99.7 WTN afternoon radio host Brian Wilson asked three big questions about the Covenant School shooting investigation in an on-air report on Thursday that he posted to his website.
99.7 WTN radio host Brian Wilson: The big burning question in the still open investigation into the covenant shooting is one that’s hard to pin down we know that the shooter Audrey Hale was in the care of several therapists. In the state of Tennessee, there is a mandatory requirement to report if a patient gives any signs that the patient is about to harm themselves… or harm others. They must take some action to ensure the person cannot kill themselves or hurt someone.
Did that happen? In other words, did any therapist who spent time with the shooter over the years ever reach out and warn anyone that she had admitted to having fantasies of killing herself or others? Could this tragedy that led to the death of [six] lives have been avoided?
I have obtained documents that provide a unique window into the investigation being carried out by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. I want to admit up front that my knowledge is incomplete on this question because I don’t have access to all of the case files.
But I can tell you that the shooter had admitted to a therapist all the way back when she was in middle school that she fantasized about carrying out a school shooting.
Remember, she was 28 at the time of the shooting. And as far back as middle school she was having these fantasies.
Detectives asked her parents about that:
“Did she have homicidal ideations ever? Did she express to you guys about having thoughts of homicide?” they asked. “Did (therapists) ever express to you guys that she was having homicidal ideations or anything like that?”
Her father responded, “None of her therapists ever felt they had a duty to warn anybody.”
When police entered the room after the shooting, her bedroom, they found videos and written materials regarding the Columbine school shooting. Her diaries are apparently filled with references to Columbine, and it appeared to investigators that Audrey Hale had some empathy for the Columbine shooters.
Her parents at that time said they were completely unaware.
“It was in her writings?” her mother asked.
Investigators replied, “She was speaking with a physician or a therapist or someone and said those things. I believe she bought them off Amazon. So of course I was curious what you guys thought about that?”
Her mother replied in this interview, “I didn’t — I didn’t know anything.”
Her father added it was never mentioned by doctors at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Emergency Room.
Quote: “They didn’t tell us about that.”
In this interview conducted four months after the shooting, her parents professed to be completely unaware of many of the things that their 28-year-old daughter had written in her roughly 20 journals. Like the fact that on many occasions, the shooter had written about wanting to kill her father. That was a complete revelation to her father. He had no idea but did admit later that his daughter tended to quote “stew over” things.
The journals reveal that since she was a teenager, the shooter had fantasized about carrying out a school attack at several of the schools she attended. The planning was very detailed in the journals, and she even wrote up fake news releases about the incident and wrote fake obituaries of the certain individuals she intended to kill.
Hale’s parents have indicated at other times they did not know about their daughter’s preoccupation with violence.
Wilson: Investigators told her parents that the journal writings contained “so much anger and rage and so much planning.” Her parents repeatedly denied that they’d seen any evidence that their daughter was about to carry out such a heinous attack.
However, they said very different things on the day of the attack. When detectives arrived at their home that day of the shooting, just a few moments after the shooting, the first thing Mr. Hale asked was whether it had been his daughter who carried out the shooting at Covenant School.
Just minutes after the attack, Mrs. Hale told detectives that her daughter had been seen by a child psychologist who told them that their daughter, quote, “had ideas about hurting herself and others.”
Wilson also explored the reasons why the Metro Nashville Police Department continues to say the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
Wilson: This, of course, is the big remaining issue and why police say the investigation is still open and ongoing. There are three big remaining questions.
If, as the evidence suggests, Audrey Hale told any of her therapists that she fantasized about carrying out a school attack, did they follow the law? Did they take any actions to notify law enforcement? Did they take any assertive actions to make sure she would not carry out such attacks?
Number two, if they did, what actions were taken?
And number three, do police have any records that indicates they received any warning?
You know, in cases like this, it’s true that hindsight is 20/20. But the evidence that is beginning to emerge in the documents that I have reviewed is that for more than a decade, there were signs that Audrey Hale was obsessively thinking about carrying out a deadly school shooting, and nothing was done to make sure she did not carry out her fantasies.
Wilson said he will share more information on Friday.
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Matthew Giffin is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Matthew on X/Twitter.
Poster child for Pride Month.
The therapists and ALL that were aware of Audrey’s sick fantasizes should lose their license and do some time in prison!