Nashville Covenant School Shooter Audrey Hale Wrote in Journal She Hopes She Could Make Columbine Shooters Happy: Report

Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale wrote in her journal that she hoped she could make the Columbine shooters happy when she opened fire at her former Christian elementary school, killing six people.

“I want my massacre to end in a way that Eric (Harris) and Dylan (Klebold) would be proud of,” Hale wrote in a scribble at the bottom of a lined page in her journal, according to photos of the book obtained and published by the Tennessee Star.

“April ’99 – Columbine/NBK birth year… (4/20/1999). Aiden birth year… (3/27/23!)” Hale wrote in another post, referring to her own chosen male name, Aiden.

Hale, a 28-year-old transgender artist, entered Covenant School on March 27, 2023, and shot and killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members before being killed by police officers.

She planned the “massacre” months in advance and described her suicidal thoughts in journal entries that became the subject of a bitter legal battle between the publisher of the Tennessee Star and the victims’ families.

“I don’t care if people die like I shoot because I’m going to die too,” Hale wrote on another site. “I’d kill to die… My only real motivation = mass suicide plus death (infinite).”

The journal is full of largely incoherent musings, scribbles, and descriptions of self-hatred, as well as plans for a shooting at a private school.

Hale’s final entry for the day of the mass shooting is titled “Day of the Dead” and is next to a drawing of a gun.

“Today is the day. The day is finally here! I can’t believe it’s here. I don’t know how I made it this far, but I’m here,” she wrote.

“I’m a little nervous, but also excited, I’ve been excited for the last 2 weeks,” she continued. “There were a few times I could have gotten caught, especially in the summer of 2021. Now it doesn’t matter. I’m almost an hour and 7 miles away.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready. I hope my victims aren’t,” Hale wrote callously.

The entries were among 90 pages of Hale’s notebook notes published by The Star on Tuesday.

A local newspaper obtained the journal entries from a source familiar with the Hale investigation in June 2024 and argued it had a First Amendment right to publish its findings.

However, the parents of three children killed by Hale — William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus and Hallie Scruggs — asked a judge to bar the media from publishing the killer’s writings.

“I will not allow this shooter’s writings to be published in any way. This mass murderer cannot speak from the grave,” Erin Kinney, William’s mother, said in a statement.

Attorneys for the families argued that the copyright to the writings belonged to them because Hale’s parents transferred the estate to the victims’ families after the shooting.

Free speech advocates and media outlets like The Star have also sued law enforcement, demanding the release of all of Hale’s writings, arguing that the public has a right to know what motivated the senseless killings.

The entries released Tuesday came from just one of 20 journals Hale kept, as well as a suicide note and unpublished memoirs.