Were there custody evaluations or expert witnesses in Erika Kirk's case?
Executive summary
Available reporting contains no evidence that custody evaluations or expert witnesses were part of any public proceeding involving Erika Kirk; multiple fact-checkers and news outlets found no record that she lost custody and noted the claim originated from a misstatement by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, outlets caution that family-court records can be sealed, so public reporting cannot definitively exclude the possibility that sealed evaluations exist [1].
1. Origin of the custody claim and what reporters actually found
The viral claim that Erika Kirk lost custody of her children began circulating after Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said on the PBD Podcast that Kirk “lost her husband, she lost her kids,” a remark Luna later said she misspoke about; reporters traced the allegation to that clip and to social posts amplifying it [3] [2] [4]. Major fact-checking outlets including Snopes and Yahoo’s fact-check reporting found no court records, public filings, or credible sources to support the custody-loss allegation and flagged the social-post trail as the primary vehicle for the rumor [1] [2].
2. Official legal activity that is on the public record — and what it does not show
What is documented in mainstream reporting is Erika Kirk’s role as a victim’s representative in the criminal case against the accused shooter, her filing for a speedy trial in that Utah criminal matter, and a pretrial protective order granted in her favor; those items relate to the homicide prosecution, not to a family- or custody-court adjudication [5] [6]. None of the articles or fact checks uncovered public family-court dockets, custody adjudications, court-ordered evaluations, or testimony by custody experts tied to Kirk — the public record assembled by the reporting contains no mention of custody evaluations or expert witnesses [1] [2] [3].
3. What the fact-checkers say about sealed records and limits of reporting
Fact-checkers explicitly noted a reporting limitation: family-court records can be sealed for safety and privacy reasons, which means that a lack of public records is not absolute proof that nothing occurred behind sealed doors [1]. Snopes therefore refrained from issuing a definitive truth rating on the most extreme phrasing of the claim because sealed filings are a plausible barrier to confirmation [1]. This caveat shifts the burden: public reporting offers no evidence of custody evaluations or expert witnesses, but cannot prove a negative where sealed proceedings might exist.
4. How spokespeople and involved parties responded — and why that matters for the question
Representatives and commentators pushed back on the custody-loss narrative: Luna herself has acknowledged misspeaking and clarified that she did not mean to say Kirk lost custody, and multiple outlets reported that there is no supporting source for the claim [3] [2]. Media pieces that chronicled the rumor also highlighted Kirk’s ongoing public presence — court appearances in the criminal case, rallies and media interviews — factors reporters used to interrogate the plausibility of an ongoing, public custody transfer [5] [7]. Those responses reinforce the reporting conclusion that there is no verified public record of custody evaluations or expert testimony involving Kirk.
5. Bottom line with necessary caveats
Based on the sources compiled, there is no publicly reported evidence that custody evaluations or expert witnesses were used in any adjudication concerning Erika Kirk’s children; fact-checkers and news outlets found no family-court filings or expert testimony in the record and traced the rumor to a misspoken podcast remark and subsequent social amplification [1] [2] [3]. However, because reporting acknowledges the possibility of sealed family-court records, available sources cannot categorically rule out the existence of sealed evaluations or testimony that have not been made public [1].