Friends say Minnesota shooting suspect was deeply religious and
conservative
[June 16, 2025]
By JIM MUSTIAN and MICHAEL BIESECKER
NEW YORK (AP) — The man accused of assassinating the top Democrat in the
Minnesota House held deeply religious and politically conservative
views, telling a congregation in Africa two years ago that the U.S. was
in a “bad place” where most churches didn’t oppose abortion.
Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was captured late Sunday following a two-day
manhunt authorities described as the largest in the state's history.
Boelter is accused of impersonating a police officer and gunning down
former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their
home outside Minneapolis. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz described the
shooting as “a politically motivated assassination.”
Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were shot
earlier by the same gunman at their home nearby but survived.
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.
Near the scene at Hortman’s home, authorities say they found an SUV made
to look like those used by law enforcement. Inside they found fliers for
a local anti-Trump “No Kings” rally scheduled for Saturday and a
notebook with names of other lawmakers. The list also included the names
of abortion rights advocates and health care officials, according to two
law enforcement officials who could not discuss details of the ongoing
investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Both Hortman and Hoffman were defenders of abortion rights at the state
legislature.
Suspect not believed to have made any public threats before attacks,
official says
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension, said at a briefing on Sunday that Boelter is not believed
to have made any public threats before the attacks. Evans asked the
public not to speculate on a motivation for the attacks. “We often want
easy answers for complex problems,” he told reporters. “Those answers
will come as we complete the full picture of our investigation.”
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.
A glimpse of suspect's beliefs on abortion during a trip to Africa
Boelter, who worked as a security contractor, gave a glimpse of his
beliefs on abortion during a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo in
2023. While there, Boelter served as an evangelical pastor, telling
people he had first found Jesus as a teenager.
“The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong in
many churches,” he said, according to an online recording of one sermon
from February 2023. Still, in three lengthy sermons reviewed by the AP,
he only mentioned abortion once, focusing more on his love of God and
what he saw as the moral decay in his native country.
He appears to have hidden his more strident beliefs from his friends
back home.
“He never talked to me about abortion,” Schroeder said. “It seemed to be
just that he was a conservative Republican who naturally followed
Trump.”
A married father with five children, Boelter and his wife own a
sprawling 3,800-square-foot house on a large rural lot about an hour
from downtown Minneapolis that the couple bought in 2023 for more than a
half-million dollars.
Seeking to reinvent himself
He worked for decades in managerial roles for food and beverage
manufacturers before seeking to reinvent himself in middle age,
according to resumes and a video he posted online.
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This image provided by the FBI on Saturday, June 14, 2025, shows
part of a poster with photos of Vance L. Boelter. (FBI via AP)
After getting an undergraduate degree in international relations in his
20s, Boelter went back to school and earned a master’s degree and then a
doctorate in leadership studies in 2016 from Cardinal Stritch
University, a private Catholic college in Wisconsin that has since shut
down. While living in Wisconsin, records show Boelter and his wife Jenny
founded a nonprofit corporation called Revoformation Ministries, listing
themselves as the president and secretary.
After moving to Minnesota about a decade ago, Boelter volunteered for a
position on a state workforce development board, first appointed by
then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016, and later by Democratic Gov.
Tim Walz. He served through 2023.
In that position, he may have crossed paths with one of his alleged
victims. Hoffman served on the same board, though authorities said it
was not immediately clear how much the two men may have interacted.
Launching a security firm
Records show Boelter and his wife started a security firm in 2018. A
website for Praetorian Guard Security Services lists Boelter’s wife as
the president and CEO while he is listed as the director of security
patrols. The company’s homepage says it provides armed security for
property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone
black and silver pattern similar to a police vehicle, with a light bar
across the roof and “Praetorian” painted across the doors. Another photo
shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a
ballistic vest with the company’s name across the front.
In an online resume, Boelter also billed himself as a security
contractor who worked oversees in the Middle East and Africa. On his
trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he told Chris Fuller, a
friend, that he had founded several companies focused on farming and
fishing on the Congo River, as well as in transportation and tractor
sales.
“It has been a very fun and rewarding experience and I only wished I had
done something like this 10 years ago,” he wrote in a message shared
with the AP.
But once he returned home in 2023, there were signs that Boelter was
struggling financially. That August, he began working for a transport
service for a funeral home, mostly picking up bodies of those who had
died in assisted living facilities — a job he described as he needed to
do to pay bills. Tim Koch, the owner of Metro First Call, said Boelter
“voluntarily left” that position about four months ago.
“This is devastating news for all involved,” Koch said, declining to
elaborate on the reasons for Boelter’s departure, citing the ongoing law
enforcement investigation.
Boelter had also started spending some nights away from his family,
renting a room in a modest house in northern Minneapolis shared by
friends. Heavily armed police executed a search warrant on the home
Saturday.
‘I’m going to be gone for awhile'
In the hours before Saturday’s shootings, Boelter texted two roommates
to tell them he loved them and that “I’m going to be gone for a while,”
according to Schroeder, who was forwarded the text and read it to the
AP.
“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,” Boelter wrote. “I don’t want
to say anything more and implicate you in any way because you guys don’t
know anything about this. But I love you guys and I’m sorry for the
trouble this has caused.”
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