On the fourth day of Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, Judge Tony Graf just authorized the release of redacted footage from an interview with Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner, overruling objections from the defense.
In the 23 minutes of video, prosecutor Ryan McBride questions Twiggs about the nature of his relationship with Robinson, asks him to identify Robinson on camera at Utah Valley University, and prompts him to give an account of Robinson’s behavior leading up to and after Charlie Kirk’s death.
Twiggs and Robinson met in person and became roommates in 2023 and started dating “two or three months after [Robinson] moved in.”
Twiggs said that Robinson “left early” on Sept. 10, purportedly because he had “a long drive to work that day.” Twiggs didn’t hear from him again until Robinson texted him at 11 p.m: “Drop what you are doing, look under my keyboard.”
Twiggs reportedly found a note underneath Robinson’s computer keyboard that stated: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.” Twiggs then texted Robinson, and they had a lengthy exchange. He didn’t see Robinson until he came back to their shared apartment the next day, on Sept. 11.
“[He] didn’t go into detail. … I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before,” Twiggs said. “He said it was. Started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn’t done it.”
Twiggs said Robinson “kept going around [the apartment] and just doing stuff, I think, to keep himself busy or distracted.” “Eventually,” he said he would “talk to his parents or turn himself over.”
Twiggs said he left Robinson pacing and went to his parents’ house.
“I didn’t really want to be at our apartment while any of that was happening, regardless of what went down,” Twiggs said.
McBride showed Twiggs FBI snapshots of video surveillance footage from Utah Valley University that depict a man in sunglasses, a baseball cap, a black shirt, and jeans going up a stairwell to the roof. Twiggs indicated the images resemble Tyler Robinson, saying the images “definitely do look like him.”
Twiggs said Robinson asked him about a Dremel to start engraving bullets about a month before Sept. 10, the day he allegedly murdered Charlie Kirk. “He had said he was planning to go hunting with his family, and he asked me … if we had a like a Dremel … to create messages on bullets,” Twiggs said.
Other parts of the released interview only played the audio, specifically when McBride showed Twiggs messages from Robinson’s Dungeons & Dragons Discord server. Both Twiggs and Robinson were avid gamers, and Twiggs said Robinson played Dungeons & Dragons every week.
Twiggs said Robinson talked about politics “more than me,” adding, “I didn’t really … keep up with politics very much.”
Until Sept. 10 Twiggs said he “personally had never heard him [Robinson] talk about Charlie Kirk before specifically.”
