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Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a 28-year-old former student of The Covenant School in Nashville, shot through an entrance and killed three children and three adults on March 27, 2023. Two Metro Nashville Police officers found Hale on the second floor and shot her dead about 14 minutes after the first 911 call.

Hale attended the Christian school from kindergarten through fourth grade, from 2001 to 2006. In writings later examined by investigators, she described those years as the happiest of her childhood, a time when she felt safe and accepted. She had no criminal history, but her biographical writings documented mental health struggles extending from childhood into adulthood.

Between October 2020 and June 2022, Hale legally bought seven firearms. Her mother objected to her owning a rifle because of her depression and suicidal fantasies. In summer 2021, after a meeting with her parents and therapist brought out homicidal fantasies toward her father, Hale agreed to surrender her weapons to her parents. They removed firearms from her bedroom. Hale subsequently ended therapy through her mother and acquired more weapons.

Hale canceled an earlier planned attack in April 2021 and changed her target to The Covenant School. Investigators later concluded that she bore no grudge against its staff or the school itself. She chose it as a soft target, partly because she knew it, and believed an attack on a Christian school would attract greater notoriety.

On the morning of the shooting, Hale drove to the school carrying two rifles and a handgun. Before entering, she sent farewell messages to Averianna Patton, a former middle school teammate and classmate, and wrote that she would be on the news after her death. Patton contacted law enforcement to report a possible suicide threat.

Hale fired through the glass doors of a side entrance and went inside. The children killed were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9. The adults were Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of school; Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, 61, the custodian. Hill, who had worked at the school for about 14 years, was the first person killed.

A five-member police team entered the building. Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo found Hale in the second-floor atrium, where she had been firing through a window at arriving officers. Both officers fired at Hale, killing her.

Investigators recovered writings from Hale's car and bedroom that documented months of planning. The Police Department and the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit examined them. The final investigative report, released April 2, 2025, concluded that Hale acted alone, was sane and sought notoriety. No one had provided material support. The district attorney's office reviewed the report and decided that no criminal charges would be filed against anyone in connection with the case.

Hale's journals and other writings became the subject of a public-records dispute. Her parents transferred ownership to Covenant families in 2024, and the families asserted copyright. A trial court barred disclosure that July under copyright law and a school-safety exception. On Feb. 4, 2026, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that copyright did not prevent public inspection and that the lower court had interpreted the safety exception too broadly. It sent the case back to the lower court.

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Public records responses and request policy

A one-page denial letter released by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department through a public records request denies access on the grounds that the requested records do not exist. A one-page response dated May 9, 2023, released by the department through a public records request, denies access to Audrey Hale records under Rule 16 because the case was open. A 10-page document released by the department through a public records request contains its public records policy and request form.

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The Covenant School shooting was the March 27, 2023 attack in Nashville, Tennessee, in which former student Audrey Hale killed six people before being killed by police. The FBI's role was to support the local investigation and to process federal records connected to evidence review, threat assessment, and later FOIA litigation. The OCR shows deleted-page and duplicate-page sheets, along with many scanned handwritten pages attributed to the shooter rather than a conventional investigative narrative. The legible portions are diary-like writings about school, family, identity, religion, anxiety, resentment, death, and violent school-shooting ideation, with some references to classrooms, children, and planning language.

Documents span: 2023 | Released in 6 parts | 5 attached here
Names in this file: Audrey Hale
Subjects: school shooting, Covenant School, shooter writings, threat assessment, FOIA release

See also: Nashville Shooter Manifesto Has Been LEAKED, Nashville School Shooter