Nashville Covenant school shooter Audrey Hale wrote in her diary that she hoped to make Columbine shooters proud: report

Audrey Hale, the Nashville school shooter, wrote in a diary entry that she hoped to make the Columbine shooters proud when she opened fire at her former Christian elementary school, killing six people.

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

“April 1999, the year Columbine/NBK was born… (4/20/1999). The year Aiden was born… (3/27/23!),” Hale wrote in another post, referring to the male name Aiden that she chose for herself.

Hale, a 28-year-old trans artist, stormed 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 diary entries that have been at the center of a contentious legal battle between the publisher of the Tennessee Star and the victims’ families.

“I don’t care if people die because I’m the shooter, because I’m going to die too,” Hale scrawled on another page. “I would kill to die… My only true motivation = mass suicide plus (infinite) death.”

The diary is filled with largely incoherent ramblings, scribbles, and self-deprecating descriptions, as well as plans to shoot up the private school.

Hale’s final entry on the day of the mass shooting is titled “Day of Death” alongside a drawing of a gun.

“Today is the day. The day has finally arrived! I can’t believe it’s here. I don’t know how I got here, but here I am,” she wrote.

“I’m a little nervous, but also excited, I’ve been excited for the last two weeks,” she continued. “There were several times where I could have been caught, especially in the summer of 2021. None of that matters now. 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 scrawled cruelly.

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

The local newspaper obtained the diary 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 asked a judge to ban the media from publishing the killer’s writings.

“I will not allow the writings of these shooters to be published in any way. This mass murderer cannot speak from beyond the grave,” Erin Kinney, William’s mother, wrote in an affidavit.

Lawyers for the families 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 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 diaries Hale kept along with a suicide note and an unpublished memoir.