Mass shooter who killed 6 people at The Covenant School had no grudge against victims but was fueled by a quest for notoriety

(CNN) — Audrey Hale felt no hatred against anyone at the school where the former student gunned down six people. In fact, the 28-year-old relished fond memories of The Covenant School and wanted “to die somewhere that made her happy,” Nashville police said.

“Hale bore no grudge against the school or staff” and considered them to be “‘innocents’ and victims on par with herself,” the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.

The revelation came in a trove of new details released in a report by Nashville police Wednesday – two years after Hale randomly slaughtered three teachers and three 9-year-old children at the private Christian school.

Shortly after the massacre on March 27, 2023, Hale was gunned down by police – leaving myriad questions about the inexplicable killings that remained unanswered until now.

After conducting interviews and reviewing Hale’s digital devices, online accounts, artwork and writings, detectives managed to piece together the killer’s preparation and motivation behind the gruesome attack.

Notoriety was the motive

Hale attended The Covenant School in the early 2000s, from kindergarten through fourth grade. The former student denied suffering any emotional or physical abuse during this period, investigators said in the report obtained by CNN.

“She felt safe and accepted at The Covenant and made friends with other students,” the report said. “She considered her family life during this time as happy, with a positive relationship with both of her parents and her brother.”

But more than 16 years after leaving the school, Hale targeted the beloved alma mater “due to the notoriety she would obtain” and “because she had a personal connection to the school from earlier in her life and felt she had to die somewhere that made her happy,” police said.

While the killer “identified as a male and used he/him as preferred pronouns,” Nashville police said, “Under Tennessee law, a person’s gender identity must correspond with their biological sex or with information present on their certificate of live birth.”

As a result, authorities described Hale as a female in their 40-plus-page report.

Investigators discovered Hale left “material behind intentionally to be found and analyzed,” including “her detailed plan to commit carnage in a school, with timelines, diagrams, etc.,” Nashville police said.

“The publication of the writings would serve three purposes: to document her struggles with her mental health; to show how … her mental health conditions helped her ‘to execute the perfect plan’; and to show others like her how to best plan and carry out an attack,” the investigative report states.

In the days leading up to the attack, Hale started to transfer writings onto a thumb drive so “they could be found and studied,” the report states.

“Notoriety was the motive,” the report summary says. “It is known that Hale, and other mass shooters, studied material from Columbine High School prior to committing their attacks.”

Hale rated other mass shooters based on the number of people they murdered and considered those who killed a low number of people to be “amateurs” who weren’t worthy of respect, Nashville police said. But Hale “made exceptions for those offenders with documented mental health histories showing they had serious mental health diseases or disorders, as she believed they were ‘too sick’ to formulate an effective plan to kill an adequate number of victims.”

Hale wanted books, documentaries and movies “to be made about her life and her attack,” police said. The killer also wanted “her firearms to be placed in a museum” and “wanted her bedroom to be left as it was when the attack occurred as a memorial to her.”

In a statement Wednesday, families of the victims, as well as children who were at the school the day of the shooting, said, “There would never be closure after a crime like this. No words can diminish the depths of loss we feel without Evelyn, Hallie, William, Mike, Katherine, and Cindy.”

The shooter killed three 9-year-olds: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Three adults were also fatally shot: Mike Hill, the school custodian; Katherine Koonce, the head of the school; and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak.

“No facts can lessen the trauma and grief we have been bearing the past two years,” the statement read. “This report summarizes the reality we’ve been living with, that this was truly a senseless crime committed by a deranged, selfish, evil individual who relished the killing of innocent children. This report is bleak. We hope no one else ever has to go through this.”

Eric Osborne, an attorney representing some of the victims’ families, said the findings establish “beyond a doubt that our legal battle against the public release of the shooter’s evil material is just, appropriate, and should silence any critics of our efforts.”

“Please remember that there are real children and families who are suffering and who will never be the same,” Osborne said in a statement. “Keep your focus on the victims and survivors of that horrific day.”

The shooter carried stuffed animals next to firearms the morning of the killings

Hale suffered from anxiety and social phobias, “which led to her self-isolating more often,” the investigative report said.

“Her isolation and loneliness led Hale to begin believing the only true friends she could confide in were her stuffed animals, who she felt would never abandon her,” police said.

“She assigned them names and personalities, took them with her whenever she travelled, and began creating cartoons and digital media, including stories where they demonstrated some of the same emotions she felt.”

Around 8 a.m. the morning of the killings, Hale left home “carrying a large duffle bag which contained several firearms, ammunition for those firearms, tactical gear, and her stuffed animals,” the investigative report states.

“She also had with her a backpack containing two notebooks and assorted items. She loaded these bags into her vehicle” and drove to a local gun range, authorities said.

“Once there, she donned her tactical vest and affixed magazine pouches to her belt. The vest was loaded with several spare magazines, an automatic knife, and other equipment. She then assembled and loaded three different firearms. She then remained in her vehicle in the parking lot of the location for over an hour and finally left the location at 9:33 a.m.”

Hale then went to The Covenant School around 9:53 a.m. and waited in the car for several minutes. “During this time, Hale sent a goodbye message to a friend through Instagram Messenger,” police said.

“At approximately 10:09 a.m., she exited her vehicle, slung two firearms around her neck and shoulders, and approached one of the west entrances to the building.”

Hale’s firearms included an AR-15 pistol, a semi-automatic AR pistol, a semi-automatic carbine rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.

After the deadly rampage, detectives searched Hale’s vehicle and found several stuffed animals on the front passenger seat, “along with five fully loaded magazines containing 5.56mm ammunition,” police said.

“In the front passenger floorboard was a backpack. Inside the backpack were two notebooks containing handwriting and sketches, along with two thumb drives.”

Hale’s parents and therapist tried to help, but the shooter didn’t tell them everything

Investigators determined Hale was sane, but evidence suggested worsening anxiety, depression and rage.

Before the massacre, Hale’s parents assisted their child “with obtaining mental healthcare despite them not being legally required to do so,” police wrote.

But “Hale chronicled that she withheld information from providers to prevent her from being stopped,” authorities said.

The killer often wrote about the level of secrecy needed to carry out the attack, including withholding information from the therapist, taking steps to delete browsing history, and concealing guns and ammunition, police said.

Even though Hale’s “disappointments in relationships, career aspirations, and independence fueled her depression, and even though this depression made her highly suicidal, this doesn’t explain the attack,” police said.

“As Hale wrote on several occasions, if suicide was her goal then she would have simply killed herself,” the report states. “Throughout the writings and videos, Hale frequently commented that her death needed to matter and be remembered.”

Investigators learned Hale felt chronic loneliness and disappointment.

“She felt abandoned and ignored by those she longed to befriend and engage with romantically, which angered her more than anything else,” the report says.

“She believed that by simply committing suicide, she would be quickly forgotten and not even worthy of a footnote in history. She craved the notoriety Harris and Klebold attained following Columbine.”

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were the teen gunmen who killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The 1999 massacre has been cited as an inspiration for other school shooters in the decades since.

Hale focused on how the Columbine killers’ “documented mental health history and societal views were similar to her own and how the notoriety they achieved following their deaths led them to becoming ‘gods,’” Nashville police said.

Hale “sought to become a ‘god’ like Harris and Klebold by killing victims nobody would forget: children.”

The killer admitted the victims were innocent

Like Harris and Klebold, Hale “longed for her name and actions to be remembered long after she was dead,” police said.

“She openly acknowledged none of those she would kill were guilty of anything and denied any personal motivation for targeting them,” Nashville police wrote. Instead, the killer “felt their deaths were necessary to give her death meaning.”

“She wanted her mental health to be a prominent topic of discussion and debate,” investigators said.

“Most disturbingly, she wanted the things she left behind to be shared with the world so she could inspire and teach others who were ‘mentally disordered’ like her to plan and commit an attack of their own.”

Yet Hale “often complained how she didn’t know enough about the mental health history or motives of most mass killers, as nothing was publicly documented regarding their struggles,” the reports says.

Nonetheless, “Hale felt she would be a failure if she killed less than 10 people during the attack,” the report said.

Hale took a guided tour of the school in 2021, claiming to be “an alum who wanted to reminisce about her time in elementary school,” the report said. In reality, Hale was casing the school and “discreetly photographed different locations,” police said.

CNN has reached out to the school for comment.

Less than two years after that visit, Hale burst into her beloved former school wielding an assault-style rifle and gunned down six people.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Ray Sanchez and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.

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