The man suspected of carrying out the most sensational assassination in recent memory joked with friends online that it was someone who looks, walks and talks just like him who committed the shocking crime.
Tyler Robinson, who is expected on Tuesday to be charged with last week’s murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, apparently told a Discord chat room that any resemblance between himself and the FBI’s images of its suspect was simply his “doppleganger” trying to “get me in trouble.”
The messages, obtained by the New York Times, provide some of the first insights into 22-year-old Robinson’s apparent state of mind after he allegedly gunned down Kirk at a campus event in Utah Wednesday.
While screenshots of exchanges between Robinson and his friends in the hours after Kirk’s death do not shed light on any possible motivation for the killing, they do indicate the suspect appeared to treat the matter with levity.
“Only if I get a cut,” he’s understood to have said after a friend suggested the group should turn him in and cash in on the $100,000 FBI reward for information leading to his arrest.
“Better also get rid of this manifesto and exact copy rifle I have lying around,” he responded after someone wrote, “Whatever you do, don’t go to a McDonalds anytime soon,” in an apparent reference to the arrest of Luigi Mangione on charges of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Other messages from the chat suggest Robinson—whose Discord avatar featured the confused face of Jon Arbuckle, owner of Garfield the cat in the eponymous cartoon series—was closely following his own manhunt in the hours leading up to his arrest. In particular, reports that ammunition discovered near the rifle at the shooter’s location featured engravings of messages ascribed to “transgender ideology.”
“I heard the ammo had something about trans stuff on it, but they aren’t releasing photos or exact quotes,” Robinson told other chat members. “Also the claim wasn’t backed by the official FBI, just some dude in the briefing room.”
He’s then understood to have returned to joking about the killing. “I’m actually Charlie Kirk,” he wrote. “Wanted to get outta politics so I faked my death, now I can live out my dream life in Kansas.”
Law enforcement sources told the Times that Robinson confessed or otherwise heavily implied he was responsible for Kirk’s death.
When news of his arrest broke, members of his Discord group seemed to struggle to process their disbelief.
As one person put it: “I truly cannot distinguish if this is for real.”
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