US Politics
Erika Kirk describes seeing late husband Charlie in hospital after assassination: ‘scene from a horror movie’
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Erika Kirk has said that arriving at the hospital shortly after her husband Charlie Kirk was fatally shot was like a “scene from a horror movie,” with friends, colleagues and even law enforcement left stunned by the incident.
Kirk, now the CEO of political advocacy group Turning Point USA, said she had been advised not to see the MAGA commentator’s body right away, but had wanted to see “what they did to my husband.”
The 36-year-old recalled the horrifying events during a sit down with “Jesse Watters Primetime,” which aired Wednesday night. The emotional TV interview was her first since Kirk’s assassination at a college campus in Utah, on September 10.
Kirk recalled that everyone in the hospital had seemed “so rattled” by the brutal shooting, and that she had been advised by a police officer to wait until her husband’s body had been taken to the mortuary to visit him.
“He was very sweet, but what do you say to someone whose husband just was assassinated so publicly?” she told Watters. “He said, ‘I will never tell you that you cannot see your husband… but I in my professional opinion, think that you should wait to see him… Because I don’t think you want to see him like this.’
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“And I responded back to him… ‘with all due respect, sir… I want to see what they did to my husband, and I want to give him a kiss, because I didn’t get to give him a kiss this morning.’”
She also said that her husband appeared to have a “smirk” on his face.
“That smirk to me is that look of ‘you thought you could stop what I’ve built,” she said. “You thought that you could end this vision, this movement, this revival, you thought you could do that by murdering me. You got my body, you didn’t get my soul.”
Following on from this thought, Kirk said she believed that her husband would not return to Earth, if given the option by God, if it meant exchanging his life for “what his death would be a catalyst for.”
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“He’d say no,” she said.
Tyler Robinson, 22, has been charged with multiple crimes including aggravated murder over Kirk’s death. It is alleged that Robinson fired a shot that hit the MAGA commentator in the neck before jumping off a roof and escaping in the chaos at Utah Valley University.
Graphic footage of the moment was caught on video and circulated widely on social media, though Kirk said she had not seen it and vowed never to see it. “There’s certain things you see in your life that mark your soul forever. I don’t want my husband’s public assassination to be something I ever see. I don’t want my kids to ever see that,” she said.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted of Kirk’s murder. He is scheduled to return to court in-person on January 16.
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Asked if she too believed the death penalty to be appropriate for Robinson, Erika Kirk replied: “I do not want this man’s blood on my ledger when I stand before the Lord, I want the government to decide… Justice will ultimately be served.”
But she added the public deserves to see “what true evil is,” and rejected defense efforts to block cameras from the trial. “There were cameras all over my husband when he was murdered,” she told Watters.
“There have been cameras all over my friends and family, mourning. There have been cameras all over me. Analyzing my every move, analyzing my every smile, my every tear. We deserve to have cameras in there.”
“Why not be transparent?” she continued. “There’s nothing to hide. I know there’s not, because I’ve seen what the case is built on. Let everyone see what true evil is. This is something that could impact a generation and generations to come.”
