‘Felt like stalker behavior

Old sports pals recall Nashville killer

Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale was “obsessive” and “stalkerish” toward her former middleschool basketball teammates — two of whom also have died in the past eight months.

The 28-year-old Hale, who police said was transgender and recently began using he/him pronouns, apparently cherished her time shooting hoops at Isaiah T. Creswell Middle School, The Tennessean reported.

Hale (pictured), who was a shy girl at the time, appreciated the kindness extended to her by the more athletic teammates, who tried to make her feel welcome.

She was devastated when former teammate Sydney Sims — with whom friends told The Post Hale was “infatuated” — was killed in a traffic accident last year.

Another teammate, Marque Lichelle Hamilton, died at the scene of another crash in Nashville in February, according to the outlet.

Antoine Buchanan, a former head coach at Creswell who coached Hale, remembered her as a shy, small eighth-grader who was part of the team that made it to the final four of the city tournament.

She said Hale was essentially a bench warmer.

“She would have played if we were really winning or really losing,” Buchanan told the paper.

Former teammate Averianna Patton, who called 911 after receiving ominous messages from Hale minutes before the rampage, recalled the team was close-knit.

“Audrey was super timid when we first met her. We had real camaraderie. As far as on the court, we were like a family,” she told the outlet.

Another ex-teammate, Mia Phillips, 28, said the players felt Hale was shy. “So we embraced her and really befriended her,” she said.

The two girls attended different high schools and drifted apart, but Hale reached out to Phillips on social media over the years — in ways she found disturbing.

When Phillips set up her new email at Middle Tennessee State University, she was surprised to already see an email from Hale, who also sent her memorabilia from their time as teammates.

“I’m trying to be as respectful and also as honest as possible. It felt obsessive. It felt like stalkerish behavior,” Phillips told The Tennessean.

Although she never felt compelled to contact authorities about Hale, she said the woman made people uncomfortable.

Strange party ‘faking’

In February 2022, Hale showed up uninvited to a birthday party at an eatery in Goodlettsville, attended by several of her former teammates.

Phillips said Hale appeared to be drunk, stumbling and slurring words, but others at the party said she hadn’t had anything to drink and believed she was pretending to be intoxicated.

Phillips asked Hale for her phone so she could call her family to get her home safely — but she refused. “Everybody was confused. It was just rubbing us in a weird way of like, giving us a really negative feeling. It didn’t feel right,” she told the paper.

After a memorial for Sims last year, Hale approached Phillips as she was about to drive off and asked if they could hang out.

“I was expressing to her that it was not the time or the place — that we were all grieving,” Phillips told The Tennessean.

Patton received chilling messages from Hale shortly before 10 a.m. Monday. “I’m planning to die today,” Hale wrote, using the name Aiden. “THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!” You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die,” she reportedly added.

Hale killed three students — 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney — and school janitor Mike Hill, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak and headmistress Katherine Koonce before being shot dead by police.