The taped testimony of Tyler Robinson’s former roommate and lover is set to be played in court on Thursday during Robinson’s preliminary hearing, after his lawyers fought against playing it in the public courtroom earlier this week.

Robinson is accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and he has so far faced several days of preliminary hearings in which prosecutors have shown some of their evidence against him as the judge weighs whether there is enough probable cause to advance to the murder trial. One of the key pieces of evidence that the prosecution fought to include was the taped testimony of Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s former roommate. Despite efforts to close public access to the video testimony, Judge Tony Graf said Wednesday that the video was allowed to be presented publicly but will have some portions removed or redacted.

Twiggs was granted immunity for his statements to prosecutors, which they say include Twiggs relaying that Robinson told him about how he killed Kirk. Robinson’s lawyers argued the prosecution would portray the testimony as a confession and endanger Robinson’s right to a fair trial. Lawyers for both media organizations and the Kirk family urged Graf to allow the testimony and all evidence being presented in the hearing to be publicly released.

“To not be transparent, to not be open and let the world see what happened will create doubt and distrust in the judicial system,” said Jeffrey Neiman, a lawyer for the Kirk family.

Graf requested the prosecution make edits and redactions before presenting the testimony in the public courtroom. The audio of most of Twiggs’s testimony is expected to be presented Thursday.

The preliminary hearing, which began Monday and is expected to continue through Friday, will culminate in Graf’s ruling on whether prosecutors have shown probable cause for Robinson to face trial for murder charges. Robinson has yet to enter a plea in the case.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the DNA samples, which prosecutors claim connected Robinson to the murder weapon, were at the center of questioning. FBI analyst Amanda Bakker was on the witness stand Tuesday as Robinson’s lawyer attempted to cast doubt on the DNA evidence brought forward by the prosecution. Investigators recovered a towel and a rifle near where Kirk was killed. The FBI found DNA evidence linked to Twiggs and Robinson on the towel, after Twiggs had provided investigators with DNA samples.

During the first two days of the hearing, prosecutors played various surveillance videos of the gunman making his way through Utah Valley University’s campus on the day of Kirk’s assassination, along with videos of the assassination, with some of the graphic videos only being displayed to the judge and witnesses. One of the UVU police officers on the campus on Sept. 10, 2025, described the chaotic scene after Kirk was killed.

“I thought I needed to start preserving the scene because we had a crime scene, and with some of my experience and training to that effect of, I decided now we need to contain the scene and help preserve as much evidence as we can,” Chris Bagley, a former UVU police officer, said Monday on the witness stand. “So I started pushing people off the grass out of the courtyard area because I knew that’s where the crime scene was.”

Charlie Kirk’s family, including his widow Erika Kirk, has been present for the hearings in Utah, sitting in the same courtroom as Robinson, who is accused of killing the conservative activist.

During the expected trial, Robinson will face multiple charges for his alleged assassination of Kirk on the UVU campus in September 2025. The maximum punishment for the charges against Robinson includes the death penalty, which prosecutors have said they intend to pursue. Robinson’s lawyers attempted to get the possibility of the death penalty off the table during a hearing last month, but Graf denied the motion.

Robinson’s trial is expected to be one of the most closely watched criminal cases of the year, after the public killing of Kirk sent shock waves through politics last year. Authorities say Robinson claimed Kirk spread “too much hate,” and that his family said Robinson espoused increasingly left-wing views, including on transgender ideology, in recent years.