New evidence revealed as grand jury indicts Vance Boelter over murder of Minnesota politician and her husband

Australia Broadcast Center

15-07-2025

Prosecutors have revealed new details surrounding a man's motives to allegedly kill a prominent Minnesota state representative and her husband, and seriously wound a state senator and his wife, while he was allegedly disguised as a police officer.
The new information comes after a US federal grand jury indicted Vance Boelter on charges that he fatally shot former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.
Investigators say they have found a handwritten letter by Mr Boelter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel in which he confessed to the shootings and made bizarre claims.
The indictment handed up lists murder, stalking and firearms charges against Mr Boelter.
The murder counts in the two deaths could carry the federal death penalty.
"This political assassination, the likes of which have never occurred here in the state of Minnesota, has shook our state at a foundational level," acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson said.
He said a decision on whether to seek the death penalty "will not come for several months" and will be up to US Attorney-General Pam Bondi.
Mr Boelter's federal defender, Manny Atwal, did not comment on the indictment and the new allegations.
Mr Boelter has not entered a plea, which was not required until the indictment was handed up.
"In the letter, Vance Boelter claims that he had been trained by the US military off the books and he had conducted missions on behalf of the US military in Asia, the Middle East and Africa," Mr Thompson said.
Mr Boelter also said in the letter that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz had approached him about killing the state's two US senators, fellow Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.
Asked by a reporter if all that was a fantasy, Mr Thompson replied: "Yes, I agree."
"What he left were lists: politicians in Minnesota, lists of politicians in other states, lists of names of attorneys at national law firms."
Friends have described Mr Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had been struggling to find work.
At a hearing on July 3, Mr Boelter said he was "looking forward to the facts about the 14th coming out".
In an interview published by the New York Post on Saturday, Mr Boelter insisted the shootings had nothing to do with his opposition to abortion or his support for Donald Trump, but he declined to discuss why he allegedly killed the Hortmans and wounded the Hoffmans.
"You are fishing and I can't talk about my case…I'll say it didn't involve either the Trump stuff or pro life," Mr Boelter wrote in a message to the newspaper via the jail's messaging system.
Prosecutors say Mr Boelter was driving a fake squad car, wearing a realistic rubber mask that covered his head and wearing tactical gear on the night in question.
At around 2am on June 14, he went to the home of Senator John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin.
He allegedly shot the senator nine times and Yvette Hoffman eight times, but they survived.
Prosecutors allege he then stopped at the homes of two other politicians.
One, in Maple Grove, was not home, while a police officer may have scared him off from the second, in New Hope.
Mr Boelter then allegedly went to the Hortmans' home in nearby Brooklyn Park and killed both of them.
Their dog was so gravely injured that he had to be euthanased.
Brooklyn Park police, who had been alerted to the shootings of the Hoffmans, arrived at the Hortman home around 3:30am, moments before the gunman opened fire on the couple, the complaint said.
Mr Boelter allegedly fled and left behind his car, which contained notebooks listing dozens of Democratic officials as potential targets with their home addresses, as well as five guns and a large quantity of ammunition.
Law enforcement officers finally captured Mr Boelter about 40 hours later, about 1.6 kilometres from his rural home in Green Isle, after what authorities called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history.
AP