Law&Crime Sidebar - Charlie Kirk's Assassin Sent Disturbing Discord Messages: Affidavit

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Brand new documents released by Utah courts reveal charges the alleged killer of political activist Charlie Kirk is expected to face. The FBI announced Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested Thursday night. The court filings also provide details on the possible threat Robinson could pose to the community if he were released. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks it all down with litigator Rich Schoenstein.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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. With the arrest of Tyler James Robinson, the suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk, we just got our hands on brand new court paperwork. We are talking potential charges. We are talking bail. We are talking now a new detailed timeline of events, and we're going to break it down for you in real time. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

All right, so we're doing something very different here on Sidebar. We are breaking down this legal paperwork we just got our hands on in real time. No prep. I'm literally looking at this right now. This is new paperwork that was just filed in connection with the arrest of Tyler James Robinson, the 22-year-old, who is suspected of killing Trump. Charlie Kirk. Now, what do I have my hands on? I have an affidavit of probable cause. I have an order from a judge denying him bail and then a public safety assessment report. I'm going to break all of this down in real time. He hasn't been officially charged yet, but this is what he has been booked on. I want to bring on trial attorney Rich Schoenstein, who's going to break this down

with me in real time. So we're both looking at this. Rich, good to see you. By the way, great background. Is that real or is that AI? I mean, it looks like a really bad. No, this is my real brother's real house in Columbus, Ohio. It looks good. Looks good. Okay. So what I want to do first is go into this affidavit of probable cause, which led to his arrest. He is charged and we'll break down these charges.

He is going to be charged or at least he's been booked right now on aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, obstruction of justice, capital, first degree felony conduct. Before we go any further, rich. So basically, this is what he could be charged with. This is what prosecutors could be seeking. It could be modified in some way. But at this point, this seems to fall in line with what the allegations are. Right.

I mean, basically the charges here are murder, illegal discharge of a firearm in public where he did it, and obstruction of justice, which I think means flight. And as you say, there are other possible crimes that might or might not be. added later. And so let me read through this whole probable cause statement. And it says, I believe there is probable cause to charge the defendant with these charges. And I believe this is from an arresting officer, although I'll see at the end. Brian Davis, officer's name. This is in the county of Utah, state of Utah. Okay. I believe there is probable cause to charge the defendant with these charges because the following information was obtained by your affiant from police officers, multiple video recordings posted on social media websites.

Utah Valley University campus surveillance surveillance cameras and those who witnessed the incident. On September 10th, 2025, Charles James Kirk was at the Utah Valley University UVU campus in Orem, Utah for a political event. Mr. Kirk is a conservative political activist who was scheduled to speak in an event in the courtyard area on the UVU campus. The courtyard area is to the west of the low sea center building. According to video recordings, Charles was wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants. sitting under a white canopy in a courtyard of the campus facing to the east. The event was attended by hundreds of individuals. Charles was surrounded with multiple individuals to his left, right, and rear in front of the canopy.

Behind the canopy was a walkway used for access to various parts of the university. Charles was holding a microphone and speaking to a crowd. While speaking into the microphone, loud gunshot was heard at approximately 12, 23 hours, and Charles appeared to have been hit in the neck. Now, that's interesting because I kind of did a separate sidebar on this about there was speculation whether or not he was hit in the chest and it ricocheted into his neck, but here he says it's been hit in the neck. Blood was seen coming out of the left side of his neck as he fell over to his left. Charles was transported to Pinnagos Regional Hospital in Orm, apologize if I'm mispronouncing that. Charles was pronounced deceased at the hospital.

Investigators reviewed the Utah Valley University surveillance cameras. While reviewing the surveillance cameras, investigators observed an individual on the rooftop of the Lose Center building on the UVU campus at the time of the shooting. Hereafter, the unidentified individual will be referred to as suspect. Based on surveillance camera footage, suspect appears to be a white male with dark colored hair, wearing a dark colored hat, sunglasses, a long-sleeved black shirt, with a picture of an American flag and an eagle printed on the shirt, dark-colored jeans and white-gray shoes with white-colored shoelaces.

The shoes appear to be consistent with Chuck Taylor-converse-style shoes. We've been following this story from the beginning. And, you know, one of the reasons that we can do this to really dive into these cases and stories is because of the amazing support that we get from our sponsors like Upside.

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after 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of guess. Suspect is also carrying a dark colored backpack on his back. Suspect walks with a distinctive gate. Prior to the shooting, suspect appears to walk with a stiff right leg and a relatively slow pace. Suspect's ability to bend his right leg appears to be restricted. Investigators were able to track suspect's movements on the UVU campus starting in approximately 1150 hours on September 10th, 2025. At approximately 1150 hours, a UVU surveillance camera first captured suspect walking across a grassy area north of Campus Drive at approximately 800 west. By the way, we knew that there were surveillance footage, but now we're really getting this in depth.

A suspect walked south through the parking lot and approached a pedestrian tunnel that runs underneath campus drive. Before entering the tunnel, suspect paused at the top of the stairs and pulled out what appeared to be a cell phone from his right pocket using his right hand at approximately. 1153 hours. Suspect eventually put what appeared to be a cell phone back in his right pants pocket using his right hand. Surveillance captured suspect making his way toward the Losey Center. At approximately 1202 hours, suspect was recorded walking on the north side of the Losey Center building, walking with the same gate as observed earlier. Suspect entered the Losey Center building through a set of doors on the southeast corner of the Losey Center building at approximately 12-15 hours. Yeah, let me just change it here. Suspect was observed walking up to the

stairs that led to the common area adjacent to the low-sea center building. Suspect walked to a short concrete wall that separates the common area from the rooftop of the low-sea center building. In approximately 12-17 hours, suspect climbed over the short wall and appeared to crouch down on the north side of the wall on the rooftop. At approximately 12-22 hours, suspect stood up and started running across the rooftop of the low-sea center building. The notable limp from previous surveillance was absent. Suspect ran to the west side of the rooftop and appeared to scoot along the rooftop area as he got closer to the edge of the rooftop.

At approximately 12-22 hours, suspect laid down in a position consistent with a prone shooting position near the edge of the rooftop and appeared to be facing west in the direction of the courtyard area. The rooftop of the low-sea center building overlooks the courtyard area with an event featuring Charlie Cook Charlie Kirk was taking place. The low sea center building is east of the courtyard area. At approximately 12, 23 hours, Charlie Kirk was shot. At approximately 12, 23 hours, surveillance shows that suspect stood up suddenly from the edge of the rooftop and sprinted north on the rooftop of the low sea center building.

Suspect ran to the northeast corner of the building and approached the edge of the rooftop. Suspect placed a dark colored item on the rooftop and proceeded to lower himself off the rooftop. Suspect dropped off the rooftop onto the grass below. Suspect ran north near the parking lot to the east of the low sea center. At approximately 12, 24 hours, suspect ran north across the campus drive road. Suspect appeared to be carrying an item whose identity is not clear from the surveillance, so whether or not it was the weapon. The area to the north of campus drive road where suspect crossed over consists of a grassy area

with trees on the edge of the UVU campus. investigators discovered a bolt action rifle wrapped in a dark color towel 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 red notices bulge oh w oh what's this inscriptions on the three unfired casings read hey fascist catch an up arrow symbol right arrow symbol and three down arrow symbols a second unfired case Casing red, O Bella Chow, Bella Chow, Bella Chow, Chow, and a third unfired casing read, if you read this, you are gay, L-M-A-O. Before we go any further, so Rich, this is quite consistent

with not only what we heard from the press conference earlier today, but it is consistent with video footage that is circulated on social media. What is standing out to you about this so far? Well, I've seen this video footage, as you say, it's been making the rounds, and he walks with a stiff gate presumably because he is a rifle down his pants. He gets on top of the building. He takes the rifle out of his pants and now he's able to walk more freely and he crouches down and fires. And there are these casings. I'm not well versed enough to know what exactly those casings mean, what their references to. I see that they might, I've seen reports that they might have some connection to video games, but I don't know. But obviously, they're of interest to the

investigators. They have a lot of footage. And, you know, we live in a world where if you're out walking around, you're on a campus, you're in a neighborhood, you're on film somewhere. You're on video somewhere. You can't go anywhere. And they've pieced all of that together to show this suspect getting on top of the building and apparently firing a rifle. And the fact that so much of this is documented. You know, how many times do we cover cases where there is no surveillance footage, let alone of the attack? We all saw the shooting. I mean, we all saw it, unfortunately, but to apparently track the shooter's movements, they talked about in a press conference yesterday, but to actually have it detailed, that is, and we know that the footage was,

we know that the image of this person of interest, this suspect, was released yesterday. That is very important for prosecutors. Yeah. Well, and so listen, this is a very high profile very horrible crime. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation. They went door to door to get any possible video they can. We've seen cases where they investigate too late and the video is lost. So here they got it right away. You know, they were there the day of, the day after, going around the neighborhood, pulling together whatever video glimpses they could that might shed some light on this situation. And it paid off. They got pictures. They got video. And they also talk, they say investigators also discovered a shoe impression on the northeast corner rooftop edge of the Lose Center

building. The shoe impression was located in the vicinity where suspect climbed down from the rooftop. The shoe impression is consistent with the shoe sole characteristics of a converse Chuck Taylor shoe. They also talked yesterday about forearm, forearm impressions, excuse me, palm prints. I believe that has been sent out for testing as well. They are probably looking to see if it matches up to Robinson. One thing to note here, and I was talking about this with Ellie Honig yesterday, this is before there was an arrest, legal liability, you know, one of the things you have to wonder is whether or not the university, and you are a civil trial attorney, whether the university faces any liability here. In the sidebar I did yesterday,

there were concerns, there were questions, reports about maybe a lax in security, were the tickets being checked, was there a lack of actual, you know, security detectors? This appeared to be on the outside, though, right? So on the rooftop, does the school face any liability here, you think? Well, potentially, this is going to be heavily scrutinized. Every facet of this is going to be heavily scrutinized to determine if anybody else is responsible, anybody else is involved, and anybody else is potentially at fault from should he have been noticed getting to campus, getting up on top of a building? Should somebody have seen that? Was there adequate security for an event that not only had a prominent speaker, but had hundreds of students

and other people in attendance? Was there adequate security? I don't know the answers to any of those questions, but those questions are going to be asked. And one of the things we talked about yesterday was not only a potential wrongful death or negligence lawsuit filed potentially by Charlie Kirk's family, but, you know, people around there who had to witness this very traumatic event. This is when we always talk about infliction of emotional distress. I want to move on though. I want to go back to this. So it says on the evening of September 11, 2025, 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 that.

or implied that he had committed the incident. This information was relayed to the Utah County Sheriff's Office and seen investigators at UVU. Again, very consistent with what we heard from the press conference today. This information was also conveyed to the FBI. Investigators reviewed additional video footage from UVU surveillance and identified Robinson

arriving on UVU campus and a gray Dodge Challenger at approximately 829 on September 10th in which he is observed on video in a plain marooned shirt, light-colored shorts, a black hat with a white logo, and light-colored shoes. When encountered in person by investigators in Washington County at September 12th, early morning hours, Robinson was observed in consistent clothing with the surveillance images. Wow. Rich, that's interesting.

Yeah, that's very interesting and sort of, you know, if it's true, surprising that he didn't change his clothes more quickly. And then it says investigators interviewed a family member of Robinson and 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, 2025. And in 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 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 the 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, Robinson's roommate's device. The content of these messages, I'm changing here, the content of these messages included messages affiliated with the contact. Tyler stated, stating a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving the rifle in a bush, messages related 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. Based on the evidence detailed in this statement, 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, felony discharge of a firearm, and obstruction of justice for moving and hiding the rifle believed to have been used in the shooting.

Okay, first thing I want to go through here, Rich, Now you see why he's being charged with aggravated murder. There's an enhancement statute that's listed. They're basically saying that the reason that you can get this is, I believe, a capital offense, right? The highest defense in Utah would be this was a, it amounted to a danger to others in that crowd, even though there was only one shot fire to Charlie Kirk. Yeah, I think that's, I think that is why that's in there.

And also it goes to the issue of bail. There might be other ways to enhance this in terms of the capital nature of the crime. I'd have to look at the particular statute at issue, but the fact that it seems to have been politically motivated might be pertinent as well. But yes, firing essentially into a crowded event, very dangerous and probably gets you enhanced. And one of the things I talked about with L.E. yesterday was the idea of maybe potentially a terrorism quite charged? What was the purpose of this? Was it to silence other people? Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I said political. You know, if the, if the facts are that the purpose of this was because of what Charlie Kirk had to say and an effort to silence people of that same viewpoint, then it could be viewed as a form of terrorism. And this is similar to Mangione. One of the things the way prosecutors have tried to enhance that charges, even though He's accused of just shooting and killing Brian Thompson. It was an inherently dangerous activity that presented a risk to others. You know, there was the nearby bystander. This was in the middle of a public street.

So this is what they, it seems to be consistent. Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about how this is similar to Mangione. And I've been thinking about all of the people who support Mangione because they, they didn't like the person he allegedly shot. and I've been thinking that this is where that line of thinking gets you. It gets more people killed. And are you also thinking about potentially jury nullification? If this advances towards formal charges and this advances towards a jury trial, whether or not it would be difficult to get a jury because of unfortunately, I mean, just look at what we're seeing online right now about people kind of, you know, I don't know what the word is, minimize.

the idea that a human being was shot in cold blood. Yeah, there's some of that online, but my thinking is you have a lot better chance of getting jury nullification where the victim was the CEO of an insurance company than where the victim was a young, famous advocate, even though there are a lot of people who didn't like his advocacy,

I find it hard to believe you would get a jury nullification in that case. I mean, I really, I hope very much you don't, of course. And when we talk about that is basically a jury decides the case, not based on the facts of the evidence, but their own personal opinions, their emotions. And it does become a question of jury selection, too, about how you get a fair and impartial jury. We are going a little down the road here because one of the things I just, you know, this amplifies it too. And there's a couple more documents I want to get to, but it amplifies people stepped up, right? They reported this to police. You have an alleged confession. Not only you're talking about particularly important

witnesses during this potential legal process, this trial, but if it wasn't for them, would he still potentially be on the loose, assuming he did this? So we don't know. We don't know if the law enforcement effort would have honed in on him because they did a video footage. They had some impressions. They might have over time been able to find him. But, yes, you know, a family member, and it sounds like there's a roommate who is helpful in the investigation, that at a minimum has allowed this to happen a lot quicker than it might have otherwise happened. So we have a couple more documents here. One is an order that has been signed by Judge Sean R. Howell. It is an order to hold without bail.

Based on the affirmation of Brian Davis, again, the arresting officer, who I mentioned before, the Undersine Magistrate finds. that probable cause existed for the arrest without a warrant of Tyler James Robinson. The current offense is a capital felony, and the court finds substantial evidence to support the charge. Therefore, the court orders that Tyler James Robinson is to be held without bail. And just a couple of that. There is a public safety assessment report. Kind of looks like this, okay? And it talks about how the charge of aggravated murder qualifies for what they say is PRL-5 in red. You go down, PRL-5 says, if statutory requirements are met, hold without bail. If released, maximum conditions recommended and or monetary bail. So they believe that this is

serious enough that he should be held without bail. Right. And I reviewed that assessment, and he has no priors according to that, no prior convictions, criminal or misdemeanor. So really, there's nothing else that would have compelled holding him without bail, except the seriousness of the crime. And if you're going to be accused of shooting somebody in a crowd in the fashion that happened here, you're going to get held without bail. There's no way he would have got bail. Yeah, you're right. It says risk factors. Age of current event, age of current violent offense, yes. Current violent offense and 20 years old or younger? No. Pending charge of the time of the offense?

No. Prior misdemeanor conviction? No. Prior felony conviction? No. Prior conviction? No. Prior violent offense, zero.

Prior failure to appear in past two years, zero. Prior failure to appear older than two years? No. Prior sentence to incarceration, no. You know, one of the things that's interesting about this is he is not the first criminal defendant suspect to be charged with the most serious offense that we have on the books, right? And this is his first. parent crime. Isn't that always shocking to you? You know, we talk about it's not always,

you know, a graduation to murder or somebody else a criminal history. Sometimes when people commit a crime, it's the worst one that. It happens too often to be shocking to me anymore. There is no, there is no dependable way to know who's going to commit a crime like this. You can't base it on the number of times they've been in trouble with the law or their socioeconomic background or or any of the specific traits or their race or their religion. There's nothing that would really tell you somebody would do something so heinous and so out of the norm of human behavior is this kind of crime. Yeah, this is really interesting.

Before we wrap things up, were you expecting an arrest this soon? I mean, it was very interesting. When the press conference happened yesterday, I was surprised they had that much information about the suspected shooter, right? You know, they talked about the timeline. They talked about the surveillance footage, the palm prints. And then, you know, there was some misinformation or confusing information about who was being apprehended when. But I think it was a little over 30 hours that they were able to make an arrest.

I didn't know what to expect. And I'll tell you this, Jesse. This is the first public comments I've made about this situation. I haven't posted about it on media. I haven't been on YouTube or anywhere else about it, partly because I didn't feel like I had enough information to know what was happening. And I saw a lot of people speculating on who must have done this or why they must have done it or what type of person it must have been.

And I found that to be absolutely outrageous. And I still don't have enough information to know for sure if this is the right person or why this crime was committed. But we do have a lot more information. So I had no expectation of when this person would be caught because I didn't know if it was somebody local. I didn't know if it was somebody foreign. I didn't know who it was. And I hope they found the right person.

There's still a lot of questions. A lot of questions about this. The timing of it, when he was shot, how he was shot, this suspect. So we're in the beginning stages of this. And again, we might be breaking down things. in real time just like this because it just came out. Rick Schoenstein, thank you so much for taking the time. Good to see you. Good to see you, Jesse. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe

on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.