Officials have not formally charged Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but the arrest affidavit suggests that he will be charged with a capital crime that could lead to the death penalty.
The arrest affidavit posted by Fox News lists three crimes, including aggravated murder.
As well, FBI chief Kash Patel divulged on Fox News this morning that the bureau has DNA evidence that links Robinson to the crime, while the bureau is also investigating leftists groups in connection with the assassination.
Robinson’s roommate, who is “transitioning” from “male to female,” is cooperating with the FBI.
The affidavit reports that Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was dead on arrival at Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem. Kirk was speaking at Utah Valley University (UVU) when a bullet from a Mauser 30.06 hit him in the neck at about 12:23 p.m. on September 10. Video of the murder showed that the wound was obviously fatal.
Aside from describing what Robinson wore, including Converse/Chuck Taylor shoes, the affidavit says he walked “with a distinctive gait”:
Prior to the shooting, suspect appears to walk with a stiff, right leg and at a relatively slow pace. Suspect’s ability to bend his right leg appears to be restricted.
Investigators began tracking Robinson, called the suspect, at about 11:50 a.m. when a campus “surveillance camera first captured Suspect walking across a grassy area north of Campus Drive,” it alleges:
Suspect walked south through the parking lot and approached a pedestrian tunnel that runs underneath Campus Drive. Before entering the tunnel, Suspect paused at the top of the stairs and pulled out what appeared to be a cellphone from his right pocket using his right hand.
Minutes later, at about 12:02 p.m., video caught Robinson, “walking with the same gait as observed earlier.” He entered the university’s Losee Center, then “stairs that lead to the common area adjacent to the Losee Center building.”
tyler-robinson-affidavit-redactedDownload
At about 12:17 p.m., Robinson crouched “on the north side of the wall on the rooftop,” and five minutes later “stood up and started running across the rooftop.” But, notably, the limp was “absent.”
Robinson, the affidavit continues, then “laid down in a position consistent with a prone shooting position near the edge of the rooftop.” After the shooting, the “suspect stood up suddenly from the edge of the rooftop and sprinted north.”
From there, he dropped from the roof and fled. Investigators later found the scope-mounted Mauser wrapped in a “dark-colored towel,” along with the casing engraved with far-left slogans. Where Robinson dropped, investigators found a footprint “with the shoe sole characteristics of a Converse/Chuck Taylor shoe.”
The affidavit describes Robinson’s arriving on campus in a gray Dodge Challenger at about 8:29 a.m. that day. “When encountered in-person by investigators in Washington County on September 12, early morning hours, Robinson was observed in consistent clothing with the surveillance images,” the affidavit alleges.
A family member told investigators that Robinson ate dinner with the family before the shooting, and that
in conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU. They talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had. The family member also stated Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate.
The affidavit says Robinson’s roommate shared Discord messages posted by Robinson, including one about retrieving a rifle.
The affidavit pins three crimes on Robinson: aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, and capital/first degree obstruction of justice.
“The DNA hits from the towel that was wrapped around the firearm and the DNA on the screwdriver [found on the rooftop] are positively processed for the suspect in custody,” Patel said.
Yet that evidence hardly closes the investigation. Axios disclosed that the FBI is tracking far-left groups that might have known about the assassination plot and perhaps even been part of it.
“Federal and state law enforcement officials also are examining leftist groups in Utah to see whether they had knowledge of the alleged shooter’s plans beforehand, or if they lent material support to him afterward,” the website reported:
One of those groups eliminated its social media profile after the shooting.
Axios did not name the groups.
Yesterday, President Trump confirmed that report, Newsweek reported. “The [political violence] problem is on the left,” he told reporters:
It’s not on the right … and when you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that’s the left, that’s not the right.
Pressed on which groups might face scrutiny, Trump responded: “We’ll see, we’ll be announcing … they’re already under major investigation. A lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left, they’re already under investigation.”
And “bureau officials confirmed that Tyler Robinson, 22, was in a ‘romantic relationship’ with … a male transitioning to a female, and that they shared an apartment in Saint George, Utah,” Fox News reported. “Those FBI officials told Fox News Digital that Robinson’s partner is fully cooperating with the FBI’s investigation.”
That partner’s name, the Daily Mail revealed, is Lance Twiggs. The Daily Mail also reported that Twiggs was “aghast” at the murder and readily turned over the Discord messages to investigators.