Robinson said he planned to turn himself in, roommate testifies
Lance Twiggs, the former roommate and romantic partner of Tyler Robinson, told investigators in a recorded interview played in court on Thursday that he spoke with Robinson in person the day after Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University. Twiggs said Robinson confirmed that the messages he’d sent the night before taking responsibility for Kirk’s death were true. That’s when Robinson said he regretted what he’d done, Twiggs said.
Robinson told him he planned to talk to his parents or turn himself over to authorities, Twiggs said. He was apprehended after family and friends reached out to law enforcement, officials said last year.
Robinson is currently in court for an evidentiary review, an early stage of the legal process under Utah law in which prosecutors need to show they have enough evidence to establish probable cause and move toward trial. If they succeed, Robinson would move to an arraignment and enter a formal plea on each of the charges.
Kirk was killed in September while speaking at an outdoor debate at the university. The debate was part of a campus tour for Turning Point USA, the conservative organization for young people that the 31-year-old Kirk co-founded.
Robinson, who was 22 years old at the time, faces a charge of aggravated murder that could carry a death-penalty sentence. He also faces charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering related to alleged steps he took to conceal his rifle and to urge his roommate to delete text messages and not cooperate with law enforcement.
Twiggs has cooperated with police throughout the investigation. He told investigators that Robinson had told him he planned to engrave bullets in the weeks before the shooting, but said they were going to be used for hunting. Twiggs also said that while Robinson occasionally talked about politics, he’d never heard him talk about Kirk before the attack.