People pay their respects to right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk at a makeshift memorial at Orem City Center Park in Orem, Utah, on September 11, 2025. MELISSA MAJCHRZAK / AFP
United States President Donald Trump announced, on Friday, September 12, that a suspect had been taken into custody over the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk after a massive manhunt. "We have the person that we think is the person we're looking for," he said. "Somebody very close to him turned him in," Trump told Fox News in a live studio interview.
"It was a minister, and the minister went to a friend, a minister who was involved with law enforcement, by the way, and his good friend is a top US Marshal," Trump said. "Then it was a father got involved, namely his father, and said, 'we've got to go in.'" Trump added: "They drove into the police headquarters, and he's there now." CNN had reported separately that the man in custody had confessed to his father, who then secured him until he could be detained.
US authorities were due to give a press conference in Utah shortly after Trump's interview.
Later on Friday, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah state confirmed the arrest and identified the suspect as a man named Tyler Robinson at a press conference.
