By Andrew Hay, Nathan Layne and James Pearson
OREM, Utah (Reuters) -The suspect in Charlie Kirk’s shooting, Tyler Robinson, is a 22-year-old native of Utah who authorities say had allegedly criticized the conservative influencer in a recent conversation and was living with his family at the time of the shooting.
Robinson was arrested late on Thursday after a family friend called authorities, officials said on Friday.
Investigators have not publicly identified a motive. Utah Governor Spencer Cox told reporters that a family member interviewed by law enforcement said Robinson had recently mentioned Kirk’s appearance at Utah Valley University, where he was shot on Tuesday, at a recent dinner.
“They talked about why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had,” Cox said. Robinson had also become more political in recent years, the family member told investigators.
Robinson does not appear to have any criminal history, according to state records reviewed by Reuters. He was a registered voter but was not affiliated with a political party, according to state voter records.
Records show he was an “inactive” voter, which means he had not cast a ballot in recent elections and had not responded to a mailing from the county clerk’s office.
Other details about Robinson’s life were still emerging on Friday.
He briefly attended Utah State University in Logan for one semester in 2021, the school confirmed to Reuters. It was not immediately clear why he left the college.
In a video posted by his mother on Facebook, Robinson can be seen reading aloud from a letter offering him a four-year scholarship from Utah State University, as she cheered. Another post said Robinson had earned a score of 34 on the ACT college entrance exam, which would put him in the top 1% of test takers, according to the Princeton Review test preparation company.
At the time of his arrest, he was living at his family’s home in Washington County, in the southwest corner of Utah near the Nevada border, Cox said.
He has two younger brothers, according to his parents’ Facebook posts. His mother is a social worker at a non-profit healthcare company, while his father’s occupation was not immediately clear.
FACEBOOK POSTS SHOW DOTING MOTHER
His mother’s Facebook posts over the years – most of which were deleted on Friday – mostly doted on her family: documenting trips to Alaska, the Caribbean and Disneyland; celebrating school plays, Halloween costumes and adopted pet rabbits; expressing pride as the three boys moved up in school. None of the posts appeared political in any way.
Other posts show Robinson and his brothers occasionally with guns, though that is not uncommon in a state with permissive firearms laws.
“Driving away without him was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in a long time,” his mother wrote in one post about helping him move to college in 2021. “He’s so excited to start his journey and it’s going to be so amazing for him!”
On Thursday evening, Cox said, a family member called a family friend who in turn called the Washington County’s Sheriff’s Office “with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”
Robinson’s roommate also showed messages Robinson had sent via the Discord platform describing leaving a rifle in a bush wrapped in a towel – matching the weapon that authorities recovered in a wooded area near the scene of the shooting.
Robinson was booked into the Utah County jail in Spanish Fork, about 12 miles (19 km) south of the university where Kirk was shot. He has not yet been formally charged.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay, Nathan Layne, James Pearson, Raphael Satter, Jana Winter, Sarah N. Lynch, Tim Reid, AJ Vicens; Writing by Joseph Ax, editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)
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