Just minutes before Audrey Hale, the transgender man identified as the person who murdered six people at the Covenant School in Nashville, burst through the doors of the Christian school and opened fire, Hale sent a series of Instagram messages to Averianna Patton, her former middle school basketball teammate.
“So basically that post I made on here about you, that was basically a suicide note. According to messages Patton gave the outlet, I’m planning to die today,” Hale wrote. She used the name “Aiden,” signing the message “Audrey (Aiden),” showing continuing confusion about her gender identity.
“THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!” wrote Hale. “You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die.”
Hale added: “This is my last goodbye. I love you … See you again in another life.” She signed the note “Audrey (Aiden).”
It’s unclear what kind of adult relationship Hale had with Patton, but the two appeared to be close as children.
Patton begged Hale not to go through with it, telling her “You have so much more life to live. I pray God keeps and covers you.”
“I know but I don’t want to live. I’m so sorry.” Hale wrote. “I’m not trying to upset you or get attention. I just need to die. I wanted to tell you first because you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen and known all my life.”
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake told Lester Holt of NBC News that Hale’s targets were random.
While the shooter might have targeted The Covenant School, Drake stopped short of saying Hale was going after any specific people. There were also indications that Hale had planned to target other locations, Drake told NBC News.
Covenant’s head of school, Katherine Koonce, 60, was among those killed.
“She targeted random students in the school … whoever she came in contact with, she fired rounds,” Drake said, referring to the shooter.
There’s been no motive announced for the shooting, although Nashville police say that Hale’s “manifesto” hinted at the shooter being “resentful” for having been forced to attend a Christian school. A former headmaster at the school thinks that Hale transferred after the fourth grade.
Former school headmaster Bill Campbell said that he remembered Hale as a third-grader in 2005 and fourth-grader in 2006, citing yearbooks he keeps.
“It’s just an absolute tragedy what’s happened by the former student and what she did to the teachers and students,” Campbell said.
Hale was not listed as a student in the annuals in the fifth or sixth grade, so Campbell said he believes Hale transferred after the fourth grade.
No doubt the left will find a way to blame the shooting on “anti-trans hysteria,” but the reality is not very complicated. A mentally disturbed woman brought several guns to a former school and opened fire, randomly murdering three children and three adults.
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