The scholarship student with an all-American upbringing accused of killing Charlie Kirk
· Yahoo NewsSmiling politely, hair neatly combed, and wearing a green polka dot shirt with just one button undone, Tyler Robinson looks the picture of an all-American suburban son.
But on Friday morning, he was revealed to be the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer killed by a single bullet to the throat while addressing a crowd of 3,000 students in Orem, Utah.
Mr Robinson, 22, is the eldest son of a middle-class family from Washington County, Utah, and is expected to be charged with murder.
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He was turned in by his father Matt, a longstanding member of the local sheriff department and registered Republican.
Speaking to Fox News, Donald Trump suggested that a family friend who works as a minister also helped bring Mr Robinson to the FBI’s attention.
His mother, Amber, works for Intermountain Support Coordination Services, a Utah state service providing care for disabled people, MailOnline reported. She is also a registered Republican.
Photos from his mother’s social media account paint a picture of a happy family.
In one post, Mr Robinson is seen posing alongside his two brothers and parents wearing matching tongue-in-cheek Christmas pyjamas.
Their T-shirts read: “The jolliest bunch of a--holes”.
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In Halloween of 2017, he wore a Donald Trump costume, which made it look as though he was balancing on the president’s shoulders.
The family’s online output appears to show a young man who was comfortable around guns, who spent many years shooting rifles, and went on hunting trips with his family.
Other images show Mr Robinson posing with an M2 Browning .50 calibre machine gun.
Clinton Robinson, Tyler’s uncle, recognised the pictures circulated by the FBI.
“I thought it looked like Tyler,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “Sounds like it was. My day just went to s---.
“I have no idea why he did this,” he added.
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He was a bright student. Labelled a “genius” by his mother in one post, he passed his high school ACT with flying colours and scored a $32,000 scholarship to Utah State University.
In a clip circulating online, Mr Robinson reads out the acceptance letter as several people can be heard whooping and screaming in the background.
Credit: Facebook
He only ever attended one semester, in 2021.
Mr Robinson went on to attend Dixie Technical College, enrolling in the electrical apprenticeship programme.
A family member told the FBI that Mr Robinson had grown increasingly political.
He had expressed a dislike for Kirk in the days before the attack, saying that he was “spreading hate”. He also mentioned that the political commentator would soon be coming to town to give a talk at Utah Valley University.
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Casings from the weapon used to kill Kirk were found to have several anti-fascist messages engraved on them.
One engraving read: “Hey Fascists, Catch!” – next to an up arrow symbol, right arrow symbol and three down arrow symbols. Another read “OwO”, and a third read “If You Read This You Are Gay LMAO”.
One casing was also scrawled with lyrics referencing the Second World War Italian anti-fascist song Bella Ciao.
It is not yet clear how Mr Robinson, a smart college student from a seemingly loving, middle-class family of Republican voters, came to despise Kirk.
But during a press conference on Friday, officials revealed how he had spent time on Discord servers, an online community and chat app.
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Officials recalled that Mr Robinson’s roommate helped investigators by sharing the messages, in which he discussed details of the bullet engravings, as well as retrieving a rifle from a drop point and stashing it in a bush.
In the woods just off campus, officers found a high-powered, bolt-action rifle containing one spent cartridge and three more, unused rounds.
Also found nearby was a screwdriver that could have been used to assemble and disassemble the gun, a .30-06 Mauser bolt-action rifle, according to CNN.
Mr Robinson’s capture follows a two-day manhunt for a gunman who fired a single lethal shot from 142 yards, before jumping off a roof overlooking the pop-up stage where Kirk was hosting one of his hugely popular “Prove Me Wrong” sessions, debating students on conservative issues.
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Revealing Mr Robinson’s identity during a press conference on Friday, Spencer Cox, the Utah governor, described Kirk’s killing as an “attack on the American experiment. An attack on our ideals”.
The Telegraph contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and Intermountain Support Coordination Services for comment.
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