What we learned from a week of testimony in the Charlie Kirk murder case

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Today was the last day of a five-day preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, who's accused of killing Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10th, 2025. Prosecutors have said they'll seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted. Prosecutors presented testimony through the week to try to show that there's enough evidence to send Tyler Robinson's case to trial. This week was also the first time Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica, and his parents were in the courtroom. Some of the evidence that was shown this week has already been described in court filings, but there was a lot the public hadn't seen yet, like photos of the crime scene, new surveillance footage, and a video interview with Robinson's roommate and romantic partner. This was an incredibly emotional week for Kirk's family, who was supported in the hearing by high-profile figures like Donald Trump Jr. and Utah Senator Mike Lee. There were at times intense arguments as Robinson's attorneys fought to keep as much of this evidence as they could out of the public's view. In Utah, prosecutors generally don't send cases through a grand jury process, and instead they file charges directly, and then there's these preliminary hearings, which they exist as sort of a check on this power, giving judges a chance to weigh some of the evidence, and then they can throw out cases if they don't have merit. But the burden of proof is much lower, so in this case, 4th District Judge Tony Graff only needs to determine that there's probable cause that Robinson likely committed a crime, compared to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which jurors must find at a trial. Former UVU police officer Chris Bagley testified on Monday that thousands of people had come to the Turning Point USA event on the Utah College campus, and after that shot was fired, the rally turned to chaos. He said he heard on the police radio that authorities had quickly captured a potential suspect in the crowd, but that later turned out to be a man who wasn't involved. [00:01:39] Speaker 2: I was starting to run down as I was trying to get down to the bottom of the stairs. People were running up, people were laying down on the steps. I'm trying to jump over people to get to the bottom of the stairs so I can help stop an individual that was probably shooting. By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, I was informed on the radio that we had a shooter in custody. So I thought, at that moment, I was like, well, that was kind of fast. Obviously, it was close range probably because we had an individual in custody. Another officer came on and said we had an individual in custody. So I decided to, since the threat is gone, now I can assess for anybody that's injured and start looking for any medical needs that's needed at that moment. [00:02:22] Speaker 1: Then we saw a video interview from Lance Twiggs, who was Robinson's romantic partner at that time. [00:02:27] Lance Twiggs: I think it was 2023. I've known him longer than that, though. That was, I think, the first time I met him in person. [00:02:33] Speaker 1: Authorities have said that Twiggs is transgender and in a small portion of the video, Twiggs confirmed he's also gone by the name Luna. [00:02:39] Lance Twiggs: I understand you're going by Luna at some point. To some people, yeah, but not as an overall thing. [00:02:45] Speaker 1: But added that he used that name with some people and that it wasn't an overall thing. And both the prosecution and the defense have referred to Twiggs with male pronouns throughout this hearing. Robinson's defense team had fought hard to keep Twiggs' video, the text messages, and other evidence out of public view. They argued that any release in open court could affect Robinson's right to a fair trial and could taint a potential jury pool. [00:03:07] Lance Twiggs: The vast majority of this video is Mr. McBride testifying and Mr. Twiggs agreeing. If we were in a courtroom, it would be a leading examination virtually from start to finish. [00:03:24] Speaker 1: Prosecutors showed text messages that they say Twiggs and Robinson exchanged on September 10th At 4.33 p.m. that day, hours after Kirk had been shot, Robinson and Twiggs sent each other messages telling the other they loved them. But at 11 p.m., a text that Robinson had seemingly scheduled changed the tone of these conversations. He told Twiggs to drop what you're doing and look under my keyboard. Twiggs said in the video interview that he looked under that keyboard and he found a note. If you're reading this per my text, the note begins, Robinson allegedly wrote that he left that morning on a mission and that he was likely dead or facing a lengthy prison sentence. I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I took it, the note read. I don't know if I will slash have succeeded, but I had hoped to make it home to you. Twiggs then texted Robinson seemingly in a panic, asking if he was joking. You weren't the one who did it, right? Twiggs texted. I am. I'm sorry, Robinson texted back, according to these photos that were displayed in court. Sergeant Jennifer Faumina with Utah's Department of Public Safety testified later in the week that authorities found a rifle wrapped in a dark towel in a wooded area near the campus, and photos of that weapon were shown in court. [00:04:28] Speaker 4: Did you go to that area? [00:04:29] Speaker 5: Yes, I did. [00:04:29] Speaker 4: Did you observe the weapon? Yes. Will you describe what you saw? [00:04:33] Speaker 5: Yeah, what I saw was a rifle that was, or at the time before even having removed it, we found, or in the bushes, we found all you could really see was just a dark towel there. So pictures were taken of that, and then eventually the gun or the towel was removed, and then once we removed the towel from the bushes is when we uncovered that the towel was wrapped, was actually used to wrap the gun in. [00:05:01] Speaker 1: Faumina also testified that police found one fired cartridge and three unfired bullets in the rifle, all of which had engravings on them, and photos of those cartridges were also shown in court this week. David Hull worked as a Utah Bureau of Investigations agent at the time of the shooting, and he testified about surveillance video that was shown in the hearing. This video showed someone on the roof of a campus building, run across the building, lay down in a prone position around the time Charlie Kirk was shot, and then run away off the building and jump down. And Hull testified that he believed that that person captured on the video fleeing was Robinson. [00:05:34] Speaker 6: I would describe it as a compilation of the video that we obtained from Utah Valley University during the course of the investigation that depicts the movements of the individual, I believe, to be Mr. Robinson moving around the campus on September 10, 2025 into the morning of September 11, 2025. [00:05:54] Speaker 1: One of Robinson's defense attorneys questioned Hullet whether authorities investigated all of the tips they received, including online death threats that Kirk had received the day prior to the shooting. [00:06:03] Speaker 7: As you were going through tips that the public was giving you, did you receive tips about online death threats that had been made against Mr. Kirk prior to his death? [00:06:12] Speaker 6: There was a huge variety of tips and information and suggestions that were being provided by the public. [00:06:19] Speaker 7: Okay, and a lot of those, some of those filtered through you, right? [00:06:25] Speaker 6: Some of them filtered their way down to us, but predominantly that was being handled by our state information and analysis center that had been set up. [00:06:33] Speaker 1: Robinson's attorneys also posed hours of detailed questions to FBI DNA analyst Amanda Baker, who concluded that Robinson's DNA was likely on a screwdriver that was found on the roof of that campus building. And his DNA was also likely found on a towel that authorities say Robinson wrapped the rifle in after that fatal shot. The defense questioned the validity of her conclusions, and they also questioned another DNA analyst's conclusions that Robinson's DNA was also likely on the rifle that police believe was used in the fatal shooting. [00:07:00] Speaker 8: There was some degradation. As I look at the DNA peaks or the DNA data, in an ideal world, if there's no degradation, I would expect all the peaks to be at the same height. Here I see a ski slope type effect, meaning that the data on the left is a little bit taller than the data on the right. [00:07:18] Speaker 1: This week, the Kirks got a lot of support from high-profile conservative figures like Rush Limbaugh's widow, Catherine Limbaugh, conservative commentator Brandon Tatum, and Utah Senator Mike Lee. And in the beginning of the week, Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Bettina also attended. Trump spoke to Fox News about the hearing. [00:07:34] Speaker 4: Well, listen, I think the prosecutors did a great job doing that. I mean, frankly, the biggest question in my mind at this point, Charlie, is not whether Tyler Robinson did this or if it was, you know, some, you know, people from a foreign land or another planet. It was, why were there only six police officers active at a major event on a university? [00:07:57] Speaker 1: So over these last five days of a preliminary hearing for Tyler Robinson, the prosecutors have presented compelling evidence that's shown multiple places where they say Robinson has confessed to the crime. And they also tied him to key pieces of evidence through likely DNA matches. And the defense did push back on some of this evidence, but this is not the type of hearing where the defense will present its entire case. So we don't quite know yet what the defense for Tyler Robinson will be. So the next hearing will be on September 1st, and that's when attorneys will come together and they'll argue in front of Judge Graff about whether the case should move forward. Judge Graff will hear those arguments, and then he'll make a ruling later.