The Covenant School Shooter Wanted Fame, She’ll Be Forgotten Instead

The Metro Nashville Police Department has finally released its long-awaited report on the 2023 Covenant School shooting, a horrific, calculated attack that left three 9-year-old children and three staff members dead. It took two years of sifting through notebooks, digital files, and interviews to conclude what many of us already knew. The shooter, Audrey Hale, wasn’t fueled by hate. She was fueled by a sick craving to be remembered.

Before I go any further, let me make something clear. I don’t deadname trans people. I don’t like it, and I think it’s cruel when done to harm someone’s identity. But in this case, I’ll refer to the shooter as Audrey Hale because that’s how she’s been widely known by investigators, the media, and the victims’ families. This isn’t about misgendering. It’s about not mythologizing someone who murdered children for attention.

Hale was a former student of The Covenant School. She attended from kindergarten through fourth grade and reportedly considered that period the happiest of her childhood. No abuse. No bullying. No trauma. Just good memories. That’s part of what makes her actions even more jarring. She chose to return not out of vengeance but because, as the report says, she “wanted to die somewhere that made her happy.”

Contrary to conspiracy theories that framed this as an anti-Christian attack, Hale didn’t hold animosity toward the faith. She simply believed the Christians inside would be ‘meek’ and easier to kill.

This wasn’t some sudden outburst. Hale planned this. She was methodical, manipulative, and deeply deceptive. She hid her intentions from her parents and her therapist. She knew how to work the system, to dodge the red flags, and to keep authorities from catching on. At one point, she even gave up a firearm after her family intervened, only to go and buy more later.

And let’s talk about that. Audrey Hale used federal student grant money to purchase firearms. Your tax dollars. Government aid meant for education and opportunity was funneled into AR-15s. So here’s the question we should all be screaming at the top of our lungs: How do we keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, especially those already flagged by family and providers?

Hale had no specific grudge against The Covenant School. But she did harbor bitterness over her time at Isaiah T. Creswell Middle School, a majority-minority school where she reportedly felt bullied for being a “rich white girl.” That school was her original target until she realized she couldn’t control the narrative there the way she could at Covenant.

Because that’s what this was all about, control of the narrative. Audrey Hale didn’t just want to be infamous. She wanted to be revered, like the Columbine shooters she obsessively studied. She wanted books written about her, documentaries made, and weapons placed in museums. She wanted to be a ‘god,’ her words, not mine.

Well, she failed.

She didn’t ‘outdo’ her idols. She didn’t spark the firestorm she dreamed of. Instead, she’ll go down as just another in a long, pathetic line of copycats. No shrines. No headlines. No legacy.

Outside of Nashville, Audrey Hale’s name will fade. Because we’ve seen this movie too many times, and the ending never changes. Just more blood, more grieving families, and more unanswered questions about how someone like this could get their hands on military-grade firepower.

She wanted to be remembered. But memory is earned. And Hale earned only disgrace.

(Sources)