On the second day of the high-profile preliminary hearing for 23-year-old Tyler Robinson, the man accused of murdering prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Utah prosecutors presented never-before-seen surveillance video that they say tracks the suspect’s movements before and after the fatal September 2025 shooting on Utah Valley University’s campus. The hearing, which is set to run through the end of this week, will decide whether there is enough probable cause to order Robinson to stand a full trial on the charges he faces, including aggravated murder.
Leading the prosecution’s evidence presentation Tuesday was David Hull, the Utah State Bureau of Investigation’s lead detective on the case, who walked the court through every timestamped clip of the released footage. Hull told the court that the video recorded the man alleged to be Robinson at two separate checkpoints in a campus parking garage on the day of the killing. Earlier that morning, the man was captured wearing a maroon shirt and gray or olive-colored shorts; he returned to the garage just minutes before the shooting in a different outfit and appeared to be walking with a limp, Hull testified.
From the parking garage, the footage shows the man moving toward the campus Losee Building, climbing over a safety railing and onto the building’s rooftop. Minutes after the fatal shot was fired as Kirk addressed an audience of students and guests, the same man is seen sprinting across the rooftop surface, jumping down from the roof while clutching an unidentified object, and exiting university grounds. Hull also confirmed that in the early hours of September 11, as a massive manhunt for the killer was ongoing across the region, a patrol officer near the campus made contact with Robinson and documented his vehicle license plate. Both Charlie Kirk’s parents and his widow Erika, who came face-to-face with the accused killer for the first time on Monday, were present in the courtroom for Tuesday’s evidence presentation.
Robinson has not yet entered a formal plea to the charges, and prosecutors are formally seeking the death penalty if he is convicted. His defense team, headed by lead attorney Kathy Nester, has mounted a fierce challenge to the prosecution’s evidence, pushing to have most of the surveillance footage thrown out and to remove the possibility of the death penalty from the case. The defense also previously failed in their attempt to ban recording equipment from the courtroom, meaning the entire hearing is being live-streamed to the public. On Monday, some sensitive video segments, including graphic footage of the actual shooting, were only shown to the judge and legal teams, not to the public gallery or live stream.
Defense counsel has repeatedly objected to the prosecution’s video exhibits and witness testimony throughout the first two days of the hearing, raising objections that include claims of hearsay, altered video footage, and the absence of the original camera operators who recorded the clips to testify under oath. It is important to note that this preliminary hearing does not require Judge Graf to rule on Robinson’s guilt or innocence; rather, his sole responsibility is to assess whether the prosecution has presented sufficient evidence to justify moving the case forward to a full jury trial.