Expert debunks claims bullet in Charlie Kirk murder probe didn’t match Tyler Robinson’s rifle

An expert shot down speculation that bullet fragments recovered during the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s murder did not match the rifle used by his alleged killer. 

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Samantha Karner, an expert from the Utah Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, testified Thursday that an analysis couldn’t identify the specific type of gun from which the bullet was fired. 

“My conclusion is inconclusive…I am unable to say one way or another,” Karner said when lawyers for Tyler Robinson – Kirk’s alleged killer – pressed her on whether the analysis led her to believe the bullet didn’t match the rifle. 

Karner spoke at a preliminary hearing to determine if Robinson, 23, will stand trial for allegedly gunning down Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025 at Utah Valley University. 

Robinson’s team had pointed to the inconclusive analysis in a motion to delay the hearing — claiming that further discovery could yield evidence in their client’s favor.

The motion kicked off speculation that authorities had, in fact, found that the bullet didn’t match Robinson’s gun — a glimmer of hope for Robinson that Karner’s testimony seems to have dashed.

Prosecutors claim Robinson carved snarky messages into cartridge casings before taking his grandfather’s rifle to Orem, Utah, and shooting Kirk in the neck.

Robinson allegedly wrapped the rifle in a towel, hid it in a woody area near the UVU campus, and then tried to go back and retrieve it — a narrative prosecutors backed with security camera footage, DNA swabs from the towel, and video testimony from Robinson’s lover Lance Twiggs.

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Robinson allegedly bragged about the rifle and fretted about getting it back home before his dad noticed it gone, according to message exchanges shown in court.

Earlier in the day Twiggs was shown acknowledging the texts and describing a tearful confession from Robinson inside their apartment, in video testimony given in exchange for limited immunity.

Robinson asked Twiggs about borrowing a dremel to engrave shell casings a month or so before Kirk’s death, but he thought his boyfriend had wanted to decorate rounds for an upcoming hunting trip, he told prosecutors.

Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika had pushed for the full, unredacted video to be played in court — hopefully to quell unhinged conspiracy theories about her husband’s death.

“[Redacting the video] suggests to the public that something else is in there, that something else lurks in there that isn’t,” Erica Kirk’s attorney Jeffrey Neiman said.

Erika Kirk sobbed inside the courtroom Wednesday after a Utah judge allowed certain parts of the video statement from Tyler Robinson’s trans lover to be redacted.

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