Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote repeatedly about experiencing pain, using the phrase “everything hurts” in at least 10 entries in the journal recovered from her vehicle after her devastating attack claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three staff members.
The Tennessee Star confirmed on June 5 it obtained about 80 pages of Hale’s writings from a source close to the Covenant investigation, which reveal she repeatedly wrote about pain, and police photographs obtained by The Star reveal Hale was prescribed an anti-anxiety medication that can cause musculoskeletal pain.
Hale most often referenced pain in her journal by writing the words, “everything hurts,” usually in all capital letters.
The words “everything hurts” first appear on the reverse side of the journal’s cover, where Hale wrote the initials and birth dates of two people, then wrote the remark about pain at the bottom of the page.
Hale later began using the words to conclude her entries, beginning in an undated entry in which Hale described a desire for a “strong connection” with an unnamed person.
About eight pages later, the killer next wrote “everything hurts” to conclude an entry in which she lamented her inability to experience heterosexual intercourse with a penis.
“I am a sad boy born [with] a puny vagina,” wrote Hale. She added, in capital letters, “everything hurts.”
Born a biological female, Hale identified as a transgender man at the time of her death and regularly signed journal entries using the name Aiden.
Hale used the phrase three more times on the following two pages.
In a January 19, 2023 entry, Hale complained about her father before concluding the entry “everything hurts.” The words appeared again on the same page, next to an entry where Hale wrote, “I am the most unhappy boy alive.”
On the next page, in one of several entries about what Hale considers “real,” Hale again concluded the entry with the words “everything hurts.”
She again used the words to conclude the entry where she wrote of her desire to kill her father, and again when she wrote of her hatred for Valentine’s Day when she wrote that her mother is “the only love I have.”
Just pages later, in an entry dated February 21, 2023, Hale again concluded a journal entry with the words “everything hurts,” this time after she wrote about being “called a woman, lady, and ma’am all in the same day.”
This is the last entry in Hale’s journal that includes the words “everything hurts,” but Hale concluded an undated entry professing her love for a former middle school basketball teammate two pages later, “it all hurts.”
On the sixth page of the journal, Hale also wrote, “I hurt too much,” “hurt too much,” and “want 2 die.”
Hale wrote on the next page, “I hurt bad enough [and] long enough that I need to die.” She then referenced pain in the next entry, claiming, “I hurt just about in every way possible of a mental condition from anything (possible).”
In another entry, in which Hale appeared to write about reuniting with a deceased former friend after death, Hale wrote her “love” would not end “until I am up in heaven, when hurt is no more and I can love you and be in no more pain.”
Media reports indicate Hale was “infatuated” with Sims, and other teammates from the middle school basketball team described her behavior as “stalkerish” in the year before the attack. Hale wrote that her “thoughts about death” changed after Sims died following a vehicle accident.
In addition to the killer’s writings, The Star also obtained and published notes written by a Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) investigator about Hale’s treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which included the names of four medications prescribed to Hale.
Police documents reveal Hale was prescribed the anti-anxiety drug Buspirone, which has possible side effects including musculoskeletal pain, physical weakness, tremors, outbursts of anger, abnormal dreams, excitement, and nervousness.
The second drug the notes revealed Hale was prescribed is Hydroxyzine, an allergy medication that is also used to relieve anxiety or tension. Possible side effects of this medication include headache, dizziness, confusion, seizures, and unintentional trembling.
In addition to a nasal spray typically used to treat dryness, Hale was also prescribed the generic version of Lexapro, known as Escitalopram, an antidepressant from the family of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Escitalopram is known to have possible side effects, including headaches, tiredness, sleep changes, feelings similar to electrical shock, and mood swings.
The Star additionally obtained, but has not published, photographs which showed Hale was also prescribed Lorazepam, also known as Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication from the Benzodiazepines family of drugs the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warns is “associated with amnesia, hostility, irritability, and vivid or disturbing dreams.”
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc., which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy are plaintiffs in the lawsuits seeking to compel the Metro Nashville Police Department and the FBI to release Hale’s full writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto.
Earlier this month, The Star published an FBI memo sent to MNPD Chief John Drake, which “strongly” advised against releasing “legacy tokens” from mass murderers like Hale. An FBI definition suggests the agency considers both the writings obtained by The Star and those sought in the lawsuits to be “legacy tokens” that should be withheld from the public.
The FBI did not confirm that it had sent the memo in a statement to The Star, but it acknowledged that it had sent such “products” to local law enforcement.
Since it obtained Hale’s journal and a portion of documents from the Covenant case, The Star has published more than 40 reports, including Hale’s writings and new details about the investigation.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
