The day after Charlie Kirk was killed, acquaintances of Tyler Robinson are said to have began circulating FBI surveillance images that appeared to resemble him.
The FBI had released two images of a thin young man in sunglasses and a cap walking inside a stairwell at Utah Valley University.
The agency asked the public to help identify the suspect.
In a group chat on Discord, a messaging platform, one acquaintance tagged Robinson, attaching the images with the caption “wya” and a skull emoji.
The implication was that Robinson looked like the individual in the photos.
Robinson responded quickly, claiming the man in the images was his “doppelganger” and that the look-alike was trying to “get me in trouble.”
Another user in the group chat wrote, “Tyler killed Charlie!!!!”
The comment appeared to be made jokingly, per reports.
At the time of these exchanges, it was early Thursday afternoon, approximately 34 hours after the shooting that took Kirk’s life.
That same night, Robinson, 22, was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the assassination.
The Discord messages, later shared with The New York Times, gave insight into Robinson’s behavior and attitude after the attack.
The screenshots were provided by a high school