Flaw in Charlie Kirk Assassination Case Could Derail Everything: Legal Expert Warns
A significant vulnerability may be emerging in the case against Tyler Robinson, the man charged with murdering conservative leader Charlie Kirk, according to a prominent Utah defense attorney. The issue centers on the timeline of events surrounding the killing—an inconsistency that could undermine prosecutors as the defense prepares to stretch the discovery process over the next year.
Kirk, 31, a husband and father of two, was shot dead around 12:20 p.m. on September 10 while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. As founder of the conservative youth organization, Kirk had built Turning Point into a national movement that energized millions of young conservatives and helped expand the modern Republican base.
“There’s just so much we don’t know yet as this case develops,” Skye Lazaro of Salt Lake City law firm Ray Quinney & Nebeker told Fox News.
Timeline Discrepancies Raise Questions
According to court documents, the discovery phase officially began Monday, with prosecutors given five days to disclose initial evidence. Robinson’s attorneys already pushed his waiver hearing back by one month, signaling a long and drawn-out process ahead.
While some evidence has been made public through law enforcement statements and charging documents, one key detail stands out — text messages between Robinson and his partner, Lance Twiggs, allegedly admitting to Kirk’s killing, lack timestamps.
Robinson, 22, was arrested in his southern Utah hometown 33 hours after the shooting. Fox News Digital reported that he had returned to the crime scene before his arrest, where police later discovered the suspected murder weapon.
Investigators still haven’t confirmed the exact sequence of his interaction with a police officer near the scene.
“If it doesn’t line up in a way that makes sense, it could definitely be bad for them,” Lazaro told Fox News.
A law enforcement source added that Robinson spoke with an officer claiming he was retrieving an item left near a parking garage close to where the rifle was later found. At the time, the interaction didn’t raise red flags—hundreds of people had fled, leaving personal items scattered after the deadly shooting before an audience of roughly 3,000.
The officer ran a routine license plate check on Robinson’s vehicle, which was later linked to him after he was identified as a suspect, according to Fox.
Potential Evidence Gaps Could Aid Defense
If the officer’s body camera footage wasn’t recording during the encounter, Lazaro warned, the defense could use that gap to challenge the investigation’s credibility.
She also noted that cellphone records could play a crucial role.
“A lot of times what you can get when you subpoena cellphone records are where messages were sent from,” Lazaro said.
If those records show the messages were sent from Robinson’s phone in Orem and received by Twiggs’s phone in St. George, it would bolster the prosecution’s timeline. However, any inconsistencies could open the door for reasonable doubt.
“The defense is going to want to get, going to wanna see, and probably spend a lot of time, whether they get their own forensic expert to analyze it or do it themselves, to really piece together a timeline,” Lazaro added.
Twiggs is reportedly cooperating with investigators, but defense attorneys are expected to attack the state’s evidence at every turn.
“It could come out that those aren’t as damaging as they sound,” Lazaro concluded. “You have to keep in mind, when the government writes a probable cause affidavit, it’s their greatest hits that they have in the moment.”