Tyler Robinson's preliminary hearing for the assassination of Charlie Kirk opened this week in Provo, Utah. Day two put a name on the record that hasn't been there before.
That name is Lance Twiggs.
Robinson, 23, is charged with aggravated murder for the September 10, 2025 shooting that killed the 31-year-old conservative commentator while he was speaking at Utah Valley University. The preliminary hearing — running five days before Judge Tony Graf Jr. — is the state's opportunity to establish probable cause for trial. What prosecutors laid out Monday was straightforward forensic testimony. What that testimony contained was anything but.
Sergeant Jennifer Faumina of the Utah Department of Public Safety testified about two items recovered from the scene. The first was a screwdriver found on the roof of the Losee Center — the building from which investigators say the shot was fired, where they also found a gravel impression consistent with someone in a prone firing position, which law enforcement described as a "sniper pad." The second was a dark-colored towel that had been used to conceal a Mauser 98 bolt-action rifle retrofitted for .30-06 rounds, recovered in the woods near campus.
Both items tested positive for mixed DNA from two individuals.
Faumina testified that the DNA from the screwdriver — designated Item 7-1 — "was interpreted as originating from two individuals, one of whom is Twiggs." The towel, Item 8-1, returned the same finding. FBI forensic analyst Amanda Bakker, who followed Faumina on the stand, identified Robinson as the likely majority DNA contributor on both items. Twiggs is the minority contributor.
Lance Twiggs is Tyler Robinson's transgender former lover. At the time of the killing, they were roommates.
He is cooperating with investigators. He has not been charged with a crime.
That's where the public record currently sits: Twiggs' DNA on a screwdriver from the sniper perch, Twiggs' DNA on the rifle-concealment towel from the woods, and Twiggs himself in a cooperation arrangement with the same prosecutors seeking the death penalty for the man he used to share a home with.
The confession Robinson allegedly sent makes the roommate relationship more significant, not less. Prosecutors say Robinson confessed to the killing in both a handwritten note and in text messages — messages sent to Twiggs. The man who received the confession is the same man whose DNA showed up on the evidence.
Defense attorney Michael Burt spent his cross-examination targeting the forensic methodology used to connect Robinson to the towel-wrapped rifle — challenging the science rather than the physical facts. From the outside, Maryland attorney Randolph Rice offered a plain assessment: "Barring the prosecutor somehow forgetting how to get to the courthouse, there's no realistic chance the state fails to establish probable cause," he told Fox News.
Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, has been in that courtroom. So have Kirk's parents, Robert W. and Kathryn Kirk.
The state's case against Robinson doesn't require Twiggs to explain anything. It has a written confession and dominant DNA on both pieces of evidence tied to the murder. What Monday's testimony adds is a question the public record doesn't yet answer: how did the DNA of Robinson's former roommate and transgender lover end up on a screwdriver on the roof where the shot came from and on a towel in the woods where the rifle was hidden?
Twiggs is talking to prosecutors. Whatever he's telling them, they've heard it and decided not to charge him.
What he's saying is the part we don't know yet.