Just nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleSheila FlynnSenior US Reporter
“Devastating” evidence, including DNA on a rifle and a text confession, shows a 23-year-old should be tried for murdering Charlie Kirk last year, prosecutors told a court this week, as the defence team tried to poke holes in the case.
The preliminary hearings gave prosecutors a chance to outline probable cause to try Tyler Robinson, 23, on charges including aggravated murder, a death penalty offence in Utah.
They painted a vivid picture of his movements in the 48 hours surrounding the murder of Kirk – using CCTV, witness testimony, a taped interview with Robinson’s roommate and messages between the pair.
The defence for Robinson, who has not yet entered a plea, sought to sow doubt on all of it.
ReutersKirk, a key Trump ally, founder of conservative youth organisation Turning Point USA and a 31-year-old father-of-two, was shot once in the neck as he addressed a crowd on the campus of Utah Valley University.
For the past five days, lawyers for Robinson, a trainee electrician, raised repeated objections to evidence and testimony on arguments including hearsay and the tainting of potential jurors.
They questioned the credibility of experts, DNA and ballistics reports with prolonged cross-examination about testing, interpretation and protocol.
Now Robinson’s fate lies in the hands of Utah County Judge Tony Graf, who will determine if the case proceeds to trial.
Few details were actually known about Robinson or his actions until this week’s court hearing.
Proceedings drew intense interest from the public, and some lined up overnight to earn a wristband for one of just 14 seats allotted for spectators.
Families of both defendant and victim were emotional during proceedings. At one point on Friday, while video was shown of the suspect running across a rooftop on the day of the shooting, Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, reportedly hugged her tearful mother-in-law, then both looked away from the footage.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, spent the week painting a picture of a college dropout gamer who planned an attack on a national political figure with his grandfather’s rifle and sought to cover his tracks to get away with it.
Much of what was learned came from his former roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, through a video interview with a prosecutor, recorded in April.
Wearing a navy blue blazer and patterned tie, long hair parted in the middle, Twiggs told the prosecution about Robinson how the pair first met through friends in 2023. They were roommates before starting to date.
Robinson, Twiggs said, had been working as an electrician while attending trade school at the time of the shooting. The 23-year-old would sometimes talk politics, said Twiggs, who believed Robinson listened to relevant shows on the way to jobs with colleagues.
ReutersThe suspect would talk about Trump or current affairs, according to his roommate, who expressed a lack of interest in politics and “didn’t really contribute much” to any such conversations.
They didn’t discuss LGBT issues and Twiggs had never heard Robinson mention Kirk, according to the taped interview.
On the morning of Kirk’s killing, Twiggs said Robinson left earlier than usual, around 04:00, but his roommate believed the departure time centred on a job a bit farther away.
Instead, prosecutors said, Robinson showed up three-and-a-half hours north at Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
They played surveillance footage they said shows Robinson sauntering through campus, buying and eating Chick-Fil-A and even interacting with representatives from Kirk’s Turning Point USA organisation.
The court heard no details about what such interactions entailed.
They did, however, see footage of a man prosecutors say is Robinson returning to campus in different clothes from the ones he was pictured in earlier – as well as changing his gait, holding one leg straight.
Surveillance showed the suspect heading to the rooftop of the Losee Center, the building from which investigators say Kirk was shot.
A sergeant with Utah’s State Bureau of Investigation testified this week that the shot that killed Kirk was fired from a perch about 415ft (126m) above the conservative activist’s position – and another officer testified about finding a “sniper pad” on top of the Losee Center in the chaos after the shooting.
“I could see the disturbance of gravel; to me, it looks like a sniper pad, a person that has been lying in a prone position, and you’ve got marking of elbows, knees and feet – where somebody was in the line of sight of where Charlie’s tent was,” Officer Chris Bagley testified.
APAccording to State Bureau of Investigation Agent David Hull, who testified over two days, surveillance video shows Robinson rolling over a railing on to the Losee rooftop, lying prone and later dropping down off it with an unknown object in his hand.
In texts between Robinson and his roommate from the night of the shooting, the suspect said he’d hidden his grandfather’s rifle in bushes near campus – and returned while an intense manhunt was underway.
“If I’m able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence,” Robinson texted Twiggs. “I’m going to attempt to retrieve it again; hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t seen anything in the news about them finding it.”
Robinson complained that “there is a squad car parked right by it.
“I think they already swept that spot, but I don’t want to chance it while they are parked there. If they had found it, I would imagine there would be more commotion,” Robinson texted Twiggs.
He added: “Again, I am sorry for roping you into all of this. You should not have to worry about this.”
When Twiggs asked Robinson whether he was the shooter, the suspect admitted it and apologised, according to texts presented by prosecutors.
“I had enough of his hatred,” Robinson texted. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
ReutersThe suspect wasn’t even sure what model of gun he’d used, according to messages with his roommate.
“I don’t fully know what the gun was, because it was old… and Gramps did some modifying,” he wrote, noting there “was a four-digit serial on it”.
Twiggs testified that Robinson had asked weeks earlier about using an engraving tool in advance of an upcoming hunting and camping trip with his family.
After the shooting, however, he texted Twiggs: “Remember how I was engraving bullets?”
He said the messages were “mostly a big meme”.
The court saw pictures this week of inscribed bullets and cartridges found both at the crime scene and Robinson’s residence – with messages such as “Hey Fascist! Catch!” and “If you read this, you are gay”.
A cartridge at Robinson’s apartment was engraved with “Test Shot”, the court heard.
Robinson eventually gave up trying to retrieve the rifle, he texted Twiggs, and made his way back to their home in St George.
Authorities did discover the firearm, law enforcement testified this week, and found DNA matching Robinson on both the rifle and a towel it was wrapped in.
Robinson, meanwhile, was nervous and regretful in the apartment he shared with his roommate the day after the shooting, Twiggs said in the recorded interview.
“I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before and he said it was,” Twiggs said.
“He started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn’t done it and then kept going around and just doing stuff, I think to keep himself busy or distracted or something.”
The hearing featured lengthy debates over the admissibility of evidence – with media lawyers and Kirk representatives arguing passionately for everything to be displayed publicly or at least in the courtroom.
Robinson told his roommate the day after the killing that he intended to turn himself in, Twiggs said.
The court heard how the suspect arrived at Washington County Sheriff’s Office at 21.00 on 11 September, accompanied by his parents and a family friend.
Prosecutors played soundless footage of him that night, wearing a maroon shirt, dark hat, jeans and Converse shoes, and he was transported back to Utah County and formally booked on 12 September.
This week, Robinson appeared in court clean-shaven and wearing light-coloured suits. His parents and two brothers also attended.
So did Kirk’s widow and parents, as well as the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, and his wife.
The prosecution finished presenting its evidence on Thursday, while the defence called its final witness on Friday morning – despite prosecutors’ objection.
“Your Honour’s heard four days of testimony now,” Chief Deputy Utah County Attorney General Chad Grunander said. “The evidence is overwhelming. It’s devastating.”
Both sides must now submit lengthy written briefs, and Judge Tony Graf set the next hearing date for 1 September.
The Kirk family released a statement shortly after court adjourned.
“As difficult as these last few days have been, it brings our family comfort to know that the world has witnessed the overwhelming evidence of what occurred to Charlie that day,” the family wrote.
“Nothing will ever undo the loss of our beloved Charlie. As this case moves into its next phase, we pray that truth will continue to be heard through a process that is fair, transparent, and grounded in the facts.”
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