Fox News released the Nashville police’s final report on the Covenant School shooting, showing the transgender shooter planned the March 2023 attack for years.
Audrey Hale murdered three adults and three children.
Hale did not leave a manifesto. She kept at least 16 journals with 1,299 pages of content.
Hale’s motive? Notoriety.
The journals showed police that Hale began planning an attack between 2017 and 2018.
Hale began journaling in 2017 after starting therapy and medications:
The majority of the writings within the notebooks were structured in a journal format with dated entries. The dates provided for those entries were in the top margin of the page where the entry began and spanned the period of August 30, 2017 through March 27, 2023. Several of the entries would also contain a title, either describing the content of the entry or her thoughts and feelings at the time. Initially, the dates between entries were every few days and at least once a week. At times, Hale wouldn’t make an entry for a month or more but would revert to make an entry at least once a week. The margins of the page on most entries contained notes made by Hale, as well as corrections or clarifications regarding entries written between the lines. Some of the entries made within the lines were crossed out, with corrections inserted between the lines. In several cases, the corrections made to certain content appeared to be entered at times different than the original text, based on the difference in color and thickness in ink. Nothing was present to explain when those changes took place or if they occurred at a different date and time as the text which was corrected. All the handwriting appeared consistent and created by the same person throughout the journals.
However, Hale spiraled further down and filled her entries with rage, especially towards her father.
School shootings appeared in the writings after Hale watched documentaries on the subject in November 2017:
She became fascinated with the topic and began to seek out additional information on the topic. Hale then reviewed countless news articles, documentaries, and other information available through the Internet regarding other mass killers in the United States. She downloaded images of the offenders, the weapons they used (either the actual firearms or stock photographs of the same make, model, and caliber of firearm), what information was publicly documented regarding their mental health, their known motives, where the attacks occurred, and the number of people killed and injured during the attack. Hale didn’t particularly focus on school shooters or the specific motive of the attack, only that a mass-shooting incident occurred. She then compiled this material using Adobe Photoshop and created multiple page documents detailing this information, which she referred to as her “research material”. Yet even though she reviewed information for every mass killing she could find regardless of their motives or the targets they selected, she kept returning to Columbine as her true source of inspiration. She did extensive research into the offenders, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and considered them worthy of emulation. She focused on how their documented mental health history and societal views were similar to her own and how the notoriety they achieved following their deaths led them to becoming “gods.”
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