Utah Town Reels after the neighbor accused of Charlie Kirk Killing

Washington, Utah, located just in the southwest of Zion National Park, is surrounded by cinematographic mesas and has long been a hub to explore the natural wonders of the American West.

However, the last 48 hours have left residents to wonder how the portal towards the most beautiful parts of the country may have produced one of its heaviest acts of political violence for years.

Public files and police declarations indicate that Tyler Robinson, the authorities of the man accused of having killed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk at the University of Utah Valley this week, lived in the region. Authorities published an affidavit declaring that he had been arrested for suspicion of aggravated murder, a criminal liberation of a firearm and obstruction of justice on Saturday on Saturday.

The local and federal police forces descended on typically calm blocks in Washington and near St George, hitting the doors and closing the streets while they were investigating.

Outside the house linked to Mr. Robinson and his parents in Washington, the neighbors expressed a shock that another resident could have committed such an attack.

“It is shaking a community because you are not expecting it,” said Addi Jacobson, 20, who recently moved into his grandmother’s house in the neighborhood.

Ms. Jacobson said that she did not personally know the Robinson family, but her grandmother did it.

“She just said that she thought that, from what she saw and what she knows is a big family, just ordinary citizens,” said Jacobson. “She used the words,” very patriotic people. “”

“We knew their family. Our whole neighborhood is so close,” said another neighbor who lived around the corner. She asked the BBC not to use her name due to the political conversation and online stormy around the murder of Kirk.

She recalled that Tyler Robinson “was a fairly calm child”, although her young brothers were more involved in community activities and sports. She called her mother, Amber Robinson, “an incredible parent”, and her father, Matthew Robinson, “a hard worker”. The two sometimes attended a nearby Mormon church, she said.

“It even goes to show that you can be an incredible parent, and your children always choose what they choose,” said the neighbor.

“It’s a good family,” said Utah Spencer Cox governor on Saturday. “A normal childhood. All these things that, that you hoped would never lead to something like that. And unfortunately, this is the case.”

On September 10, Kirk was killed in front of hundreds of students and observers, and was then declared dead in the hospital. Carnage videos have spread on social networks and President Donald Trump, vice-president JD Vance and leaders of the main American political parties condemned the assassination.

“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you have just unleashed in all this country,” the activist’s wife, Erika Kirk, said in her first public declaration on Saturday.

Officials initially owned two suspects, but then let them go. On Friday, the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, announced that Mr. Robinson was in detention. Her father had persuaded him to surrender, officials said.

The previous night, police vehicles went down to a townhouse complex in St George, Utah, where local media reports that Mr. Robinson had an apartment.

Sherri Steele, who lives in front of the residence, returned from an evening walk to see a great police presence in his complex. In a video that she shared with the BBC, a loud voice – which, according to her, belonged to the authorities – can be heard shouting: “Freeze!” And “Go out now!”

“It just blows your mind, getting on the street and suddenly there are helicopters above your home,” said Ms. Steele, adding that she had never talked or interaci with Mr. Robinson.

Another neighbor, Josh Kemp, 18, said that he had seen Mr. Robinson leave his house on an occasion with a roommate.

According to the affidavit of Mr. Robinson, the police interviewed a roommate who showed them messages that Robinson has published on Discord.

The messages, attributed to Mr. Robinson, discussed a “need to recover a rifle from a fall point, leaving the rifle in a bush, messages related to the visually of the area where a rifle has been left and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a towel.”

“The messages also refer to the engraving bullets and the mention of a range and the rifle being unique,” said the Affidavit.

The lawyer for the County of Utah, Jeff Gray, plans to file an official complaint against Mr. Robinson on Tuesday, reported CBS News, and the accused will have his first appearance in the court that day.

The nation – including the current occupants of the White House in Washington, DC – will come.

But Washington, Utah will do it too.

“All this time, I never knew that I lived next to someone capable of something like that,” said Jacobson by playing in the park with her fiancé and her baby.

“That just makes you ask you how much am I more and more about someone else who could be like this?”