Provo • The 22-year-old Utahn accused of fatally shooting conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last week now faces an aggravated murder charge — along with six other criminal counts — and prosecutors indicate that, if he is convicted, they will seek his death.
Prosecutors specifically charged Tyler James Robinson on Tuesday with aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; discharge of a firearm, a first-degree felony; two counts of obstruction of justice, second-degree felonies; two counts of tampering with a witness, third-degree felonies; and a misdemeanor count of violence committed in the presence of a child, according to charging documents.
Prosecutors did not include the intent to seek the death penalty in their initial filings Tuesday afternoon, but Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said at a news conference that he would file those papers later Tuesday.
That filing appeared in the court record just before Robinson’s initial appearance hearing Tuesday afternoon in 4th District Court in Provo. Robinson attended remotely from the Utah County jail, wearing a dark-colored suicide-prevention smock.
(Scott G Winterton | Pool) Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, appears by camera before Judge Tony Graf in Utah's 4th District Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, for his initial appearance.
“I do not take this decision lightly,” Gray said about his charging decision, “and it is a decision I have made independently as county attorney based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime.”
In recent news conferences, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox had emphasized that Utah would pursue the death penalty in the killing of Kirk.
Robinson is accused of shooting Kirk on Sept. 10 as the 31-year-old answered a student’s question at a Turning Point USA event at the Orem university. It was the first stop on Kirk’s planned “American Comeback Tour.”
The charges filed Tuesday reveal more details about Robinson’s political ideologies, his actions after the shooting and his parents’ growing realization that their son may be involved in the shooting — a suspicion that ultimately led to his arrest.
Court records show no listed attorney for Robinson as of Tuesday afternoon. Defense attorney Greg Skordas told 4th District Judge Tony F. Graf at the court hearing that he was helping the state find an attorney to represent Robinson. As such, The Salt Lake Tribune was unable to submit a request for comment.
Utah court records indicate Robinson has no prior criminal history in the state, and a public safety assessment — used by prosecutors to recommend bail — showed no criminal convictions.
According to charging documents, on the day of Kirk’s death, Robinson texted his roommate, who police have said was in a “romantic relationship” with Robinson and is transgender. Robinson asked them to look under his keyboard. There, they found a note that said, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”
When the roommate asked why Robinson did it, the court papers state, he texted back, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t seen anything about them finding it.”
According to the charging documents, Robinson said he had been planning the shooting for a “bit over a week” and appeared fixated leaving the rifle behind, saying he should have picked it up.
“Judging from today,” he added, “I’d say grandpa’s gun does just fine idk. I think that was a $2K scope.” Robinson then told the roommate to delete the conversation, saying his dad was texting him and calling him about the gun.
Law enforcement said in charging documents that the shooter appeared to fire a single shot from the top of the university’s Losee Center, about 160 yards away from where Kirk was speaking.
A Mauser Model 98, .30-06 caliber, bolt-action rifle with a scope mounted on top that investigators suspect was used in the killing was later found wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the scene.
Police also found bullet casings — one fired, three unfired — with the rifle that were inscribed with various phrases, including apparent references to internet memes.
The three unfired casings were inscribed with: “hey fascist! CATCH!” with arrow symbols after it; “If you read This, you are GAY Lmao”; and “O Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Ciao, ciao!”
The fired casing was engraved with the words “Notices Buldge OWO what’s this?” according to a probable cause statement. The phrase “OwO” is used in some online communities to denote curiosity or surprise.
Robinson had been awaiting these charges — and court proceedings — at the Utah County jail since Friday.
“These are allegations, and like the evidence set forth in this statement, those allegations, what you’ve heard from the media, even from state and federal officials, has not been tested in the crucible of a jury trial,” Gray emphasized in Tuesday’s news conference.
Those comments came as FBI Director Kash Patel, who has made numerous posts about Kirk’s death and visited Utah as investigators searched for a shooter, appeared in front of Congress. He faced questions during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on posts he made inaccurately reporting a suspect was in custody.
Asked why his office has been more measured in distributing information compared to federal officials — like Patel — Gray said, “As attorneys, we typically like to control that information to preserve an impartial jury and a fair trial.”
The arrest was the culmination of more than 30 hours of searching, during which time law enforcement officials questioned at least two other men in connection with the shooting and conducted, they said, around 200 interviews and received more than 11,000 tips.
Family concerns lead to arrest
Out of all those tips, the most consequential came from Robinson’s parents.
The day after the shooting, police released security footage asking for help in identifying a suspect. Robinson’s mom, according to charging documents, thought the photos looked like her son.
She called him, asking where he was, the court papers state. Robinson said he was sick at home — like he was the day before.
But his mother still wasn’t convinced, the documents note. She confided her fear to her husband, Robinson’s father, who agreed that the photos looked like their son.
He thought the released photos of the rifle, too, looked familiar, like the one Robinson had been gifted by his grandfather.
Robinson’s father then asked his son to text him a photo of the gun. When Tyler Robinson didn’t respond, his father called him. During that conversation, according to the charging documents, Robinson “implied that he was the shooter and stated that he couldn’t go to jail and just wanted to end it.”
Instead, Robinson’s parents persuaded him to speak with a family friend, a retired sheriff’s deputy, who persuaded Robinson to turn himself in, the court papers state.
From there, the documents note, investigators learned more about Robinson, including that he had “become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
This shift led to “several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.” In one of those conversations, the court papers state, Robinson reportedly mentioned Kirk coming to UVU and that Kirk spread “hate.”
Messages exchanged after the shooting
According to the charging documents, when Robinson’s roommate read the note left under his keyboard, the roommate text, “What?????????????? You’re joking, right????” Robinson replied, “I am still ok my love” and that he was “stuck in orem [sic.] for a little while longer yet.”
“To be honest,” Robinson wrote, “I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age.”
Robinson also asked if the roommate remembered “how I was engraving bullets?” calling the inscriptions “a big meme.”
“[I]f I see ‘notices bulge uwu’ on fox new [sic.] I might have a stroke,” he wrote.
In addition to those texts, The New York Times reported that Robinson had also joked with friends on the popular messaging platform Discord after the shooting, based on communications obtained through someone in the chat.
One user, The Times reported, tagged Robinson’s username and attached security footage images that authorities released last week, before a suspect was identified, and “wrote ‘wya’ — meaning, where you at? — with a skull emoji, suggesting that Robinson, 22, looked like the man being sought.”
Robinson replied quickly. His “doppelganger,” he wrote, according to The Times, was trying to “get me in trouble.”
A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company investigated Robinson’s account and had not “found or received any evidence that the suspect planned this incident on Discord or promoted violence on Discord.”
“The messages referenced in reporting about weapon retrieval and planning details were not Discord messages,” the spokesperson continued, “and likely took place on a phone-number-based messaging platform.”
The company said it is still working “closely” with law enforcement and will “continue to deliver prompt responses to their requests for assistance.”
The shirt worn by the suspect captured in surveillance footage shows a bald eagle and a waving American flag, a design that was mailed to “potential” Disabled Veterans National Foundation supporters “over the past few years,” according to a group spokesperson. The foundation has never sold the shirt, the spokesperson said, and it isn’t “available for distribution” outside of secondhand sellers.
Seeking the death penalty
Before Robinson was identified as a suspect, Cox made clear in multiple news conferences that Utah code (like 26 other states) includes the possibility of the death penalty.
In Utah, murder charges require an “aggravating” factor for the death penalty to be considered. That can include factors such as having multiple victims; targeting a police officer or public official; committing a crime while also committing various serious felony offenses, like kidnapping; or being “especially heinous, atrocious, cruel, or exceptionally depraved.”
In the probable cause statement included in Robinson’s jail booking documents, State Bureau of Investigation Officer Brian Davis seemed to key in on the “multiple victims” component. He wrote, “I believe there is probable cause that Tyler Robinson committed the crimes of aggravated murder by shooting Charlie Kirk in a circumstance that put many around him at grave risk of death.”
In the charging documents, prosecutors also mentioned that compounded danger, writing Robinson “knowingly created a great risk of death” to both himself and “another individual other than Charlie Kirk.”
They also hinged on a factor that alleges Robinson shot Kirk because of his “belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk’s political expression” in order to enhance the level of some of the charged offenses, under a Utah hate crimes law passed in 2019.
Gray began the news conference Tuesday by calling the conservative commentator’s death an “American tragedy.”
“Charlie Kirk was murdered while engaging in one of our most sacred and cherished American rights, the bedrock of our democratic republic, the free exchange of ideas in a search for truth, understanding and a more perfect union,” Gray said. “It is also an offense against the state — and to the peace and enjoyment of the people of Utah, and of all those who visit here.”
The week before Kirk’s death, Utah Department of Corrections officials were poised to carry out Richard Menzies’ death sentence via firing squad. In a Utah Supreme Court ruling, that execution was called off Aug. 29 to reevaluate Menzies’ competency. Menzies has dementia and his defense attorneys had argued that his condition — one of constant degradation — had worsened considerably.
Utah’s new prison, the Utah State Correctional Facility, was built with these executions in mind, including a multipurpose room that can accommodate a firing squad death sentence or lethal injection.
Utah defendants who were sentenced to death before 2004 have the choice to die by lethal injection or firing squad. Those sentenced after must be executed via lethal injection.
Besides Cox, President Donald Trump — who has credited Kirk with playing a role in his 2024 victory — also has expressed a desire that the shooter face the death penalty.
At a news conference on the day of the shooting, Cox said, “I want to make it crystal clear right now to whoever did this, we will find you, we will try you, and we will hold you accountable to the furthest extent of the law,” adding, “I just want to remind people that we still have the death penalty here in the state of Utah.”
“I talked to officials from both administrations,” Gray, a Republican himself, said when asked by a Tribune reporter if he had heard from Trump or Cox, “but I was not pressured to make a decision. I understood their feelings on it, because it was in the news, but we didn’t really discuss that.”
Gray declined to comment on whether he had spoken to Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk, about whether he would pursue the death penalty.
Trump reacted to court filings Tuesday, saying, “[Utah] is very competent. The governor is doing a very good job. As you know, they have the death penalty. It’s a tough death penalty, too, as you know.”
Trump added that Robinson “may or may not” face federal charges in addition to state charges.
He also said he agrees “100%” with Cox’s words condemning political violence — a message Trump reportedly encouraged the governor to embrace in a phone call on the day of Kirk’s death.
Sharing a video of the remarks in a post, Cox thanked the president for his comments, “and for the partnership of the White House and FBI in securing justice for Charlie.”
Clarification • Sept. 17, 2:05 p.m.: An earlier version of this story did not note that prosecutors in charging documents indicated that Robinson’s alleged actions put multiple people in danger. Prosecutors noted both that and their understanding that Robinson allegedly shot Kirk because of Robinson’s “belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk’s political expression” in order to enhance the level of some of the charged offenses.