It's been the better part of a year and a half since transgender mass murderer Audrey Hale killed three children and three adults in cold blood at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. Almost immediately, we learned that the killer had left behind a "manifesto" (because you apparently can't be a real mass shooter without a manifesto these days) along with other personal papers and effects. Dribs and drabs of the documents eventually made their way into the public sphere, but multiple people, including the families of some of the victims, were fighting tooth and claw to keep the documents sealed up. Now, however, the Tennessee Star has released a 90-page collection of some of Hale's writings, including drawings and commentary not previously seen. It's not everything, but it's a good start. There is still a lot of potentially crucial foresnic information missing, but this collection does offer a revelatory look into the workings of a twisted, hateful mind.

On Tuesday, The Tennessee Star and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy released 90 pages of writings left by Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale. The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal, which was handwritten by Hale between January and March of 2023, can be downloaded here.

The journal was legally obtained by The Star from a source familiar with the investigation in June 2024. It was recovered from Hale’s vehicle by officers with the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD), along with a spiral notebook, after her March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School, where she murdered three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members before she was killed by MNPD officers.

Between June 5 and September 3, The Star published approximately 50 articles that are based on The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal but do not contain the actual pages from that journal. Tuesday’s publication of The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal provides further evidence supporting those 50 articles, but also reveals new information, including the octagonal symbol Hale drew when writing about her planned attack on the Covenant School or her gender identity.

Pictures are available at the link, including those of a bizarre octagonal symbol that shows up on the cover and one of the early pages. Hale asks and possibly answers the question, "Why does my brain not work right? Cause I was born wrong!!!” This seems to be an obvious reference to her gender dysphoria, but it's also a recognition that she knew that she was suffering from some sort of mental imbalance. Hale confirms that she had been planning the attack in advance and would die in the effort, adding a caveat saying, "no regrets by the gun!!!"

That last bit seems particularly telling when combined with the first comments. She knew she was about to commit an act of unspeakable evil. She simply didn't care. The lives of others, including children were worthless to her if the world refused to work the way that she felt it should. This also was not a situation that cropped up out of nowhere. The police recovered writings by Hale that dated back to 2007, so the trans killer had a long and well-established history.

Hale may have also been dealing with other mental health issues beyond gender dysphoria. She makes mention of a diagnosis of autism, though that has not been confirmed in publicly available medical records yet. This would not be unusual because, as we have seen with other trans patients who later detransitioned, many were diagnosed with additional problems that largely went ignored while the "caregivers" focused solely on the transition pipeline. She was also evaluated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) for various reasons and had been a candidate for being committed. Also worthy of mention is Hale's revelation that she had first considered shooting up a school when she herself was a middle-school student.

If we are to have a better handle on ways to identify these types of threats to society, we still require more data. What other specific mental illnesses was Hale diagnosed with? Was she on any prescription medications at the time of the attack and, if so, why didn't they work? Surely all of these clues could be combined with other trans maniacs who go off the rails, helping us to build a collection of red flags that could trigger concerned citizens to alter law enforcement and prevent a similar tragedy. Audrey Hale's writings clearly speak to someone with a twisted personality and a warped, hateful mind, but that's not enough. We can and should be doing better. The mental healthcare community also needs to step up to the plate and describe how they got everything so monumentally wrong to the point where this tragedy was allowed to unfold.