The Patriot Post® · Remember the Nashville Victims More Than Their Killer

The families and friends of three nine-year-old children — Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney — and adults Katherine Koonce (headmistress), Cynthia Peak, and Mike Hill are still grieving today after those six innocent lives were taken by a deranged murderer on March 27, 2023, at The Covenant School in Nashville. Those are the names and the lives we should remember.

Koonce, 60, confronted the 28-year-old female assailant, and her family said, “She gave her life to protect the students she loved.” That’s what good Christian people do.

Hill, 61, was the school janitor and the first victim just as the killer entered the building. Big and lovable, this “strong man of faith” adored the kids at the school.

Peak, 61, modeled what her brother called “unwavering faith in Christ” through loving the schoolchildren.

The three children killed were all just nine years old. They had their whole lives ahead of them, learning the faith of their families and church. Hallie Scruggs was the pastor’s daughter. To hear their parents speak afterward is to feel only a sliver of their gut-wrenching grief.

We also ought to be thankful for the heroism of the Nashville police. Officers Michael Collazo and Rex Engelbert took down the killer, relying on the aid of their fellow officers, all of whom did exactly what they were trained to do. Lives were saved because of their efforts, and they were fortunate enough to make it home to their own families that day.

Unfortunately, nearly a year and a half later, most of the news is not about these innocents or their families but about the demented rantings of their killer, a woman we will not name. We will also not follow the media’s lead and indulge her fantasy about being a “transgender” male, though that was one of her primary motivations.

The FBI got a lot of attention for censoring the killer’s “manifesto,” such as it was — a collection of various journal scribblings, including loose plans for the assault. The initial justification was an “ongoing investigation,” but that morphed into a fear that release would lead to “conspiracy theories” and “false narratives.” The FBI, of course, would never participate in such things.

However, it’s not lost on me that the Covenant families also objected to its release for entirely non-political and justifiable reasons.

They did so because it was too painful, too raw, and to rub what seemed like political salt in their wounds was too cruel. They were also concerned about inspiring future attacks, including against their own church and school, if other identifiable information was included. So, even as I write these words, I also pray for my fellow Presbyterian brothers and sisters that the Lord would salve their wounds and prevent the incitement they feared.

In some ways, our nation would be better off never giving notoriety to the rantings of mass murderers. Many of them kill for the attention and the fame, which is why, with rare exception such as an active manhunt, we don’t name mass killers. Deprive them of what they seek.

Yet, as was probably inevitable, the “manifesto” was leaked. A few pages of it were made public in November, revealing the murderer to be a white anti-white racist. It’s tragically ironic that her first victim was a black man.

Now, more of her writings have been made public, showing not just a racist but a person motivated by hatred for conservative Christians in large measure because of her own gender dysphoria. It was exactly what we believed to be the case at the time and precisely why we suspected political motives for the FBI and authorities suppressing the information. The families surely also knew it would be a political battle.

If I may be so bold, withholding it only made that battle harder and more painful. Rather than knowing with certainty in Spring 2023, we’re now debating as Summer 2024 is at hand, reopening wounds that will never heal.

“The point of transparency,” explained The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh in discussing his release of the material, “is not to demonize anyone who may be suffering from mental illness, or to ‘marginalize’ any particular group of people. The point of transparency in this case is to give the public the information it has a right to know — and to likely save people’s lives in the process.”

Walsh and the Wire have much more, but I’ll hit just a few illustrative points. The killer was incredibly bitter against her Christian parents for the “torture of being raised a girl.” In an entry titled “My Imaginary Penis,” she wrote, “F*** parents like them who think of themselves first, and their preference of conservative religion.” She complained that her parents “actually believe religion can change nature,” which is “why I don’t practice religion anymore.” In other words, the “false narrative” here was what the Leftmedia routinely parrots — that Christianity can’t change people for the better.

Though officials repeatedly denied the murderous assault was a hate crime against Christians, these other profane rants against the faith and the faithful belie such a claim.

Much like the entire Rainbow Mafia foisting “pride” celebrations on us this and every June, she was also obsessed with her genitals — especially the ones she didn’t have. She wrote about her body extensively, including describing sexual fantasies she acted out with toys.

If the murderer had been a male white supremacist, such writings would have received wall-to-wall coverage. By contrast, when it’s an anti-white gender-dysphoric female, the Left went to great lengths to squelch the truth to protect its favorite class of people.

People with gender dysphoria are made in the image of God, just not how the cult tells them. They need help and truth in love, not acquiescence and celebration. This killer received treatment from Vanderbilt for roughly 20 years, but the hospital will say nothing about what kind of treatment.

My word of warning is to left-wing churches that fly “pride” flags as they embrace this cult. You are indulging sin and evil in ways that defy and dishonor Christ, whom you claim to follow. That won’t go well for you if you don’t repent.

My word of comfort to the families of the victims is that, though it was far sooner than any of us wished, your loved ones now enjoy Christ’s embrace forever.