America's Talking - Federal Charges Brought Against Minnesota Shooter

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

(The Center Square) – Federal stalking and murder charges have been filed against 57-year-old Vance Boelter in a 20-page charging document on Monday in what was described as the “stuff of nightmares.” Boelter is expected to have a 1:30 p.m. Monday appearance in federal court in St. Paul. The charges include firearms offenses, stalking using interstate commerce and murder for the stalking and killing of Minnesota House Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman and her husband along with the shooting of state Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and his wife. The Hoffmans are expected to make a full recover.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/minnesota/article_b97e3a4a-6a08-4982-90cd-531dc7a5ad4e.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to American Focus. I'm J.D. Davidson. Over the weekend, the shooting of the Minnesota, former House Speaker, and a state senator, captivated the nation. Joining me today is John Steyf, a reporter for the Center Square, who helped cover the incidents as they unfolded over a three or four day span. John, tell us a little bit about where we stand right now. Vance Bolter is in federal custody, he has both state and federal charges ranging from murder to stalking. And essentially, what's going to occur is he's going to face these federal charges first. So the state murder charges will be delayed until later. And the federal counts may be increased as they go more through the case. But they charged, as the U.S. attorney said, what they could right now. And it's going to

be a long process of going through all the evidence, all of the writings that he had, all of the information that they collected to kind of determine and be able to prove how much of this was premeditated, which they believe all of it was. And kind of the other things that he went through in order to attack these people and kind of hide his identity while he was doing it in order to continue the killings after the first ones that he's accused of. One of the interesting parts of this story for me is I'm based in Ohio, but I happened to be in Minneapolis over the weekend.

I was five, six, seven miles away from the shooting, learned about it Saturday morning when I woke up and was able to kind of jump on that, see the reaction in the communities, spend the day in Minneapolis, and watch things unfold. It went from what I saw as kind of a local story that we would go ahead and grab really quickly to an hour and a half later after the initial press conference, a national story. And thankfully, John was there to help pick that up. But the mood in Minneapolis was fascinating. And to see the localized view of what had happened and the suspect along with what was. was being portrayed nationally was almost night and day.

It's true. The suspect was appointed to a board in 2019 by Tim Walls, but he's a heavy Republican, big Donald Trump supporter. And from everything we've seen, all of the motive seems to revolve around abortion. nationally when you saw comments on stories and other chat groups and things like that, they put a lot of this at the feet of walls thinking it was a Walls supporter when in reality it wasn't. The other thing that was interesting Saturday as the day unfolded, and we'll talk a little bit more about this,

is there were 20 SWAT. It took, they apprehended him late Sunday night. They had 20 SWAT teams looking for him throughout. about both the Twin Cities, I spent the day covering both of the Twin Cities, just because I was there for personal reasons, never saw a police car, just one, saw one police car the entire day. But it was in some areas of the city we were. It was all people were talking about in some areas of the cities that we were in. Nobody was talking. You would never know anything happened.

Talk a little bit about the apprehension, the day and a half hunt for him and his wife and then what eventually led to his capture. Well, it was wild because police actually saw him and met him kind of asked the lawmakers' house before the shooting and killing of the last two people. A police officer drove past him, saw him in a car with his license plate that from items he purchased that fleet farm that literally just said police on the back. He just looked straight forward. He had the silicone mask on. And the one police officer who went to that lawmaker's house just went to the house, checked on her, waited for backup. And by the time that came, he was gone. So then they found him at another house when he was, he was killing the Hoffman's.

And allegedly, he's being accused of killing the Hoffman's. And then he escaped out the back door. And the problem then for him is he's on foot. So what happened was he found a guy at a bus stop in a downtown area and purchased a Buick and an electric bike from the guy. He first offered to purchase the electric bike, and then the guy gave him a ride to his house and sold him to the Buick, too. So he was able to leave the area and get closer to where his home was in Green Isle. And what ended up being the key to them finding him was they received a tip of a guy on an electric bike that looked like Bolter because photos had been distributed, photos from him wearing a cowl. cowboy hat when he went to the bank to get the money to, he emptied out his account in order

to purchase the Buick and the electric bike. And there were a couple other photos, including one with the mask. So then they were able to kind of figure out what several mile area in it, in its remote. It was a wooded area. And so an hour southwest of Minneapolis, I believe. Yeah. And so they found the Buick there and knowing that they had already talked to the person that had sold him those items after figuring that out, they used, they used like a robot and drone to go check that the, the Buick wasn't booby trapped. And then they looked inside and there was a note from him inside about it. And ultimately, they were able to corner him and they were using drones. All these SWAT teams were there. And he crawled out eventually to.

police and they were able to apprehend him alive to face these charges late Sunday night. But it was a very, I guess, controlled search for him because he wasn't like, he wasn't necessarily a danger to the general public. They didn't know that, but he, you know, these were very targeted killings that he had researched for a long time and he had notes about addresses of these politicians. and it wasn't just politicians from the state of Minnesota. It was also some from Wisconsin, some from Illinois, other areas. And that those writings found in the Buick and also, I believe in what he was driving when he allegedly committed the crimes.

And in the house where, also in the house where he was staying with a roommate that wasn't where his family was at. Right. And those original, those writings were police originally in the very first press conference Saturday morning termed it a manifesto. But I think we're learning now it's more just kind of notes and writings and things like that. But I think that's what pushed it nationally because I know in Ohio, security around lawmakers and at the state house has been increased in Wisconsin. Also security has been increased. And like you said, it was a, it wasn't just Minnesota. It was, I think it's safe to say that the majority of the names were probably Minnesotans. But it stretched that the, for lack of a better term, the hit list stretched across several states. Right. And the U.S. attorney was clear that it's not just one list. It's a series of essentially notpads that he wrote information on and there were names here and there. So right away, they said, oh, there was.

75 names and then later on they said okay there's 45 Minnesota lawmakers who were named and they were working outside of that to kind of figure out things but it's not like he had a list like here's a prioritized list of people it was just like here's research on this person here's some on that and it was about where they live uh where he could search search for him what their family members were he and hence the stalking charges the lawmakers that he ultimately is accused of attacking first were ones that he had the most research on. And a couple of lawmakers ended up fortunate. One of them that he went to their home was out of town.

Another, like mentioned earlier, the police happened to show up, and he was scared off before he went to the door. And she ended up making a statement about that and how her life was saved because that officer showed up when she did. Well, what we've talked about today is just the beginning. This is a story that's going to stretch weeks and months and most likely years before there's a finalized. John, thanks for joining us today. And we'll have much more at the Center Square as the story develops.