Police uncover Nashville shooter's loneliness, obsession with fame and fascination with massacres

Audrey Hale had been planning the Nashville shooting for years, aiming to kill at least ten people—anything less, in her eyes, would be a "failure." In March 2023, at The Covenant School, she carried out the attack, killing six: three children and three adults.

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) recently released the final summary into the high school attack that shocked Tennessee and the nation. The 48-page document outlines the attack, the investigation, and reveals previously unpublished details from Hale's numerous personal notebooks.

Born on March 25, 1995, Audrey Hale was a biological female who identified with male pronouns on social media. Unmarried and with no criminal record, she was described by those close to her as "shy and introverted." Between 2001 and 2005, she attended Covenant School, which she later described as the "happiest years of her childhood," according to authorities. "She felt safe and accepted there and made friends with other students."

According to the MNPD, this sense of "happiness" at Covenant School may have been one of the motives behind her choice of crime scene. She believed it was "the perfect place to commit an attack, as it was the perfect setting for her death."

A testimony spread over thousands pages

A short-barreled shotgun, boxes of ammunition, three laptops, an iPod, three VHS tapes, and two Google Drive accounts were among the items found. Authorities also detailed the inventory discovered in Hale's car and room, which included loose folders, documents, and 16 notebooks containing drawings, notations, and photographs.

In a section titled "What She Didn’t Leave Behind," authorities address the controversy surrounding the manifesto. Following the massacre, politicians and activists called for the police to release the information in the documents disclosed in this week's report. However, the police refused, citing the ongoing investigation. The claims even translated into demands, with several leaks of her writings surfacing.

The MNPD denies the existence of a manifesto, defined as "a single document" outlining the motives for the attack. According to authorities, "No single document, notebook, or digital device contains the answer to those questions," as the explanation is "scattered throughout all the assembled material."

It remains to be seen, however, whether the report will silence requests for information. The recent publication does not include the writings, either in full or in excerpts, but simply offers the authorities' interpretation of the material.

Hale began planning the massacre in the summer of 2018, but her notebooks date back much further, revealing "anger" as a constant throughout her life. According to the police report, the attacker regularly wrote down "suicidal thoughts," and on a few occasions, Hale claimed to have attempted suicide.

She also became increasingly isolated, to the point where she reportedly began to believe that "the only true friends she could confide in were her stuffed animals." Additionally, she suffered from "obsessive compulsive disorder," as indicated by a medical diagnosis visible in her notes.

"The amount of research she did of other mass killers, the manner in which she created material to study those offenders, and the amount of time she spent on this research was certainly obsessive."

She even created a ranking of shooters, evaluating their number of victims, the targets they had chosen, and the impact they had generated after their crimes. "She considered those offenders who killed a low number of people to be 'amateurs' who weren’t worthy of respect."

Why Covenant and why children?

It wasn't her first choice. Her original target was the Isaac T. Creswell Middle Magnet School for the Arts. She also considered several other options, including Harpeth Hall Academy, Nashville School of the Arts, Harding Academy, and Hillsboro High School.

Although she wrote critically of The Covenant School on racial (the students are white), religious (the school is Catholic), and economic (it is private) grounds, the MNPD assures that she did not choose it for any of these reasons.

However, in another section of its report, the MNPD admits that, while hesitating between the two schools, Hale ultimately chose The Covenant School for these three reasons, at least in part: because Creswell Middle's student body was "predominantly black," "she was afraid she would be seen as a racist, which would affect how much control she had over the narrative after her death," and because, being private and Christian, the attack on Covenant would gain more "notoriety."

She chose school victims because attacking them would carry such "infamy" that it would generate more impact, and because they would be less likely to resist. At 5.5 feet tall and 120 pounds, she feared a "hero" might thwart her massacre. Although she worked out and trained with firearms at shooting ranges, she "wasn’t particularly strong and had no confidence in her ability to win a physical fight."

"She felt that children of middle school age were small enough to be easily dominated while old enough to understand what was happening."
Nashville Metropolitan Police Department.

In addition, her past attending the school made her feel that by dying there, she was coming "full circle." The remoteness of the neighborhood facility also led her to believe she would have more time.

The motive for the attack

For the investigators, her goal was to seek "notoriety." To cope with her feelings of abandonment, she "craved" the celebrity that shooters like Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold gained after the Columbine massacre.

She hoped, even, that there would be documentaries and books in her honor. That her bedroom would become a museum, and that her weapons and drawings would be displayed around the globe. And even more:

"She wanted the things she left behind to be shared with the world so she could inspire and teach others who were 'mentally disordered' like her to plan and commit an attack of their own."

The report also makes it clear that she had no accomplices and was unaware of her victims: third-graders Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs, as well as custodian Michael Hill, principal Katherine Koonce, and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak.