Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Utah’s Memorandum for Binding Tyler Robinson Over for Trial (Part 1) (8/2/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. Now
- 0:04Speaker 1: that the Tyler Robinson preliminary hearings over, the prosecution has
- 0:10Speaker 1: filed what's called a memorandum in support of a preliminary
- 0:14Speaker 1: hearing bind over, and that's the document that we're going
- 0:18Speaker 1: to begin taking a look at in this episode. So
- 0:22Speaker 1: let's dive right in Case number two five one, four zero, three,
- 0:27Speaker 1: five seven six, State of Utah Plaintiff first Tyler James Robinson,
- 0:33Speaker 1: the defendant. After taking evidence at the five day prelim
- 0:37Speaker 1: hearing July sixth through tenth, twenty twenty six, this court,
- 0:42Speaker 1: acting as magistrate, asked the parties to brief the matter introduction.
- 0:47Speaker 1: This is likely as straightforward a bindover decision as the
- 0:50Speaker 1: court we'll ever see. After admitting to several friends, including
- 0:54Speaker 1: his roommate and romantic partner, that he assassinated Charlie Kirk
- 0:58Speaker 1: at Utah Valley University on September tenth, twenty twenty five,
- 1:02Speaker 1: and from approximately three thousand eye witnesses, defendant surrendered to
- 1:06Speaker 1: law enforcement for that crime. These admissions, along with others,
- 1:11Speaker 1: established probable cause to support most of the elements of
- 1:14Speaker 1: the charges. DNA testing, surveillance, video and eyewitness testimony buttress
- 1:20Speaker 1: those elements, and demonstrate probable cause to support the remaining elements.
- 1:25Speaker 1: The court should bind defendant for trial over on all counts.
- 1:31Speaker 1: The facts the shooting. On September tenth, twenty twenty five,
- 1:34Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk and his organization Turning Point USA, We're holding
- 1:39Speaker 1: an event at Utah Valley University in orem, Utah. Transcript
- 1:43Speaker 1: Day one at thirty six, six, thirty seven, three, sixty five,
- 1:47Speaker 1: four nineteen. Several thousand people attended and filled the Amphitheater,
- 1:52Speaker 1: located near the center of the campus and west of
- 1:55Speaker 1: the Lossie Building id AT sixty eight one through twelve
- 1:59Speaker 1: thirty three, TV fifteen through thirty four, ten, thirty five,
- 2:04Speaker 1: ten through twenty thirty nine, fourteen through forty three twenty
- 2:10Speaker 1: State's examples one, two, six, seven, and eight. After the
- 2:14Speaker 1: event began, mister Kirk seated himself under a canopy tent
- 2:17Speaker 1: positioned on the west side of the Amphitheater below the
- 2:21Speaker 1: Hall of Flags at approximately twelve twenty three, twenty eight PM,
- 2:25Speaker 1: and a ten D standing directly in front of mister
- 2:27Speaker 1: Kirk was questioning him when a gunshot rang out and
- 2:30Speaker 1: a bullet struck the left side of mister Kirk's neck,
- 2:33Speaker 1: killing him. The bullet's trajectory was front to back, slightly
- 2:37Speaker 1: left to right, and downward. The investigation, the medical Examiner
- 2:42Speaker 1: concluded the manner of death to be homicide, said example
- 2:46Speaker 1: eleven at one. A forensic examination conducted by the ATF
- 2:51Speaker 1: revealed that the bullet that kill mister Kirk was a
- 2:54Speaker 1: thirty caliber class round stead Example thirty two at two.
- 2:58Speaker 1: It created a complex entrance gunshot wound and fragmented in
- 3:02Speaker 1: mister Kirk's neck Stead Example eleven at one. In three,
- 3:07Speaker 1: The bullet, or at least parts of it, sequentially perforated
- 3:10Speaker 1: the anterior left side of mister Kirk's neck, strap muscles
- 3:14Speaker 1: of the left side of the neck, and the left
- 3:16Speaker 1: common corotied and left internal and external jugular veins. The
- 3:22Speaker 1: bullet also obliterated the left side of the C two
- 3:25Speaker 1: seven vertebrae and transsected the cervical spinal cord. The medical
- 3:31Speaker 1: examiner observed that a significant portion of mister Kirk's cervical
- 3:35Speaker 1: spine cord was traumatically absent. Mister Kirk suffered other severe injuries,
- 3:41Speaker 1: including bilateral, apical and posterior intercostal hemorrhages, pulmonary apical hemorrhages, hematomas,
- 3:50Speaker 1: and multiple disruptions of the thyroid, cricoid, and tracheal cartilages.
- 3:56Speaker 1: The medical examiner also observed hemorrhaging around mister Kirk's home,
- 4:00Speaker 1: both of his lungs left and right hemo thorax and
- 4:04Speaker 1: in the sub arachnoid space around the cerebellar firmis in
- 4:09Speaker 1: the paratol regions of mister Kirk's brain Idea three and four.
- 4:14Speaker 1: When the bullet struck mister Kirk, Officer Christopher Bagley of
- 4:18Speaker 1: the UVU Police was stationed at the south end of
- 4:21Speaker 1: the walkway roof of the Hall of Flags above mister
- 4:24Speaker 1: Kirk's canopy. Based on his experience with firearms, Bagley believed
- 4:29Speaker 1: that the bullet came from a rifle fired from a
- 4:31Speaker 1: position east of mister Kirk's canopy. Recognizing that one below
- 4:36Speaker 1: ce building was east of the amphitheater and to someone
- 4:39Speaker 1: on the roof of that building would have a direct
- 4:41Speaker 1: line of sight to where mister Kirk had been seated,
- 4:44Speaker 1: Officer Bagley quickly made his way to that roof. There
- 4:47Speaker 1: he observed a screwdriver about ten or fifteen feet from
- 4:51Speaker 1: the guardrail. He also observed disturbances in the gravel at
- 4:55Speaker 1: the southwest edge of the roof that were consistent with
- 4:58Speaker 1: a sniper pad, meaning a place where a person was
- 5:01Speaker 1: laying in a prone position with a line of sight
- 5:04Speaker 1: to where mister Kirk had been seated. Officer Bagley reviewed
- 5:08Speaker 1: surveillance video of the Locie Building rooftop transcript day one
- 5:13Speaker 1: at ninety four, thirteen, ninety five, seventeen, ninety seven, twenty one,
- 5:17Speaker 1: and ninety eight one. That video shows a mell running
- 5:20Speaker 1: towards the southwest edge of the roof and then dropping down,
- 5:24Speaker 1: crawling and getting into a prone position at the edge
- 5:27Speaker 1: of the roof. The video further shows that at approximately
- 5:31Speaker 1: twelve twenty three, twenty eight PM, the moment of the gunshot,
- 5:36Speaker 1: that individual quickly stood up, ran northeast across the roof
- 5:40Speaker 1: carrying a long, skinny black object, and eventually dropped himself
- 5:43Speaker 1: down from the northeast side of the roof to the ground.
- 5:48Speaker 1: That individual cross Campus Drive and entered a wooded area
- 5:51Speaker 1: on the north side of Campus Drive. In that wooded area,
- 5:55Speaker 1: police later recovered a rifle wrapped in a black towel.
- 5:58Speaker 1: The rifle was an option perable Mauser Model ninety eight
- 6:02Speaker 1: thirty odd six Springfield caliber rifle stead Example thirty two
- 6:06Speaker 1: out one. A telescopic site was mounted on the rifle.
- 6:11Speaker 1: Investigators reviewed hundreds of hours of UVEU surveillance video to
- 6:16Speaker 1: track forward and backwards the person that was seen on
- 6:19Speaker 1: the Losi Building roof at the time of the shooting.
- 6:22Speaker 1: After defendant turned himself in, investigators also reviewed the footage
- 6:26Speaker 1: searching for someone matching defendant's description and driving his car.
- 6:31Speaker 1: Those efforts revealed that a vehicle registered to defendant arrived
- 6:35Speaker 1: on campus the morning of the shooting. The surveillance video
- 6:38Speaker 1: also shows an individual believed to be defendant walking around
- 6:42Speaker 1: the UVU campus that morning, going to the railing on
- 6:45Speaker 1: the roof of the Losi Building, and then leaving campus.
- 6:49Speaker 1: Investigators ultimately determined that defendant visited UVU campus at least
- 6:54Speaker 1: four times on September tenth, eleventh, twenty twenty five, twice
- 6:59Speaker 1: before the shooting, a third time just before noon on
- 7:02Speaker 1: the tenth, and a fourth time in the early hours
- 7:05Speaker 1: of September eleventh, twenty twenty six. The surveillance video shows
- 7:10Speaker 1: that when defendant returned to campus just before noon on
- 7:13Speaker 1: the tenth. He was wearing different clothing, but his shoes
- 7:16Speaker 1: were the same. Defendant was also walking with a limb.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Defendant's roommate and a romantic partner. Lance Twiggs confirmed that
- 7:25Speaker 1: still images taken from that portion of the surveillance video
- 7:28Speaker 1: and that show front views of the individual's face definitely
- 7:33Speaker 1: did look like defendant. Given their extensive review of the
- 7:37Speaker 1: surveillance footage, investigators concluded that defendant was the individual who
- 7:42Speaker 1: was walking with a limb up to the stairs that
- 7:44Speaker 1: accessed the Low C building shortly before noon, who was
- 7:48Speaker 1: on that rooftop at the time of the shooting, and
- 7:50Speaker 1: who dropped off that rooftop and made his way to
- 7:53Speaker 1: the wooded area where the rifle was found. At approximately
- 7:57Speaker 1: twelve thirty six am on September eleventh, twenty twenty five,
- 8:01Speaker 1: defendant returned to the intersection of Campus Drive and eight
- 8:04Speaker 1: hundred South on the UVU campus. He attempted to turn
- 8:08Speaker 1: south on Campus Drive, but was turned away by an
- 8:11Speaker 1: officer stationed at the intersection. Campus Drive leads to the
- 8:16Speaker 1: wooded area where the rifle was found in the bushes.
- 8:19Speaker 1: DNA testing of the screwdriver recovered from the Low sea
- 8:22Speaker 1: building roof and the towel wrapped around the rifle provided
- 8:26Speaker 1: strong support for including defendant as having contributed to the
- 8:30Speaker 1: DNA samples recovered from those items. DNA testing on the
- 8:34Speaker 1: recovered rifles trigger, trigger guard, grips, protected underside of the receiver,
- 8:39Speaker 1: and other parts, as well as the fired cartridge casing
- 8:42Speaker 1: in the rifle supported including defendant as having contributed to
- 8:46Speaker 1: the DNA samples recovered from those items and areas. On
- 8:51Speaker 1: the evening of September eleventh, twenty twenty five, defendant surrendered
- 8:55Speaker 1: himself to law enforcement in connection with mister Kirk's assassination.
- 9:00Speaker 1: Defendant admitted also to mister Twiggs and other friends that
- 9:04Speaker 1: he had shot mister Kirk. The State charged defendant with
- 9:08Speaker 1: count one aggravated murder, a capitol felony in violation of
- 9:12Speaker 1: Utah Code Section seventy six Dash five DASH two O
- 9:16Speaker 1: two count two felony, discharge of a firearm causing serious
- 9:20Speaker 1: bodily injury of first degree felony in violation of Utah
- 9:24Speaker 1: Code Section seventy six, Dash eleven, Dash two ten two
- 9:28Speaker 1: and three C counts three to four A obstruction of justice,
- 9:32Speaker 1: a second degree felony in violation of Utah Code seventy
- 9:36Speaker 1: six Dash eight DASH three oh two two for concealing
- 9:41Speaker 1: or removing the firearm he used to shoot mister Kirk
- 9:43Speaker 1: and for destroying, concealing, or removing the clothing he wore
- 9:47Speaker 1: during the shooting. Count five and six tampering with the
- 9:53Speaker 1: witness a third degree felony in violation of Utah Code
- 9:57Speaker 1: seventy six Dash eight Dash five OA for directing mister
- 10:01Speaker 1: Twiggs to delete their text messages and to refuse to
- 10:04Speaker 1: speak to law enforcement. And Count number seven violent offense
- 10:08Speaker 1: committed in the presence of a child in violation of
- 10:11Speaker 1: Utah Code Section seventy six Dash three DASH two O
- 10:15Speaker 1: three dot ten two, enhanced to a Class A misdemeanor
- 10:19Speaker 1: through the victim targeting enhancement in Utah Code Dash seventy
- 10:23Speaker 1: six three DASH two O three dot fourteen three A two.
- 10:28Speaker 1: The State also notified defendant that counts one to two
- 10:31Speaker 1: for subject to sentencing enhancements for committing a violent offense
- 10:35Speaker 1: in the presence of a child in violation of Utah
- 10:37Speaker 1: Code Section seventy six DASH three DASH two O three
- 10:41Speaker 1: dot nine and victim targeting in violation of Utah Code
- 10:45Speaker 1: Section seventy six dash three dash two O three dot
- 10:49Speaker 1: one four. All Right, folks, we're gonna wrap up this
- 10:51Speaker 1: episode right here, and in the next episode dealing with
- 10:54Speaker 1: the topic, we're gonna pick up with the argument. All
- 10:57Speaker 1: the information that goes with this episode can be found
- 11:00Speaker 1: owned in the description box.