Utah prosecutors have formally charged the suspect in conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing with aggravated murder and intend to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
Tyler Robinson, 22, is accused of firing the single rifle shot from a rooftop sniper’s nest that pierced Mr Kirk’s neck last Wednesday on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, about 65km south of Salt Lake City.
Utah County District Attorney Jeffrey Gray said at a press conference that his office had filed seven counts against Mr Robinson in all, including obstruction of justice for disposing of evidence and witness tampering for directly his roommate to delete texts.
Mr Gray said he had made the decision to seek the death penalty “independently, based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime”.
The killing, captured in graphic video clips that went viral on the internet, sparked denunciations of political violence across the ideological spectrum but also unleashed a wave of partisan blame-casting and concerns that Mr Kirk’s murder might beget more bloodshed.
Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University last Wednesday
Authorities have not publicly identified a motive for the killing, though Mr Kirk’s wife and other supporters were quick to cast him as a martyr for their cause.
Mr Kirk, the 31-year-old co-founder and head of the conservative student movement Turning Point USA and a key ally of President Donald Trump, was speaking at an event attended by 3,000 people when he was gunned down.
The suspect, a third-year student of an electrical apprenticeship at a state technical college, initially escaped following the shooting.
He was arrested on Thursday night at his parents’ house, some 420km southwest of the crime scene, after relatives and a family friend alerted authorities that Mr Robinson had implicated himself in the shooting, according to Governor Spencer Cox.
Mr Robinson was scheduled to appear via video feed from jail this afternoon in Utah County Justice Court in Provo.
Governor Cox said the state would be inclined to seek the death penalty should Mr Robinson be convicted, but that prosecutors would consider the wishes of Mr Kirk’s family before making that decision.