Authorities announced Friday that Utah officials have detained a 22-year-old man suspected of killing right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday at Utah Valley University after a family member helped turn him in.
President Donald Trump broke the news during an in-person appearance on “Fox & Friends” earlier in the day, saying he believed “with a high degree of certainty” the shooter had been caught.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) confirmed the arrest in a press conference.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We got him,” Cox began.
The suspect, Tyler Robinson, was not a UVU student and lived in southwest Utah, some 250 miles from the site of the shooting. He was charged with state felony offenses including aggravated murder — which carries the possibility of the death penalty — along with obstruction of justice and discharge of a weapon causing serious bodily injury, per The Associated Press.
Trump relayed some of the story ahead of the official announcement during his TV news appearance. It was also Trump who announced Kirk’s death in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting.
“Essentially, somebody that was very close to him turned him in,” Trump told the Fox hosts. “It’s interesting, we had very good pictures, but not great, not perfect.”
Trump said he was told the suspect’s father and a religious leader were involved in bringing Robinson to law enforcement. Cox said that “a family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend, who contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”
A family member of Robinson’s told investigators that the 22-year-old had become “more political in recent years,” the governor said.
He described a recent dinner conversation between Robinson and one of his family members that was relayed to investigators wherein Robinson apparently mentioned that Kirk was coming to UVU.
“They talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints that he had,” Cox said of Kirk.
“The family member also stated Kirk was full of hate, and spreading hate.”
Investigators found that Robinson drives a gray Dodge Challenger similar to the one believed to be used by the shooter on Wednesday; the vehicle was spotted arriving on campus around 8 a.m.
Robinson’s upbringing appears to be typical of a Utah suburb. He was awarded a scholarship to Utah State University but only attended for one semester in 2021, according to CNN and a statement from the school. A neighbor told NBC News that Robinson was “smart,” “quiet” and “never caused any problems.”
Authorities confirmed that writing had been found on bullet casings related to the attack that suggest the shooter was deeply entrenched in internet culture.
The single fired casing appeared to be inscribed with a reference to a meme involving furries, an online role-playing community.
Another, unfired casing was found to read, “Hey, fascist! Catch!” It also had a series of commands corresponding to a video game cheat code to unlock a bomb.
“Oh, bella ciao. Bella ciao. Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,” read another unfired casing, appearing to reference an antifascist song.
The last read simply, “If you read this, you are gay LMAO.”
Authorities said a friend of Robinson’s showed them a series of Discord messages between the two appearing to reference the logistics of the shooting, including retrieving a rifle from a drop point, leaving a rifle wrapped in a towel behind, and changing outfits.
FBI agents had recovered what they believed to be the weapon used in the shooting on Wednesday, describing it as a “high-powered, bolt action rifle” from a wooded area nearby.
Trump praised the investigators on “Fox & Friends,” saying, “We started off with a clip that made him look like an ant, that was almost useless. We just saw there was somebody up there.”
The investigation, however, notably included several false starts.
Utah Department of Public Safety detained two other individuals it named as “suspects” in the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Wednesday, although further investigation revealed neither was involved.
FBI Director Kash Patel fed into the chaos by announcing on social media that agents had caught the shooter on Wednesday afternoon. He was forced to walk back the claim in another post soon after.
Patel shared an eyebrow-raising message at the press conference.
“To my friend Charlie Kirk: Rest now, brother. We have the watch. And I’ll see you at Valhalla,” he said.
(Kirk was known for his strong conservative Christian beliefs; Valhalla is part of the afterlife as described in Norse mythology.)
On Thursday, Utah DPS Commissioner Beau Mason told reporters Thursday they had “good video footage of this individual” and described the suspect as someone “college aged” who “blended in well with the institution.”
The footage shows the individual arriving on campus at 11:52 a.m. and ascending several stairwells to the rooftop location where the shot was fired. A clip that was later released shows his escape: The figure runs across the roof, dangles himself down, jumps onto the grass and flees into a nearby neighborhood.
The FBI’s Salt Lake City office had also released photos of a “person of interest” in the shooting that appear to have been taken from the surveillance video. The photos show a person wearing a black hat, dark glasses, and a black long-sleeve shirt with a design bearing an American flag in the center.
Graphic footage of the shooting spread rapidly over social media on Wednesday and remained easy to find for hours afterward, often without blurring or other edits.
At the press conference, Cox discouraged people from viewing the assassination and condemned the political violence that has rattled the country.
“This feels a lot like the late ’60s,” Cox said. “And having one so gruesomely displayed on camera, in all of our hands and in all of our pockets, we are not wired as human beings, biologically, historically, we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery.”
“This is not good for us. It is not good to consume,” he said.