- Tyler Robinson faces charges for allegedly killing Charlie Kirk.
- Prosecutors argue Robinson was motivated by Kirk's religious views during the hearing.
- Surveillance videos and DNA evidence were presented; defense questioned evidence reliability.
PROVO — Tyler Robinson's charges contend that he shot and killed Charlie Kirk because, in part, of the conservative activist's political beliefs.
That's why the state is adding a victim-targeting penalty enhancement to some of Robinson's charges, including aggravated murder, if he is convicted.
But can prosecutors also say they believe Robinson was motivated by Kirk's religious views?
The intersection of politics and religion was discussed at length during the morning session of the second day of Robinson's preliminary hearing in 4th District Court on Tuesday.
Robinson faces 10 charges, the most serious being aggravated murder, in the death of Kirk, who was shot and killed on the campus of Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025. During a preliminary hearing, a judge will decide whether there is sufficient probable cause to go to trial on the charges levied against a defendant. The bar prosecutors must meet to show probable cause, however, is very low at a preliminary hearing. A judge will not determine guilt or innocence during a preliminary hearing.
The Utah County Attorney's Office on Tuesday introduced a written statement from David Engelhardt, a Turning Point U.S.A. board member, pastor in New York and attorney, as evidence. Robinson's defense attorneys immediately objected.
"I don't believe there is any relevance," defense attorney Richard Novack told the court of Engelhardt's statement.
According to Novack, the statement contains Engelhardt's opinions about branches of Christianity, Kirk's own religious beliefs and even quotes the Bible.
"None of this is relevant," he argued. "This is not a case about religion ... This exhibit does not say anything about Mr. Robinson's state of mind, and that's what motive is ... Where is the evidence in this document that Mr. Robinson was in disagreement with Charlie Kirk's political expression?
"I didn't bring the Bible to this courtroom, the state did," Novack later argued to 4th District Judge Tony Graf
Tyrese Boone, KSLBut Ryan McBride of the Utah County Attorney's Office countered that at Kirk's Turning Point U.S.A. rallies, he presented both religious and political views during his debates. And the statement by Engelhardt speaks to Robinson's motive for allegedly shooting Kirk. The statement addresses the Christian and political views of issues such as gender identity, families and marriage, McBride said, and Robinson "was on the other side of these views."
Ultimately, Graf admitted the statement into evidence but opted not to display it to the general public in the courtroom.
The second day of the preliminary hearing began Tuesday, where it left off Monday afternoon, recalling David Hull, who was the lead investigator in the Robinson case for the State Bureau of Investigation, to the witness stand.
Several surveillance videos collected by Hull and his team were introduced as evidence on Monday in court, each to the objection of Robinson's defense team, which opposes hearsay evidence being admitted.
Without the people who actually gave the statements or shot and collected the videos, lead defense attorney Kathy Nester argued that a foundation to determine the credibility of each piece of evidence cannot be established, and attorneys are unable to cross-examine.
An unedited version of the video was played in court on Tuesday.
The video compilation shows the person the state identifies as Robinson on UVU surveillance video arriving at the campus at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 10. He is seen walking out of the parking garage wearing a red T-shirt and shorts. He visits the amphitheater where Kirk is scheduled to speak later that day and returns to the parking garage by about 9:25 a.m.
Just after 10 a.m., Robinson returns to UVU and is seen in surveillance video walking across Campus Drive to a wooded area, but this time with a backpack, Hull testified. By 11 a.m., he returns to the campus, this time wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and long pants. Surveillance video shows a man that Hull says he believes was Robinson walking with a limp or gait, with his right leg not bending, across campus.
At about 12:15 p.m., investigators believe Robinson got onto the roof of the Losee building. By 12:22 p.m., he is crawling to the edge of the rooftop. Kirk was killed at 12:23 p.m. Hull says video shows Robinson then getting up and running to the edge of the roof, dropping down and running back to the wooded area.
A police officer actually had contact with Robinson as he was driving away from campus about 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, Hull testified. Robinson was driving past a checkpoint on Campus Drive and was stopped. The officer who talked to Robinson had a suspicious feeling about the driver and wrote down a partial plate number, which Hull says was later determined to match Robinson's vehicle.
Although the court acknowledged at the start of the day Robinson's standing objection to all hearsay evidence, his defense team specifically objected Tuesday to the video's admission as evidence, saying they believe it "will play a big role in the trial."
When Hull was cross-examined by Nester, she repeatedly raised the point that the first time Robinson was on the state's radar as a suspect was after he surrendered to authorities in southern Utah.
Tuesday afternoon focused on DNA collected from a screwdriver recovered on top of the Losee building and a towel recovered in the wooded area, where a rifle was also seized as evidence. The rifle was allegedly wrapped in the towel.
A sergeant with the State Bureau of Investigation who oversaw the collection of evidence at UVU on Sept. 10 was briefly called to the witness stand to testify that she received a report from the FBI after the towel and screwdriver were sent off for testing. The FBI report concluded that the DNA of Robinson and his roommate, Lance Twiggs, was on both items.
But at that point, Robinson's defense team was allowed to bring the forensic examiner who authored the report, Amanda Bakker, who works at the FBI headquarters at Quantico, to the witness stand. For about three hours, defense attorney Michael Burt tried to raise doubts about the reliability of the DNA testing by meticulously going over its technical aspects. At one point, Burt says Bakker believed there could have been three people who contributed to the DNA found on those items, but later subjectively changed her report to two people.
The state objected to the line of questioning after about an hour, stating that, for the purposes of a preliminary hearing, it was out of bounds. Although Graf denied the state's objections on multiple occasions, he repeatedly reminded both sides that the purpose of a preliminary hearing was only to establish probable cause and was not to bring in an expert witness to debate the finite details of the evidence.
Upon cross-examination, Bakker stated that Robinson's DNA was much more dominant on the screwdriver and towel than Twiggs'.
