Man pleads guilty to killing a top Minnesota Democrat and her husband while posing as an officer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota man who pounded on Democratic lawmakers’ doors in the middle of the night while posing as a police officer, killing the state House speaker and her husband and wounding a state senator and his wife, pleaded guilty to murder Thursday so that federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.

The Minneapolis-area attacks last summer by Vance Boelter, 58, sparked the largest police search in state history and reverberated across the country, with elected officials fearing that escalating threats and polarization could lead to more violence.

There were brief sobs from the courtroom gallery where family members of Melissa and Mark Hortman, who were both killed, sat alongside Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were injured, as the June 14, 2025 attacks were described in detail.

Disguised in a tactical uniform and realistic mask that covered his entire head, Boelter drove a police-style SUV with flashing lights to the legislators’ homes. Again and again Boelter simply said “yes,” as his attorney questioned him about his actions, including whether he pressed a pistol to Melissa Hortman’s head and fired.

He also stopped outside the homes of two other lawmakers in the Minneapolis suburbs that night. At one, he knocked but no one answered. At the other, he was apparently frightened away when a police officer, believing he was a fellow officer, approached him as he sat in his vehicle.

U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen told reporters after the hearing that the death penalty was only taken off the table after Boelter agreed to the longest possible prison sentence for the six federal charges: two consecutive life terms, plus 40 years.

“Political violence is a scourge plaguing America,” Rosen said. “Those that would commit political violence at any level should take heed: the Justice Department will seek and obtain the longest prison terms available for your crimes.”

Boelter also faces state charges, including two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder as well as charges of impersonating a police officer and animal cruelty. The Hortman family’s golden retriever was gravely injured in the shootings and had to be euthanized. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said Thursday that the federal plea agreement does not affect the state’s case, which had been on hold pending the resolution of the federal case.

Boelter, wearing his orange jail sweatshirt and sweatpants as he sat in the courtroom between two of his attorneys, listened closely as U.S. District Judge John Tunheim talked through each of the six charges and their maximum sentences. Tunheim accepted the guilty pleas and said he would set a date soon for sentencing.

Boelter was captured near his home in rural Green Isle, about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis, the day after the shootings, which prosecutors have said were politically motivated but which remain in many ways unexplained.

“Dad went to war last night,” Boelter messaged his family that morning. “Words are not going to explain how sorry I am.”

After Boelter’s arrest, authorities released a rambling handwritten letter they say he wrote FBI Director Kash Patel, confessing to the attacks but not explaining why he targeted the Hortmans or the Hoffmans. In messages to reporters, Boelter referred repeatedly to a yearslong “investigation” he said he’d been carrying out, sometimes suggesting it was about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Boelter, an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had traveled to Congo as a preacher and missionary, spent much of his life in the food service industry. He had been struggling to earn a living before the shootings, after the failure of a security company he’d founded.

John Hoffman said in a lawsuit filed against Boelter in April that his left arm and hand likely would never fully recover and that he also had permanent injuries to his digestive and urinary systems.

Yvette Hoffman was left with permanent physical weakness, the lawsuit said, while their adult daughter, Hope Hoffman, who was there and called 911 but was not shot, suffered severe psychological trauma.

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Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa.