Gov. Cox provides update on Charlie Kirk shooting investigation, including details about suspect’s roommate

Gov. Spencer Cox said that the 22-year-old Utahn suspected of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk was in a romantic relationship with a partner who was transitioning and that investigators are looking into whether the relationship factored into a potential motive.

Cox confirmed during a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s Dana Bash that Tyler James Robinson’s roommate was a “romantic partner, a male transitioning to female.” The governor also stressed that Robinson’s partner is cooperating with law enforcement.

“This partner has been incredibly cooperative, had no idea this was happening and is working with investigators right now,” Cox said.

Cox echoed those comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker and said Robinson’s partner was “shocked” when they found out about it.

Robinson was arrested late Thursday after he drove more than 260 miles south to his hometown of Washington City in the wake of allegedly firing a single shot that hit and killed Kirk at Utah Valley University, where Kirk had been speaking.

Cox also confirmed that investigators are looking at whether the relationship is a possible motivation for the shooting. He said it’s “easy to draw conclusions” but urged caution as people are looking for somewhere to aim blame.

“I know everybody wants to know exactly why and point the finger, and I totally get that, I do, too,” Cox said. “I just want to be careful. I haven’t read all the interview transcripts, so we’ll have to wait and see what comes out.”

Groups that advocate for the LGBTQ+ community have decried Kirk’s slaying as people have started tying transgender people to acts of violence.

The Utah LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce said its members “unequivocally condemn” the shooting, and Project Rainbow Utah’s executive director said they “emphatically reject any type of allyship that is associated with violence.”

“This tragedy is heartbreaking, and we must be clear: One person’s actions do not represent an entire community,” Sonya Droguett, a board member, said on behalf of the chamber in a statement. “Our focus must be on justice, healing, and ensuring that violence and hate have no place in Utah or anywhere else.”

Kirk opposed transgender rights and his organization sponsored rallies against transgender medical care. In April 2024, he likened doctors who perform gender-affirming care to Nazis committing atrocities, Reuters reported.

He also called the “transgender thing” a “throbbing middle finger to God.”

Cox said that more information and evidence about the investigation will be available when official charges are filed on Tuesday.

Neighbors share varying descriptions

Robinson’s arrest ended a 33-hour search for the alleged shooter in the high-profile killing that has captured the nation’s attention.

Cox repeatedly told Bash that he couldn’t discuss specifics and that investigators are still looking into Robinson’s motives.

“We’re interviewing all kinds of people, everyone who knows him, and trying to learn more about what the motive actually was,” he said.

Robinson himself is not cooperating so far, Cox said during at least two Sunday morning interviews.

Based on voter records, Robinson had not declared a party affiliation and hadn’t voted in two regular general elections, but both of his parents are registered Republicans.

“He does come from a conservative family,” Cox said during Meet the Press. “But his ideology was very different than his family.”

A family member told investigators Robinson had become more political and recently talked with another relative about Kirk’s UVU visit and “why they didn’t like him,” according to the probable cause affidavit.

While some neighbors have described Robinson as a good, fun, loving kid, another said the few run-ins he had with the suspected shooter were unpleasant.

Josh Kemp, an 18-year-old high school student who lives with his mother in the same St. George apartment complex as Robinson, said he belongs to the same congregation.

But the member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never seen Robinson attend church.

“So a few months ago,” Kemp recalled, “I knocked on his apartment door and asked him if he wanted to go to church. He told me to F off and shut the door.”

Kemp said the last close encounter happened a week ago when he was riding his e-bike and Robinson drove by in the opposite direction in his gray Dodge Challenger and nearly hit him.

Rather than stop and apologize, he added, Robinson sped off.

“He seemed like kind of a mean guy,” Kemp said.

A Trump supporter and avid Kirk fan, Kemp said he was devastated when he learned that the conservative political pundit had been shot, but never suspected that the person shown on video fleeing the scene was a neighbor.

‘We need to quit this’

Cox has indicated Robinson was “deeply indoctrinated by leftist ideology” but told Bash he doesn’t “have a dog in this fight” and is just reiterating what friends and family have told investigators.

“If this were MAGA and a radicalized MAGA person, I would be saying that as well,” Cox said.

He added that it is “important to understand how someone gets radicalized like this.”

On Friday, Cox, who in recent years has adopted the mantra “Disagree Better,” cast the conservative commentator in the light of a peacekeeper rather than an antagonist.

“Charlie said, ‘When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence,’” the Republican governor remarked – a comment he echoed Sunday morning.

In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for GLAAD, one of the country’s leading LGBTQ advocacy groups, condemned political violence as unacceptable and gun violence as an “epidemic” that needs urgent action, Reuters reported.

“It is also a demonstrable fact that Charlie Kirk spread infinite amounts of disinformation about LGBTQ people,“ the spokesperson said. “Lies and vitriol about transgender people were a frequent part of his rhetoric and events.”

As the investigation continues, Project Rainbow urged people to “slow down” and find “a moment of pause to reflect on why so much this vitriol is levied at a population that is far more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator.”

Transgender people are four time more likely than cisgender peers to be the victim of a violent crime, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA.

Jacey Thornton, executive director of the nonprofit focused on uplifting LGBTQ individuals through Utah, said rhetoric about “trans ideology” is “deeply troubling” and false.

“We span all political spectrums, income strata. We have people on the far right who are trans,” Thornton said. “There is no trans ideology.”

Scapegoating the trans community might make some people feel safe temporarily, she said, but it’s deeply harmful.

Thornton encouraged people to focus not on the politics or lifestyle or religion associated with the suspected shooter but rather on condemning violence.

“A safer, healthier society is only founded on principles of nonviolence,” she said. “We can’t use violence to fight our way to safety.”

Liz Pitts, president of the Utah LGBTQ chamber, called on people to see through a lot of the hateful rhetoric and treat each other with respect.

“We need to quit this,” Pitts said. “We all need to really tap into our own basic humanity and look across divides,” instead of vilifying an individual or group of people.

Cox similarly called on people to think on their own actions following what he describes as “a direct assault on America.”

“Everyone of us has to look in the mirror and decide are we going to try and make it better or are we going to make it worse,” he said.

— Tribune reporter Mark Eddington contributed to this story.