The man accused of killing Charlie Kirk joked about being the suspect in an online chatroom, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed Sunday morning about the disturbing dialogue.
Tyler Robinson, 22, was active in a chat on the messaging app Discord, where users were discussing the shooting.
“All we can confirm is that those conversations definitely were happening, and they did not believe it was actually him,” Cox said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It was all joking until, you know, until he admitted that it actually was him.”
The chats were first reported Saturday, with the New York Times citing messages that Robinson said his “doppelganger” committed the shooting before later admitting to it.
“More information is coming, and we’ll learn more over time,” Cox told “This Week.”
“You know, I don’t know that that matters as much as the radicalization piece,” he told the ABC outlet. “I brought up the Democrats who were assassinated recently and how quickly we move on from these things. But the body count is piling up. … This person made a choice, and it was this person’s choice, and this person will be held responsible. And we have to make different choices.”
Cox also confirmed Robinson was not cooperating with authorities, though he said the suspect’s friends and family had been very cooperative. The governor said while investigators had not uncovered evidence of Robinson’s motive, they heard from friends and relatives that he had a “leftist ideology.”
“Clearly there was a lot of gaming going on,” Cox told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep,” Cox said.
Robinson was living with a roommate who Cox described as a “boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.” The governor said the roommate had been very cooperative with authorities.
“This person did not have any knowledge, was shocked when they found out about it,” Cox said on “Meet the Press.”
Robinson was registered to vote but was not affiliated with a political party and did not vote in the 2020 or 2024 elections, according to online data. His parents were registered Republicans, and social media photos showed him posing with guns from a young age.
“This was a very normal young man, a very smart young man, a 4.0 student, I think a 34 on the ACT, went to my alma mater, Utah State University, but was only there for a very short amount of time and dropped out after less than one semester,” Cox told the outlet. “And it seemed to happen kind of after that, after he had moved back to the southern part of Utah.”
He added that “friends” of Robinson “have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”
Robinson’s first court appearance will come Tuesday, and Cox said more evidence would likely be presented in formal charging documents.
“We have additional evidence, forensic evidence, that has been processed,” he told “Meet the Press.” “We’ll be sharing that when charges are filed on Tuesday.”
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