DNA from accused killer Tyler Robinson and his former lover Lance Twiggs was found on both the towel used to conceal the suspected murder weapon and a screwdriver recovered from the rooftop where the fatal shot was allegedly fired, an FBI forensic analyst told a Utah court during the second day of Robinson's preliminary hearing in the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The testimony, delivered Tuesday afternoon in Fourth District Court in Provo, marked one of the most significant evidentiary disclosures yet in a case that has gripped the nation since Kirk, 31, was gunned down during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.
Robinson, 23, faces aggravated murder and a slew of additional felony charges that carry the potential death penalty. He has not yet entered a plea. The weeklong preliminary hearing, which began Monday, is designed to establish whether prosecutors can show probable cause to send the case to trial. Based on what emerged Tuesday, that threshold looks well within reach.
Sgt. Jennifer Faumuina of the State Bureau of Investigations, who led the evidence response team that processed scenes at UVU after the shooting, testified that her team recovered a screwdriver from the Losee Center rooftop, the location prosecutors say Robinson used as his firing position. Nearby, investigators found the suspected murder weapon: a Mauser 98 bolt-action rifle chambered in.30-06, wrapped in a dark-colored towel in the woods adjacent to campus.
Faumuina told the court that DNA consistent with the same two males, Robinson and Twiggs, was present on both the towel and the screwdriver. What the screwdriver was used for remains unclear.
FBI forensic analyst Amanda Bakker then took the stand and walked the courtroom through the DNA analysis. Robinson, Bakker testified, is likely the majority donor in the mixed DNA samples found on both items. Twiggs is believed to be the minority contributor. Both men had previously provided buccal swabs to law enforcement to build their full DNA profiles.
Bakker's testimony stretched through much of the afternoon. Defense attorney Michael Burt subjected her to a lengthy cross-examination, prompting prosecutor Ryan McBride to object multiple times. McBride argued the defense had gone well "beyond the scope of determining probable cause." At one point, Judge Tony Graf Jr. asked Burt how far he intended to go with a particular line of questioning. Burt indicated he had one more question before moving on.
McBride, clearly signaling he would hold the defense to its word, responded: "I'll hold them to that."
The morning session featured the return of David Hull, a witness from the Utah Department of Public Safety, who had begun his testimony the day before. Prosecutors played surveillance video they allege shows Robinson making his way around the UVU campus before and after the shooting and coming and going in his Dodge Challenger.
The video evidence adds another layer to a prosecution case that already includes Robinson's alleged handwritten confession note and text messages sent to Twiggs. Prosecutors say Robinson confessed to the killing in both formats. The contents of those communications were not quoted verbatim in court Tuesday, but their existence has been central to the case since charges were filed.
Twiggs, Robinson's former lover and roommate, is cooperating with investigators. He has not been charged with a crime. The New York Post reported that Twiggs holds a partial immunity agreement in exchange for his cooperation. A Utah judge denied Robinson's earlier request to compel Twiggs to testify in person at the preliminary hearing, ruling that any cross-examination could take place if Twiggs is called at trial. Prosecutors instead plan to present a video interview in which Twiggs reportedly told investigators that Robinson texted him confessing to the killing, hiding the gun, and disposing of his clothing, and asked Twiggs not to tell police.
Both families were present in the gallery. Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, watched intently as Bakker explained a graph displaying specific DNA markers. She leaned forward and tilted her head during the testimony. At one point, she shook her head while Burt grilled the FBI analyst. Kirk's parents, Robert W. Kirk and Kathryn Kirk, also attended. Robert Kirk occasionally took notes.
Tyler Robinson's parents, Matt Robinson and Amber Robinson, arrived at the courthouse as well. Robinson himself sat through the proceedings, listening and fidgeting.
Public interest in the hearing has been intense. AP News reported that attendees lined up as early as 2 a.m. to secure limited public seating. One observer, a California woman named Nguyen Weeks, traveled to Provo specifically for the hearing. She told AP she was "interested in this case generally, thinking about how justice happens, or not, or what are the obstacles to that."
The defense had previously sought to close portions of the hearing to the public. The Washington Examiner reported that Judge Graf denied that request, citing "the presumptive right of public and media access to court proceedings, including preliminary hearings." A separate evidentiary hearing was held in June to examine whether prosecutors violated a pretrial publicity order by speaking to media outlets including TMZ, USA Today, Fox News, and PolitiFact.
Robinson faces capital murder charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The charging documents filed by Utah County prosecutors include six felony counts, among them a witness-tampering charge stemming from Robinson's alleged direction to Twiggs to delete their text exchange and not speak to police or media.
The political dimension of the case has been unmistakable from the start, and the media's handling of it has been anything but clean. Prosecutors have stated that Robinson murdered Kirk over his "political expression." Robinson's own text messages, as described by investigators, said he "had enough of his hatred." Yet portions of the media establishment rushed to reframe the killing as something other than what it plainly appears to be.
CNN commentator Montel Williams told viewers, "I don't believe he was motivated politically. I think this was motivated emotionally." ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman drew sharp backlash for characterizing Robinson's text messages to Twiggs as "touching" and "intimate," framing the accused assassin in a sympathetic light. Gutman later issued a partial statement: "I deeply regret that my words did not make that clear." He did not, as the Washington Free Beacon reported, address quotes he had falsely attributed to Robinson.
That a major network correspondent's first instinct was to soften the image of a man accused of assassinating a political figure over his speech tells you something about the reflexes of the institutions that claim to inform the public.
The preliminary hearing is expected to take the full week. Prosecutors need only establish probable cause, a far lower bar than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required at trial. Maryland attorney Randolph Rice, who represented the family of murder victim Rachel Morin and provided outside legal commentary on the Kirk case, put it bluntly:
"Barring the prosecutor somehow forgetting how to get to the courthouse, there's no realistic chance the state fails to establish probable cause."
That assessment looks difficult to dispute after Tuesday's proceedings. The prosecution has placed Robinson on campus via surveillance video, linked his DNA to the towel concealing the suspected murder weapon and to a screwdriver found at the alleged firing position, and pointed to his own alleged written and text confessions. The defense, for its part, used cross-examination to probe the DNA methodology and the scope of the evidence, standard and appropriate work for a defense team, but not the kind of effort that typically derails a probable-cause finding.
No motive has been officially stated in court. But the charging documents and Robinson's own alleged words, "had enough of his hatred", point in a direction that no amount of sympathetic media framing can obscure.
Several threads remain unresolved. What was the screwdriver used for? How did Twiggs's DNA end up as a minority contributor on two pieces of physical evidence? What additional witnesses and evidence will prosecutors present for the remainder of the week? And will the defense mount a more aggressive challenge to the surveillance footage or the alleged confessions?
The hearing resumes in Provo. Judge Graf will ultimately decide whether the evidence clears the probable-cause bar. If it does, and Rice's assessment suggests it almost certainly will, Tyler Robinson will face trial for the assassination of one of the most prominent conservative voices in America.
A 31-year-old man was shot from a rooftop for speaking his mind at a college campus. The DNA is on the towel. The texts are in the record. The least the rest of us owe Charlie Kirk is an honest account of why he was killed.
