Lawyers for the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk are expected to keep questioning the reliability of DNA testing used to link the defendant to the suspected murder weapon when a weeklong hearing resumes Wednesday.
A member of Tyler Robinson’s defense team interrogated a DNA analyst from the FBI on Tuesday about the techniques she used to connect Robinson to a towel wrapped around a rifle found at Utah Valley University, where Kirk was shot in September while speaking to a large crowd.
Defense lawyer Michael Burt cast doubt on the analyst’s conclusions — a theme likely to recur during the five-day preliminary hearing.
“She can’t match Mr. Robinson to the questioned samples,” Burt argued.
Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride countered that the reliability of the DNA testing could be examined if the case goes to trial. He suggested the preliminary hearing — where prosecutors have a lower burden of proof compared with a trial — was not the time to take up the matter.
“The point is there are explanations that are susceptible to different interpretations and arguments,” McBride said. “Ultimately, we’re going to have an expert hearing where all the literature is going to be before the court and the court is going to determine if it meets the threshold of reliability for admission to trial.”
Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. State District Judge Tony Graf will decide at the conclusion of this week’s hearing if they have enough evidence to bring Robinson to trial on an aggravated murder charge.
Robinson has not yet entered a plea and his attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence. They have, however, sought to get the death penalty taken off the table, so far unsuccessfully.
Prosecutors must show they have enough evidence for a trial
FBI analyst Amanda Bakker said after Robinson’s roommate, Lance Twiggs, provided a DNA sample for comparison, she was able to rerun her tests and attribute all of the DNA to two people.
Investigators found the towel and suspected murder weapon — a bolt-action rifle with one spent round — in a wooded area near where Kirk was shot.
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I saw a headline somewhere about candance rambling about an exploding microphone, is that real and does that make any sense?
In short, no, Candace is... mostly a crazy person who interprets dreams and the first thing that pops into her head as... God talking to her, or 'showing' her things.
So, the microphone thing is confusing, but thats mostly because ... its small, and most video that captured it moving wasn't high resolution.
Kirk was not shot by his own microphone. If he had been, there'd be burn marks and/or gunpowder or explosive residue on his shirt, where the lapel mic was, from it exploding/firing.
No such burn marks or residue exists, in any video or picture or report I've seen or read.
Also... yeah, it was daylight, and yeah, that 'theory' is that it could have been basically a very small caliber... but... you probably still would have been able to see a small, slight flash, from either a small bomb going off on his chest, or a tiny 'gun' firing... he was in relative shade, compared to most other people/things in most of the videos/pictures I've seen.
And nothing like that is even hinted at, in anything I've seen.
And no, Kirk was not wearing body armor. He was wearing a fairly light fabric, white Tshirt. You could see him nipping through it, in some pictures/video from the day. You cannot see nipple impressions through kevlar or plate armor.
He was though, actually wearing a lapel microphone, likely one that attaches to his shirt via a magnetic clip... the exterior lapel mic has another basically just magnet it snaps to, that goes on the inside of your shirt.
Here is a comparison shot, Kirk's last day on the left, same or similar lapel mic on another day, another public speaking event:
Why did the mic go flying, when he got shot?
Well, here's my 'theory':
Because he got shot, and that shot basically instantly severed his spinal cord. He was likely 90% brain dead before the blood geyser even erupted.
His entire body thus ... basically had something comparable to a seizure, a significant, global convulsion...
His eyes go wide, he 'tenses up', into a sort of stereotypical 'frightened' or 'startled' pose...
... and then neuroelectric flatline, slumping, everything relaxes, every muscle group slowly lets go.
That sudden jerking or convulsion motion, resulting from his spinal cord being severed, is what I think caused the mic to move so abruptly.
Same as if you had been wearing a mic like that, affixed by an opposed, fairly weak magnet... and then suddenly spasmed with your entire body, with significant muscular force... or, maybe like going from a lazy standing stance to instantly switching to a perfect military ready 'Attention!' pose, something like that.
Why does the other side of his shirt, his left side, seem to 'pinch' and expand?
Well, If the lapel mic had a wire internally, inside his shirt, going to a spot at his waist, his belt line, where you could plug it into a walky-talky type device, so that it could then be patched into the PA system, in the event the primary microphone died...
If that wire was on the inside of his shirt, and that wire was taped to other parts of the inside of shirt, or maybe just to his body... the body tenses, the label mic gets disconnected from its internal base, thats like a system of ropes and hooks and pulleys where you just cut the load off of one part of it, and now the system rebalances, with the 'rope' snapping around a bit.
The wire, analagously the 'rope', whips around in such a way that we get a few frames where the cumulative effect of all the physics at play here, causes the 'pinching' expansion of the shirt, momentarily.