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12th September 2025
07:47pm BST
Right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was killed on 10 September after he was shot in the neck during an event at a Utah university.
Shots were fired at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem where the 31-year-old was speaking.
CNN reported that Kirk was answering a question about transgender mass shooters in America.
At 12:25 local time, a “single shot rang out in the quad near the food court on the Utah Valley University Orem Campus as Mr. Charlie Kirk began speaking at his planned rally,” Scott Trotter, senior director of Public Relations at Utah Valley University in Orem, told the BBC.
It was later confirmed that Kirk had died following his injuries.
An image of a 'person of interest' was later shared by officials.
This 'person of interest' would later be identified as the suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson from south-west Utah, three and half hour hours away from the campus where Kirk was shot.
Robinson is currently being held in custody while mugshots were released to the public earlier today.
While there is lots of rumour and speculation circulating on social media, here is everything we know about Robinson for certain.
Despite briefly studying at the academic institution in 2021, officials confirmed Robinson is not a student at Utah Valley University (UVU).
He received college credit through Utah Tech University from 2019 to 2021 while he was in high school, a spokesperson said.
They added that Robinson is a third-year student on an electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College.
He grew up in Washington, Utah, earning a scholarship to attend UVU after performing well academically in school, but dropped out after just one semester, as per public records, social media and a university statement.
Despite being the key suspect in what appears to be a political motivated shooting, Robinson is registered to vote with no party affiliation and had not cast a ballot in the two most recent elections.
This said, a family member talking to investigators said that Robinson had become "more political in recent years" and had lashed out when talking about Kirk, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said at a press conference today.
Much talk has been made of messages engraved on bullet casings found in the woods near to the university campus.
Initially these had been reported to harbour messages of transgender and anti-fascist ideology, although it has been confirmed that the messages were only anti-fascist in nature.
One inscription read: "notices bulges OwO what’s this?” which is likely a reference to a “copypasta” a piece of text that is repeated over and over again, often to troll people online.
Other messages read "Hey fascist! Catch!", “Bella Ciao" in reference to the well-known Italian song that honours WWII-era resistance that fought Nazi Germany and “If you read this, you are gay lmao”.
The BBC have reported that sources say Robinson was caught after he had allegedly confessed to his father what had happened who then told a family friend who was a minister.
That clergy member then took the tip to the US Marshals Service, subsequently leading to Robinson being detained.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox said at the press conference that a family member of Robinson had reached out to a family friend on Thursday night, and the family friend told the Washington County Sheriff’s Office that “Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said that Robinson was taken into custody around 10 pm on Thursday night, following a 33-hour manhunt.
Charges are yet to be brought against the 22-year-old, but Donald Trump has already said that he hopes the suspect, if found guilty, gets the death penalty.
Utah does enforce capital punishment, one method of which is the firing squad, although legal injection is more common.
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