A new interview reveals that Erika Kirk wears her slain husband’s pendant of Saint Michael the Archangel – the angelic warrior who cast Satan out of Heaven and who helps defend the faithful in spiritual battle. The cross on the pendant is still stained with Charlie’s blood from the day he was assassinated.
Medics ripped the small icon from Kirk’s body when they attempted to stop the bleeding after he was shot at a Turning Point USA event in Utah on September 10, according to an interview the widow had with the New York Times.
The interview also revealed that Kirk thought he may one day die violently but felt he would be safe on the Utah campus with his security:
The 36-year-old widow also revealed that she and others close to him hear the Turning Point founder suggest he could one day very well die a violent death. Ms. Kirk, like several of her husband’s subordinates, had occasionally heard him imply that his life could be cut short by violence. She found herself wondering if a part of him had already surrendered to such a prospect.
The night before the shooting, the couple met with a faith leader friend for dinner in the Phoenix area to pray ahead of Kirk’s 20-campus college tour, according to the New York Post‘s coverage of the Times story Sunday.
They were worried about his safety, as some colleges draw divisive crowds, and Kirk had received numerous death threats in 2025. He’d been accompanied by a security team for several months.
During their dinner, Erika begged him to start wearing a bulletproof vest, but he refused. The friend then suggested he speak from behind bulletproof glass.
“Not yet,” she recalled her husband replying. He felt confident in his security team for the Utah Valley University appearance, she said.
Erika went on to provide a compelling account of what happened after the local Utah sheriff advised against her seeing her husband’s body. The assassin’s bullet — a .30-06 Springfield, a high powered hunting round — had fatally pierced his neck.
“With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband,” she said. “His eyes were semi-open, and he had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile. Like he’d died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”
The mother of two also gave a tragic, revealing glimpse into her home life since Kirk’s death. She said she still couldn’t bring herself to wash the towels her husband had used for his last shower.
“To this day, I can’t go into my bedroom. I’m rotating where I sleep,” she said.
By a unanimous vote of its board, Turning Point USA named Erika its new top executive this week.
During the interview, she pulled back from calling for the death penalty for suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson:
I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’ 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. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?
Kirk also said President Donald Trump has called her twice since the shooting.
“Charlie was like a son to him,” she said, adding that his tone on the calls was “soft and embracing.”
“I could tell he wanted to hug me,” she said.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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