Jaida Funk (22) always thought: Tyler Robinson, who becomes “successful and rich.” “CEO or something.” Funk, with hats and earrings of cherries, will be in the street this Friday afternoon where Robinson grew up. She just spent her childhood around the corner with her peer, who is now stuck on suspicion of having shot the well -known right -wing activist Charlie Kirk.
With Robinson she went through primary school, until they lost sight of each other around the age of fourteen, at the beginning of high school. “He always got very good grades, especially in beta subjects. He was really the favorite of the teachers. Well, until now.”
On Thursday evening, Tyler Robinson reported to the police in St. George, in the far south of the state of Utah. Robinson confessed that he had shot Kirk a day before, at a university campus not far from Salt Lake City. His father is said to have turned on Robinson, through a family friend, to a confession, although much remains somewhat unclear about the precise state of affairs.
According to the authorities, Robinson had recently talked about Kirk at home with family, in which he had expressed his displeasure of his ideas. On the bullet shells that have been found around the attack can be “Hey Fascist, catching!” engraved.
Electricity training
Robinson lived in St. George, not very far from his parental home, and studied there at a Technical College for Electrician. He previously studied briefly at a university in Utah, but he was already gone after a semester.
In the street of his parental home in St. George, the investigation is in full swing on Friday afternoon. In front of the house – gray, two floors, with Italian shutters – you can see how agents inspect a gray Dodge Challenger. That model car was also spotted on security cameras around the university where Robinson committed his act.
The house of custody in Spanish Fork where Tyler Robinson is held. Photo Michael Ciaglo/ Getty Images via AFP
The confusion in the neighborhood is great. In this part of St. George, a city with around 100,000 inhabitants four hundred kilometers south of Salt Lake City, there are neat large, detached houses. The family did not stand out, according to local residents, many people in the street did not know the Robinsons very well – or say that Friday. The mother worked at a care body for the disabled. A neighbor who doesn’t get her name in NRC Wil says that the father was a carpenter – not an agent, as many media reported earlier based on a change of person. The family was known as Republican.
“Tyler is really one of the last people I expected to do this,” says former classmate Funk. Robinson was able to get along with everyone at school. He talked to everyone, with popular children, with the Incrowd. ” According to her, he is often a bit on its own, but he was not isolated.
Some people already realized that something was wrong on Thursday evening. Diana Lee (75) saw a red pick-up truck stop around ten o’clock in front of her house, which took the lights and made strange maneuvers through the street. “It made me nervous. I thought: I quickly close the curtains and go to sleep.” Friday morning, when the news was known, the truck was still there. It turned out of the federal investigation FBI.
Conservative stronghold
St. George, which is in a desert -like landscape not far from the Grand Canyon, is a conservative stronghold. Just on Thursday there had been a major memorial meeting for Charlie Kirk, which, according to local media, came to hundreds of people. The place has a large Mormon religious community. The skyline of the town consists of countless narrow church towers against a background of red rocks.
According to the anonymous neighbor, the Robinson family was also a member of the church community; The prayer house is just behind the street. In the neighborhood it is rumor that it was the local church leader who convinced Robinson to report to the police after his father contacted him.
“It is precisely because of that religion that we are a very close community,” says Victoria Cannon (28). If you don’t know someone, you always know a common knowledge, often through the church. She does not know Robinson herself, but she does go to the same church with family.
That makes the shock twice as large here. That the attack on Kirk was in Utah, she was already shocked. “I already stated on Instagram that I could not believe it was in my state. And this morning I wake up and the perpetrator also appears to come from my city.”
What development Robinson has gone through, nobody has an idea about that. The police file would show that he had become ‘political’ in recent years. In St. George there is only one thing that nobody surprises: that he could shoot well. “Everyone here has guns,” says Jerry Banks (67). He is making a tour of the neighborhood with his bike and stops at the police deposits.
Hunting is a local hobby. A little further, he says, outside the city, you regularly hear shots. People are then trying out their weapons, says Banks. Robinson also soon appeared photos on which he is working with family with weapons in nature. “But how to get that tractor mentally and to kill someone?”
A young woman is sitting at a commemorative place for Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah, where he was shot on Wednesday.