As Charlie Kirk spoke under a gazebo on the campus of Utah Valley University, an unknown shooter was training his sights on the 31-year-old conservative influencer who had made his name through a willingness to debate anyone, anywhere on any subject.
He had picked his spot carefully: the vantage point around 130 metres away on the roof of the Losee Centre was the only one that provided both a direct line-of-sight to Kirk and an easy escape route.
Photographs released by the FBI show a male – clearly a young man – in a black cap, dark sunglasses and black T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag motif walking up a stairway to the roof, where he was filmed lying prone to steady his aim.
At around 12.20pm, he fired a single bullet. Kirk, a married father of two, jerked back in his chair.
This was not a spur-of-the-moment killing. And the killer did not take several shots, like Thomas Matthew Crooks in his attempted murder of Donald Trump.
And as panic broke out in the crowd of 3,000 watching students, a second piece of video footage captures the sight of a male racing across the roof of the multi-level campus building.
While first responders made a desperate effort to save Kirk, who was spurting blood from a wound in his neck, the assassin is said to have jumped down from the roof and walked out through the car park into the nearby neighbourhood.
Credit: Reuters / Tanner McKay Maxwell
“It was well prepared and well planned,” Stuart Kaplan, a former FBI officer, told The Telegraph.
“When you take a look at the venue, the distance, the stress, the concealment, the environmental factors, I would believe that this is not an amateur who just decided to find a rooftop on just any given day and got lucky.”
Offering a reward of $100,000 (£74,000) for information leading to the shooter’s arrest, the FBI said they had “good” video footage of the suspect and were “confident” in their ability to track him down.
Agents were door-knocking in the area he is believed to have fled through, asking residents for access to their doorbell cameras.
In the woods just off campus, officers found a high-powered, bolt-action rifle containing one spent cartridge and three more, unused rounds.
Authorities were examining the ammunition for clues to the killer’s motive: early reports by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) said the bullets were inscribed with pro-transgender and anti-fascist ideology, but a senior official told The New York Times that the preliminary evidence was unverified and may have been misread.
Also found nearby was a screwdriver that could have been used to assemble and disassemble the gun, a .30-06 Mauser bolt-action rifle, CNN reported.
The “college-age” gunman, who had a black backpack in the images released by the FBI, “blended in well” with other students, said Beau Mason, Utah’s public safety chief.
Credit: X / @_opencv_
Without an immediate breakthrough in the case, there were other traces of the gunman to draw on, including a print of his palm, forearm and shoe, the FBI said.
Attention is also likely to turn to how, and where, the killer practised with the gun he used to silence one of Mr Trump’s fiercest defenders.
Ballistics experts agreed that the shot would have required training, although one of America’s most famous snipers said it had the hallmarks of an “internet shooter” rather than military or other professional.
Kirk was handing out hats at the Utah Valley University event – Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP
John Miller, a law enforcement and intelligence analyst, said the fact that a single shot was fired from 130 metres suggested the perpetrator was “not new to shooting”. “This is someone who knew exactly what they were doing… this wasn’t an amateur.”
It is considered comparatively easy for a new marksman to hit a torso-sized shape with a powerful, scoped rifle fired from that distance. Striking the head or the neck, on the first shot, would be less likely.
US Sergeant Nicholas Ranstad, whose 2065-metre kill in Afghanistan once held the record for longest sniper shot, said there were still signs of amateurism.
Credit: Reuters / Kevin
It is considered comparatively easy for a new marksman to hit a torso-sized shape with a powerful, scoped rifle fired from that distance. Striking the head or the neck, on the first shot, would be less likely.
Within seconds of the shot, Kirk’s security had dragged him to the grass, desperately applying pressure on the gaping wound the bullet had opened up.
By then, Kirk had likely lost a critical amount of blood.
A team of six men carried a horizontal Kirk to an awaiting black SUV, his limp body covered in blood.
Dr Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, said the shot was “not survivable”.
At 12.50pm JD Vance, the vice-president, said on X: “Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk. A genuinely good guy and a young father.”
Crowds run from the scene – Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP
The private car transported Kirk to hospital where he died, Mr Trump confirmed shortly before 3pm.
Amid the chaos, an elderly man mistaken as Kirk’s assassin was hauled away by police but later released.
At 4.21pm, Kash Patel, the FBI director, appeared to confirm that the shooter had been found.
“The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody,” he wrote on X.
Less than five minutes later, officials in Utah said a “person of interest” had been detained.
But the two suspects were quickly released by police, including the old man who was filmed being picked up off his feet and taken away by police.
On Thursday night, Mr Vance travelled to Salt Lake City to meet with Kirk’s family, including his wife and two young daughters.
The casket containing his body was then due to be flown on Air Force Two to Phoenix, Arizona.
Panic set in when the shooting happened at the amphitheatre – Trent Nelson/Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters
The event in Utah had been billed as the first stop on Kirk’s American Comeback Tour.
But the man who could handle any abuse thrown at him, ever calm, ever approachable, was silenced only 15 minutes after he had started to speak.
At 12pm, the tall, confident young man sat down in front of thousands of students at the Utah institute, a conservative-leaning university unlike many of the more hostile audiences where he merrily plied his trade.
As ever, it was the liberals he offered to debate – challenging them to “prove me wrong”.
Many formed a queue for the chance to take a swing, while others watched on from balconies above.
At around 12.15pm, he began to take questions. First on the agenda was transgender violence and mass shootings.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been shooters over the last 10 years,” one attendee asked Kirk.
“Too many,” he replied, to the roar of the crowd. Seconds later, the crack of a rifle split the air.
“As soon as it happened, everyone just came running through… and were screaming, ‘Run, run, there’s a shooter’ and screaming that he had been shot in the neck,” Ethan Reeves, a student, told The Telegraph.
“People were very distressed, running away, crying and dropping stuff as they were just trying to get out of the way as quickly as they could.”
According to reports, there were no more than six police officers at the event and student attendees said that anyone who wanted could have walked in.
By late afternoon, the campus was closed and blocked off by yellow police cordons.
Empty of students, the place felt like a ghost town. A day meant to celebrate robust debate had turned into one of awful, echoing silence.
