The prime suspect in the killing of US Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been named as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.
Mr Kirk, who was a staunch ally of US President Donald Trump, was shot dead while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University as part of his “American Comeback” tour.
Harrowing footage of the 31-year-old father-of-two circulated on social media showing him speaking to thousands of students as a gunshot rang out on Wednesday afternoon. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition, but was later pronounced dead.
Investigators have not publicly identified a motive for the shooting.
President Trump said he was "filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination” of Kirk, describing the killing as a “dark, dark, moment for America.”
On Friday, Trump told Fox news that a suspect was in custody and was turned in by “someone very close to him”. When asked to clarify, Trump said his father, “namely his father”, got involved and “we’ve got to go in”.
At a news conference shortly afterwards, Utah Governor Spencer Cox identified the suspect as Robinson. Here’s what we know about the suspect so far.
Who is Tyler Robinson?
Tyler Robinson, 22, was born in Utah in 2003.
He has two younger brothers, according to his parents’ Facebook posts. His mother is a social worker at a non-profit healthcare company, while his father’s occupation was not immediately clear.
Robinson briefly attended Utah State University in Logan for one semester in 2021, the school confirmed to reports, but it is not immediately clear why he left the college.
In a video posted by his mother on Facebook, Robinson can be seen reading aloud from a letter offering him a four-year scholarship from Utah State University, as she cheered.
Another post said Robinson had earned a score of 34 on the ACT college entrance exam, which would put him in the top 1% of test takers, according to the Princeton Review test preparation company.
NBC reported that Robinson is a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship programme at Dixie Technical College in St George, Utah.
A family neighbour, Kristin Schwiermann, described him as “smart”, “quiet” and said he “never caused any problems”.
What is Robinson’s political stance?
Robinson had registered to vote with no party affiliation and had not cast a ballot in the two most recent elections.
His mother’s Facebook posts over the years – most of which were deleted on Friday – mostly doted on her family: documenting trips, special occasions such as Halloween, and celebrating school plays. None of the posts appeared political in any way.
Some posts show Robinson and his brothers occasionally with guns, though that is not uncommon in a state with permissive firearms laws.
But a family member told investigators that Robinson “had become more political in recent years,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox said at a press conference on Friday morning.
Cox said the family member recalled a recent incident in which Robinson came to dinner before September 10 and mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to Utah Valley University, and talked about why he "didn't like him and the viewpoints he had".
Robinson had told a family member that "Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate", according to Cox.
Cox said anti-fascist messages were engraved on ammunition with a rifle near the site of the shooting.
Those messages included one that said, “Hey fascist! Catch!” and another that appeared to reference an Italian anti-fascist song, Cox said.
What do we know about his arrest?
At the time of his arrest, Robinson was living at his family’s home in Washington County, in the southwest corner of Utah near the Nevada border, Cox said.
On Thursday evening, Cox said, a family member called a family friend who in turn called the Washington County’s Sheriff’s Office “with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”
NBC News reported that the family member is his father and that the father then went to a church minister he knew, who contacted a local sheriff.
The father realised his son may have been involved after seeing images released by the FBI.
Robinson’s roommate also showed messages Robinson had sent via the Discord platform describing leaving a rifle in a bush wrapped in a towel – matching the weapon that authorities recovered in a wooded area near the scene of the shooting.
"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 visually watching the area where a rifle was left, and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a towel," Utah’s governor said.
Mr Cox said there was no evidence to suggest anyone else was involved, but the investigation was ongoing.
Robinson was booked into the Utah County jail in Spanish Fork, about 12 miles south of the university where Kirk was shot.
He has not yet been formally charged.
