Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is opening up about the moment she saw her husband’s body after he was fatally shot.
“His eyes were semi-open,” Erika, 36, told The New York Times in an interview published on Sunday, September 21, her first since her husband was shot and killed on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. He was 31.
“And he had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smike,” Erika continued. “Like he died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”
Erika told the outlet she was supposed to accompany her husband to Utah for what was his first stop on a nationwide tour, but stayed behind in Arizona to help her mother, who was receiving medical treatment in a Phoenix hospital. She was at her mother’s bedside when she received a call from her husband’s assistant, Michael McCoy, who screamed, “He’s been shot!”
The mother of two — a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son — was on her husband’s chartered plane, headed to Provo, Utah, when she was told he had been pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
“I’m looking at the clouds and the mountains,” she told The New York Times. “It was such a gorgeous day, and I was thinking: This is exactly what he last saw.”
Erika Kirk and Charlie Kirk Samuel Corum/Getty Images
The Turning Point USA founder was debating a large group of college students on September 10 when he was fatally shot in the neck. Video shared via social media showed Kirk answering a question about mass shootings and gun violence as he was shot from what authorities believe to be nearly 200 yards away.
Erika told The New York Times that a sheriff met her at the hospital where her husband was pronounced dead. She was then given the opportunity to see her husband’s body, but told the outlet the sheriff advised her not to — according to the officer, the bullet that killed Charlie had “ravaged” his neck.
Charlie Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk (née Frantzve), broke her silence following the death of her husband at age 31. “Charlie loved life. He loved his life, he loved America, he loved nature which always helped him closer to God,” Erika, 36, said in a live stream via Charlie’s X on Friday, September 12. “He loved […]
“With all due respect,” she recalled telling the sheriff, “I want to see what they did to my husband.”
Two days after the shooting, authorities arrested a 22-year-old suspect after he turned himself in. Prior to his arrest, the FBI released photos and video of the suspect, who was identified by his parents. Despite claims from many prominent politicians, including the president of the United States, authorities have found “no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing groups.”
“Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive,” a person familiar with the investigation told NBC News on Saturday, September 21.
Erika told The New York Times that she wasn’t able to kiss her husband goodbye when he left their home the morning before he was shot and killed. She gave him one final kiss that afternoon, when she saw his body.
