Fifty-five minutes before he allegedly shot and killed right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson was bragging about his success playing the online puzzle game Wordle.
It was the morning of Sept. 10. Robinson had guessed the answer — “pouty” — on his third attempt. He sent his results and a celebratory meme to a friend, who responded with a meme of his own and conceded that it had taken him five tries.
By then, according to prosecutors, Robinson had already driven three hours from his home in southern Utah with a high-powered rifle. He was about to make his way onto the campus of Utah Valley University, where Kirk was set to speak to a crowd outdoors.
The quotidian exchange, ahead of the killing for which Robinson would later turn himself in, was a striking example of the compartmentalization the 22-year-old exhibited in his interactions with friends in the days before the shooting, a Washington Post examination found. And in the years leading up to that day, friends said, Robinson betrayed no sign of passions that might suggest a capability for violence, much less murder. To many, he appeared to hold unremarkable political opinions, and he told some he was no fan of either major party.
This examination draws on interviews with 21 people who knew Robinson, as well as hundreds of messages he exchanged online over the past five years.
President Donald Trump and his inner circle have claimed that Robinson was radicalized by left-wing extremists. Prosecutors allege Robinson targeted Kirk for his “political expression,” but there is no publicly known videotaped statement or lengthy missive to better understand the high-profile killing.
For now, a patchwork of social interactions and a trail of online posts provide a view into Robinson’s life and his beliefs. The ammunition he allegedly loaded into the rifle was etched with gamer memes and online jokes whose meaning has become a matter of public debate — and that even his friends said they cannot interpret.
Some people said they noticed changes in Robinson over roughly the past year. His mother told police that he had become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented” and had started dating a roommate who was undergoing a gender transition. Friends confirmed the pair’s romantic involvement and said the roommate was distressed about anti-trans sentiment. After the presidential election, according to one person who was close to him at the time, Robinson began to voice concern for the rights of transgender people and to express disapproval of the new administration, though the person said he was not strident in those views.
Robinson sent the roommate an apparent confession that suggested a possible explanation for Kirk’s killing: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” he wrote in a message in the hours after the killing, according to charging documents.
Charlie Kirk hands out hats shortly before his shooting at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. (Tess Crowley/Deseret News/AP)
The Post reached Robinson by video call in mid-October in the Utah County Jail, where he is being held on murder and related charges. The camera appeared to be covered, and he did not make himself visible. “I can’t answer any questions,” he said. “You’re welcome to talk.” In four calls spanning about 40 minutes, he maintained that disciplined approach, listening silently as a reporter described what friends and acquaintances had said about him. He did not audibly react to hearing that Kirk’s wife, Erika, had publicly forgiven him or that Trump had posthumously awarded Kirk the Medal of Freedom.
Eventually, Robinson asked that reporters communicate with him only in writing. He did not respond to messages sent through the jail’s email system, and his attorneys declined to answer questions for this report.
Eighty minutes after Kirk was shot, The Post found, Robinson wrote to his Wordle friend on the messaging platform Discord. He seemed eager to discuss the attack.
utah gets a national headline for the first time in a while and it’s someone sliming charlie kirk
yea I heard he got attempted on
he’s reported dead, and the footage looks BAD
Later that day, Robinson joined two other friends in a Discord voice chat and asked whether they knew about the shooting.
He was short of breath and seemed to be outside, recalled one of the friends, who like many others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be publicly associated with the killing or were concerned for their own safety in this politically charged moment.
Robinson asked his two friends if they knew Kirk’s condition. They were unsure. “He got hit pretty bad,” the friend recalled Robinson saying. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”
Growing up online
On election night 2020, as Joe Biden tried to unseat Donald Trump, one of Robinson’s friends tagged him on Discord with a question: “who is wining the election,” the friend wrote. “u wouid know.”
Robinson’s response was dispassionate. “biden is in the lead electoral votes wise, but there are still some swing states that havn’t finished voting, as well as most of the west coast,” he wrote. “raw votes donald is in the lead by a little over 1 million votes.”
Robinson was 17 at the time, a high school senior who took an interest in current events, friends said. But he shared no partisan biases: He said that both Democrats and Republicans had failed to help regular people, according to fellow student Xander Luke, 22, who said he and Robinson occasionally discussed their political views. “He didn’t think either of the options were good,” Luke said.
Robinson also didn’t like “hateful people,” Luke recalled. “He didn’t like bullies because they looked down on people for just living their lives.”
Robinson had grown up in what friends said was a conservative family in St. George, a predominantly Mormon city in southern Utah. He was “scary smart, sweet” with “an awesome sense of humor,” his mother wrote on Facebook years before the shooting. She praised Robinson’s good grades and posted a stream of smiling family photos.
At school, he came off as funny but awkward, a person who made himself hard to know, said Erik Wagner, 22, who often hung out with him at lunch. Robinson didn’t seem to want to spend time together outside of school, and they started to grow apart during their junior year partly because, Wagner said, “he didn’t feel comfortable being around my new girlfriend.”
By the time covid lockdowns closed schools in the spring of 2020, Robinson already seemed to spend as much time with friends online as in person, Wagner said. Robinson was connected with a growing group of friends in a Discord server — a group of private chatrooms — called “The Corruption,” the name a reference to a video game called “Terraria.”
The Post spoke to people who participated in the server and obtained an archive of its chatrooms dating back to January 2020, as well as archives of two other private Discord servers in which Robinson was active.
The messages reviewed by The Post occasionally touched on politics but consisted mostly of chitchat, memes and crude jokes. Robinson’s written messages tended to focus on gaming and offering advice to friends. The Post found no sign that he had written about Kirk in the chats, though the archives, made weeks after the shooting, did not preserve all of the images and videos that had been posted — and it is possible for Discord users to delete their own messages or for those with administrator privileges to delete any messages.
Many of those who spoke with The Post agreed that Robinson was dedicated to video games and obviously skilled at them. He was, said one of his long-term online friends, a gaming “savant.”
One of Robinson’s online profiles shows he spent thousands of hours on some of his favorite games, including 2,148 hours playing “Sea of Thieves,” in which players explore a vast and open ocean, fighting battles or hunting for treasure. One of Robinson’s favorite things to do in the game was fish, something his friends said he liked to do in real life but obsessed over online.
“There used to be this in-game achievement for catching 1,000 of each type of fish,” another longtime friend said, recalling how Robinson built spreadsheets to calculate how many he needed to catch every day to meet the quota. “He treated it like a job,” the friend said.
Robinson used the same handle on multiple platforms: “Craftin247,” a reference to how much time he spent playing “Minecraft,” according to another friend.
Members of the Discord servers, some of whom Robinson knew only online, said most of their conversations took place not in text but in voice or video calls, which left no record. The slim history of Robinson’s written thoughts reveals little of his inner life or deeply held views.
There were exceptions, including in the fall of 2020, when the pandemic was in full swing. Robinson told a friend online that he was exasperated by misinformation circulating in conservative circles. His grandfather believed covid was “democrats controlling sheeple,” he wrote, and his grandmother had refused to meet his baby cousin “because the doctor required her to wear a mask.”
The exchange continued:
I wish there was a simple solution against fake news, but there isn’t. I have my own opinions but that’s it.
pretty much see if there are any sources cited and check the accuracy. if really any of its not true, then its fake
I understand freedom of speech, and it’s cool, but it makes it so media can lie about anything
i wish atleast s – – – like antivax wasn’t protected under freedom of speech because its speech that actively harms people
Robinson entered Utah State University in fall 2021, where he was a pre-engineering major, records show. But he grew restless soon after starting classes, according to two of his friends. He left after one semester and didn’t return.
Back in St. George, he apprenticed for local electrical contractors while training as an electrician at Dixie Technical College. Two former co-workers remembered him as a proficient novice electrician who mostly kept to himself and seldom talked about his personal life.
Robinson had a habit of walking around with his hands clenched, one of them said. “You good, Tyler? … Your fists are all balled up like you’re upset,” he recalled saying to Robinson. “He’s like, ‘Oh, no, I just do that,” the former co-worker said.
The former co-worker recalled that Robinson often sat alone at lunch and rarely joined in his colleagues’ banter — though once, when a co-worker brought his new pistol to show off, Robinson perked up and volunteered that he had once hit a 400-yard shot.
“Tyler liked guns and thought they were cool,” said one friend, who recalled Robinson rattling off facts about various weapons. He said Robinson “just kind of nerded out” about anything that caught his interest and learned as much as he could about it, whether it was games, guns or politics.
A year of change
In the beginning of 2024, Robinson moved into an apartment on the south side of St. George with two fellow gamers who had been part of his circle on Discord for years.
Friends regularly came to the apartment to play the card game Magic: The Gathering, according to Discord messages and four men who took part.
They described Robinson as a generally quiet presence who came across as libertarian or conservative — a fairly typical person in their southern Utah world. He had a revolver, according to two people who remembered him showing it off. One of them said he liked to practice shooting on public lands near the Arizona border.
“He loved his guns, he loved his beer, he hated the government. That’s the impression that I got,” said another of the regular Magic players.
He said Robinson, like many of the other young men who gathered at the house, had a “f— both of them” attitude toward the United States’ two major political parties. He was registered to vote — unaffiliated with any party — in Washington County, but he never cast a ballot there, according to the county clerk and auditor.
A few times, when he was drunk, Robinson “would joke about right-wing politicians,” one person recalled, “like, that guy’s gonna catch a bullet one day or something like that.” No one took it seriously, he and another friend said, noting that it was the kind of flippant remark anyone in the group might make during a night of drinking.
In July 2024, Robinson reacted on Discord to the news that someone had shot Trump with a message that his friends understood to be a joke.
Assassination attempt on Trump
snowflake liberals cant shoot straight cause they too busy being gay
Robinson did not openly discuss his sexuality with people who spoke to The Post, but some started noticing that he was getting close with one of his two roommates, a person who had been assigned male at birth.
Two of the Magic players said they thought Robinson was straight until he and that roommate grew openly affectionate, cuddling and kissing in the apartment. The roommate posted Halloween pictures with Robinson on a private Instagram account, writing, according to a screenshot, “My bf is the best, luv u.”
Around that same time, the roommate quietly began coming out to some people as transgender, according to three friends. Two others said they were not aware that the roommate was transitioning.
One person who spent a significant amount of time at the apartment in 2024 and early 2025 said the roommate approached him after a Magic game and declared, “Just so you know, I’m trans now.”
“You don’t have to change anything, like don’t change pronouns or whatever, just treat me like how you normally would,” the person recalled the roommate saying.
Robinson’s roommate increasingly complained about right-wing politicians, about anti-trans sentiment in Utah and about receiving funny looks from co-workers, the person said. Discord messages show that the roommate asked friends whether they wanted to attend an anti-Trump protest after the 2024 election; the archives do not show any reply from Robinson.
The roommate viewed Trump’s election as a loss for trans rights and was distraught, according to the person. More than once, the person said, he saw Robinson cradling his sobbing roommate in his arms.
In February, the roommate erupted at a friend who was visiting from out of town and came to the apartment for a Magic game, according to two people who were there. As the visitor began to say something about transgender athletes, the roommate interrupted him from another room and shouted repeatedly to “shut up” as Robinson sat silently on a nearby couch, the two people said. The group went quiet before play eventually resumed.
The roommate — who has not been charged and who has cooperated with the investigation into Kirk’s killing, officials have said — did not respond to The Post’s outreach by phone or to detailed questions sent by email.
The person who spent a significant amount of time at the apartment in that period said that after Robinson started dating his roommate, Robinson began criticizing conservatives for fearmongering on trans issues. Robinson also complained about right-wing figures in the news, including Trump, whose tariffs he believed would tank the economy, the person said.
Robinson’s mother told investigators that he recently “had started to lean more to the left” and date his roommate, according to a summary filed by prosecutors in support of the criminal charges. This led to discussions between Robinson and his father, “who have very different political views,” prosecutors wrote.
Other friends told The Post they noticed no such changes in Robinson’s politics and never heard him talk about transgender issues.
Several regular attendees of the Magic games said they saw less of Robinson and his roommate beginning in the early spring, when their other roommate moved away and the in-person games petered out. Friends told The Post that what little they knew of Robinson in recent months came from online interactions — and even those grew sporadic.
“It would be occasionally a little talk, playing a game online,” one Magic player said. “And then he killed Charlie Kirk.”
‘A stupid venue’
Kirk amassed a huge following for his brand of Christian conservatism by creating viral moments as he debated college students across the country. Millions viewed his made-for-TikTok takes on topics including race, abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
He was credited with building a youth GOP movement that helped elect Trump last year. He was also accused of bigotry and bullying by some students and civil rights groups.
On Aug. 27, Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, announced he would appear Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University. Robinson told his father it was a “stupid venue” for the event and accused Kirk of spreading hatred, according to prosecutors’ court filings.
Utah Valley University the day after the shooting. Kirk, a leading figure in a youth movement on the right, was shot during one of his trademark campus debates. (Cheney Orr/Reuters)
Robinson would later message his roommate that he began planning the attack “a bit over a week” before Kirk’s campus appearance, prosecutors allege. Half a dozen people who talked with Robinson around that time said they detected nothing unusual.
He’d gone to a party with high school friends, he told one person on the last day of August in what the person described as an unremarkable Discord voice chat. He was exchanging scores with his Wordle friend, as he had been doing a few times a week.
That friend lives in New England and had never met Robinson in person. But the two of them had hung out online since high school, and on the afternoon of Sept. 3, when the New England friend needed to talk to someone about his difficult living situation, it was Robinson he called.
As his friend vented, Robinson listened and commiserated. The call lasted nine minutes. Robinson did not mention Kirk.
Other friends said Robinson joined them on Discord days later, on Sept. 7. They played “Peak,” a cartoonish cooperative mountain climbing game that had been released just a few months earlier. Robinson was — of course — already an expert. He played with them for more than an hour, and none of them sensed anything out of the ordinary, they told The Post.
By the morning of Sept. 10, three days later, Robinson had made the drive north to Utah Valley University in Orem, according to prosecutors. He texted his Wordle score to his friend at 11:28 that morning. At 11:51, he allegedly walked onto campus and then made his way onto the roof of a building. In the courtyard below, a crowd had gathered to hear Kirk speak.
At 12:23 p.m. came the crack of a single shot as a student pressed Kirk on his views of transgender people and mass shootings. Kirk slumped backward.
Allison Hemingway-Witty cries after the shooting. (Tess Crowley/Deseret News/AP)The crowd flees after the sound of gunfire. Authorities say Kirk was killed by a single shot from a high-powered rifle fired from the roof of a nearby building. (Trent Nelson/Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters)
Authorities have provided few details about Robinson’s alleged whereabouts in the hours after the shooting, a period in which law enforcement focused on two other potential suspects. He ran into a police officer on campus that evening, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety, and the next morning was captured by a surveillance camera at a gas station in Cedar City, along the highway to St. George.
About 9 a.m. that morning, Robinson’s New England friend sent that day’s Wordle results. He’d gotten “chair” in just two tries. Robinson replied 21 minutes later: It had taken him three.
It was their last exchange.
Within an hour, the FBI released security camera images of a person of interest. Robinson’s mother thought the person resembled her son. His father agreed. They asked him to come to their home and talk.
The person of interest. (Utah Department of Public Safety)
By the evening, Robinson had been persuaded to turn himself in, a decision he relayed to his friends on Discord along with an apparent confession: “It was me at UVU yesterday.”
At a news conference the next day, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) announced Robinson’s arrest and described the messages engraved on bullet casings Robinson had allegedly left behind. Asked what the messages meant, Cox singled out one: “Hey Fascist! Catch!” followed by five arrows.
“I think that speaks for itself,” Cox said.
Robinson’s friends disagreed.
The arrow sequence mirrors a code used to drop a bomb in “Helldivers 2,” a satirical game that pits a totalitarian Earth empire against aliens. Robinson had played it for hundreds of hours.
“I can’t say for certain that the fascist he was referring to was Charlie Kirk or if it was literally just like a reference from the game,” said Robinson’s Wordle friend. “I don’t know what he meant by it.”
About this story
Chris Dehghanpoor, Laura Meckler and Hannah Knowles contributed to this report.
Top photo credit: Utah Governor’s Office/AP
Editing by Emma Brown, Eric Rich and Kainaz Amaria. Design and development by Natalie Vineberg. Design editing by Christian Font. Copy editing by Kim Chapman.
