Prosecutors in Provo, Utah, laid out a disturbing trail of evidence Thursday against 23-year-old Tyler Robinson, the man charged with murdering Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, including shell casings engraved with internet memes and a text message in which Robinson allegedly anticipated media coverage of his handiwork.
The evidence emerged during Robinson's preliminary hearing at 4th District Court in Utah County, where a judge is weighing whether probable cause exists to send the case to trial. Kirk was shot and killed near Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Among the exhibits: a hunting rifle recovered near the university, loaded with a spent round engraved with the words "Notices Bulge/OwO/What's This?", a phrase the New York Post reported is associated with transgender and "furry" internet subcultures. Other recovered rounds carried their own inscriptions: "Hey fascist catch!" with arrows described as a code from the video game "Helldivers 2," "if you read this you are gay," and "O Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Ciao, ciao", the lyrics of an Italian anti-fascist anthem.
Prosecutors also introduced text messages between Robinson and his partner, Lance Twiggs, whom Robinson's friends knew as "Luna." In one exchange, Robinson allegedly wrote: "If I see 'uwu notices bulge' on fox new [sic] I might have a stroke", an apparent reference to the engraved ammunition and how it might play on cable news.
Twiggs, who received limited immunity in exchange for his testimony, provided a video statement to the court. He told prosecutors that Robinson had asked him to use a Dremel tool to engrave shell casings roughly a month before Kirk's death. Twiggs said he believed the engravings were decorations for an upcoming hunting trip.
Twiggs also described a tearful confession inside the apartment the two shared. Robinson, he said, admitted to killing Kirk. Additional text messages presented by prosecutors reportedly contain further admissions, though the specific language of those texts was not quoted in open court Thursday.
The pattern of political violence against conservative public figures has become an alarming feature of American life, as a recent thwarted attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner underscored.
The hearing also revisited a moment from earlier in the week that rattled the courtroom. A letter allegedly written by Robinson to Twiggs was accidentally displayed on the court's public livestream despite a judge's order barring it before jury selection. The Washington Examiner reported that the note read: "If you are reading this per my text, then I am so sorry. I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it."
Twiggs testified that Robinson later confirmed the letter's contents in person and expressed regret, saying he intended to surrender to authorities. Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani noted that the accidental broadcast, while dramatic, occurred during a preliminary hearing, not a jury trial. "None of this is being shown to a jury. We don't even have a jury yet," Rahmani said.
Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, sobbed inside the courtroom Wednesday when a judge allowed portions of Twiggs's video statement to be played with certain redactions. Her attorney, Jeffrey Neiman, pushed back against the redactions, telling the court:
"[Redacting the video] suggests to the public that something else is in there, that something else lurks in there that isn't."
Erika Kirk has faced threats of her own in the months since her husband's death. She withdrew from a Turning Point USA event with Vice President Vance after receiving what were described as very serious threats.
By the hearing's fifth day, Friday, July 10, prosecutors had rested their case after presenting surveillance video, DNA evidence, ballistics findings, and witness testimony. Fox News reported that an enhanced video compilation of the moments before Kirk's killing was played in court, prompting visible anguish from Erika Kirk and Kirk's mother, Kathy Kirk, who cried and leaned on each other. Robinson did not appear to watch. His monitor was turned off, and he kept his gaze directed downward.
Judge Tony Graf said he did not want to "rush or make snap decisions" before ruling that no further exhibits would be shown for the remainder of that day. He also sanctioned media members over the inadvertent broadcast of the confession letter.
The defense, meanwhile, has signaled it will challenge the ballistics evidence. Legal analyst Wendy Patrick, a former prosecutor, told Just The News that the defense appeared to be "testing the waters to see how much of what type of evidence the judge is going to admit, because that's going to inform their trial strategy."
Robinson faces a charge of aggravated murder. The hearing's purpose is narrow, to determine whether probable cause supports sending the case to trial. But the sheer volume of evidence prosecutors have assembled, from multiple confessions across different mediums to DNA on the rifle to surveillance footage, leaves little ambiguity about the strength of their case.
National Review noted that the evidence presented during the hearing has effectively dismantled conspiracy theories that circulated after Kirk's death, including claims promoted by commentators like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. Prosecutors established Robinson's presence on campus through video, linked him to the weapon through DNA, and documented confessions in a written letter, a Discord message, and in person to Twiggs.
Twiggs himself testified plainly about the in-person admission: "I just asked him in person if what he said the night before was true, and he said it was."
The engraved casings add a layer that goes beyond standard forensic evidence. They suggest premeditation and a kind of performative contempt, someone who spent time decorating ammunition with internet jokes and political slogans before using it to kill a man. Robinson didn't just plan this act. He branded it.
The hostility directed at Kirk and his family did not end with his death. Protesters mocked Kirk's killing outside a Turning Point USA summit, and a heckler disrupted Erika Kirk's speech at the same event.
The judge has not yet ruled on whether Robinson will stand trial. No timeline for that decision was announced. If bound over, Robinson would face a jury trial on the aggravated murder charge, with prosecutors pursuing the death penalty.
The federal government's recent escalation of domestic terrorism charges in other cases reflects a broader law enforcement posture toward politically motivated violence. Whether that posture holds in this case, and whether Robinson ultimately faces the full weight of the law, remains to be seen.
Several open questions linger. What portions of Twiggs's video were redacted, and on what legal basis? Were all engraved rounds recovered from the same rifle at the scene? And what, precisely, did Robinson write in the additional text messages prosecutors say contain further admissions?
The courtroom will answer some of those questions. But the evidence already on the record tells a story that needs no embellishment: a young man who carved jokes into the ammunition he used to kill someone, then texted about how it would play on television. That isn't a mystery. It's a prosecution.
