Erika Kirk Forgives Husband Charlie Kirk’s Killer At Arizona Memorial: ‘It Was What Christ Did’

Speaking through tears at a memorial service on Sept. 21, Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, said she has chosen forgiveness for the man charged with murdering her husband.

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did and it is what Charlie would do,” she told people gathered at the memorial, drawing a standing ovation. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love,” she said, her voice breaking.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth movement Turning Point USA, was shot dead on Sept. 10. Utah authorities have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with first-degree aggravated murder. Utah County Attorney General Jeff Gray said at a press conference, as reported by The Hill, that prosecutors intend to pursue the death penalty.

Erika Kirk told The New York Times she does not want her own emotions to shape Robinson’s fate. “I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’” she said. “I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger.”

She recounted the harrowing hours of Sept. 10, when she travelled to a Utah hospital to face what she called the “unthinkable”, which was seeing her husband’s body. The experience brought “a level of heartache that I didn’t even know existed,” she said. Charlie’s death was “so instant,” she added, that he felt “no fear, no agony.”

“There was something else too,” she continued. “Even in death, I could see the man that I love.” She described noticing “the faintest smile” on his lips, which to her revealed “a great mercy from God in this tragedy,” reassuring her that he had not suffered.

Dressed in a white jacket and wearing a diamond cross, she spoke of their marriage and the small rituals they shared. Every Saturday, she said, her husband left her a handwritten note asking, “How can I better serve you as a husband?”

“I will miss him. I will miss him so much because our marriage and our family were beautiful. They still are,” she said.

The memorial, organised by Turning Point USA, drew crowds from early morning, USA Today reported. Conservative leaders and close friends joined supporters to honour the 30-year-old activist.

Erika Kirk also recalled a conversation with Second Lady Usha Vance the day after the shooting. “Honestly, I do not know how I am going to get through this,” she had told Vance. According to The Hill, the Vances later travelled to Utah on Air Force Two and arranged for Charlie Kirk’s casket to be flown to Phoenix aboard the vice president’s official aircraft.

On Sept. 18, the board of Turning Point USA unanimously appointed Erika Kirk as the organisation’s new chief executive, continuing the work her husband began in 2012. In her eulogy she vowed to carry his mission forward, saying, “The world needs Turning Point USA. It needs a group that will point young people away from the path of misery and sin.”