Four months ago on March 27, Audrey Hale, shot her way into the Covenant School in Nashville and gunned down nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, daughter of Chad Scruggs, senior pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church.
Hale, a woman who thought she was a man, also shot dead Katherine Koonce, 59, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and African American Mike Hill, 61, the school’s custodian. Hale left behind a manifesto explaining her actions but trans activists oppose release of the documents, now in the hands of the FBI. At this writing, the manifesto remains unreleased but autopsy records enable the murder victims to testify. Consider first responder Mike Hill.
According to medical examiner Kevin B. Jenkins, Hale shot Hill in the right lateral chest, causing wounds to the lungs and mainstem bronchi, thoracic spine, aorta, and left rib. Hale’s shot perforated Hill’s vertebral body and lung, causing marked disruption of the parenchyma.
Hale also shot Hill in the upper left arm, with a trajectory “slightly back to front.” A “deformed copper jacketed bullet with green colored tip,” was recovered, indicating Hale’s preference for the AR-15 style rifle, labeled “CRUNT///,” in bold white letters, and firing .223/.556mm ammunition. Hale also deployed a 9mm Kel-tec SUB carbine, and a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun.
The rifle reports alerted Covenant headmaster Katherine Koonce, who confronted the shooter in the hall. Hale shot her in the head and according to medical examiner Emily Dennison, the bullet entered through the left side of the scalp and perforated the left temporal lobe of the brain. Another shot to the head perforated the left orbit before passing through the left eye and the base of the skull.
Hale’s shot also perforated the roof of Koonce’s mouth, oropharynx and tongue before exiting the body through the mandible. Koonce also took a shot in the neck and the right side of her torso, causing rib fractures, pulmonary lacerations and soft tissue hemorrhage. The shots damaged Koonce’s right lung, diaphragm, liver, and other organs. “Due to the amount of destruction,” the medical examiner wrote, “the pathways cannot be fully determined.”
The Covenant School headmaster also suffered “traumatic loss of teeth,” and loose teeth were also found near the body. That may have been due to the “blunt force trauma” Hale inflicted on the victim.
Hale shot teacher Cynthia Peak (née Broyles) on the right side of the face, four inches from the top of the head and two inches anterior to the right lateral midline. According to Dr. Dennison, who performed the autopsy, the shot caused hemorrhage in the left and right temporal scalp and extensive radiating and comminuted fractures of the calvarial and basilar skull and fractures of the anterior mandible.
On the left lateral neck, seven inches from the top of the head, is a “gaping gunshot exit wound.” Bullet fragments were recovered from the head, and the trajectory was right to left, downward, and front to back.
Hale’s gunshot to Peak’s left lateral chest perforated the upper lobes of both lungs and aorta. All told, the teacher suffered multiple gunshot wounds causing injuries to the brain, brainstem, cerebellum, bones of the skull, soft tissues of left neck. The manner of death was judged to be “homicide.”
Shooter Audrey Hale was a former student at the Covenant School, which she had carefully surveilled for months. With Peak, Koonce and Hill shot dead, the shooter targeted children such as Halley Scruggs.
According to forensic pathologist Kevin B. Jenkins, the nine-year-old girl sustained an “indeterminate range gunshot wound of the head,” that caused injuries to the scalp, left temporal bone, and left temporal lobe of the brain. An “indeterminate range gunshot wound of the pelvis,” entering at the left lower abdomen, caused injuries to Scruggs’ left femoral artery, vein and soft tissue.
Hale also shot Scruggs in the “lower left extremity,” on the “left proximal thigh.” The shot caused injuries to multiple ribs, lungs, spleen, kidneys, thoracic vertebra, thoracic spinal cord, diaphragm and liver. The trajectory of the shot was “left to right, downward, back to front,” with “the entrance wound on the left upper lateral back,” and a green-tipped .223 round was recovered from the child.
Pathologist Jenkins, also found “a 1-1/4 inch gaping exit wound on the left back located 12 inches from the top of the head.” There was also a “3/4 inch gaping exit wound on the right lateral chest,” from a shot in the back. The exit wounds are “are consistent with exit of the bone fragments.”
According to forensic pathologist Dennison, nine-year old William Joseph Kinney suffered a tangential graze wound “through the scalp, skull, and bilateral cerebral hemispheres,” causing “subgaleal hemorrhage, skull fractures, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and lacerations of the brain.”
Hale also shot the male child in the torso and right arm, causing perforation of the ribs and thoracic vertebrae, right lung and soft tissue of the right arm. The victim also sustained “spinal cord laceration with associated epidural and subdural hemorrhage, and thoracic vertebral fractures.” The direction of the shot was “left to right, back to front, and downward.”
William Kinney also sustained a perforating gunshot of the abdomen and a graze gunshot of the left wrist. Hale also shot the boy in the torso, perforating the left shoulder, two ribs, left lung and diaphragm. The entrance wound showed stippling, evidence that Hale shot the male child at close range. Kinney’s right arm also showed stippling and the pathologist discovered “minor blunt force trauma of the body.”
Dr. Dennison also performed the autopsy on Covenant School student Evelyn Dieckhaus, who suffered a perforating gunshot wound of the torso. The shot damaged both lungs, the aorta, right brachial plexus, right axilla, right humerus and soft tissue of the right arm.
Hale also shot the girl in the “posterior torso,” perforating the left lung, seven thoracic vertebrae and the spinal cord. The direction of the shot was “back to front,” and shooter Audrey Hale wasn’t done.
The nine-year-old child also suffered perforating gunshot wounds in the left arm and right hip, causing tissue hemorrhage and crest fracture wounds to the right buttock. Hale also shot the child in the left leg, left thigh and left buttock, causing soft tissue damage and fractures.
Another shot grazed the child’s abdomen and a shot in the pelvis caused wounds to the vasculature, bladder, and a fracture of a lumbar vertebrae. The direction of the shot was “from back to front.”
Each shot would have been enough to maim and kill the children but Audrey Hale kept on firing, unleashing 152 rounds in all. Homicide investigators call this “overkill” and it should not be surprising from Audrey Hale, who thought she was a man.
As Bruce Bawer explains, the trans movement is a “revolution against reality itself,” and with the loss of reality comes the loss of humanity. Empathy and reason go missing, replaced by hatred and violence. Those who adhere to biological reality are smeared as “transphobes” presumed to be guilty of “genocide.” That allegedly justifies any action against them.
The Trans Resistance Network proclaimed that Audrey Hale “had no other effective way to be seen than to lash out by taking the life of others.” Katherine Koonce tried to stop it.
“I guarantee when it was time to spring into action, she did because she wanted to protect those kids and her teachers,” said friend and former co-worker Jim Lee. “That was her job and she knew it. I’m sure she did not hesitate for a second.”
Cynthia Peak “was a bright star and we all loved her dearly,” said friend Peggy Murphy. “She probably considered those children in that school her family,” added Louisiana state representative Chuck Owen, a longtime friend.
Nikki Roberts, who knew Mike Hill from the Covenant School, called Hill “a hero.” According to pastor Jim Bachmann Hill was “big and he was strong, and he was tough, but he was also soft and tender.” Hill leaves behind seven children and 14 grandchildren.
When a white person guns down a black person, in any circumstances, the default explanation is racism, hate crime and so forth. None of that with Audrey Hale, who pretty much got a pass from the media and the White House.
Joe Biden failed to identify or condemn the shooter, failed to name a single murder victim, and did not attend any of the funerals. Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “our hearts go out to the trans community as they are under attack right now.” As usual, she’s wrong. People who acknowledge reality are under attack, and the trans forces grow more militant.
“Trantifa,” a combination of transgender and Antifa, denotes a “far-left trans movement spreading across U.S” and “intimidating and physically assaulting those who disagree with them.” Trans swimmer Lia Thomas was recently photographed wearing a black T-shirt reading “Antifa Super Soldier.” Call it violence signaling.
“Trans violent militancy is the current focus of #Antifa,” contends journalist Andy Ngo. “They believe that critics of trans ideology should be silenced, maimed or murdered. Some call for sexual violence against females in particular, as revenge.”
In the run-up to the April 1 “Trans Day of Vengeance,” Audrey Hale murdered Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, Hallie Scruggs, Katherine Koonce Cynthia Peak, and Mike Hill. Say their names. Joe Biden won’t. The struggle against trans violence is the struggle of memory against forgetting.