Erika Kirk is building a memorabilia collection that could become a presidential library-style museum for Charlie Kirk, even as her family presses Utah officials over campus security failures that left him exposed.
In a Fox News interview that aired Friday, the Turning Point USA chief executive walked cameras through keepsakes at the group's Arizona headquarters and said a lasting memorial for her late husband is already in motion.
"It's on our list, and it's something that we have in the works," Erika Kirk said.
"It's on our list, and it's something that we have in the works."
Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking and debating students before a crowd of about 3,000 at Utah Valley University. The alleged shooter, 23-year-old Tyler Robinson, is accused of firing sniper-style from a rooftop more than 400 feet away. Robinson has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges and faces the death penalty if convicted.
Erika, 37, was appointed CEO of Turning Point USA after the killing. She is raising the couple's two children, working from a couch in Charlie's former office, and pushing to secure his public legacy for the next generation of campus activists.
At the Arizona headquarters, Erika showed items from Charlie's life and work and pointed to a deeper archive he left behind. She said he filled hundreds of journals with notes on the future of Turning Point USA.
"I'm just so blessed and grateful that Charlie left with us hundreds of his journals. He wrote down a lot about the future of Turning Point and the vision of Turning Point."
She framed the project as more than nostalgia. The goal, she said, is a place and a record that keep the organization alive long after current chapter leaders graduate.
"I want to make sure that it's something where our students that are currently in chapters, one day, their children will be chapter leaders or chapter members."
That long-view focus matches the tone she has struck in other public remarks as the one-year mark approached, including a personal account of grief that laid out how she has tried to keep going.
While Erika builds the memorial effort, the Kirk family has opened a legal track against the campus that hosted the event. Earlier this month the family sent a wrongful death notice, a required precursor to a lawsuit, to Utah officials.
The notice names the State of Utah, Utah Valley University, the UVU Police Department, campus police chief Jeffrey Long, then-president Astrid Tuminez, and other state actors. It argues the university left Charlie vulnerable.
"Through a series of stunning failures and reckless decisions, the UVU Parties created a foreseeable danger to Charlie."
Family claims described in the notice say UVU failed to run a meaningful risk assessment, did not scout nearby rooftops, had no written security plan, and held no security briefings before the outdoor event. The family has not yet set a dollar figure but called potential damages "substantial." That filing tracks with earlier reporting on the Kirk family's legal steps after the shooting.
UVU head of communications Sharon Turner answered the notice in institutional language.
"We are aware of the notice of claim. UVU addresses legal matters consistent with our established processes. Our focus remains on supporting our campus community."
Last week the university released an external review that undercut its own preparation. The review found Turning Point USA insisted Charlie speak outdoors despite security concerns from campus officials. It also found the school failed to complete a formal security assessment, did not properly weigh dangers including a potential rooftop shooter, never produced a written event action plan, and deferred key decisions to the outside group. Those findings align with separate coverage of how UVU skipped basic security planning before the event.
Erika has also described the hours after the shooting in stark terms. She raced to arrange a private flight to Utah, but Charlie died before she reached the hospital. Staff cleared tubes, wrapped his neck, and cleaned blood so she could see him. A 20-year police officer urged her not to look, saying that if it were his spouse he would not want that final image.
She insisted anyway.
"With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband. I didn't get a kiss goodbye this morning. I just want to kiss my husband."
What she saw, she later told Vanity Fair, stayed with her. "I'll never be able to put it into words. But Charlie had a smirk. It wasn't sad."
His remains returned home on Air Force Two in a process tied to Vice President JD Vance. Erika worried about what to wear for that flight. The day after the killing she sent a Turning Point staffer to an Alo Yoga store in Salt Lake City for plain black clothes; the only item she had with her was a t-shirt from her brand, Proclaim. Online critics later picked apart her mourning, including a gold sequined suit she wore onstage at AmericaFest last December, clothing she said was simply the only thing that fit.
She has kept answering those moments with the same priorities: honor Charlie, raise their children, and grow the group he founded in 2012. Another recent public reflection captured how she has marked a year without Charlie Kirk while still running the organization.
The presidential library-style concept sits at the center of that effort. Erika is not describing a finished building with a groundbreaking date. She is describing a live project: physical keepsakes, the journals, the chapter network, and a public record of a young conservative organizer killed in the middle of open debate on a public campus.
Turning Point USA still holds AmericaFest and still fields student chapters. Erika now sits in the CEO chair Charlie once occupied and says the journals map where he wanted the group to go. The memorial idea would put those materials in a setting built to last.
At the same time, the wrongful death notice keeps the focus on decisions made before the first shot. An outdoor stage. No written security plan. No formal assessment of rooftop lines of fire. An external review that confirms the gaps. A university statement that points to process while the family points to foreseeable danger. Media fights around Charlie's name have continued in other newsrooms as well, including the case in which an arbitrator ordered a columnist reinstated after posts about him.
Robinson remains charged and awaiting trial. Erika remains at the Arizona headquarters, on the couch in the old office, sorting the record of a 31-year-old founder who left behind more written plans than time.
A country that still argues about campus speech can at least insist on honest security, honest timelines, and a widow's right to build a lasting house for the work her husband started.