Chilling final messages Nashville school shooter sent moments before rampage revealed

A former classmate of the shooter who killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, in the US state of Tennessee, has revealed the chilling final messages the killer sent moments before their rampage.

Averianna Patton received concerning Instagram messages from shooting suspect Audrey Hale, 28, less than 20 minutes before Hale entered the Covenant School armed with at least two assault rifles and a hand gun.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Footage of Nashville School Shooter, Audrey Elizabeth Hale, has been released.

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In the messages, Hale talked about not wanting to live anymore and said that their family did not know what they were about to do.

Patton tried to be supportive, according to screenshots of the messages. In their last message, Hale said that something bad was about to happen and asked for forgiveness.

Hale had sent Patton a direct message reading: “One day this will make more sense. I’ve left behind more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

“I had screenshotted the message to my dad and said, ‘This don’t seem right, should I say something?’ and he immediately responded, ‘Yes’,” Patton told CNN.

“He said start with the suicide prevention line so I called them.”

Patton says she was then directed to the county sheriff’s office and then told to call a non-emergency number. However, by the time someone came to visit her home she had already left for a meeting.

Patton later learned that Hale was responsible for the shooting.

Asked why Hale would have contacted her when the pair were not friends as adults, Patton said, “I’m asking God the same question”.

Patton said the last time she saw Hale was a few weeks ago at a painting event to commemorate a mutual friend who had died in a car crash. Nothing about Hale seemed amiss, Patton said.

Hale fired multiple shots on the first and second floors of the school before police fatally shot them on the second floor, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aarons aid.

The three students who were shot and killed - Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney - were all nine years old, police later confirmed.

Hallie is the daughter of Chad Scruggs, the senior pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church, the Nashville Presbytery confirmed to CBS News.

The three adults who were also killed in the shooting have been identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill, police said.

All three adults worked at the school, with Koonce listed as head of school on the school’s website.

Hill worked as a custodian and Peak was identified by authorities as a substitute teacher.

Shooter details emerge

Authorities say Hale was a Nashville local who was once a student at the school.

The first call on the shooting came in at 10.13am (local time) and the shooter was dead at 10.27am, Aaron said.

Hale fired at authorities from a second-storey window when they arrived at the building, police said.

As details about the suspect emerged, there was conflicting information about Hale’s gender identity.

Nashville police said Hale was a transgender woman.

Chief John Drake said officials “feel that she identifies as trans, but we’re still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident”.

Hale’s LinkedIn page, which indicates activity roughly a month ago and includes a job history updated 10 months ago, uses “he/him” pronouns.

Police have not shared a possible motive for the shooting.

One police officer who responded to the scene was wounded by cut glass, Aaron added. There were no other people injured.

All three of the students were pronounced dead after arrival at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, the medical centre said.

The school has students from preschool through sixth grade.

The shooting garnered a massive police and fire response, and concerned families gathered outside the school to wait for word of their loved ones.

‘I just broke down in tears’

A woman working across the street from the Covenant School described watching the police arrive at the scene.

Shearwater Health employee Jozen Reodica told CNN she realised something was wrong when she saw several police cars arrive at the scene.

The police “started to close down the roads,” she said. “It happened so fast.”

Reodica shot video of police escorting students out of the school, which is a private Christian elementary school.

The students were holding hands and walking in a line, according to Reodica.

Tennessee state representative Bob Freeman said he “broke down in tears” after watching video of children being escorted from Covenant School.

“We’re gonna need answers. We’re gonna need some comfort to at least move forward to believe that this can’t happen again,” he told CNN.

“You drop your kids off at school, you expect to pick him up at the end of the day and you expect the school and the school system to keep them safe. That’s a pretty low bar to expect from the school system and we’ve got to do better.”

President Joe Biden called the shooting “heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare”.

“We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of the nation,” he said.

The incident is the 19th shooting at a school or university so far this year in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN tally.

Last week, two faculty members were shot and wounded by a student at a high school in Denver, Colorado, and the student was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Covenant School is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. The school teaches preschool through 6th grade, according to its website.

On a typical day it has 209 students and 42 staff members, Aaron said.

- With NBC