Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION: SUSPECT ARRESTED AFTER MASSIVE MANHUNT

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Shots ran out as Charlie Kirk sat on stage at a Utah Valley University event. The conservative activist reportedly hit near his neck and killed. According to reports, the shot was fired from the roof of a campus building about 200 yards away.  Social Video posts show Kirk in a familiar pose,  speaking into a handheld microphone, sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong.”  The single shot booms and  Kirk  reaches up with his right hand. Blood gush from underneath.   Today, President started the day tellling the nation a suspect was in custody. Tyler Robinson, 22, who lived at home with his parents.  And it was his father that led to the arrest, identifying him in surveillance photos released by the FBI.  The father told his son to turn himself in. With the help of a local youth pastor Robinson turned himself in. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Breaking news tonight, the lone shooter, the assassin that gunned down 31-year-old Charlie Kerr. With a high degree of certainty, we have him. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We got him. A massive manhunt. The suspect was taken into the custody at 10 p.m. local time. The assassin who guns.

gunned down a loving father of two, a husband. The suspect was apprehended in historic time period. In custody. In custody. The assassin who guns down a father of two. 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. Arriving on UVU campus in a great Dodge Challenger at approximately 8.29 a.m. Tyler Robinson, Robinson had become more political in recent years.

A second unfired casing read, oh, Bella Chow, Bella Chow, Chow, and a third unfired casing red. If you read this, you are gay. His wife and two little children who will grow up without daddy. This is a very sad day for, again, for our country. And I do know this is going to be a federal case, and there's many of us believe that Charlie was targeted because of this political ideology. Yeah. What's going to happen to this guy?

Well, I hope he was going to be found guilty, I would imagine, and I hope he gets a death penalty. 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 grade Dodge Challenger at approximately 829 a.m. on September 10th, in which he is observed on video in a plain maroon t-shirt, light-colored shorts, a black, black hat with a white logo and light-colored shoes. When encountered in person by investigators in Washington County on September 12th in 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 gray Dodge Challenger. Investigators identified an individual as the roommate of Robinson. Investigators interviewed that roommate who stated that his roommate referring to Robinson made a joke on discord. Investigators asked if he would show them the messages on Discord. He opened it and showed several messages to investigators and allowed investigators 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 towel the messages also refer to engraving bullets and a mention of a scope and the rifle being unique messages from the contact Tyler also mentioned that he had changed outfits. I know there has been

speculation as well as to the the writing on those casings, those those bullet casings, and I believe we have that as well. And I will share that with you now. 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. Consists 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, 30-06 caliber bolt-action rifle. The rifle had a 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 a symbol, and three down arrow symbols. A second, unfired casing read, oh, Bella Chow, Bella Chow, Bella Chow, Chow, chow and a third unfired casing red if you read this you are gay l m a oh a little bit of the timeline charlie was shot at 1223 p.m. on wednesday the first FBI agents arrived on scene in 16 minutes with chiefs of police at 1239 and secured the scene the FBI immediately launched

fixed-wing assets we utilize these assets to transport personnel specialty technicians hostage rescue teams. We also utilize these assets to go back and forth from the East Coast and here in Utah to transport forensic evidence and other evidence that will be analyzed and is being analyzed at our FBI laboratories in Quantico and other laboratories, including the ATF. At my direction, the FBI released the first set of FBI photos of the suspect at 10 a.m., local time on 9-11. Then, shortly thereafter, the FBI reward of $100,000 was released at 10.45 a.m. local. Myself and Deputy Director Bonjino arrived on the scene at approximately 5.30 p.m. on 9-11. The governor led a press conference last night at approximately 8 p.m.

Where am I direction, the FBI released a never-before-seen video of the suspect. We also released new images to the public of the suspect. And just last night, the suspect was taken into custody at 10 p.m. local time. in less than 36 hours, 33 to be precise, thanks to the full weight of the federal government and leading out with the partners here in the state of Utah and Governor Cox, the suspect was apprehended in historic time period. Joining us today, Dan Murphy, former NYPD Detective Sergeant, co-host of Gold Shields podcast, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor at Jacksonville State University,

and co-host of Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. As we begin today, shocking announcement, we already have a suspect in custody. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, and apparently he was turned in or convinced to turn himself in by his father, who is now being called the father of justice, Matt Robinson. Straight out to you, Joseph Scott Morgan, ever since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there has been widespread speculation as to everything that took place that day, from the shot to security to what actually transpired. I want to start with the shot. We have a man in custody. So let's start with him on the roof, allegedly, shooting Charlie Kirk from at least 200 yards. Is that still what we believe?

Yeah, yeah. According to the reports that we're hearing, it sounds reasonable. one of the interesting images that has emerged from the inspection of that alleged sniper's nest, if we can call it that, is that surface is on the roof is actually a gravel surface. And there's an image that has been released of evidence markers around an area that is literally impressed into that gravel surface that gives you the impression when you see it that someone had laid there for a protracted period of time. Now, okay, on the top of a roof, oftentimes we have tar and other things like that. Would that gravel, making it a kind of uneven surface, would that create a problem for somebody that is laying down? to get the shot? I wouldn't necessarily think so, particularly if they had any knowledge of the weapon system that they're actually using.

And we don't know all of the details yet. He may have brought something along to brace himself with. Keep in mind, this kid actually had a backpack with him. And in the military, I know from personal experience, that you're trained to use things, particularly if you're in a prone position that can brace your position and that you can steady your sight picture it wouldn't surprise me if that if the backpack that he had up there with him may have been used for that purpose okay dan murphy uh as a former detective sergeant you're looking at this from solving the crime what is the first step from the moment you learn

that charlie kirk has been shot you don't know his condition all you know is we have a man shot. What is the first thing you do when you start trying to solve the crime? First, you have to preserve the scene. The crime scene is of paramount importance because that is going to live with you for the remainder of this case.

What you grab, what you don't grab, is vital. The second is witnesses, eyewitnesses, grabbing any and everybody that's on the scene that may have seen something. Today, in today's world, we want to see cell phone coverage, cameras, everyone that was there

who has a cell phone, that shot any footage, bring it in. It's all potential evidence. We want to look around at cameras, surveillance cameras that are part of the campus. We want to look at everything we can look at who is parked in the parking lot. This is a tremendous job that needs to be done by a lot of people, but it's vital that those steps begin immediately. You know, we did find out a number of things. As we're doing this program, this is still a breaking news story. It is evolving. We started the day with President Donald Trump on Fox News announcing that 99% of sure we had the shooter in custody, the alleged shooter. One of the things that we've been trying to figure out is who is this person, who would have shot Charlie Kirk.

You know, he founded Turning Point back in 2012. And he has been the subject of, I don't know how to actually phrase this, but, you know, he's outspoken conservative Christian man. and he's been labeled a hater by those on the left, just the way we live today. But as you're trying to figure out who is the shooter, we saw a guy that looked like to be 60 years old in short pants, you know, balding. We saw him in custody briefly by police because he's, you know, talking about I do it again. We also had rumors that it was a 30-year-old man, that it was not a college student. And what turns out to be the shooter or the alleged shooter is actually 20. 22 years old. Is this something that either of you would expect as we move forward? Would you have

started by thinking this is a college age person or would you have thought somebody older would have been involved in the shooting? I would say you never, never want to theorize as to who your suspect is until your evidence points you there. That's a capital mistake to make and people do it all the time. And the media loves to jump because we want to assign an identity to somebody. But the fact of the matter is you go with the evidence lead you. And if it turns out to be somebody who's older or younger, that's fine. Worry about what narrative it can fit later, but you look for the truth. You follow the evidence. Absolutely. Okay, now, Joseph Scott Morgan, we saw the shot. We saw Charlie Kirk sitting under the tent. I want to point something out,

you know, before the shooting took place, there were about 3,000 paid that attended the event. Charlie Kirk was under a tent, you know, that he was sitting under, but there were people fairly close to him right up front. Then there was a walkway area in the grass, probably 12 feet, I'm guessing, and then more people situated directly behind that. And before the event actually got started, before he actually was giving a speech, he was engaging with the audience. He was throwing hats and other things to the audience, getting them kind of excited and pumped up before he spoke. And then before he grabbed the mic to give his speech, he actually was doing Q&A with the audience and had them, they had two microphones set up and had people going to either mic so they could

actually begin this speech by talking about things, by actually getting into a discussion. So he's a minute and a half into this as he's sitting down in the tent. Before he starts his speech, he's still answering questions from the crowd when the shot rang out. We, I say we all saw it. Most of us have seen the video because it was released on social media within seconds. It wasn't like the Zapruder film where we waited, you know, where we didn't have anything for hours and then years later. This was immediate.

And there are probably plenty of people who got shots of that assassination that still have not posted it online. Yeah, this ain't Dallas, 1963. You know, you're going to have multiple POVs here because, let's face it, like him or hate him, he's a media figure. he is he was magnetic and people want those kinds of images it's the world that we live in today so you know 180 degrees probably 360 degrees in his orbit there there were people videotaping one of the things that i think that those that are going to be canvassing the area and talking to folks they're going to want to collect those images particularly those i think one of the more intriguing images that you would want is something that is more to Charlie's rear looking back

to where the shooter is. I think that we've had one of those or two of those that have leaked out. Trust me, there's more. And, you know, that's not even counting like CCTV. I work at a university. Guys, I've got to tell you, I can literally step out of the door of my building here at Jack State onto the quad. And immediately, I've got cameras. all around me that are observing me. If you're going to try to pull something like this off and try to remain anonymous, bad choice because there is so much video evidence on a campus that they can pull it in seconds. Dollars to donuts, I guarantee you that the state police, probably the locals, and certainly the feds, they descended on the security area there

that controls all of the cameras. They have that data, trust me. Not to mention everything else that's peripheral to that. Parking lots, we've heard a lot about ring cams. Oh, wow, yeah. All of the cases that we cover with Nancy, it seems like in the last two years, ring cams come into play, don't they?

They're everywhere. You know, as well. And it's just that the area where this happened on a university campus is so tightly monitored. And a lot of it has to do with students. student safety. Yeah, bad choice, bad area to select if you're trying to remain anonymous. Now, Dan Hampton, background in New York as a detective sergeant, look, when we started breaking

this story down beyond the shooting, because that was just shocking. And I want to come back to that in just a minute, Joe, about what the shooting actually did. But first, we've got a shooter that the, I'm going to say the police were leaking information. it looked like they were chumming the water. They were baiting with pictures and things like that to try to get information from the public. Is that a common thing to expect it? Do police really use the media in that way, Dan? Absolutely.

It can be your best friend. They could be your worst enemy, but more often they're your best friend. When you distribute pictures to the media and the public sees it, you have a far increased chance of getting your person identified. In a case like this, it was a smart move to do. And we see that his alleged discussion with his family, where he put himself at the scene, having done it, at least that's what we're told, that may have come as a result of all the pressure involved, because he couldn't hide it from

them. He's sitting on the news. That's me. He had to give it up. I think it was a smart move, and it's done commonly. And one of the things we saw, Fox had video of police taking down a camera over a garage, which I found fascinating because we had neighbors from the neighborhood when he allegedly he shoots and then he's off the building and there's actually video showing him jumping. Then we see him limping as he's walking through backyards because they were getting calls from residents saying,

hey, I got video of a guy running through the backyards. So I'm going to assume that he hurt himself jumping off the building as far as he had to jump and he's limping through the backyards. He ditched the bolt action rifle on his escape route. Is that something that you would expect? Did he drop it? Why do you think we have that gun? Well, he's got to distance that weapon from himself personally.

He can't be found with that weapon on him. It's too incriminating. So he didn't want to leave it up on the roof. He took it with him, and he figured he would gain some time by ditching it. Very common. Guns are thrown in lakes, rivers, off bridges, all the time, just to get rid of the evidence as much as possible. He obviously did it in a very haphazard way.

This is not a career, criminal, or a professional assassin. This is a young kid who has. the intention of doing this but didn't really think out the steps afterwards as much as he thought he would as far as jumping off the roof is concerned one of the things i would do as soon as i saw any video footage of that you check all area hospitals and clinics that somebody come in with a broken ankle hurt leg that's going to be one of your your investigative stuff in the fourth theater jumping from the balcony you know breaks his leg um so now we've got a suspect in custody as this is a breaking story, the man who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson.

And by the way, guys, this guy's not an idiot. Tyler Robinson actually had an academic scholarship to Logan, which is also a college in Utah. He attended the college campus where he was, but only for one semester. He's one of these really smart guys, but at 22 has not achieved a whole lot. And I think that'll be something that we get Bethany on to talk about. But there were multiple photos taken of him that have been released. We've got him in custody, turning himself in. We found out that he, there, I keep saying he did it, but allegedly, somebody wrote on the shell casings, a number of different inscriptions. Uh, Utah governor, Spencer Cox actually listed out some of the things that were written on one of the shell casings,

hey, fascist, catch. I wouldn't encourage people to actually go look up your definitions of what a fascist is and free speech and those wonderful things we experience here in the United States of America and realize that a lot of us grew up, hey, just do your own thing, you know? Live and let you live. that we're not at that point anymore. Now we're at this point where if you disagree with what I say, I deserve to die. And that's not us.

That's not who we are. We've got to stop this. Charlie Kirk spoke from the heart. He spoke for years trying to get people to think deeper. And to be honest with it, it was that that led to his death. People don't want him to share what he thinks because they don't like it. And I'm telling you, we've got to actually get some leaders that will talk about this openly and honestly, instead of burying it.

Now, other words written on these shell casings, guys, oh, Bella, chow, Bella, chow, Bella, chow, Bella, chow. That's from an Italian song dedicated to the resistance during World War II. Another one was, if you, this is actually meant as a joke, okay? If you read this, you are gay, L-M-A-O. another one notices bulges o w o what's this granted i'm old and crazy get off my lawn guy i don't know what oh w o means um but it's part of an internet meme um that circulated i guess seven years ago or so but these things written on shell casings is that also something that is common in a shooting

of this nature? I have not seen it. I know in high-profile cases recently, it seems to be a trend, but I have not seen it in my career. Now, Joe, back to the shooting. When Charlie Kirk was shot, because a lot of us did see it before it was blurred,

I'm still shocked, amazed and saddened that we saw this because normally we don't. Normally, it's, as it is now, if you actually find a version of it online, line, it's going to be blurred. What did you see in terms of the shot hitting Charlie Kirk? Well, from my perspective when I was watching, and I watched one that was sent to me that was kind of enhanced a bit and the shot was tighter, these physiological responses that you see as he has struck. And part of it also, I think that many people that follow true crime,

and that hear us talk about these sorts of things, they don't appreciate the horror many times that's involved in an event like this, how shocking it is, not obviously, I mean obviously to the victim, but also those that are surrounding him. In this particular case, if you go to the left,

to the left of the midline of the neck, this is where literally the entrance is, right up above the collar line. It appeared to me. You've got just a copious amount of blood that immediately begins to issue forth from him. It's been speculated, and I include myself in that group, that there's high probability that it nicked, probably the juggler, as well as perhaps the carotid, given the amount of blood. Remember, these are blood supplies and returns for the brain. and the brain is the most vascular organ in the body.

It requires a lot to function. Would Charlie Kirk have been aware of what was going on after that shot? That's hard to say. That's almost an unanswerable question. I do know this, that if you have seen this image, he draws. You can see him drawing his right hand up, and the thumb appears to be clutched.

This is a neuromuscular response to neurotrauma. You'll see it with actually the brain, the brain stem, as well as the spinal cord. All you've got to do is watch a football game. And you'll see people that get their bell rung. They'll fall to the ground, and it almost looks like a seizure. And then, of course, he topples over to his left and begins to bleed out there. I think there's a high probability that death was probably pretty quick at this point in time.

I talked to Nancy the other day and I said, you know, even if you'd had a group of vascular surgeons standing right there with him, this is so traumatic that I don't, I think that it probably would have been unsurvivable based upon what I've seen over the years in the morgues and, you know, in its scenes and that sort of thing. And please remember again, as we talk about. the assassination of Charlie Cook, Kirk. This is a father of two. A little girl, little boy, wife, Erica. This is not us. This is not the best of us. We've got to do more to stop this from happening. We can have an exchange of ideas, friends, and disagree and move forward with this is just not us. So, Dan, I want to go back to you for a minute. As the investigation starts getting now, it doesn't stop after the arrest. This is like the beginning part of the

investigation, isn't it? Yeah, there's so much work going on behind the scenes right now and has been going on since the initial event. Search warrants are being conducted at his residence in his car at many places. The actual owner of the weapon is probably no doubt sitting in the police station right now being interviewed as to how that weapon got into this guy's hands if he's not the owner. They are retracing steps. They are watching video footage, as Dr. Scott said before, not just of the cameras on the campus, but anything that might have been a trail that led him to the scene. They're reviewing his credit card and debit card statements. Where did he make purchases? What did he do recently? Where

has he been? Looking at his text messages, there is so much work going on and so many witnesses are being interviewed to make a very complete, very large package that is the investigation that will be the case that will be presented to a grand jury and ultimately to a jury. There's a of work and it's all very important and right now I know there's a lot of boots on the ground in that area doing that work and in other places too this is a massive investigation now one thing that we knew from the very beginning was that we had a footprint we had a palm print and possibly a forearm print I want to stick with the two that I'm actually familiar with the footprint and the palm print Joseph Scott Morgan you actually

were talking to me the other day about a palm print we have a national database of palm prints, just like we do fingerprints, correct? Yeah, yeah, we, I mean, what will happen is on a fingerprint card when somebody's rolled up and they're taken into jail, you'll get a series of prints, inked prints in the past. I'm assuming that they can digitize these as well. And traditionally, you'll get an entirety of a print. It will encompass this. But here's the rub.

if this kid has never been hooked up on charges in the past guess what he's not going to be in that database so you know that that turns into kind of a dead end i was really fascinated i think by them talking about talking about a forearm that's not something that you know is normally printed no and i think that that probably goes to some surface that he's applying pressure to at that that point. And we, you know, we excrete sweat and we excrete oil every day. As a matter fact, that's, we don't have fingerprints on the tips of our fingers. We have friction ridges. We leave behind fingerprints. And so the same thing would apply with kind of, if your skin is greasy, you lay it on a surface like this. What I'm wondering about is this going to be

a spot where you can harvest contact, contact biological specimens from. I'm thinking, probably it would be evidence-rich in the sense that there would be sweat, there would be oil that's, you know, coming out of the body. And also, is there any partial DNA, you know, where you've got trace evidence of DNA that's degraded skin cell sloughing off? I think that's important. One other thing I'd love to bring you back to is going to be these cartridges. You know, there's a group of people that we forget about in forensics many times, and that's questioned documents. They can get exemplars from this guy relative to what is written on the shell casings, and

they can give you an idea if this has origins from his actual hand. You know, and were they engraved or were they written, you know, because we don't know at this point. Well, we've heard the term, engraved. And my first thought was, did they have a diamond tip thing putting it on there, or was that just an expression of using a Sharpie? Yeah, exactly. So again, back to Dan's point, this investigation is so layered and so very intense that we're not going to have all of this data at one time, don't expect it. As a matter of fact, I would probably, after this period of time, I would imagine we'll see a layer. of information that's being released because they're trying to put together a packet at this

point in time to bring this guy up on charges. And it's like playing poker, man, you're not going to show your hand. I know the public wants the information. You'll hear things from peripheries, but I would imagine that the authorities are probably going to shut it down pretty quickly relative to how much data is going to be coming out because they're going to be putting together a case. This is where this begins at this point. I don't expect Tyler Robinson to be the end of the investigation in terms of an arrest. Dan, what are the chances that he was working with others? I think anything's on the table right now is a possibility.

Given what we know, we know he is, we believe him to be the shooter. We have no idea who he has been in contact with, who has helped him in any way, shape, or form make this happen, what his motivating factors were, who maybe supplied the weapons, supplied the money. there can be other people involved. He might be belonged to some group that we haven't heard about yet. These are all things that are going to come out at some point, and they may come out at trial, but if there are more arrests, of course,

there'll be more releases of information about why those persons are arrested. But I wouldn't venture a guess either way. Right now, it's entirely see where the evidence takes you, but they have only begun to dive into his world, meaning his electronic and his social media world, which is going to speak violence. about who he is.

I appreciate you guys taking the time today to join us, Dan Murphy, and Joseph Scott Morgan. A big thanks to all of you. We will continue to follow this case. I'm Dave Mack for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.