the lawsuit in June, when the FBI agreed to release redacted versions of the killer’s writings.
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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].
Pell Grants have minimal (practically no) accountability as to the use of the money. It requires attending class for a few times then the recipient can skip out. These grants should be ended or at least much more stringent requirements added. This has been going on for ever.
As I have stated numerous times ” When is VUMC going to be held acvountable?”