Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale wrote in a journal entry that she hoped to make the Columbine shooters proud when she opened fire on her former Christian elementary school, killing six people.
“I want my massacre to end in a way that Eric [Harris] & Dylan [Klebold] would be proud of,” Hale wrote in scribbled print at the bottom of a ruled page in her journal, according to evidence photos of the book obtained and published by the Tennessee Star.
“April of ’99 – the year Columbine/NBK was born… (4/20/1999). The year Aiden was born… (3/27/23!)” Hale wrote in another entry, referring to the male name, Aiden, she chose for herself.
Hale, a 28-year-old trans artist, stormed into the Covenant School on March 27, 2023 and gunned down three 9-year-old children and three adult staffers before she was killed by police officers.
She planned the “massacre” months ahead of time and described her suicidal thoughts in the journal entries — which have been at the center of a highly contentious legal battle between the Tennessee Star publisher and the families of the victims.
“Idc [I don’t care] if people die as I am the shooter, because I’m going 2 die, too,” Hale scrawled on another page. “I’d kill 2 die… My only true motivation = mass suicide plus death (infinite).”
The journal is full of largely incoherent ramblings, doodles and descriptions of self-loathing as well as plans to shoot up the private school.
Hale’s final entry on the day of the mass shooting is labeled “Death Day” next to a drawing of a gun.
“Today is the day. The day has finally come! I can’t believe it’s here. Don’t know how I was able to get this far, but here I am,” she wrote.
“I’m a little nervous, but excited too, been excited for the past 2 weeks,” she continued. “There were several times I could have been caught especially back in the summer of 2021. None of that matters now. I’m almost an hour & 7 miles away.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready. I hope my victims aren’t,” Hale callously scribbled.
The entries were among 90 pages of writings from Hale’s notebook released by The Star on Tuesday.
The local newspaper obtained the journal entries from a source familiar with the investigation into Hale in June 2024 and has argued it has a First Amendment right to publish its findings.
But the parents of the three children killed by Hale — William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus and Hallie Scruggs — have begged a judge to bar outlets from publishing the killer’s writings.
“I will not stand by to allow these shooter’s writings be published in any way. This mass murderer doesn’t get to speak from the grave,” Erin Kinney, the mother of William, wrote in an affidavit.
The families’ lawyers have argued that they own the copyright to the writings since Hale’s parents turned over the estate to the victims’ families after the shooting.
Free speech advocates and media outlets like The Star have also sued law enforcement agencies to release all of Hale’s writings — arguing that the public has a right to know what motivated the senseless killings.
The entries published Tuesday were from just one of 20 journals Hale kept along with a suicide note and an unpublished memoir.
