The indictment includes charges of murder, stalking, and firearms against Vance Boelter. The murder charges for the deaths of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, could result in the federal death penalty.
“This political assassination is unprecedented in the state of Minnesota and has profoundly shaken us,” acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson stated.
Brooklyn Park police, alerted to the shootings of the Hoffmans, reached the Hortman residence around 3:30 am, just before the suspect allegedly opened fire on the couple, the complaint detailed. Boelter is said to have fled, abandoning his car, which reportedly contained notebooks with the names and addresses of numerous Democratic officials as potential targets, along with five firearms and a large amount of ammunition.
Law enforcement officers finally captured Boelter about 40 hours later, about 1.6km from his rural home in Green Isle, after what authorities called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history.
Senator Hoffman is out of the hospital and is now at a rehabilitation facility, his family announced last week, adding he has a long road to recovery. Yvette Hoffman was released a few days after the attack. Former President Joe Biden visited the senator in the hospital when he was in town for the Hortmans’ funeral.
The river swim that signalled the start of a purge of millions
Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris joined mourners at the Hortmans’ funeral June 28. Walz, Harris’s running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, eulogised Melissa Hortman as “the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history.”
Hortman led the House from 2019 until January and was a driving force as Democrats passed an ambitious list of liberal priorities in 2023.
She yielded the speakership to a Republican in a power-sharing deal after the November elections left the House tied, and she took the title speaker emerita.
