A key vulnerability in the prosecution’s case against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, could be the timeline of events, according to a prominent Utah defense attorney, adding that the defense is likely to prolong the discovery process for up to a year before the case reaches a preliminary hearing.
Kirk, 31, a father of two, was shot and killed around 12:20 p.m. on September 10 while speaking at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. Kirk was the founder of the conservative student organization, which grew into a national movement credited with helping to expand youth engagement within the Republican Party.
“There’s just so much we don’t know yet as this case develops,” Skye Lazaro, of the Salt Lake City firm, Ray Quinney & Nebeker, told Fox News.
The defense team also has limited information at this stage. The discovery process began Monday, with prosecutors given five days to make their initial disclosures. Robinson’s attorneys have already postponed his waiver hearing by one month.
Some evidence has been made public through news briefings, statements from law enforcement, and charging documents filed last week. Those filings include text messages between Robinson and his roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, in which Robinson allegedly claimed responsibility for Kirk’s killing. However, the messages do not include timestamps.
Robinson, 22, was arrested in his hometown in southern Utah 33 hours after the shooting. Authorities said he had returned to the crime scene before his arrest, where police later found the suspected murder weapon, according to Fox News.
Investigators have not clarified the timeline of his interaction with a police officer stationed near the perimeter of the area, the outlet noted.
“If it doesn’t line up in a way that makes sense, it could definitely be bad for them,” Lazaro told Fox.
According to a law enforcement source, Robinson told an officer at the scene that he was attempting to retrieve an item he had left near a parking garage close to where police later recovered the rifle believed to be the murder weapon, Fox noted further.
At the time, the interaction did not raise suspicion, as hundreds of attendees had dropped personal belongings while fleeing the area following Kirk’s fatal shooting before an audience of roughly 3,000 people.
The officer conducted a routine license plate check on Robinson’s vehicle. Investigators later connected that encounter to Robinson after he was identified as a potential suspect, the source told Fox.
Lazaro said that if the officer’s body camera was not recording during the encounter, it could allow Robinson’s legal team to challenge aspects of the investigation.
Lazaro added that further details about the text messages cited in court filings could also pose problems for Robinson’s defense as the case develops, the outlet reported.
“A lot of times what you can get when you subpoena cellphone records are where messages were sent from,” she said.
If subpoenaed records show that the messages were sent from Robinson’s phone in Orem and received by his partner’s phone in St. George, it would support the prosecution’s version of events, according to legal experts.
“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,” she said.
Twiggs is cooperating with investigators, according to authorities. However, the defense is expected to work hard to undermine the state’s case.
“It could come out that those aren’t as damaging as they sound,” Lazaro said. “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.”