Video above: Lawmakers question their security after former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman was fatally shot in June.
(The Hill) — A grand jury indicted the man accused of shooting two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses on six federal charges Tuesday, moving the case forward as prosecutors signal the death penalty is on the table.
Vance Boelter faces murder charges for allegedly assassinating former Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in the early morning hours of June 14.
“The ultimate decision as to whether to seek the death penalty will not come for several months,” acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said at a Tuesday news conference, indicating it will be left up to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Federal prosecutors first unveiled charges against Boelter, 57, in a complaint last month, and the indictment enables the case to press ahead. Thompson said prosecutors were also unsealing a search warrant that provides additional details on the investigation.
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Beyond the murder charges, Boelter’s indictment includes two stalking counts over his alleged efforts to track down both the former state speaker and Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, whom Boelter allegedly shot and injured the same morning.
Prosecutors additionally indicted him on two firearms offenses, one for each shooting. Those charges all carry up to life in prison, and he separately faces state-level charges.
NewsNation partner The Hill has reached out to Boelter’s public defender for comment.
Hoffman’s wife, Yvette, was injured alongside her husband. The indictment indicates Boelter also intended to shoot their daughter, Hope, but failed.
Prosecutors previously accused Boelter of visiting two other officials’ homes and leaving behind a notebook filled with dozens of other names.
Political extremism as a motive
Thompson also disclosed new details at a news conference. He said investigators had found a handwritten letter by Boelter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel in which he confessed to the shootings and made bizarre claims.
“In the letter, Vance Boelter claims that he had been trained by the U.S. military off the books and he had conducted missions on behalf of the U.S. military in Asia, the Middle East and Africa,” Thompson said.
Boelter also said in the letter that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had approached him about killing the state’s two U.S. senators, fellow Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.
Asked by a reporter if all that was a fantasy, Thompson replied: “Yes, I agree.”
“There is little evidence showing why he turned to political violence and extremism,” Thompson said. “What he left were lists: politicians in Minnesota, lists of politicians in other states, lists of names of attorneys at national law firms.”
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Friends have described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had been struggling to find work. At a hearing on July 3, 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, Boelter insisted the shootings had nothing to do with his opposition to abortion or his support for 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,” Boelter wrote in a message to the newspaper via the jail’s messaging system.
Boelter also faces state murder and attempted murder charges in Hennepin County, but the federal case will go first.
Other details of the case
Prosecutors say Boelter, 57, who has lived in rural Sibley County south of Minneapolis, was driving a fake squad car, wearing a realistic rubber mask that covered his head and wearing tactical gear around 2 a.m. on June 14 when he went to the home of Sen. 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 lawmakers. One, in Maple Grove, wasn’t home while a police officer may have scared him off from the second, in New Hope. 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 euthanized.
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Brooklyn Park police, who had been alerted to the shootings of the Hoffmans, arrived at the Hortman home around 3:30 a.m., moments before the gunman opened fire on the couple, the complaint said. 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 Boelter about 40 hours later, about a mile from his rural home in Green Isle, after what authorities called the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
