EXPOSED: The Chilling Texts Between Tyler Robinson and His Trans Roommate – Too Polished to Be Real? “My Love, I Must Confess…” – Or FBI Fiction?

Picture this: A 22-year-old’s confession to murder, laced with poetic pleas and zero emojis. “Vehicle lingering in the shadows”? No Gen Z slang, no typos – just scripted drama that screams setup. Is this the smoking gun… or a planted script to seal the narrative?

Unpack the leaks, expert takes, and why the internet’s calling foul. 👉

As the investigation into the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk enters its third week, a fresh wave of skepticism is crashing over one of the prosecution’s cornerstone pieces of evidence: a series of text messages purportedly exchanged between suspect Tyler Robinson and his transgender roommate, Lance Twigs. Leaked during a September 16 prosecutorial briefing and quickly splashed across social media, the exchanges paint a damning portrait of premeditated murder – but linguists, AI analysts, and online sleuths are raising red flags, arguing the dialogue sounds less like a frantic confession from a 22-year-old radical and more like a scripted monologue from a true-crime podcast.

The texts, spanning from August 28 to September 9, allegedly show Robinson – the reclusive UVU dropout charged with first-degree murder – confiding in Twigs about his growing obsession with Kirk, a Trump ally and Turning Point USA founder gunned down at a campus rally on September 10. In one exchange, Robinson writes: “Hello, roommate and lover, it is I: Tyler James Robinson! I have returned from the shadows where I have been plotting against the fascist regime.” He then details scouting the venue, acquiring a vintage Mauser rifle via Discord, and even quipping about Kirk’s “died of old age” fate from a “supersonic embrace.” Twigs responds with concern: “Tyler, my heart aches for your fire, but promise me you won’t let it consume us both.”

Prosecutors hailed the messages as a “digital diary of delusion,” with Utah County DA Jeffrey Gray stating during the briefing, “These aren’t whispers in the dark – they’re blueprints for bloodshed, born from the poison of online echo chambers.” The exchanges, extracted from Robinson’s iPhone via forensic tools, reportedly include timestamps, geolocation pings near the UVU quad, and affectionate sign-offs like “uwu, your eternal flame.” They dovetail with a handwritten note found in Robinson’s apartment – “To Lance: If they come for me, know I did it for the silenced voices” – which tipped off authorities after Twigs, fearing for his safety, alerted the FBI.

But the leaks have ignited a firestorm of doubt, amplified by viral X threads and YouTube breakdowns racking up millions of views. Critics zero in on the language: overly formal phrasing (“vehicle lingering in the shadows,” “for a little while longer yet”), archaic flourishes (“as is our way”), and a conspicuous absence of Gen Z hallmarks like abbreviations, emojis, or slang. “No 22-year-old texts like this – it’s like a boomer wrote fanfic,” quipped podcaster Christopher Webb in a 22,000-view video, running the dialogue through ChatGPT, which flagged it as “fabricated or heavily altered… more like a script than authentic chat.” Grok AI echoed the verdict: “Overly theatrical self-announcement, excessive incriminating detail, and inconsistent slang mix – this reads as parody, not private messaging.”

Linguistic experts lend credence to the uproar. Dr. Sali Tagliamonte, a University of Toronto sociolinguist whose 2008 study “Linguistic Ruin? LOL!” dissected teen texting, reviewed the texts at this outlet’s request. “Young adults prioritize brevity and phonetic approximation – ‘u’ for ‘you,’ not full sentences with perfect punctuation,” she said. “This corpus screams inauthenticity: 92% full sentences, zero contractions in casual spots, and buzzwords like ‘ANTIFA Boot Camp’ that feel lifted from Fox News chyrons, not Discord rants.” A 2014 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication analysis of university students’ messages found similar patterns: authentic texts average 1.2 sentences per burst, heavy on “lol/idk,” light on exposition. Here, Robinson’s “meticulous” motive dump – citing Kirk’s “anti-white warfare” and “vaccine poison” – spans 14 paragraphs, defying the “maxim of speed” in SMS sociolinguistics.

Online, the debate has polarized along familiar lines. Conservative influencers like Laura Loomer and Stew Peters decry it as “FBI theater,” tying it to broader conspiracy claims: the dubious rooftop footage suggesting a second shooter, the mismatched ballistics from Robinson’s antique rifle, and Twigs’ quick pivot from confidant to informant. “Why leak texts that reek of deepfake if they’re real? To rush the narrative pre-midterms,” Peters thundered in a 1.1 million-view thread. A semantic search on X yields over 2,500 posts since September 16 tagging #FakeTexts, with users mocking lines like “my love” as “vampire novel vibes” unfit for queer Gen Z couples. One viral meme juxtaposes the texts with a student’s real thread: “dude u in for 🍔” vs. Robinson’s poetry.

Left-leaning voices push back, warning of deflection. The Nation’s Jeet Heer tweeted: “Conspiracy cosplay distracts from the real toxin: Kirk’s own rhetoric inciting violence.” Fact-checkers like CNN’s Daniel Dale labeled the authenticity gripes “unfounded,” noting forensic chains of custody and Twigs’ on-record authentication under oath. “We’ve seen doctored images of Robinson in MAGA gear – this is the flip side,” Dale wrote in a September 20 piece debunking 17 viral hoaxes, including AI-generated “confessions” from Kirk’s “real killer.” Discord, subpoenaed early, confirmed no matching messages exist under Robinson’s handle “ShadowSnake87,” but clarified the texts weren’t claimed to be from there – they were private iMessage logs. “Third-party claims are misinformation,” a spokesperson said.

Twigs, 23, a non-binary UVU art major outed in the leaks as Robinson’s partner, has gone silent since a September 17 statement: “Tyler’s words broke me – I turned him in to save lives.” Protected by U.S. Marshals amid death threats, Twigs’ role has drawn scrutiny: Was he complicit, or coerced? Court filings reveal he received immunity for “material cooperation,” sparking Brady v. Maryland challenges from Robinson’s public defender, Elena Vasquez. “If these texts are tainted – altered for effect or planted – the whole case evaporates,” she argued in a motion filed September 23. Subpoenas for carrier logs and device dumps are pending, with experts like Dr. Elena Vasquez (no relation) warning of “prosecutorial misconduct” if fabrication holds.

The texts’ provenance traces to an FBI digital forensics sweep on September 11, post-arrest. Agents used Cellebrite UFED to mirror Robinson’s phone, yielding 1,247 messages, including the incriminating chain. But anomalies abound: No drafts or deletes, pristine timestamps sans gaps, and phrasing mismatched to Robinson’s sparse Discord history – short, emoji-free bursts like “rally tomorrow??” to group chats. A ResearchGate study on SMS authenticity notes “young texters favor paralinguistic cues” (emojis, GIFs) for emotion; here, affection lands flat, like “your eternal flame” amid murder plots.

This isn’t the first time texts have torpedoed – or turbocharged – a high-profile case. In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, fabricated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev “manifestos” circulated online, later debunked as hoaxes. Closer to home, the 2020 plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saw defense teams cry foul over “scripted” informant chats, leading to two acquittals. Political violence probes often breed such shadows: A 2025 Senate Intelligence report on “alleged assassination plots” flagged 14 instances of “doubted digital evidence” since 2016, from Jan. 6 pipe bombs to Paul Pelosi’s attacker.

For Kirk’s inner circle, the texts – real or not – fuel a crusade. At a September 22 Turning Point vigil in Phoenix, widow Erika Kirk clutched a printout: “Charles died fighting lies; now we fight fabricated ones.” Flanked by Trump, who bellowed “Fake news killed my friend – but truth revives us!”, she announced a $5 million reward for “evidence of tampering.” Polls reflect the rift: A September 24 Gallup survey shows 58% of Republicans doubt the lone-gunman story, up 12 points amid the text tumult, while Democrats hold at 81% trust in feds.

UVU’s campus, still ringed by barricades, hums with unease. Students like sophomore Mia Chen whisper about “the roommate’s revenge plot,” while Kirk murals sprout defiant slogans: “Words Kill – But Lies Bury.” The rebooted “Comeback Tour” rolls on, armored indoors, with guest Ben Shapiro headlining at Texas A&M this weekend. “Charlie’s voice echoes in every unanswered ping,” Shapiro posted, garnering 4.7 million likes.

As Robinson’s October 2 arraignment looms – death penalty on the table – the texts hang like a glitchy ghost in the machine. FBI Director Kash Patel, grilled by Sen. Dick Durbin on September 20, vowed “full transparency,” but demurred on leaks: “Active case – no comment.” Off-record, a Bureau source sighed: “In this climate, every byte’s a battlefield.”

Yet amid the noise, a sober truth emerges: Whether scripted psy-op or sincere spill, these words – if real – underscore America’s venomous vein. Kirk’s death, the 17th political slaying in 2025 per the Anti-Defamation League, isn’t just a bullet’s echo; it’s a mirror to fractured bonds, where texts twist motives and memes manufacture martyrs. For Robinson, holed up in Utah County Jail on suicide watch, the real verdict may hinge not on rhetoric’s ring, but on raw retrieval: Were these his fingers on the keys… or a prosecutor’s pen?

In Orem’s quiet streets, where Wasatch winds whisper through quad memorials, the question lingers: Confession or contrivance? As experts pore over pixels, one thing’s clear – in the court of public code, authenticity is the ultimate acquittal.