A Book on the Shooting, Dated the Day Before
Phone screenshots of the BookScouter listing and author page for ISBN-13 9798264842788, both showing "Released: Sep 10, 2025". Source: @CrystalSmallen on X, September 26, 2026.
On September 11, 2025, screenshots of an Amazon Kindle book titled The Shooting of Charlie Kirk went viral on X. The listing gave a publication date of September 9, 2025, one day before Charlie Kirk was killed at Utah Valley University at 12:23 PM on September 10. Amazon pulled the book, said the date was a "technical issue," and told fact-checkers the book was AI-generated and went up late on the afternoon of September 10. A year later the hardcover edition's ISBN still resolves on book aggregators with a third date, and the upload record that would settle the question has never been released.
The Book
- Title: The Shooting of Charlie Kirk: A Comprehensive Account of the Utah Valley University Attack, the Aftermath, and America's Response
- Listed author: Anastasia J. Casey (also indexed as "Casey, Anastasia J." and "J. Casey, Anastasia")
- Publisher: Independently published (Amazon's self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing)
- Kindle edition: ASIN B0FQMF466K, 69 pages, 1.4 MB, $6.99, sold by Amazon.com Services LLC
- Hardcover edition: ISBN-13 9798264842788, Amazon ASIN B0FQPNNPRL, 81 pages, $20.99 on Amazon (Wayback capture); later from $24.98 with one seller on BookScouter
- Publication date shown on Amazon: September 9, 2025 (Wayback Machine capture, September 11, 2025, 16:36 UTC)
- Status: The Kindle page returned "Page Not Found" by 18:51 UTC (12:51 PM Mountain) on September 11, 2025. The hardcover page followed by September 12. Both still 404 today. The hardcover ISBN was still queryable on BookScouter in September 2026.
The BookScouter author page for "Casey, Anastasia J." lists this one title and no other.
The Dates Do Not Agree
The book's listings disagree about when it came out. That disagreement is the reason the question keeps returning:
- September 9, 2025. The Amazon Kindle page, archived September 11, 2025, showed this in both the header and the product details. It is the day before the attack.
- September 11, 2025. The Amazon hardcover page (ISBN 9798264842788), archived at 17:03 UTC on September 11, 2025, showed this date.
- "Late in the afternoon on September 10th." Amazon's own statement to reporters on September 12, 2025 (full text below).
- September 10, 2025. BookScouter's listing and author page, in the screenshots posted September 26, 2026 (shown here).
- September 11, 2025, again. Every 2025 capture of the same BookScouter ISBN page, including a Perma.cc capture from September 17, 2025, reads "Released: Sep 11, 2025". isbnsearch.org shows the same date. These sites copy Amazon's hardcover record.
So BookScouter's own date for the hardcover appears to have moved from September 11 in 2025 to September 10 by 2026. We have not found an explanation for that change.
What the Book Says: Kirk Survives
The most specific account of the text comes from an X user who bought it. @BSideLiberty (also posting as K80 Dubz) wrote on September 11, 2025, in a post that passed 741,000 views:
Okay, this is WILD. I spent the 7 bucks so you don't have to. "The Shooting of Charlie Kirk" by Anastasia J Casey, published a DAY before the event, on September 9, 2025. Please take a look at these two pages. Most of the "book" is true about the setting, the shot, etc and then it goes off course of the true events of yesterday and Charlie lives.
Follow-up posts from the same account showed the Amazon purchase receipt and noted that self-published e-book dates can be changed after the fact. The Financial Express quoted this passage, attributed to the book:
The sight of the conservative commentator being wheeled into an ambulance, pale but alive, became one of the most shared images of the day. Doctors later confirmed that Kirk had been struck in the neck. The injury was serious but not immediately fatal…
Reader summaries circulating online also say the text places the attack in the evening, not at midday, and gives almost no specific detail beyond the location. We have not seen the full text to confirm those points.
The Amazon description, preserved in the archive, is written in the past tense about September 10. It promises "firsthand testimonies," "the courageous first responders," and "timelines, profiles of key figures," and it calls the book by a different title, Charlie Kirk and the Utah Valley University Shooting. It never says Kirk died. It speaks instead of "how this event may shape his legacy."
Full Amazon description (Wayback Machine, September 11, 2025)
On September 10, 2025, the campus of Utah Valley University was forever changed. During a scheduled event featuring Charlie Kirk, the prominent conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, a shocking act of violence unfolded that shook students, faculty, and the nation. This book provides an in-depth, humanized account of the shooting, the immediate aftermath, and the ripple effects that reached far beyond Orem, Utah.
Through detailed reporting, firsthand testimonies, and careful analysis, Charlie Kirk and the Utah Valley University Shooting explores the event from every angle: the chaos on campus, the courageous first responders, and the experiences of those directly affected. Beyond the incident itself, the book examines the broader societal implications, including political polarization, the rise of campus activism, and the national conversation about safety, free speech, and civic responsibility.
Readers will gain insight into Charlie Kirk's life, his influence in U.S. politics, and how this event may shape his legacy. The book also provides an intimate look at the Utah community's response, highlighting acts of resilience, compassion, and collective healing in the face of tragedy.
Complete with timelines, profiles of key figures, and curated references from trusted media sources, this comprehensive account offers both context and reflection. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand not only a shocking moment in American history but also the lessons it offers for the future of political engagement, campus safety, and civil dialogue.
What Amazon Said
On September 12, 2025, an Amazon spokesperson gave the same statement to PolitiFact, Snopes, Lead Stories, Mashable, Raw Story and other outlets:
We have content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale, and we remove books that do not adhere to these guidelines. The title in question is no longer available for sale. Due to a technical issue, the date of publication that had been displayed for this title, while it was briefly listed, was incorrect, and we apologize for any confusion this may have caused. The title was published late in the afternoon on September 10th.
Amazon also told fact-checkers the book was created with artificial intelligence. Amazon's 2023 publishing policy requires authors to disclose AI-generated text, covers and descriptions. This listing did not appear to carry any such disclosure. PolitiFact noted that Kindle Direct Publishing says a new book or update normally takes 3 to 10 business days to go live, and that the release date and publication date on a listing do not have to match.
What the Fact-Checkers Concluded
- PolitiFact (Samantha Putterman, September 12, 2025) rated the claim that the September 9 date proved the shooting was staged False. The earliest securely dated archives it found were from September 11.
- Snopes rated it False and found no archived version dated before September 11. ZeroGPT scored the description 100% AI-generated.
- Lead Stories rated it False, reporting the book first became available on September 10. The Hive AI detector scored the description 92.8% likely AI-generated.
- Poynter, AFP Fact Check, Newtral and 20 Minuten repeated Amazon's explanation.
Every fact-check rests on the same spokesperson statement. None of them obtained the upload log.
Who Is "Anastasia J. Casey"?
PolitiFact, Snopes, Lead Stories, AFP and the Times of India each searched for the name and found no earlier books, no social media, and no professional history. Google and Amazon returned only this book. Fact-checkers called the name fabricated or a pen name.
At least one X account now uses "Anastasia J Casey" as its display name with the bio "Author." We found no post from that account claiming this book. Anyone can change a display name to anything, so the match is not evidence of who uploaded the book, and this page does not identify anyone as its author.
Replies to the September 2026 thread offered anagrams of the name ("A sassy Jane at CIA," "a satanic JA essay"), and gematria accounts assigned number values to the name and title. These are wordplay, not evidence, and we list them only because they circulate.
It Was Not the Only One
Other apparently AI-generated titles appeared within hours and were also removed:
- The Charlie Kirk Shooting: A Nation on Edge by "Casey D. Parisi," dated September 10, 2025. Its description promised "the full story," including "the quick arrest of the Charlie Kirk shooter," before any suspect had been publicly named.
- The Legacy of Charlie Kirk: A Biography of His Rise, His Movement, and His Tragic Death.
- Further titles under names such as "Kevin George," reported in Lithuanian press coverage.
As with Casey, fact-checkers found no earlier footprint for these author names. Mashable, Straight Arrow News, UnHerd and AFP described the batch as a cluster of AI-generated cash-in books.
On X
- September 11, 2025. @AmericanRizz: "A book entitled 'The Shooting of Charlie Kirk' by Anastasia J Casey has appeared on Amazon with a PUBLICATION DATE OF SEPTEMBER 9TH 2025. A DAY BEFORE HE WAS ASSASSINATED."
- September 11, 2025. Amazon reviewers left five one-star ratings, all about the date. One wrote: "How was this published on September 9th 2025 when this didn't happen until September 10th 2025?" Another: "Weird coincidence. Was the person writing this involved in the shooting?"
- September 14, 2025. One account tied the book, and two others that appeared the day of the killing, to claims that national newspapers had declared Kirk dead early.
- April 29, 2026. @MJTruthUltra posted a quote attributed to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna: "There was a book that was sold on Amazon about Charlie Kirk's Assassination 24 hours before he died, I don't know if anyone ever followed up on it."
- September 9, 2026. @purecube169524 marked "one year since 'Anastasia J. Casey' released a book about an incident... one day before it happened."
- September 26, 2026. @CrystalSmallen posted the four BookScouter screenshots shown here and asked, in substance: "This [author] put this book out the day Charlie was murdered. How did she know that's my question?" The post drew about 4,800 views in its first hours. One reply: "There was a book out on Amazon sept 9th about his murder they took it down."
Other writers took up the question too. The Seemorerocks Substack (Robin Westenra, September 11, 2025) asked how a book could be published "the day before" and noted that a second book had also vanished. A post on jaydenthompson.com asks the question about more than one book. A Substack by anonymous8675309 argues it fits a wider pattern of Amazon books dated before the events they describe. Lawrence Nault's Substack (September 12, 2025) compared it to the books that appeared right after the 2023 Maui fires. He read the speed and the wrong date as a recurring cash-in cycle, not proof of foreknowledge.
What Remains Open
Amazon's account is plausible, and it may well be right. It also leaves several things unexplained, and none of them can be checked from outside Amazon:
- No upload record. Amazon has not released a KDP upload log, a timestamp, or the account behind the book. "Late in the afternoon on September 10th" is a spokesperson's word.
- The survival passage vs. the upload time. The President announced Kirk's death at about 2:40 PM Mountain time on September 10. If the book was written and uploaded "late in the afternoon," after that announcement, why does its text say he survived? Either the text was written before the death was known, or the generator ignored the news. Only the draft history would show which.
- Same-day go-live. KDP says 3 to 10 business days is normal. This title appeared within hours. That can happen, but it is the exception, and nobody has said why this one went fast.
- What was the "technical issue"? Amazon has not said whether the September 9 date came from its own systems or was typed in by the uploader. Those are very different answers.
- The hardcover. An 81-page hardcover with its own ISBN is a separate setup from the Kindle file. When was it created? And why did BookScouter's date for it change from September 11 to September 10?
- Nobody asked. No public reporting says any investigator requested the account or payment records behind "Anastasia J. Casey" or "Casey D. Parisi."
This page accuses nobody. The name on the book appears to be a pseudonym, and a fast AI cash-in with a bad date is a common pattern on self-publishing platforms. What would settle the question is the upload record, and it has never been produced. For other material posted before the attack, see the Sept 9 posts and UVU Sept 9 Foreknowledge.
X.com posts:
- BookScouter screenshots: book released the day Charlie died
- @BSideLiberty bought the book: "Charlie lives"
Where the ISBN Is Recorded
We checked the industry sites that track ISBNs and Amazon listings to see which of them can show when this book existed. We also looked for any sign that it was taken down and put back up. The short answer: several independent archives confirm the book was live on the morning of September 11, 2025. None of them can show it existed on September 9 or 10. No site shows it being removed and then re-published.
Two Amazon records, two dates. The book had two Amazon listings. The Kindle e-book (ASIN B0FQMF466K) has no ISBN. The ISBN 9798264842788 belongs only to the hardcover (ASIN B0FQPNNPRL). ISBNs beginning 979-8 are the free ISBNs Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing hands out, so Amazon itself is the registrant of record. Every ISBN site below is therefore describing the hardcover and copying Amazon's own metadata. The Kindle page said September 9 and the hardcover page said September 11.
| Source | What kind of site | What it shows | Date shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Kindle page, Wayback 16:13 UTC Sept 11, 2025 | Retailer (the listing itself) | Kindle Edition, 69 pages, $6.99, already 3 ratings | Publication date: September 9, 2025 |
| Amazon Kindle page, Wayback 16:36 UTC | Retailer | Same page, now 5 one-star ratings | September 9, 2025 |
| Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk Kindle pages, Wayback Sept 11 | Retailer, other national stores | Same Kindle listing | "9 Sept. 2025" |
| Amazon hardcover page, Wayback 17:03 UTC Sept 11 | Retailer | ISBN-13 979-8264842788, Independently published, 81 pages, $20.99 | Publication date: September 11, 2025 |
| camelcamelcamel, Kindle | Amazon price tracker | Began monitoring; stopped receiving updates after removal | First seen Sep 11, 2025, 9:58 AM |
| camelcamelcamel, hardcover | Amazon price tracker | Began monitoring the ISBN edition | First seen Sep 11, 2025, 9:45 AM |
| isbnsearch.org | ISBN lookup (fed by Amazon) | Hardcover, Independently published, no active offers | Published: 2025-09-11 |
| BookScouter ISBN page, Wayback Sept 12, 2025 | Book-price aggregator (fed by Amazon) | Hardcover, 81 pages | Released: Sep 11, 2025 (2025 captures); Sep 10, 2025 (2026 screenshots) |
| BookScouter author page | Aggregator | One book only | Released: Sep 11, 2025 |
| DirectTextbook | Textbook aggregator | Hardcover, 81 pages, Independently Published | 2025 (year only) |
Sites with no record of this ISBN: Barnes & Noble (404), Google Books (0 results), Open Library (no edition), Goodreads (0 results), AbeBooks and ThriftBooks (no match). Several others refused automated lookups: ISBNdb, isbn.nu, Biblio, Bookshop.org, BetterWorldBooks, the Library of Congress, WorldCat and BookScouter's live page. Keepa needs a paid key. Bowker, the U.S. ISBN agency, has no public per-ISBN lookup and would hold only what KDP reported anyway. We checked these without a browser, so a check in a real browser could still turn up a record.
The timeline the archives support (all times Mountain Daylight Time):
- September 11, ~9:45–9:58 AM. camelcamelcamel first sees both editions. The site does not state its time zone.
- September 11, 10:13 AM. First Wayback capture of the Kindle page. It already has 3 ratings and the September 9 date. Amazon search links captured at 10:16–11:00 AM show people searching for "Anastasia J Casey" and "the shooting of charlie kirk."
- September 11, 11:03 AM. First capture of the hardcover page, dated September 11.
- September 11, 12:51 PM. The Kindle page returns "Page Not Found." The U.K. store follows by 3:14 PM.
- September 12, 6:03 AM. The hardcover page returns "Page Not Found."
- After that: every later capture of either Amazon page is an error, captcha or "continue shopping" page. There is no second ASIN, no second ISBN, no paperback, and no listing that came back.
What this confirms, and what it does not:
- Confirmed: the book was live on Amazon's U.S., U.K. and German stores by mid-morning September 11, 2025, showing a September 9 date. It had been up long enough to collect ratings. Both editions were pulled within about 24 hours and never returned.
- Not confirmed: no independent ISBN site, price tracker or archive shows the book existing on September 9 or September 10. The earliest outside record is September 11. That neither proves nor disproves Amazon's claim that it went up "late in the afternoon on September 10th."
- No evidence of take-down and re-publication. The one date that moved is BookScouter's: September 11 in every 2025 capture, September 10 in the 2026 screenshots. That looks like the aggregator re-importing metadata, not a new publication. But a date moving one day earlier a year later is itself worth asking BookScouter about.
- Only Amazon's KDP logs can settle it. They would show when the files were uploaded, what publication date was typed in, and when each edition went live.
For comparison, the companion title The Charlie Kirk Shooting: A Nation on Edge ("Casey D. Parisi", Kindle ASIN B0FQPLPCC4, 29 pages) showed "Publication date: September 10, 2025" in Wayback captures from September 11 and was gone by September 25.