Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 9 Shocking Details About Charlie Kirk's Alleged Assassin

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Tyler Robinson, 22, was a straight-A student when he was in high school and received a scholarship to attend Utah State University in 2021. But now the governor of Utah says Robinson is the man who climbed on a roof at the Utah Valley University and shot and killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 31. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy digs into Robinson's life and background in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Get 20% OFF @honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/CRIMEFIX! #honeylovepodHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Chad Ayers https://x.com/ayerscg497Producer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We got him. A suspect in custody in the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, will face the possibility of the death penalty if convicted in the assassination. The suspect was apprehended in a historic time period. at everything we know about Robinson, how he was caught, and why he would have done this. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. The man who murdered Charlie Kirk in cold blood

is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. That's according to the governor of Utah and the FBI. Utah's governor says Robinson was taken into custody at 10 p.m. Mountain Time. That's midnight. Eastern time in Utah. Robinson's arrest comes after two men were detained, questioned, and released in the hours after the shooting. Robinson faces three state charges, aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury and obstruction of justice in a capital or first degree felony conduct. An affidavit contains a lot of details that the governor went through in a press conference. More on that in just a second. Robinson was apprehended after a 33-hour manhunt. President Trump actually announced that the suspect was in

custody on Fox News Friday morning saying someone very close to him turned him in. And we now know that Tyler Robinson's family was instrumental in getting himself to turn himself in. President Trump said a minister was also involved in talking with the family. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. On the evening of September 11th, 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. This information was relayed to the Utah County Sheriff's Office and seen investigators at Utah Valley University. This information was also conveyed to the FBI. Investigators reviewed

additional video footage from UVU surveillance and identified Robinson arriving on UVU campus in a gray Dodge Challenger at approximately 8.29 a.m. on September 10th, in which he is observed on video in a plain maroon t-shirt, light-colored shorts, a black hat with a white logo, and light-colored shoes. Law enforcement says Tyler Robinson, is the man in these surveillance images wearing the black land of the free home with a brave t-shirt, jeans, and converse tennis shoes. He's carrying a black backpack. Thursday night, officials released video of Robinson jumping off. of the roof of a building at Utah Valley University after they said he shot Charlie Kirk. But he wasn't a student there. Robinson actually attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah,

back in 2021. A spokesperson told me he was there for the fall semester and studied pre-engineering, but he didn't return to campus in early 2022. He had a scholarship, according to a video that his mother had shared. Congratulations. You had been selected to receive the resident presidential scholarship from Utah State University. The value of this scholarship is approximately $32,000. This scholarship is available for four years or eight semesters. Robinson was actually currently attending a technical college in the electrical apprenticeship program.

Governor Cox says that Robinson arrived on UVU's campus at 8.29 a.m. on September 10th, driving a gray Dodge Challenger, wearing a plain maroon t-shirt, light-colored shorts, a black hat with a white logo, and light-colored shoes. Thursday evening was actually a pretty critical time period in the search for the shooter. Here's Utah Governor Spencer Cox. When encountered in person by investigators in Washington County on September 12, the early morning hours, Robinson was observed in consistent clothing with those surveillance images. Investigators interviewed a family member of Robinson who stated that Robinson had become

more political in recent years. The family member referenced a recent incident in which Robinson came to dinner, prior to September 10th, and in the conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU. They talked about why they didn't like him and the viewpoints that he had. The family member also stated Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate. The family member also confirmed Robinson had a great Dodge Challenger. Investigators identified an individual as the roommate of Robinson. Investigators interviewed that roommate and allowed an investigator to take photos of the screen as each message was shown by Robinson's roommate.

These photos consisted of various messages, including content of messages between the phone contact name Tyler with an emoji icon and Robinson's roommate's device. The content of these messages included messages affiliated with the contact Tyler, stating a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving the rifle in a bush, messages related to a to visually watching the area where a rifle was left and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a town the message is also referred to engraving bullets

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Now, after your purchase, they ask you where you heard about them. So please support our show and tell them that we sent. experienced the new standard and bras and shapewear with honeybub. Now, that rifle was recovered in a wooded area near campus. The governor also detailed what was engraved on the bullets and shell casings. So the area north of campus drive road where the suspect crossed over, you saw some of that in the video that we released last night, consisted of a grassy area with trees on the edge of the UVU campus. Investigators discovered a bolt action rifle wrapped in a dark colored towel.

The rifle was determined to be a Mouser model 98, 30.0.6 caliber bolt-action rifle. The rifle has scope mounted on top of it. Investigators noted inscriptions that had been engraved on casings found with the rifle. Inscriptions on a fired casing read, notices, bulges, capital O-W-O, what's this question mark? Inscriptions on the three unfired casings read, hey-fascist, exclamation. point catch exclamation point up arrow symbol right arrow and uh symbol and three down arrow symbols a second unfired casing red oh bella chow bella chow bella chow bella chow chow and a third unfired casey red if you read this you are gay l m a oh right now tyler robinson a

a 22-year-old man is being held without bail in the Utah County Jail. And we're working to find out as much as we can about him. We know that he went to USU back in the fall of 2021. He did not come back because he took a leave of absence, although federal guidelines are prohibiting the school from saying why he left. We know that he had some level of intelligence. His mother bragged about his high ACT scores on her Facebook page. The score showed that Tyler got a 34 out of 36,

which is incredibly high. His mom's a social worker and she wrote on Facebook about that. This boy is a genius and I'm hoping he'll pick a Utah college and stay close to his mama. He killed the ACT and has a 4.0 so his options are endless. Neighbors told USA Today that the family attends the Church of Latter-day Saints. Tyler Robinson doesn't have a criminal record and his voter profile shows he was inactive so he hadn't voted in recent elections. Utah Valley University was the first. stop of 10 college campuses on Charlie Kirk's National, the American Comeback Tour,

thousands of students gathered to listen to Kirk debate students as he sat under a tent marked, prove me wrong. And this was part of what Charlie Kirk did. He went to campuses and debated students. He told those who didn't agree with him to come up to the mic and talk. I spoke with Chad Ayers, a former SWAT team member and founder of Proactive Response Group before the arrest. And we talked about how hard this has hit those who protect high-profile individuals, how the investigation was unfolding rapidly, and what he expected to happen when an arrest was made. I want to bring in Chad Ayers. He is the founder of Proactive Response Group. They specialize in active shooter responses and training and things of that

nature. So, Chad, your thoughts, first of all, on the FBI. You know, we've seen at least three persons of interests identified. This is a hot active investigation. It sure is. I mean, Angenet, yesterday, when I got the call, actually, a producer from a national outlet was the first to call me really before any of this hit. And I'm actually in a different, in Florida, working a protection detail as we speak. And obviously, it hits close to home. It absolutely just breaks my heart for the entire Erica and the entire family. And I think it's also important to Anjanet, as we look at. look at this and we realize everything that the people in the crowd witnessed, that law enforcement dealt with, but I do want to make sure that your viewers understand the trauma and the emotions

that are filled with Charlie's protection detail that's been with him for many years, that were right there. And obviously, in a situation like this, from a lone attack from a, from a, from a, from a far distance, a sniper-initiated type of attack. You know, it's very hard. You know, we saw it in Butler, Pennsylvania. But again, there's just a lot of hurt. Obviously, we have an ongoing investigation.

My hope is that we do get full transparency from Cash Patel and the FBI. It's frustrating that we still don't even know a lot about crooks from Butler. So I'm hoping that we get transparency. from the administration, from the agency on this. Obviously, photos are circulating now. But it's a tough day in our line of work in our business. You know, I want to talk about the threat to Charlie Kirk because I spoke to a friend of his and a Turning Point board member who said, they always feared something like this could happen

and that he did have security. He did have a detail. But he didn't get things like Secret Service protection. and things of that nature. So this was a concern. He received threats. So these are very real concerns. And it happened.

It happened with cameras rolling. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. We can put contingencies in place. Obviously, Charlie was a voice for the conservative movement and the MAGA movement. And Charlie, let's be honest, full transparency here. Charlie probably was one of the top two most influential people in the election and hitting the college campuses, being out there talking to our young adults, our young students about this and his values. He's a great man of faith. I have a lot of respect for Charlie. But with that, obviously, you have people on the other side that don't agree with that.

Look, part of being an American is, you know, the freedom of speech. And but with that, it's very disheartening and disgusting that when you don't agree with someone's faith or political beliefs, and again, we don't know really anything yet about the motive of the shooter, but it does bring this attention. It's disgusting that anyone would resort to murdering a husband and a father, over their political beliefs and their thought process. The FBI has said they've been able to track the shooter's movements. They know that.

They have a palm print. They believe they've recovered the weapon. They have foot impressions, footwear impressions that they're analyzing. It sounds like they believe they know the path of travel that this shooter took. And now, you know, there's a photo circulating. So they have a lot that they're going on. and now they're trying to find that person. Somebody knows who this person is.

I mean, he has a mother, he has a father, he has friends and family, or people who know him. And now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that there was some engravings. This kind of almost reminds me of Luigi Mangione. There were some engravings on the shell casings about, you know, anti-fascist views and things of that nature. So that's all a lot. That's a lot to go on. We do know that there was some type of ideology and hatred based on what was written on some of the ammunition and magazines. Look, we just saw this.

It's almost like this was a copycat attack with some of the verbiage from the Catholic school shooting two weeks ago. Some of the same verbiage is being written on these shell casings. This was a well-coordinated and planned-out attack. It's going to be interesting through this investigation to see, was he local or did he come in from out? state. Was this someone that may have been following Charlie's tour on some of these stops, doing their own counter surveillance, in a sense, surveilling? How does his security detail operate? You know, where are some of these locations? Where's his next location? Did he go early in advance? Obviously, it tells me that he knew exactly where to go. He did his homework.

And this isn't someone who just woke up yesterday, poured a cup of coffee, grabbed their hunting rifle, and just randomly found a place. This person did their homework. They did their reconnaissance. it's on this. And unfortunately, um, they took the life of a, of a great mentor and, um, influencer. Let's talk about the gun they've talked about. It was a bolt action, uh, rifle, high powered rifle. I mean, this person did not miss, did not miss. This wasn't like crux with President Trump where he, he grazed him or hit his ear. And, you know, he, he, he, thank goodness, missed the main target. This person made their shot.

What does that tell you about this person? Well, you know, I'll be honest. As I'm on Twitter, and I'm very selective today, full transparency on what I'm watching on Twitter, the video that was, you know, obviously of the incident, my beliefs, first of all, those videos need to come down. I watched it one time. It's the worst video I've ever seen in my career of law enforcement. I will, listen, I will never look at that video ever again.

Charlie has a family, he has children, the videos need to come down. Back to the rifle. Yeah, bolt action rifle, what I, some, and again, some of this hasn't been confirmed yet, but I did read something that was a, the brand was, it was a Mouser 30-Ox6, a gun that's commonly used for hunting. And so a lot of the social media people out here saying, this is a trained assassin, absolutely not. I'm not saying this is a trained assassin or someone who had a bunch of experience.

I can take, you know, my little nephew who's five years old, and if I have the right optic or scope for your viewers on there, 200 yards with a hunting type rifle, it's nothing. I mean, even for someone who doesn't shoot firearms in a matter of about 10 minutes, I can get you hitting your target from that distance. That's not a long way. I know for the general public, that seems like a far distance to take a shot. It's really not. Wow.

So you could be, you could just be a hunter. You could be somebody who's an experienced hunter or even a semi-experienced hunter. And in your view, maybe with a site or a scope or whatever, make this shot. And I'm not trying to talk about this to glorify what this person did, but I'm just talking about what kind of skill level would need to be involved to do this? Exactly. You know, this isn't going to take a lot of training to operate. Anyone who probably grew up hunting around firearms,

this is a chip shot for them to say the least. What do you think we're going to end up learning about this person once he is captured because it's only a matter of time? Look, it doesn't matter. what side of the aisle you sit on. I'm tired of hearing the term. There's no room in this country for political violence. There's no room in this country for violence, period.

We are Americans. It's time that we cut the crap and figure out how to come to common ground. You understand overseas, China and all these other countries, they want to see a civil war in this country. They love the fact that these parties are just arguing and fighting in the division that's happening in this country. It's got to stop. It's disgusting. I'm sick of it. So what's going on at the FBI crime lab right now?

A lot. Obviously, we have the firearm. There's going to be touch DNA on that firearm. There's going to be touch DNA where he lay down where they had that palm print. So, you know, they're going to be running these prints to see if this person's ever been arrested. Do we have anything on file with these prints with the DNA? I'll be honest. I'm sure the Bureau has resources with these third party companies like 23 and and Ancestry.com where they can with a warrant send this in and probably get immediate results to see if we have a DNA match with any family members that may have submitted DNA to one of these types of genealogy testing. But, you know, it's almost like the whole Brian Colberger

thing and how he was discovered. It was through DNA, you know, on the knife sheath and things like that, which I know you covered quite a bit. And but so the FBI is going to be compiling all that DNA evidence, the rifling, so obviously they will be taking the rifle to their crime lab and running ballistics on that. If a projectile was recovered on the scene, which it does not appear by the gruesome video that, you know, it looks like the round went all the way through Charlie. And so I'm sure the crews are on the ground with metal detectors and other and other, you know, technology trying to locate that projectile. At that point, and I am no forensic expert to say the least,

but what they can do is inside every barrel of these rifles is what's called rifling, right? And so it basically imprints, that bullet imprints the rifling of that barrel, and then they are able to match the projectile and say, yes, this round, the experts will be able to say this round was fired, if it is located, fired through this firearm. Same thing with the DNA. So obviously a lot of moving parts, a lot of agencies working together on this. And that's the thing.

Our law enforcement partners today on 9-11 are in Utah, in a sense, working the same way they were doing on 9-11 in 2001. They've come together like they do in every one of these horrific events. They partner up and they say, we are going to find this subject and make sure justice is served. that's what's going on they're going to find this person it's not a matter of if it's when and we'll be on it when they do chat airs thank you so much thank you and tyler robinson is being held without bail and will be for the foreseeable future at this point this is a state prosecution so we'll have to see whether or not the feds actually pursue criminal charges robinson is the oldest son to his parents he has two younger siblings and that's it for this

episode of crime fix i mean jeanette levy thanks so much for being with me I'll see you back here next time.