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Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Minnesota shooting suspect went from youthful evangelizer to far-right zealot
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Friends and neighbors of the 57-year-old say they are struggling to understand what drove him to allegedly masquerade as a police officer and shoot two state legislators and their spouses in the predawn hours of Saturday - leaving state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband dead and the other couple seriously injured. Some point to his teenage conversion and the startling change that followed, one that became very public in Sleepy Eye, a burg of about 3,500 about two hours southwest of Minneapolis. Advertisement Through much of high school, Boelter was like every other teen, according to lifelong friend David Carlson. But after Boelter declared himself a born-again Christian, he began preaching in the local park - even living there in a tent, Carlson said. Advertisement 'Everything in his life - he just changed,' Carlson said Sunday. 'People were saying, 'Yeah, Vance is in the park preaching.' He was just trying to spread the word about Jesus.' Boelter grew up one of five siblings in a family that was locally famous for baseball - his father, Donald, was the high school coach and later selected for the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. They lived in a turreted, two-story house on a corner lot in a neighborhood where American flags fly from porches and flagpoles. In his senior year, Boelter was named 'Most Courteous' and 'Most Friendly,' according to images from his high school yearbook shared by a former classmate. It listed him as captain of the basketball team and a member of the baseball team, football team and chorus. 'Vance was a normal kid who came from a middle-class background,' said Wendel Lamason, who was friends with Boelter until Lamason moved to another town for eighth grade. The family was part of mainstream Lutheran churches, some more center-right, some more center-left, and the elder Boelter was active in church leadership. Ron Freimark, who pastored a different Lutheran congregation in Sleepy Eye, remembers the boy participating in church youth groups. 'He wasn't rebellious. He was polite and all that,' Freimark said Monday afternoon. 'He was just a good kid.' According to his LinkedIn profile, Boelter went on to attend St. Cloud State University and graduated with a degree in international relations. On a now-defunct website for Revoformation, a nonprofit he founded several years later, Boelter laid out a basic biography and said he had been 'ordained' in 1993. He said he had gone to a small Catholic college near Milwaukee - Cardinal Stritch, which is now closed - as well as Christ for the Nations Institute, a Dallas school that is part of the broad, nondenominational world of charismatic Christianity. Advertisement And, the bio claimed, he had made trips overseas to seek out 'militant Islamists' to 'tell them violence wasn't the answer.' Christ for the Nations was founded in 1970 by Gordon Lindsay, a prominent preacher in independent, charismatic Christianity. The focus of the movement initially was on evangelizing, faith healing and experiential worship such as speaking in tongues. In the last quarter-century, however, a segment of it turned to politics and changing policies, especially around abortion. A Lindsay quote long posted in the school's lobby reads: 'Everyone ought to pray at least one violent prayer each day.' The exhortation, the school said Monday, described prayer that should be 'intense, fervent and passionate.' In a statement, it confirmed Boelter had graduated in 1990 with a degree in practical theology in leadership and pastoral and said it was 'aghast and horrified' at the news that the alum was a suspect in the weekend shootings. 'This is not who we are,' the statement said. 'We have been training Christian servant leaders for 55 years and they have been agents of good, not evil.' Based on his recent online presence, Boelter's views now appear to align with the political 'far right' of Christianity in the United States, said Matthew Taylor, a senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. The followers of this kind of charismatic Christianity believe in a need 'to fight back' against demons and satanic evil in the world, Taylor said. Its core disseminates 'very extreme' rhetoric about abortion, he added, with some leaders portraying it as a form of child sacrifice that empowers demons. Advertisement Boelter 'seems very much to embrace some of the violent rhetoric and ideas that circulate through those spaces,' Taylor said. Indeed, in another sermon posted online, Boelter said God was sending people to America for a specific purpose. 'They don't know abortion is wrong, many churches,' he said. 'When the body starts moving in the wrong direction … God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.' In and around Minneapolis, Boelter spent most of his career in the food industry while, as Carlson put it, dreaming of launching a security business. A former neighbor in Sleepy Eye said Boelter, his wife and their children - four girls and a boy - moved back there around 2008 when he took a job as a production coordinator for the local Del Monte plant. The family bought a three-bedroom fixer-upper on Maple Street and spent their time at the public pool or hosting Bible studies, said the neighbor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. Boelter's wife, Jenny, was a stay-at-home mom who always had a smile on her face and brought apple pies over around the holidays, the neighbor said. 'They were friendly, almost too friendly,' he said. 'It was almost like there was never anything wrong.' Flags for the fallen lawmakers were at half-staff Monday in Sleepy Eye, a town named for a famous Native American Dakota chief from the 1800s. The business stretch of Main Street goes about five blocks, with several historical buildings and a repurposed movie theater marquee promoting a coffee shop and brewing company. Drive just a bit farther and the flat Midwestern landscape is dotted with farms and silver grain bins. Advertisement
New York Post
11 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Accused Minnesota assassin's transition from popular local athlete to radical far-right Christian
MINNESOTA — Accused assassin Vance Boelter was a popular high-school athlete before becoming born again in his teens, moving into a tent in the park to preach and eventually morphing into an apparent far-right Christian. Boelter — a 57-year-old married dad of five accused of murdering Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and trying to assassinate Dem state Sen. Mark Hoffman and his wife early Saturday — gave few hints in his childhood of the seeming religious radicalization he would undergo. The suspect was born into a sports-mad Lutheran family and raised in the small town of Sleepy Eye, with his father Donald a high-school baseball coach later selected for the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Advertisement 10 Minnesota assassination suspect Vance Boelter seen preaching at a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo. FEVRIER DEVANT TA FACE In high school, Boelter was named 'Most Friendly' and 'Most Courteous,' according to pictures of his high-school yearbook shared by one of his classmates. One of five siblings, he seemed to have shared his family's love for sports and was listed as captain of the basketball team and a member of the baseball and football teams, as well the chorus, in the yearbook. Advertisement 'Vance was a normal kid who came from a middle-class background,' former classmate Wendel Lamason told the Washington Post. Boelter was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with his father active in the church council and he himself participating in its youth groups. 'He wasn't rebellious. He was polite and all that. He was just a good kid,' said Ron Freimark, who pastored a different Lutheran congregation in the town, to the outlet. 10 Boelter allegedly in a mask before the Hoffman shootings. District Court of Minnesota Advertisement 10 Boelter under arrested after a manhunt for him in Minnesota. HANDOUT/RAMSEY COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Conversion Then at 17, Boelter had a religious conversion and declared himself born again, according to people in his life. While at high school, he began preaching in his local park and even lived there in a tent, according to lifelong friend David Carlson. 'Everything in his life — he just changed. People were saying, 'Yeah, Vance is in the park preaching.' He was just trying to spread the word about Jesus,' Carlson said. Advertisement 10 Boelter experienced a religious conversion in high school and even began preaching in a park, according to a friend. C.E.F Arche de l'Alliance Makala Boelter later claimed he had met the Holy Spirit and began producing pamphlets about Jesus and giving them to everyone he knew. 'So often in the world today, everyone wants an excuse for not doing the right thing. We want to blame someone else,' Boelter said during a sermon he gave in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, according to footage shared online. 'God doesn't say, 'Oh, your parents messed up, I know you came into this world all troubled.' You have a choice, you have a decision,' he said in his talk — which included an anti-abortion rant. Boelter graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in international relations, according to his LinkedIn profile, before attending the small, now-defunct Catholic college Cardinal Stritch near Milwaukee. He was later 'ordained' in 1993 after studying at the Dallas-based Christ for the Nations Institute and said he had made several overseas trips seeking out 'militant Islamists' and persuading them 'violence wasn't the answer,' according to a biography on the now-defunct website for his nonprofit, Revoformation, seen by the Washington Post. Christ for the Nations Institute confirmed Boelter graduated in 1990, saying it was 'aghast and horrified' at the charges against their alumnus in a statement. Advertisement 'This is not who we are. We have been training Christian servant leaders for 55 years and they have been agents of good, not evil,' the statement read. Radicalization At some stage, Boelter's views appear to have shifted to the 'far right' of Christian beliefs in the United States, according to Matthew Taylor, a senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. The suspect believed in demons and a satanic evil in the world, as well as a need 'to fight back against it,' Taylor told the Washington Post after an analysis of Boelter's online presence. 10 Boelter allegedly killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband. AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File Advertisement 10 State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were injured in the shooting. MelissaHortman/Facebook Some people in these online radical Christian spaces spread 'very extreme' anti-abortion rhetoric, portraying it as a form of child sacrifice which empowers demons, according to Taylor. Boelter 'seems very much to embrace some of the violent rhetoric and ideas that circulate through those spaces,' Taylor said. In some of his sermons, Boelter preached against LGBTQ+ rights, as well as abortion. Advertisement 'God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course,' he said in footage of one sermon shared online, apparently referring to American churches which he felt had gone soft on abortion. In Boelter's car, cops found a list of family planning centers along with 45 state and federal Minnesota officials, according to investigators. 10 A page of notes found in Boelter's car. District Court of Minnesota 10 Police discovered a list of family planning centers and Minnesota state official in his vehicle. District Court of Minnesota But friends said that although they knew Boelter was religious and conservative, he rarely discussed politics and his views didn't seem extreme. Advertisement 'He was right-leaning politically but never fanatical, from what I saw, just strong beliefs,' longtime friend Paul Schroeder told AP. 'He never talked to me about abortion. It seemed to be just that he was a conservative Republican who naturally followed Trump,' Schroeder said. 10 Boelter is facing a sentence of life in prison. Getty Images 10 A courtroom sketch of Boelter getting charged in federal court on June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Cedric Hohnstadt Boelter worked mainly in the food industry but spent several years as a security contractor in the Middle East and Africa before returning to the US in 2023. In August of that year, he began working for a funeral home transporting bodies of those who had died in assisted living facilities, telling friends he needed the work to pay the bills. His most recent job was extracting eyeballs from corpses as part of an organ donation program, Carlson said. The suspect was also spending nights away from his wife and four daughters and son, renting a room in a small house in northern Minneapolis with acquaintances, while working. 'Dad went to war last night,' Boelter said in a message to his family sent after his alleged shooting spree, CNN reported Monday. He has now been charged with federal crimes that could land him the death penalty.
