A bionic arm, chicken coops and the wrong men: The wild 44-hour search that almost turned Kash Patel into a laughing stock

A bionic arm, a chicken coop and three botched arrests.

As Kash Patel’s reputation as FBI chief hung in the balance following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the alleged assassin’s father turned him.

Donald Trump on Friday announced that the suspect was finally in custody – 44 hours after the fatal shot that killed Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

In the immediate hours after the carnage, law enforcement went after a man with a bionic arm, chaotic radio chatter has revealed. Suspects with bionic or prosthetic arms were plot threads in both David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and the 1993 film The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford. 

Law enforcement also honed in on a man in a suit, another person who was going to hospitals looking for Kirk, and another who removed an anti-Kirk online post.

The cops got off to such a slow start that they also resorted to raiding chicken coops as their hunt for the suspect turned both frantic and fruitless.

In the end, Tyler Robinson was brought in – not by Patel’s FBI – but by the suspect’s own father who convinced the alleged killer to hand himself over with the help of the 22-year-old’s youth minister. 

The arrest was a lucky break in the investigation by law enforcement in Utah, and the FBI after a lackluster few days.

Investigators initially questioned three people in the case who were all subsequently released.  

As their search grew more frantic officials held another press conference late on Thursday night. 

Beau Mason, the head of Utah’s Department Public Safety, said Thursday that officials had ‘no idea’ about the suspect’s identity or where he may be located. 

A few hours later Robinson was handed to them on a plate by his own family. 

Patel flew to Utah for the Thursday briefing, but did not take questions or even speak. 

Instead, he kept silent as a video of the suspect fleeing the scene was released as they asked the public again for a helping hand in catching the killer. 

The former MAGA podcaster and bureau chief has already been on the receiving end of some intense scrutiny over the bungled handling of the probe. 

In the hours immediately after Kirk was fatally shot in the neck, Patel was quick to jump on X and say they had a suspect in custody. 

Not looking after he was forced to issue another statement saying they had got the wrong person after an interrogation.  

Political activist George Zinn was arrested at the scene and dragged away after falsely claiming he was responsible for killing Kirk. He was charged with obstruction.  

The New York Times reported that Patel went on an expletive-laden conference call with over 200 FBI personnel on Thursday. 

During that call, he is said to have decried the search for the suspect as a ‘Mickey Mouse operation’.

Patel went postal on staff, claiming that they hadn’t given him up to date information and said the local field desk didn’t show him a photo of the suspect for 12 hours. 

An anonymous White House source told Reuters that Patel’s botched announcement about the suspect was unprofessional. 

The source said ‘his performance is really not acceptable to the White House or the American public’ and will be addressed.

The White House later said Patel had Trump’s backing and described Reuters’ reporting as despicable. 

All of this was compounded when it resurfaced that he had fired a ‘legendary’ special agent who was in charge of the Salt Lake City desk in August. 

Mehtab Syed was forced out of her role despite former agents in the bureau calling her ‘absolutely the best’.  

Syed was fired just six months after she was appointed in February, with sources telling NBC that the reasons for her sacking were not clear.

Associate Deputy Director J. William Rivers, who works for Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, reportedly told Syed that she wasn’t a good fit for the office.

Syed was offered a lower-level job in the FBI field office in Huntsville, Alabama, but she decided to retire rather than take the demotion following a distinguished career.

She previously held a number of significant FBI roles including head of cyberterrorism and counterterrorism in the Los Angeles field office. 

Syed also worked as a section chief in counterintelligence at FBI headquarters, and assistant legal attaché in Pakistan during the height of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda. 

The third suspect, Jason Christopher Hartley, was visited by investigators at his home in Salt Lake City, with Daily Mail on hand to see him being questioned. 

Hartley, a veteran, was quickly allowed to return to his wife and two young children, telling this news site after: ‘I did not kill Charlie Kirk.’

The 50-year-old is a registered Democrat and served as a National Guardsman in New York providing security to the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks.

Prior to touching down in Utah on Thursday, Patel was constantly retweeting FBI statements issued by the Salt Like City office. 

Instead of being on the ground aiding in the investigation he was seen at the 9/11 memorial service at the World Trade Center in New York City. 

Authorities said on Thursday that they also wouldn’t be providing images of the main suspect, now identified as Robinson, as they did not need the public’s help. 

Just a few hours later however they shared images of a man in black wearing a patriotic t-shirt, having seemingly decided that they did need a hand. 

That was then followed up with a cash reward of $100,000 for any information relating to an arrest, before finally releasing footage of the gunman running from the scene on Thursday night. 

Just a few hours later, they had Robinson in cuffs – but only thanks to their picture appeals which they had been so lackadaisical in issuing just hours before.