Suspect in Minnesota Lawmaker’s Murder Captured After Two-Day Manhunt [Update: Full ‘Hit List’ Released]
“The face of evil. After relentless and determined police work, the killer is now in custody.”
Following an intensive two-day manhunt, Vance Luther Boelter, suspected of murdering Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their Brooklyn Park home early Saturday, and shooting State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in their Champlin home shortly afterward, was arrested on Sunday night. Boelter, 57, was captured in a field located near his Green Isle home in Sibley County.
Following his arrest, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office posted the following message: “The face of evil. After relentless and determined police work, the killer is now in custody. Thanks to the dedication of multiple agencies working together along with support from the community, justice is one step closer.”
BREAKING: Mugshot released of Minnesota Murder Suspect Vance Boelter pic.twitter.com/kMnczncKQO
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) June 16, 2025
Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office just shared this image on social media, reportedly showing the arrest of Boelter just minutes ago. pic.twitter.com/OWNy9487MP
— Mary McGuire (@mcguirereports) June 16, 2025
According to charging documents from the Hennepin Country district court, Boelter faces two counts of second-degree murder, “with intent — not premeditated,” for “acting with the intent to kill, caused the death[s]” of Victims 1 and 2 “using a firearm,” and two additional counts of second-degree murder, “with intent — not premeditated”, for “acting with the intent to kill, attempted to cause the death[s]” of Victims 3 and 4, “using a firearm.”
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 40 years and a minimum of 3 years.
[The full charging document can be viewed here.]
The commenter below asks a good question. How were these crimes not premeditated?
Vance Luther Boelter has formally been charged.
Bail set at $5M.
4 counts of 2nd Degree of Můrdęr WITH Intent NOT Premeditated.
The Statement of Probable Cause confirms that he was dressed as a Police Officer and had identified himself as one.
How is that not Premeditated!?! pic.twitter.com/F3tNwHaYfb
— Southern FFA Family (@FFAFamily) June 16, 2025
At a Sunday night press conference, Brooklyn Park Police Department Chief Mark Bruley said “There’s no question that this is the largest manhunt in the state’s history.” He added that more than 20 different SWAT teams participated in the search for Boelter.
Bureau of Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans explained that law enforcement searched for Boelter near his Sibley County home after his vehicle and cowboy hat had been located in that area.
Lieutenant Colonel Minnesota State Patrol Jeremy Geiger told reporters, “The suspect crawled to law enforcement teams and was placed under arrest at that point in time,” as per Fox News.
According to the report, the search involved officers from multiple agencies working on foot, along with aerial support from a helicopter. Additionally, authorities believe that Boelter had acted alone.
[Below are several social media posts about the moments before and after Boelter’s arrest that may be of interest.]
🚨 #BREAKING: Assassin and Tim Walz associate Vance Boelter has been taken into custody after surrendering to police in the woods near Green Isle, MN, per KSTP
This comes after a MASSIVE search operation with multiple agencies involved.
He supposedly was spotted by a drone and… pic.twitter.com/qjZEEFKfTP
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 16, 2025
I was sent this video and picture of the search of Boelter’s property minutes before he was captured. @NorthernNewsNow https://t.co/KS2Nz9MTmC pic.twitter.com/fi79SsVAu2
— Dan Wolfe (@DanWolfeKBJR) June 16, 2025
Sources provided this photo of Boelter from the scene after his arrest. pic.twitter.com/q4F9uPkm53
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) June 16, 2025
Update (8:25 a.m.): Police have released Boelter’s full list of potential targets which includes more than 60 Democrats and even abortion clinics.
JUST IN: The contents of Vance Boelter's “hit list” have been provided to Alpha News. More than 60 Democrat leaders appear on it along with abortion clinics.
(This is a typed version that was distributed to law enforcement, not the original copy) pic.twitter.com/yw8I64PMEG
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) June 16, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I can see the NYT headline now “Vance Arrested in Minnesota killing.”
Can you still be charged with premeditation if it wasn’t your own plan you were executing? Just asking…
Whose plan was it?
His wife’s.
Will he get a lighter sentence if his victims turn out to be United Health shareholders?
Not good looking, so I doubt it
Is it just me who thinks the photo in Mary McGuire’s tweet looks positively Norman Rockwell?
You already have polls showing a substantial segment to majority of active (D)s willing ti say that that first UH killing was “justified”. So… maybe?
Charges can always be amended. These initial charges are meant to keep him behind bars until the prosecution gets their ducks in order.
This is also what they know they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt right now if he were to break with current practice and demand his speedy trial.
The $5 million bond seems too low, all things considered.
I was wondering if there was a level of crime in Minnesota that would allow for no bond and charging non premeditated vs. premeditated murder was a way to get around that, but it seems not. Everyone gets a bail amount set, regardless of the type of crime.
So, now I’m curious how things will go if the shooter actually manages to raise the money.
” … suspected of murdering Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their Brooklyn Park home early Saturday, and shooting State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in their Champlin home shortly afterward … ”
I think that’s backwards.
It’s my understanding that he shot the Hoffmans (who survived) at ~02:00, and was confronted by LEO’s at the Hortmans’ (who died) at ~03:35.
Just for the record.
My understanding was that the police responded to the first shooting, and happened to pass by the second shooting as it occurred. I assumed the dead folks were at the first shooting, since the response to them was delayed.
The first shooting I believe was through the door, they were not fooled and didn’t open it,
and I presume that is what saved them.
The second pair opened the door.
If I understand it correctly.
I read elsewhere that the cops responded to the first shooting and did a preventative drive by at the second location and saw the guy exiting the house.
I also read that he was first seen on some hunters trail cam, dude notified police and immediate flyover located him. This whole thing is very strange.
They’ve been saying that since the beginning but it sounds like the most ridiculous story possible. Just because one politician (and her husband) is shot the first thought is to check on another politician?? That makes no sense, at all. No one thinks that a murder he happens upon is the first of a spree. I don’t believe one bit of this “thought to check on the other politician” story. Not one bit. It reminds me of that BS with the pipe bomb found at the Republican HQ and some genius thinking, “Oh! The guy probably hates political parties and planted one at the Democrat HQ, too! Let’s check that out!!” It’s just too farfetched to even take seriously. In the Minnesota case, either there was a lot more know to the cops or they were just making sh*t up with that tale of checking the other politician.
It’s going to be fascinating to learn how a guy goes from 7/11 store manager to owning a sprawling piece of property, an international NGO doing work in Africa and no less than two ‘security services’ company with apparently no law enforcement or military experience of any kind….along with a pied-à-terre that he shares with a guy who looks like a homeless junkie. Unlike that Luigi kid, there’s no indication this guy came from money much less had access to any kind of trust fund to live of. Honestly, I have WAY more questions about this dude than I do about Trump’s Butler shooter.
How surprised will we be if he commits suicide?
He will fall down the precinct house stairs four times, hang himself, and get his hands on a gun and shoot himself in the left temple; the gun will be in his right hand. The coroner will rule suicide.
Fur surten.
You know German!
The closed circuit TV cameras will strangely lose connectivity. power, and shut down with no one noticing.
Several reports say his 3rd world white-knighting was financed by USAID monies – that that getting cut off may have triggered him.
Certainly he would have been teed up for USAID money — he had a tenuous but good enough political connection and a tenuous but good enough operation for Africa. With someone like Samantha Power in charge at USAID he just had to say and promise the right things, and he was good.
This would make his choice of targets baffling. If he was jonesing for federal USAID money, why choose state representatives?
There is a whole lot off about this. Guy runs a 7/11, is appointed to government boards by Walz, rolls to Africa for 3 years, lives in town with a room mate a few days of the week, registered republican but has “No Kings” signs in his car and the lady he shot is a Democrat but just voted with Republicans to stop free healthcare for illegals. I can’t wait to see this clowns “manifesto” as he was all over the map
And we don’t even know how many of those things are accurate. It looks so jumbled that bits might be twisted or whatnot. It would be nice to have somewhere to track all the info and look for corrections as they happen and such.
Once again, Minnesota has no party registration for voters, so he was not a registered anything.
Probably a clean up list of all the politicians that funneled USAID money through him.
So what is this? Some sort of deception campaign? The guy and his wife were neck deep in Democratic politics.
it was stated in an article that the dem he shot had voted with the gop on a bill
Yes, both of them had done so, as required by a deal the Democrat Party made. Far from defying the party, they were serving it. The Dems promised to supply enough votes to pass the bill, and they were the Dem leaders in their respective houses, so they were the ones who had to vote against their consciences in order to further their party’s legislative agenda. And anyone paying attention to MN politics knew this.
One of Hortman’s final acts as a Democrat lawmaker was voting with Republicans during a special session in the Minnesota Legislature on Tuesday to approve the remaining pieces of the state budget.
“I know that people will be hurt by that vote, and I’m — we worked very hard to try to get a budget deal that wouldn’t include that provision,” Hortman said through tears when reflecting on being the sole DFL vote alongside Republicans in the House.
“And I think in the end, fighting for that equal shared power made this a better session,” said former DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park. “And I think the way that today unfolded was about cooperation and collaboration, we could have had that from the word go.
I’m really happy that we did finally get there.”
she stated she was happy
Agreed but crazy people often don’t know what people paying attention know.
In her own words and prior to her assassination, sounded terrified to speak to the media about her being the only Democrat to vote with Republicans on the last minute budget resolutions.
https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1933921308699664501
so again
it only is an issue of importance if its violence towards the left
dont let lefty control the narrative
we are against violence
but it cant be denied that the left is the culprit and expects no return actions b/c of their violence prone ways
the call must be put out for lefty to stop their violence
I doubt it can come from the clown Gov. in MN.
Absolutely, Democrat senators and congressmen were in front of the Sunday talk show cameras and radio talk shows saying how they are against political violence, but they are not going to be silenced and they will continue to fight for their democracy and progress.
In other words, they are inciting more violence because Trump shut down their gravy train: USAID.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 40 years and a minimum of 3 years.
Sentenced to three (3) years on each count for a total of twelve (12) years minus time served. Guaranteed.
Looking at the pictures of the attacker, with the mask and gloves, how could they tell who it was so quickly?
I suspect they didn’t know with absolute certainty (at least at first). But, they had they vehicle he left behind and from there, even if it was registered to a business, they would have quickly determined who the beneficial owner of the car was.
I guess, but it seemed just too easy. He left a message saying he might be dead and got caught without a whimper.
The “hit list” is just a diversion tactic!
There’s probably some truth to this. Targeted attacks like this take time to set up, information to gather, routines to observe. 70+ names on a list isn’t a plan of action. It’s a message. Whether or not it’s a diversionary message is hard to say.
Why is there little or no media coverage that the suspect was a Waltz political appointee to a bogus position?
Why haven’t the usual Democrat politicians stepped in front of cameras and taken to the well of the senate and house to demand mandatory gun control and firearm confiscation like they routinely do in murders like this?
They were a little busy with the “No Kings” thing. They don’t handle thinking on their feet well. Or thinking, at all.
It’s a tough argument to make against a “fully licensed security company.”
The guy may have been appointed by Democrats, but he is apparently religious and conservative and it would not be surprising if this was about abortion.
“Friends told the AP that they knew Boelter was religious and conservative, but that he didn’t talk about politics often and didn’t seem extreme.
“He was right-leaning politically but never fanatical, from what I saw, just strong beliefs,” said Paul Schroeder, who has known Boelter for years.”
https://www.wtvr.com/news/national-news/who-is-vance-luther-boelter%20minnesota-shooting-suspect-deeply-religious-conservative-june-15-2025
Post incident tales of Boelter’s “conservatism” should be taken with a grain of salt.
If he was conservative, why did he kill the Dem who helped the GOP get a funding bill passed? There are probably dozens of Dems who have supported abortion over the years he could have targeted. It would have better transmitted his message. As it is, he looks like he whacked someone because she helped the GOP.
Admittedly, much of this makes no sense.
No answers, but many questions. Good that they got him, and hopefully the truth will come forth.
hopefully the truth will come forth
You sweet summer child…
If his driving motive was opposing abortion (or some other right wing position) he may well have neither known nor cared about the funding bill votes. His first two targets were apparently leading Dem (or DFL?) legislators, so no doubt they had plenty of other votes for him to object to. A hit list of other Demleft leaders could also explain the ‘No Kings’ fliers in his car. Presumably they had locations for the rallies — hence the locations of more of his targets.
Translation: MSM cherry-picks two quotes out of 20 other neighbors who say shooter was a wacko Marxist loon.
The article also said, “Friends and former colleagues interviewed by AP described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump. Records show Boelter registered to vote as a Republican while living in Oklahoma in 2004 before moving to Minnesota where voters don’t list party affiliation.”
Have not seen anything about other neighbors or evidence of Marxism. Have you?
“No Kings” posters in his vehicle.
“Vance Luther Boelter was appointed not once, but twice to Minnesota’s Governor’s Workforce Development Board—first by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton in 2016, then again by current Democratic Governor Tim Walz in 2019. That’s not something that happens to hardcore Republicans in a politically divided state. The board advises on workforce policies, and while it’s not explicitly partisan, appointments are political favors.”
Of all the Democrats on his purported “hit list,” the one he murders first is the one that voted with Republicans to defund illegal alien health care.
Low-hanging fruit decided to go postal, and no FBI instigation anywhere on the horizon (yet).
That’s my trifecta bet, now let the horses run.
How can they charge him with murder for the two victims who didn’t die? I know MN has goofy laws, like charging Derek Chauvin with murder for restraining a doped-up suspect for his own safety, using a Minneapolis Police Department approved technique.
Perhaps there is a substance in MN water which causes brain damage?
I think we need to hold off,
I saw a self made video that was recently done where he was introducing himself to his class mates in a mortuary science class about his two jobs for companies that did cremation.
And I saw it stated that the two security companies were more in theory than ever becoming operational.
Looking to me that he is someone who has mental issues and does not process reality well… or is very good at playing the part.
That is what I have seen from someone with the handle “dataRepublican” and some other sites.
IDK.
There is a whole lot of this that is mystifying. As MDP said, we need to cool our jets a bit as none of it makes sense.
Remember the 48 hr rule re: The List – but someone asked why the original hasn’t been released. It’s quite possible / probable the original had street addresses on it so releasing it would amount to Doxing the targets for another nutjob to finish the job.
The typed one had either addresses or birth dates redacted. So it’s possible there was something on the original they find it harder to put a digital marker over.
I’m curious as to the meaning of the “1972” that appears on several consecutive entries and is NOT redacted.
hmmm
lets guess
solidarity with the plo Black September thugs
Hardly, as the number is associated with his planned victims, not himself.
So a political appointee of Communist Governors Drayton and Walz, who shot the two Communist legislators who supported taking away taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegals, and who had printed NO KINGS signs in the car he used – is really truly 101% honest Injun a closet Trump supporter and pro-life terrorist! As the saying goes: I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.
These are the same media and authorities who said St. George of Floyd was murdered by the cops, that the 2020 riots were “mostly peaceful protests” and were started by the white supremacist “Umbrella Man” whom the police totally know about but for some reason have never arrested.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/28/896515022/minneapolis-police-reportedly-identify-viral-umbrella-man-as-white-supremacist
Remember boys and girls: the Communists don’t care if you believe the latest dreck about Boelter. It will become the Official And Immutable Truth (TM) in the same way Oceania has always been at war with
EurasiaEastasia.exactly
they wouldnt even divulge the manifesto of the trans shooter ( at the religious school) b/c it might incite animosity towards the lgbttqqqq+)
BUT THEN THEY HOPE MORE VIOLENCE WILL BE AIMED TOWARDS MAGA
when they publish and bias their stories
Real question is will a Soros funded DA release him or plea bargain him out, or will a dramacrat progressive judge decide to let him go?? I;m thinking normally the answer would be yes but because abortion is involved his walz is cooked.
None of that will happen. He’s cooked. There’s way too much attention, and after all a state legislator was murdered. He’s going to get the max on each count.
And to be clear, he’s safer in prison than he would be out on the streets.
At this point, it won’t matter. The feds have announced they’re seeking an indictment of Boelter. Once that indictment is in hand, it’s virtually certain Bondi will announce the DoJ will be seeking the death penalty, just as they did with Luigi. The state case will be placed in limbo until the federal case is resolved. It is likely it will be many years before he’s finally prosecuted in state court….if he’s ever prosecuted in state court.
The details of the shooting at Melissa Hortman’s house don’t put the responding police in the greatest light, IMO. Apparently, a patrol unit was sent to Hortman’s house after the other police had responded to the shooting at Hoffman’s home. It’s currently unclear what made the police send that unit.
When the responding unit arrived, they saw a ‘police’ suv already parked in the Hortman driveway. They encounter whom they now believe to have been Boelter. Boelter opens fire and fire is returned. Boelter is allowed to enter the Hortman’s house and it is only THEN that Hortman and her husband (and dog) are murdered. Police waited for backup until finally attempting to make entry into the home. By the time that they get the drone into the house (presumably through the front door which was left open), the see the bodies of the decedents. Unknown to them at the time, Boelter had long made his escape through the back door.
FWIW, I have read that the officer responding to the Hortman house was alone and a female.
Biologically female or identified as female or both or neither.
The Disinformation Industrial Complex is busy muddying up the water
Ellison and MN State police doing their part to protect Timpon
At least this might shut him up for a while. He’s spent the last few months on the road getting more and more outrageous with his comments everytime he speaks
So riddle me this: In that list of 70 names that is supposedly his manifesto, why is the name of John Hoffman – his 3rd victim – not on it?