ST. GEORGE, Utah — In 2020 he was a gifted pianist with a glowing reputation and spotless record, attending a magnet school for brainiacs.
Last week he was called “troubled,” “full of evil” and estranged from his family, according to Wisconsinrightnow.com
These are the messy and conflicting descriptions emerging of Lance Twiggs, 22, the mysterious transgender live-in-lover of Charlie Kirk assassination suspect Tyler Robinson.
His former teachers are baffled: “Everything I’ve heard about him, he was a great kid. He was nice. He worked hard,” Ben Kaufman, superintendent of Twiggs’ high school, told The Post. “I heard all good things.”
Twiggs and Robinson went to high school four miles from each other in St. George, Utah, and both graduated in 2022.
Robinson attended Pine View High while Twiggs was at Dixie Success Academy — later named Utah Tech Success Academy — an accelerated program operating inside the local university where students take college level courses and graduate with an associates’ degree worth of college credit.
There, Twiggs was an acne-riddled teen who excelled at piano, playing Gershwin’s Prelude No. 1 in a 2020 recital which also featured his brother, who played Chopin.
“The kids music had been like a peaceful river flowing through our home for many, many years. I feel so grateful,” his mother allegedly wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post from 2020.
The school attracts “students that have been bored through school and want to excel,” Kaufman told The Post, adding the small student body has zero time for extracurriculars and do little else but study.
Twiggs, the son of a hot tub salesman, also worked in a grocery store as a boy, according to social media content reviewed by The Post.
The turning point appears to have come when he was kicked out of his strict Mormon parents’ house in his junior year. The reasons why are disputed.
‘[His father] thought he wasn’t being respectful and was problematic, so they kicked him out,” Twiggs’ relative alleged in an interview with Fox News.
He was also “using drugs and alcohol, and was addicted to [online] gaming,” the family member added.
A relative also claimed Twiggs changed and become more radical in recent years in another interview with Fox, saying: “He hates conservatives and Christians. He hated us. He was not raised that way, but he, over the years, has become really detached [and] been radicalized.”
Braylon Nielsen, 19, says after Twiggs became homeless, her family often took him in.
She claims the drug talk is spiteful gossip and the real reason Twiggs was kicked out was for rejecting Mormonism.
“It was on and off. He was bouncing couches. He would live with us for a few months, but didn’t like taking up our couch. He would crash with friends,” she told The Post, adding Twiggs would disappear when he felt he’d outstayed his welcome.
“I loved Lance. His parents kicked him out of his house and he lived with us. His parents never sat right with my family,” she said, describing the Twiggs family as religious zealots.
“He had straight As. He was very hardworking,” she said, “not a big partier […] He just took care of people.”
A Reddit account reported to belong to Twiggs also posted a take on the exit from his parents.
“Was told I was possessed by a demon and then within 30 mins kicked outta the house because I started laughing and wouldn’t go to the bishop for a blessing.
“Later found out they just didn’t like me and were looking for a way to get me out of the house. Wasn’t even 18 at the time,” it said.
Attempts to contact Twiggs and members of his family by The Post have all gone unanswered.
Whatever the truth, at some point in the last couple of years Twiggs moved into a three-bedroom townhouse in the well-kept Fossil Hills apartment complex, owned by his family.
After high school, Robinson had been away to Utah State University to study computer science but dropped out after one semester and returned home to St. George, where he enrolled in Dixie Technical college as an electrician apprentice and moved into the same house as Twiggs.
There was a third roommate, another young man, but he soon left, leaving Robinson and Twiggs together in the apartment for over a year.
It is unknown whether the two began dating before or after Robinson moved in, but before long Twiggs was boasting to friends and family that he wanted everyone to meet his new “boyfriend” Robinson.
The pair appear to have become consumed with living in a fake online world of games and fantasies.
At the time of his boyfriend’s arrest on September 12, Twiggs had listed his occupation on a Facebook page as “digital creator,” but his source of income remains unclear. One report claimed he worked as a plumber. He wrote online that he aspired to be a professional gamer.
A relative told Fox News that Twiggs was, “maintaining a job and able to pay rent, and was technically an adult.”
The Reddit account believed to be Twiggs was active in message boards, positively discussing illicit drugs like acid and psilocybin, transgenderism, and one dedicated to mocking landlords.
Twiggs’ parents are landlords who own several properties in St. George, according to reports.
Despite their alleged falling out, a review of digital banking records by The Post showed Twiggs parents regularly sent him money for things like doctor visits, prescription drugs, piano lessons, and dog sitting.
That Reddit account also posted about having bulimia, “no gag reflex,” and boasted about seeing targeted online ads for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder medications.
A portrait of Robinson, meanwhile, has emerged painting him as having a bizarre fetish for sexualized cartoon animals, known as “furries,” — with the suspect reportedly having accounts on multiple furry sex sites.
A photograph of Twiggs circulating widely online shows him in a brown, dog-eared onesie, the sort common in the furry subculture. On Instagram, Twiggs used a profile picture of a blue-haired busty cartoon woman dressed in a sexualized Garfield the Cat getup.
Robinson, also 22, was charged on Sept. 17 with aggravated murder, among other crimes, in the slaying of the conservative campus activist and devout Christian, Kirk, at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
Court documents show him confessing to his lover in text messages sent during a 33-hour manhunt, which Twiggs later shared with law enforcement.
Twiggs has not been charged with a crime and authorities say he is cooperating with police in the investigation. His whereabouts are currently unknown, and neighbors say mail is piling up outside the fated lovers’ home.
One of the relatives of Twiggs claimed in their Fox interview: “I think Tyler got a whole lot worse in the year they have been dating. They are big gamers, and obviously they have that group that influences them, as well as others.”
Robinson also expressed to his lover a grudge about his father’s support of President Trump.
“Since Trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard MAGA,” Robinson wrote in the messages.
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