Anti-gun Mom of Nashville school shooter says: ‘I think I just lost my daughter’

The mom of the transgender school shooter who murdered six people including three nine-year-olds at a Nashville private school Monday said ‘I think I just lost my daughter’ – as her own calls for increased gun control emerged.

Norma Hale spoke to ABC News shortly after her daughter Audrey Hale, 28, was named as the shooter. 

She said: ‘It’s very, very difficult right now. I think I lost my daughter today.’ Norma then requested privacy as her family struggles to cope with the magnitude of her late daughter’s actions.  

Hale was born female, and is believed to have been living as a man called Aiden. But Nashville officials continue to refer to the killer using female pronouns. They’ve also released footage of Hale carrying out the rampage, as well as images of three of the guns she used to do so. 

Hale left a detailed manifesto and plan for the shooting at her home, and another in her car. Cops have yet to disclose its contents or a motive, but Nashville Metro PD Chief John Drake told NBC News he believed ‘resentment’ lay at the core of her behavior. 

Norma’s own posts decrying school shootings and calling for increased gun control have emerged in the wake of Hale’s massacre at the school she once attended.  

On February 21, 2018, she posted a petition to make large-capacity gun magazines illegal to her page as a response to the horrors at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.  

And on March 8, 2018, she posted a petition to keep guns out of schools with the caption: ‘So important!’  

Her other posts are typical of a mother proud of her family, including a celebration of her wedding anniversary and one appreciative of her daughter’s artistic talent. 

Norma and her husband Ronald were described by a neighbor as ‘very nice’ and ‘very religious.’ 

They’re also parents to son Scott, a law student who lives in Brooklyn. He has yet to comment on what his sister did Monday morning,

At around 10.13am, Hale opened fire at The Covenant School, shooting and killing Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all aged nine. 

Substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, head of school Katherine Koonce, 60, and custodian Mike Hill, 61, were also killed. 

Koonce worked alongside her daughter at The Covenant School. Anna Koonce serves as a faculty/student assistant. 

Within 14 minutes, Hale was dead, as Nashville police revealed photos of the two officers – Rex Engelbart and Michael Collazo – who shot and killed Hale.

Chilling security camera footage from inside the school shows Hale’s Honda Fit arrive outside, before she blasts through a locked door by shooting it, then enters and stalks the halls while pointing her rifle.   

In a statement issued late Monday night, a spokesperson for the school said: ‘Our community is heartbroken. 

‘We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. 

‘We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing.’

Audrey Hale, 28, is transgender and an alumnus of the school who wrote out their plans in a detailed manifesto. 

Police shared a picture of the Honda Fit she drove to The Covenant School and announced they’d found ‘additional material’ written by Hale from the manifesto she’d left.  

They also posted photos of the doors of the school, which Hale had shot out in order to gain entry. Police confirmed the glass doors had been locked when Hale arrived.

The small school is run by a church and does not employ a school resource officer. 

Hale also allegedly had planned out an attack on another school but decided not to attack there after believing there was too much security, according to Nashville Police Chief John Drake in a Monday afternoon press conference.

Cops said Hale was transgender, although they haven’t specified further details. She was born female, but a LinkedIn profile believed to be hers uses he/him pronouns, suggesting Hale was living as a man. 

It’s unclear what Hale’s motive was, but police believe she attended the school at some point. 

The shooter has left behind a manifesto, the chief said, that Drake thinks will give them a motive into the massacre, the 129th in the United States in 2023. 

She had detailed, drawn maps of the school and had been surveilling it, according to police.

‘We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this day,’ Drake said. ‘We have a map drawn out of how this was all gonna to take place. There’s right now a theory that we may put out later but it’s not confirmed. We’ll put that out as soon as we can.’

When asked if how Hale identified might impact the motive, Drake paused before saying: ‘We can give you that at a later time. There is some theory to that, we’re investigating all the leads.’

According to the chief, Hale and no criminal history and said he did not know of any history of mental illness, though investigators were still looking into that.  

Drake also said that Hale had plans to attack another school in the Nashville area. 

‘There was another location that was mentioned but because of a threat assessment by the suspect, too much security, they decided not to,’ he said.

Sandy Durham, a neighbor of Hale’s who said she had known her ‘since she was a baby’ was shocked and said there were no warning signs that this could happen. 

‘Never. She was very sweet. I don’t know what happened. It’s very scary,’ Durham told The Daily Beast.

Sean Brashears, a next door neighbor, said he used to play basketball with Hale in his driveway and said she was a ‘normal, nice person. Maybe a little quiet.’ 

‘If I had to imagine, Audrey’s parents are probably just as shocked as everybody in the neighborhood is…It just doesn’t seem real,’ he told The Daily Beast. 

He added that, knowing the Hale family, it doesn’t seem like Audrey would have ever even been influenced by gun culture. 

‘There’s nothing that would have led me to believe that she was capable of such a thing or that she or anybody in that family would have access to, much less ever used, a gun.’

‘They just don’t seem like the family that, like, is around guns. They’re not talking about going to a gun range or they’re not going hunting.’

Shortly before 10.13am, Hale entered the school through the shattered side door and began opening fire on the second floor. 

Police arrived at the scene and heard the gunshots coming from the 2nd floor. 

By 10,.27am, Hale had been shot dead. She was armed with two assault-style rifles and a handgun. 

‘I know this is probably the worst day of everyone’s lives. 

‘I can’t tell you how sympathetic we are,’ a Metro Police officer was heard telling the parents as they waited at a nearby church for updates.