The assassination of a top Minnesota Democratic lawmaker has taken a bizarre turn, with accused murderer Vance Luther Boelter telling the FBI that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) told him to kill U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) so that Walz could run for U.S. Senate, a Minnesota newspaper reported.
A handwritten letter Boelter allegedly left in a Buick sedan abandoned hours before his June 15 capture said the Democratic Minnesota governor ordered him to kill Klobuchar and others, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. The “rambling, conspiratorial,” and “incoherent” letter included a claim that he was trained “off the books” by the U.S. military, the newspaper said.
Boelter had ‘on the ground experiences combined with training by both private security firms and by people in the US military.’
Alpha News first reported that the letter, addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel, placed the blame for the shootings on Gov. Walz.
A spokesman for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office told the Star Tribune that “we will state only that we have seen no evidence that the allegations regarding Governor Walz are based in fact.”
A spokesman for Walz, the failed 2024 Democratic U.S. vice presidential candidate, did not issue a denial, but said the governor is “grateful to law enforcement who apprehended the shooter, and he’s grateful to the prosecutors who will ensure justice is swiftly served,” the Star Tribune reported.
In a June 20 statement, Klobuchar said: “Boelter is a very dangerous man, and I am deeply grateful that law enforcement got him behind bars before he killed other people,” the newspaper said.
Blaze News contacted Walz’s office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Twin Cities, but did not receive a reply before publication time.
Boelter, 57, is charged in federal court with murdering Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman. Boelter will also face first-degree murder and attempted murder charges in Hennepin County District Court.
On June 15, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office shared a photo of Boelter’s arrest and described him as “the face of evil.”
Boelter allegedly left behind a handwritten “hit list” with the names of more than 50 Democratic lawmakers from Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, according to court records and law enforcement sources quoted by local media. The list also included officials from abortion provider Planned Parenthood North Central States, police said.
RELATED: The stuff of nightmares: Boelter allegedly sought to kill 4 lawmakers
A biographical profile for Boelter on his Praetorian Guard Security Services business website states Boelter had “on the ground experiences combined with training by both private security firms and by people in the U.S. military.” The bio said Boelter “has been involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, including the West Bank, southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”
A mobile phone associated with Boelter’s home in Green Isle, Minn., pinged in overseas locations between 2022 and 2025, including Turkey, Dubai, Africa, India, and Nepal, according to the Washington D.C.-based Oversight Project.
Boelter was wearing a police-style uniform and tactical vest when he allegedly went on his shooting rampage, the FBI said. He drove a dark Ford SUV with an emergency light bar on the roof. He left the vehicle in the Hortmans’ driveway before allegedly forcing his way into the home and murdering the couple and the family dog, the FBI said.
Boelter allegedly intended to shoot at least two other Minnesota legislators in the overnight hours on June 14. He went to the home of state Rep. Kristin Bahner (DFL-Maple Grove) and state Sen. Ann Rest (DFL-New Hope). Bahner was not home. New Hope Police Department officers arriving to check on Sen. Rest scared off Boelter, who was sitting in a parked car a block away.
Boelter allegedly donned a “hyper-realistic” silicone mask that covered his head. When he allegedly pounded on the Hoffmans’ door just after 2 a.m., he was wearing the silicone mask. According to the FBI affidavit filed in federal criminal court, Boelter was also wearing the disguise as he sat in his vehicle a block away from Sen. Rest’s home.
But by the time he allegedly attacked the Hortmans 90 minutes later, it appears he no longer had the mask on, according to video taken from a Brooklyn Park police vehicle.
Who is Vance Boelter?
Based on court records, public databases, interviews, and news archives, here is what is known about one of the most infamous criminal suspects in Minnesota history.
The son of a small-town hero high school baseball coach, Boelter grew up in Sleepy Eye, a southern Minnesota town of 3,400 souls named for Chief Sleepy Eye, onetime head of the Sisseton Dakota tribe. Vance is the youngest of six children born to Donald Boelter and the former Yvonne Strate. A sister died in infancy. His siblings include two sets of twins.
According to a Minnesota newspaper, Mrs. Boelter gave birth to fraternal twins during a March blizzard in 1956. “At Ceylon, Minn., Mrs. Donald Boelter became the mother of twins in her trailer home during the height of the blow Saturday night,” The Minneapolis Star wrote two days later.
His father was a high school athletics standout at New Ulm High School and a basketball and baseball star at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Don Boelter coached baseball at Ceylon High School and Sleepy Eye Public High School.
Don Boelter won nine conference titles, was runner-up for six more, and had 309 career wins and a .620 winning percentage. His Sleepy Eye Indians teams went to the state tournament three times, winning the title in 1981 and finishing second in 1976. He died in 2013.
Vance’s brother, Tarry Boelter, 69, joined his father in the Minnesota State High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame after a 350-win baseball coaching career.
Vance Boelter married the former Jennifer Lynne Doskocil on Oct. 4, 1997, in Winona, Minn. They have four daughters and a son. The daughters are named for Christian virtues and gifts. The son is named after a missionary Boelter knew who was killed in the New Adams Farm Massacre in Zimbabwe in November 1987.
Political views
The question of what role politics played in the killings took a sudden twist with news that the letter Boelter allegedly left in the Buick blames Gov. Walz.
The political finger-pointing began as soon as Blaze News’ Julio Rosas first reported that police named Boelter as the primary suspect in the killings. Early on, Gov. Walz called the crime a “politically motivated assassination,” although he did not say what evidence backed up that contention.
As word spread of Boelter’s identity, the sides squared off to argue whether Republican or Democratic politics were to blame for Boelter’s alleged evil rampage.
Left-leaning MSNBC blamed the crime on President Donald J. Trump’s alleged rhetoric. Political analyst Anthony Coley tied Trump’s pardon of some 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants into the equation. “Just four months ago, we saw this president pardon violent January 6 offenders, people who were convicted,” Coley said. “Fifteen hundred, he just pardoned. That, to me, normalized political violence.”
Others chimed in on social media, including tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who posted, “This is on [T]rump.”
The pendulum swung the other way as word got out that Boelter had been appointed to a workforce development board by two successive Democratic governors, Mark Dayton and Walz, in 2016 and 2019.
An appointment proclamation signed by Walz in December 2019 read in part, “Because of the special trust and confidence I have in your integrity, judgment, and ability, I have appointed and commissioned you to have and to hold the office of Business Member, Governor’s Workforce Development Board.”
Boelter was named to the county-board-appointed Dakota-Scott Workforce Development Board in Dakota County, Minn., in 2013. He later became its chairman. A LinkedIn post described Boelter as “a true workforce leader” who “walked the walk.”
The ties to Democratic governors, along with news that police found fliers in Boelter’s fake police vehicle that said, “No Kings,” brought blowback from the right. Nationwide No Kings protests against President Trump were staged across the nation on June 14.
The fact that Boelter allegedly had a hit list loaded with Democrats in his vehicle could be a significant factor in analyzing a motive. Boelter’s childhood friend, David Carlson, said he never saw Boelter take an interest in state or local politics. He told Minneapolis reporters that Boelter was a Trump supporter.
There are no records in the Federal Election Commission database or Minnesota Campaign Finance Board records that show Boelter ever donated to a political candidate, political party, or political action committee.
The Oklahoman newspaper and the Independent claimed that Boelter was a registered Republican in 2004 when his family lived in Muldrow, Okla. Neither paper cited a source beyond “voting records.”
According to the Oklahoma State Elections Board, there are no voter records going back that far. “Voter registration information is only kept for approximately six years following the deletion of a voter; then it is destroyed,” said Misha Mohr, public information officer for the Oklahoma State Elections Board in Oklahoma City. “We do not have voter registration data dating back to the early 2000s.”
Ruby Brunk, secretary of the Sequoyah County Elections Board, told Blaze News that Boelter is not listed in that system. She confirmed that records “do not go back that far.” Muldrow is a town of 3,300 residents in Sequoyah County.
Employment
Boelter spent much of his career in the food-processing and convenience-store industries, working for companies including Gold’n Plump chicken, Gerber Products Co., Del Monte Foods, Johnsonville Sausage, Lettieri’s/Greencore Group, and 7-Eleven.
At Lettieri’s in Shakopee, Minn., Boelter was a plant manager responsible for production operations, quality, maintenance, safety, and research and development, according to an October 2013 article in the Star Tribune. The company, which was purchased by Ireland-based Greencore Group in 2014, produces food-to-go items for retail outlets such as convenience stores.
Boelter moved his family many times with job changes. According to property records, the Boelters owned residential properties in Fort Smith, Ark.; Muldrow, Okla.; Sleepy Eye, Minn.; Shakopee, Minn.; Sheboygan, Wis.; Arcadia, Wis.; Inver Grove Heights, Minn.; and Green Isle, Minn. They also rented apartments or homes in some locations, including Gaylord, Minn.
Boelter attempted to establish his own companies at least twice. He and his wife founded Praetorian Guard Security Services LLC in September 2018, according to Minnesota Secretary of State records. The business registration with the state of Minnesota lapsed in February 2022, but was reinstated in June 2023. Registration was again terminated, then quickly reinstated in January 2025, records show.
Praetorian Guard was founded to provide armed security services to residential and commercial customers. Boelter had the official title of director of security patrols, while his wife was listed as president and CEO. The company drove Ford SUVs, “the same make and model of vehicles that many police departments use,” the website said.
Praetorian Guard did not have a website for several years after the business was founded. The domain name pguards.net was registered in March 2021. Domain information was updated in April 2025, according to the WhoIs website. The domain registration is valid until March 2026. The website is no longer connected to the internet.
From April 2016 to November 2021, Boelter was working for 7-Eleven as an operations manager, according to his three-page resume posted online by journalist Ken Klippenstein.
Boelter left that job to found Red Lion Group, a company that appeared to be just him and his wife. Red Lion’s mission was to establish and develop “farm to fork” food production projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 2021 and spring 2025, Boelter made several trips to the DRC that lasted up to two months.
In one of his online biographies, Boelter said he had worked for Schwan’s Company, based in Marshall, Minn. He did not provide any dates or details. Schwan’s sells food and ice cream in grocery stores and formerly sold directly from freezer trucks that call on residential customers. It was formerly named the Schwan Food Company.
To try to support his business and charity ventures, Boelter took jobs in the funeral industry from 2023 until mid-2025. According to a video he posted online, Boelter’s duties included body removal and transport for Wulff Funeral Homes and Metro First Call LLC. The work also included body removals from crime scenes for delivery to medical examiners’ offices such as in Hennepin County, Boelter said.
Tim Koch, owner of First Call, told Blaze News, “As far as Vance Boelter is concerned, he worked for our company from August 28, 2023, until he voluntarily left on February 20, 2025. To say anything more at this time would be irresponsible, as the investigation continues.”
Boelter also left his job with Wulff Funeral Homes prior to June 14, a general manager told several Twin Cities media outlets. Blaze News reached out to Dignity Memorial, the owner of Wulff Funeral Homes, but did not receive a response before publication time.
Boelter had also enrolled in mortuary science courses at Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, Iowa. The school, which offers online and on-campus courses, told WOI-TV in Ames, Iowa, that Boelter enrolled in mortuary science classes in 2023 and 2024.
Charity and faith
Boelter and his wife also tried their hands at running tax-exempt charities at the same time that Red Lion Group was operating in the DRC, records show.
They founded You Give Them Something to Eat Inc., an anti-hunger charity based on the Gospel story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The Internal Revenue Service approved it as a tax-exempt charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, effective June 28, 2021. The group only filed one IRS tax return, in 2022, and reported no income or expenses.
The Boelters also established a religious nonprofit organization, Revoformation Ministries Inc. According to IRS records, Revoformation filed 13 tax returns between 2007 and 2023. Because the charity’s income was under $50,000, Revoformation was not required to state the amount.
On the Revoformation website, Boelter’s biography states that he was ordained in 1993 and “has enjoyed speaking in different parts of the United States as well as in several international cities such as Jerusalem, Israel.” It said prior to the attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001, he had made “several trips” to Gaza and the West Bank, where he “sought out militant Islamists in order to share the Gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”
Robert Spencer, an internationally recognized expert on Islam, told Blaze News that Boelter likely would have been killed or taken hostage for preaching to Islamists with a Christian message.
Boelter earned a diploma in 1990 at the Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas.
Boelter delivered sermons on several occasions between 2021 and 2023 at the Centre Évangélique Francophone La Borne Matadi in far Western Democratic Republic of the Congo. He visited the country as part of a missionary group from the Global Impact Center in Columbia Heights, Minn.
The Matadi church, the Global Impact Center, and Christ for the Nations issued statements after Boelter was charged with the murders distancing themselves from him and decrying the violence.
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The post <a href=https://www.theblaze.com/news/the-face-of-evil-what-do-we-know-about-accused-assassin-vance-luther-boelter target=_blank >‘The face of evil’: What do we know about accused assassin Vance Luther Boelter?</a> appeared first on Conservative Angle | Conservative Angle - Conservative News Clearing House
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