Trans Christian school shooter had homicidal fantasies before mass shooting: report

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Monday, June 24, 2024

Trans-identified woman Audrey Elizabeth Hale (L), 28, fatally shot three adults and three children at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27, 2023. Among her victims are (clockwise L-R), Mike Hill, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; Hallie Scruggs, 9; and Cynthia Peak, 61. Other victims not pictured are 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney. | MNPD; Screenshot NBC 4; The Covenant School

The trans-identifying perpetrator behind the mass shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, appears to have confessed to struggling with homicidal urges and had fantasies of being a school shooter before killing six people last year, according to documents obtained from Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital via a search warrant.

In March 2023, 28-year-old Audrey Hale killed three adults and three 9-year-old students at the Christian elementary school affiliated with Covenant Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in America.

The shooter, who attended the school years ago, was a female who struggled with her gender identity and identified as a man. Hale was fatally shot during an encounter with police officers on the day she attacked the school.

As The Tennessee Star reported Wednesday, the outlet obtained documents from the Metro Nashville Police Department labeled "Vandy Psych," which included notes that appear to have been taken by the officer who reviewed the documents.

The MNPD obtained the documents in June 2023 through a search warrant granted for Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

VUMC received public backlash in 2022 for performing sex-change surgeries on minors with gender dysphoria, leading the medical center to halt such surgeries temporarily.

According to an affidavit submitted by an MNPD detective, medical professionals affiliated with the hospital began seeing Hale in April 2001, ending with her death. The officer who reviewed the documents analyzed at least 75 pages of VUMC material related to Hale, as The Star reported.

"Thoughts of killing Dad in and struggles with mental health. Recent thoughts of going into a school and shooting a bunch of people," one of the notes stated about Hale on March 27, 2023.

Other notes from the document titled "Vandy Psych" include statements like "Homicidal thoughts with a plan. Misunderstood and felt like she needed to prove a point." Additional notes state that Hale had "fantasies of being a school shooter" and thought "a lot about death, both Suicidal and homicidal."

Vanderbilt University Medical Center did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment.

According to Tennessee State Code 33-3-206, mental health professionals "shall take reasonable care to predict, warn of, or take precautions to protect the identified victim from the service recipient's violent behavior." The mental health professional is then required to commit to the patient and continue providing care.

Prior to the Covenant School shooting, the penalty for mental health professionals who failed to warn police of a potential threat could face monetary liability in court. However, the statute of limitations on this was typically limited to one year.

Earlier this year, Tennessee passed House Bill 1625, requiring mental health professionals to warn local law enforcement if a patient expresses intent to commit "bodily harm" against a group of people.

Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and editor-in-chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to compel both the FBI and the MNPD to release the writings left behind by Hale fully.

Earlier this month, The Star reported that the FBI sent a memo to the Metro Nashville Police Department a month and a half after the shooting, telling the local law enforcement agency that it "strongly discourages" the release of "legacy tokens" from mass murderers. The FBI warned that publishing "legacy tokens" would lead future mass shooters to "immerse themselves in and study these materials for inspiration and tactics."

In a June 12 X thread, Daily Wire Host Matt Walsh unveiled excerpts from Hale's diary obtained by the conservative media outlet. One passage of the handwritten diary stated that she would "kill to have parents who would let [their] child be happy no matter how different it is to [their] viewpoints or don't agree, or scared of it" and who "are willing to listen to their children, not the other way around."

One of the entries titled "Imaginary Penis" included statements such as "My penis exists in my head" and "I swear to God I'm a male." Hale also expressed frustration that she would never know what it felt like to sodomize a girl because she was born female.

"Having a brain like mine has its godliness but also prone to making poor a— decisions," she said.

Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman