The 22-year-old man charged in Charlie Kirk’s murder used his grandfather’s antique rifle to shoot and kill the rising conservative star, a Utah prosecutor said Tuesday.
He’d been planning the killing for more than a week, according to messages from the accused shooter read aloud Tuesday by Utah County Attorney Jeffrey S. Gray.
Mr. Gray said he will seek the death penalty against Tyler Robinson. He’s accused of shooting and killing Mr. Kirk on Sept. 10 while he conversed with students on the campus of Utah Valley University.
Mr. Gray said Mr. Robinson will be charged with aggravated murder and five other charges, among them felony charges for attempting to silence his boyfriend and get him to destroy evidence.
Mr. Gray read text exchanges from Mr. Robinson to his boyfriend, Lance Twiggs, 22, in which he admitted to the crime and said he’d carried out the shooting with a rifle once owned by his grandfather and presented to him as a gift from his father.
The rifle is among the early images released by authorities that led his family to suspect him of the killing.
The multiple messages carved into bullet cases recovered by authorities, which included references to the online subculture, Antifa, and furries subculture, are “mostly a big meme,” Mr. Robinson told his roommate in one text exchange.
Mr. Robinson told his roommate why he killed Mr. Kirk:
“I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
Mr. Kirk was known for debating students on hot-button issues. He opposed transgender ideology, abortion and illegal immigration.
At the time of the message, sent after the shooting, Mr. Robinson planned to try to recover the rifle, which he had ditched in the woods.
“If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence,” he said.
But authorities got to the weapon first, recovering DNA evidence on the body of the rifle and the trigger, as well as the towel found wrapped around it.
It was Mr. Robinson’s mother who recognized him in images of the shooter distributed by the FBI, Mr. Gray said.
The family also recognized photos of the grandfather’s rifle. Mr. Robinson’s father prodded his son to produce a photo of the rifle in the hours after the shooting, as their suspicions of his involvement increased.
The message exchange between Mr. Robinson and Mr. Twiggs indicated Mr. Twiggs was not involved in the planning of the assassination, nor did he know anything about it.
He repeatedly asked Mr. Robinson if he was serious about his admission of committing the killing.
Mr. Robinson, explaining to his boyfriend the memes he carved on the bullet casing, told Mr. Twiggs if he saw Fox News reading the “furries” subculture meme he left on one of the bullets, “I might have a stroke.”
He also told Mr. Twiggs, “Judging from today, I’d say grandpa’s gun does just fine. I don’t know. I think that was a $2k scope, wink wink.”
He told Mr. Twiggs to delete the exchange and, if contacted by police, to remain silent and get a lawyer.
Mr. Robinson at first did not pick up on calls from his father, who was trying to reach him after recognizing him in the FBI images.
“He’s calling me. Not answering,” Mr. Robinson said in a text to Mr. Twiggs. “Since Trump got into office, my dad has been pretty die-hard MAGA.”
