Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man, has been arrested for the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. According to President Donald Trump and confirmed at a press conference by Utah Governor Spencer Cox, the alleged shooter confessed to the crime to his family and turned himself in to authorities last night 350 kilometers south of the capital, Salt Lake City. Apparently, his father convinced him to do so after recognizing his face in FBI videos and speaking with him. The family asked a local religious leader for help and they agreed to turn himself in.
Robinson's parents, siblings and friends have said in interviews that the young man"has become politicized in recent years" and, last week, had an argument at home after saying that Kirk was going to be at the university where the shooting took place and that he considered him a"hate spreader."
Investigators also questioned his roommate, who showed them the two men's conversations over the past few hours on Discord, discussing the crime, where he left the gun, and how he was fleeing. These messages also confirmed that the bullets found contained recorded messages referencing"fascism" and the song "Bella Ciao," the anthem of the Italian partisans against Mussolini during World War II.
The bullet messages are actually loaded with slang from the world of video games, which the young man was very fond of, as well as banal expressions from popular and teenage culture. Many experts have pointed out that the expressions, jokes, and even the music mentioned are part of several of the most popular video games, such as Helldivers 2 and Fran Cry 6.
Authorities have indicated that Robinson is a native of Washington, D.C., Utah, and was not a student at Utah Valley University, where the attack took place. There are social media and online records of his good grades in high school, and that he was enrolled at another university in at least 2021.
He was currently in his third year of an electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, one of the 16 institutions in the Utah System of Higher Education, according to a spokesperson. The facility is just a few miles from the family's residence.
Robinson was registered to vote, but had no political affiliation, and had not voted in recent elections. State records show no criminal record. Within minutes, the internet was filled with images culled from Robinson's relatives' social media accounts, showing a close-knit, middle-class family accustomed to traveling together fishing and camping and with regular contact with guns. According to The Daily Mail, his father is a police officer with nearly three decades of service with the county sheriff's office, and his mother works for people with disabilities. He is the oldest of three siblings. He graduated from Pine View High School in St. George in 2020, and there is a video of the family opening his college entrance exam scores, on which he earned outstanding grades.
The digital trail speaks of a good student, with good grades and a scholarship to study at the state's public institutions. These images show experience with the use of rifles since he was a child, posed with high-caliber weapons at fairs or National Guard exhibitions, and even one from 2017, on Halloween, with a Donald Trump costume.
Until the suspect's family encouraged him to turn himself in, the best lead was a bolt-action, hand-loading,.30-caliber Mauser rifle lying on a towel in the woods, along with footprints. A spent cartridge case was recovered from the chamber, and three more were loaded, according to a preliminary report from a firearms agency. Photos of other rifles have been found on family pages still open to the public, but not one like the one used to kill Kirk.
