Who is David Carlson? Vance Boelter's close friend says suspect seemed ‘down' lately, was ‘struggling' due to losses
Alleged Minnesota assassin Vance Luther Boelter has been arrested near his Green Isle home after a massive search. During the ongoing search, Boelter's lifelong friend David Carlson made several revelations about the suspect, including a chilling text from him after the shooting.
While not much has been revealed about Carlson, the New York Post reported that Boelter lived with Carlson and another man part-time while he worked a job in Minneapolis. At the time, Boelter's wife and children lived on a farm in rural Green Isle.
In a sinister message to friends after the shootings, Boelter said, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, 'I'm going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn't gone this way.'
Carlson opened up about Boelter's political affiliations and claimed that the suspect was against abortion. 'He was a Trump supporter. He voted for Trump. He liked Trump. I like Trump,' he told the New York Post of Boelter. 'He didn't like abortion.'
In one interview, Carlson said Boelter was 'not a Democrat' and that he could not believe that 'a political issue' would prompt him to do something like this.
Carlson, who has known Boelter since the fourth grade and considered him a best friend, also told reporters that the two of them would occasionally share a rental near Minneapolis as it was close to their workplaces. He added that Boelter seemed 'down' lately and 'wasn't as cheerful as he used to be.' Boelter seemed low after returning from a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he was trying to set up a new business, Carlson told the Washington Post.
'He kept things inside,' Carlson said, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. 'He's been kind of down. He was not as upbeat as he usually is.'
Boelter was facing financial issues as he tried to reach his 'goal' of owning a private security company. Carlson added that Boelter experienced some losses from a failed venture, following which he was 'struggling a bit.'
Carlson told The Post that in high school, Boelter became a born-again Christian in and started preaching in parks to 'spread the word about Jesus'. 'Vance was a very caring, loving person,' Carlson said. 'He'd help anybody. And he had a lot of friends that looked up to him. He was a spiritual person.'
Boelter is accused of carrying out several shootings, including that of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in their Champlin home early Saturday, June 14, leaving them seriously injured. He then went to former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortmon's house, where he allegedly killed her and her husband, police sources told the New York Post.
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