The Tennessee Star published a journal Tuesday that purportedly belonged to the transgender shooter who killed six people last year at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Audrey Hale, 28, killed three children and three adults at the school in March 2023. The Star obtained her 2023 diary amid ongoing legal disputes over its release, which included reports that the FBI did not want the journal published.
“Our reporting on the Covenant Killer investigation has served the public interest,” said Michael Patrick Leahy, the news outlet’s editor-in-chief. “We legally obtained writings by Audrey Elizabeth Hale, [Metro Nashville Police Department] investigation documents, and MNPD crime scene photos from a source familiar with the MNPD investigation in June 2024.”
“These documents and photos have helped us inform the public about the underlying reasons for this heinous attack, and have helped drive the public discussion of what should be done to prevent such acts of violence in the future. We have documented a massive failure of the mental health system as a root cause of Hale’s reprehensible actions,” he said.
Hale identified as a man named Aiden and expressed frustrations over her female body throughout the 90-page diary, which can be downloaded here.
The journal entries largely focus on her transgender identity, autism, sexual fantasies, and obsession with a “brown girl.” She described a sense of shame regarding her white race, writing, “WHITE NOTHINGNESS,” and, “White privlage (sic) -> embarrassment of self.”
The journal includes several love letters to a “brown girl” and “P.A.P.” — a likely reference to Paige Patton, a Nashville radio host. Patton previously told ABC News she played basketball with Hale in eighth grade and remained in contact with her. The radio host said Hale texted her minutes before the shooting about “planning to die today.”
“No brown girls, no love,” Hale wrote in her journal. “Brown love is the most beautiful kind.”
Several pages focused on Hale’s political views, which included complaints about politicians who are opposed to gender ideology and guns.
“So now in America, it makes one a criminal to have a gun or, be transgender, or non-binary,” she wrote.
“Soon this god****ed country will turn out no fun like England or Europe,” she continued. “No guns, no gender rights, no freedom of speech or pursuing radical ideas, no mischief. You can’t even carry a knife in England. F***ing pu*****.”
One lengthy journal entry, titled “My Imaginary Penis,” focused on her desire to live as a man. She also wrote about her love for her stuffed animals, with stories about how she performed sexual acts and imaginative surgeries on them.
“My penis exists in my head. I swear to God I’m a male,” she wrote. “I think about sexual fantasies, about how if my d**k was real I would f*** the girl I love in the a**. I want to know what that’s like, but I never will because I was damned to be born this way.”
“My autistic brain… change in my body f***ed me over now, even if my boobs are small for the most part,” she continued. “And there I was thinking of porn and doing surgery on my boy stuffed animals giving them penises because their middle looked like a vagina.”
Hale described a hatred for her parents, which she attributed to their refusal to respect her transgender identity.
“How could they not ever think of their own child suffering, and that they hate their gender so bad they cut + want to kill themselves first, and their preference of conservative religion-gay sh** makes them believe that their child they’re given should stay that way,” she wrote.
Other journal entries described a contradictory view of Christianity. She expressed frustration with how her parents encouraged her to befriend Christians and disapproved of other friends they viewed as poor influences.
“Religion won’t save,” she wrote in one instance.
“God is love,” she wrote in another.
Hale expressed excitement and nervousness leading up to the planned shooting at The Covenant School.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready. I hope my victims aren’t,” she wrote.
“I want my massacre to end in a way Eric and Dylan would be proud of,” she continued, referencing Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.