Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote in a journal recovered from her vehicle that she planned her attack for five years and prepared meticulously until her devastating plot was “near perfection.”
The Tennessee Star reported on Wednesday it obtained dozens of pages of Hale’s writings which police recovered from her vehicle from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation.
In a number of entries to the journal, Hale indicated she planned her attack for years.
On March 13, 2023, just two weeks before her March 27 attack on the school, Hale wrote, “2 more weeks. Thank f*** I planned to die. Plan in mind. [And a plan to near perfection!]” In the middle of the entry, Hale wrote the date she selected to attack the school.
An undated entry on the next page of Hale’s journal indicates she planned the attack for years before claiming the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adults who worked at the Covenant School.
“For 5 years I planned to die,” Hale wrote. “Now I am finally ready to go…”
Hale then drew the octagonal symbol she regularly used on entries that discussed her planned attack on the Covenant school, which in this entry she seemed to label “Dark Abyss” and “my only existance [sic]” in a caption under the drawing.
In a separate entry, also dated March 13, 2023, Hale appeared to write a goodbye letter to an unidentified individual.
“I said my last goodbye to you today,” wrote Hale, claiming a now-deleted post to social media was her suicide note. She then wrote, “I’ll be dead in 2 weeks!”
To the unidentified recipient, Hale wrote, “So as much as my heart pours out to you, no longer will I bother you about how much I love you. That’s not necessary to your heart.”
Hale, 28 at the time of the attack, had no known romantic interests included in the journal or previously reported by the media.
According to the journal, at the time of her attack, Hale appeared to have one platonic friend but seemed to be infatuated with one or more of her former middle school classmates.
Though it is unclear if Hale was referring to her attack on the Covenant School, she later wrote in the entry, “The signs will never be 100 [percent] clear [because] of how often things go unmissed.”
She concluded the entry, “I’m sorry innocent lives will be taken.”
In an undated entry on the previous page, Hale wrote, “I will regret nothing. I regret nothing on my death!”
Hale reportedly used funds from a federal Pell Grant to purchase the weapons and ammunition she used in the attack. A source provided a list of weapons and related items recovered from the crime scene, revealing Hale would have needed approximately $2,600 to buy the equipment.
Star News Digital Media Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Star, are plaintiffs in lawsuits that seek to compel both the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the FBI to release Hale’s full writings, including those that are sometimes called a manifesto.
On Wednesday, The Star also published an FBI memo sent to MNPD Chief John Drake. In the memo, the government agency “strongly” advised Drake against releasing “legacy tokens” from individuals like Hale and instead raised the precedent for their destruction.
According to an FBI definition, “legacy tokens” in this case likely refer to both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits.
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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].
