A year after Tyler Robinson allegedly killed Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, many Americans believe that he either did not do it or did not act alone. Candace Owens has implied that “Erika Kirk conspired with other Turning Point USA leaders and even foreign governments to have Charlie killed.” She suggested that Kirk was shot “from below the stage” and that “the assassin fled through tunnels.” She said, “Charlie Kirk was the first casualty of the War in Iran. Never forget what they did to him.” Robinson, she says, is “a total patsy” who was never on campus that day. Israel, with help from other governments and from Kirk’s own widow and staff, had Kirk killed, she suggests. Owens and others point to the fact that Robinson was not on investigators’ radar until he turned himself in 33 hours after the shot, FBI Director Kash Patel had posted that afternoon that “the subject” was “now in custody,” ATF examiners could neither identify nor exclude the recovered Mauser rifle as the source of the bullet fragments, no spent cartridge case was found on the roof, and the trigger carried DNA from at least four people.
But Robinson confessed repeatedly in writing and the physical evidence matches what he wrote. When his partner texted him, “you weren’t the one who did it right????” he replied, “I am, I’m sorry,” and then, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” He left a note under his keyboard, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” and told a Discord server of more than 20 friends, “It was me at UVU yesterday.” The reason Robinson wasn’t on investigators’ radar is that his family turned him in within a day of the FBI releasing his photo. Patel’s “subject in custody” was George Zinn, a 71-year-old who confessed falsely to help the shooter escape. Surveillance video played at the preliminary hearing shows Robinson crawling across the roof and jumping down after the shot. The police found the rifle in the woods wrapped in a towel that was 95% his DNA, and the ATF put the odds at a trillion to one that he was the main contributor of the DNA on the trigger. There was no casing on the roof because the Mauser rifle is a bolt-action that still held “one spent round and three unspent rounds” when police found it. An “inconclusive” fragment comparison appears in about 20% of casework because rifle bullets break apart, and the same ATF report matched the spent casing to the rifle. The claim that Robinson was never on campus was debunked when the hearing played video of him walking around it. Finally, at the September 1, 2026 hearing, his own lawyers offered no alternative theory of the murder and agreed there was a single shot and a single bullet.
