Minnesota Lawmaker Shootings: Boelter’s Guilty Plea and Life Sentence

The Minnesota lawmaker shootings on June 14, 2025, killed former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and critically wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, after a man disguised as a police officer went door to door at legislators’ homes in the Minneapolis suburbs. The attacker, 57-year-old Vance Boelter of Green Isle, Minnesota, was captured after a two-day manhunt. On June 11, 2026, he pleaded guilty to six federal charges under an agreement that removes the death penalty in exchange for two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years. Federal sentencing is set for July 23, 2026, and separate state charges in Hennepin County are still pending.¹²

What Happened on June 14, 2025

Boelter drove a black Ford Explorer SUV outfitted with emergency lights and a license plate reading “POLICE.” He wore a tactical vest, body armor, and a hyper-realistic silicone face mask. At each home he used the same approach: knock, shout “This is the police,” and shine a flashlight into the occupants’ eyes when they opened the door.³

His first stop was the Champlin home of State Senator John Hoffman at around 2:00 a.m. After the door opened, he asked whether the couple had guns. When Yvette Hoffman noticed the mask and confronted him, Boelter shouted “This is a robbery.” John Hoffman tried to push him back, and Boelter opened fire, shooting John nine times and Yvette eight times. Their daughter Hope, in the entryway, was thrown across the room. She managed to shut and lock the door and call 911, telling the dispatcher her father was Senator John Hoffman.⁴⁵

Boelter then drove about 12 miles south to the Maple Grove home of State Representative Kristin Bahner. Security footage caught him knocking at 2:24 a.m., but the family was on vacation.6 At 2:36 a.m., he was spotted sitting in his SUV near the New Hope home of State Senator Ann Rest. A police officer approached the vehicle, assumed Boelter was a fellow officer providing protection, and went to check on Rest. Other officers returned to find Boelter gone.³

Around 3:30 a.m., Boelter arrived at the Brooklyn Park home of House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman. He rang the doorbell and announced “Police, welfare check.” Mark Hortman answered and questioned his jurisdiction. Boelter shot him multiple times, forced his way inside, and shot Melissa Hortman repeatedly as she tried to flee upstairs. Both were killed.¹ Police who arrived at the Hortman home exchanged fire with Boelter, who fled on foot, abandoning his SUV with its emergency lights still flashing.⁷

The Manhunt and Arrest

Inside the abandoned SUV, investigators recovered a 9mm Beretta handgun, body armor, the silicone mask, and notebooks containing handwritten lists of names and home addresses of dozens of elected officials.⁸ By late afternoon on June 14, Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, publicly identified Boelter and announced what officials called the largest manhunt in Minnesota history.⁹

Hundreds of officers from the FBI, ATF, Minnesota BCA, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, and local police departments joined the search. Boelter remained at large for more than 36 hours until a neighbor near his family farm in Green Isle recognized him on a trail camera image shown in news coverage and called 911. Around 9:15 p.m. on June 15, officers located Boelter in a field roughly one mile from the property. He was armed but was taken into custody without incident.⁸⁹

Who Vance Boelter Is and What Prosecutors Say Motivated Him

Boelter was a married father of five with no significant criminal history before the shootings, only a handful of traffic violations.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Prosecutors characterized the attacks as “targeted political assassinations.”¹³ The notebooks recovered from the SUV named more than 45 Democratic state and federal officials in Minnesota, along with abortion rights advocates and information about health care facilities. Lists also included Democratic members of Congress from Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Texas.¹⁴ Others publicly identified as targets included Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, Attorney General Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, and U.S. Senator Tina Smith.¹⁵

While on the run, Boelter sent a group text to his family: “Dad went to war last night … I don’t wanna say more because I don’t wanna implicate anybody.”¹³ Investigators allege he spent up to two years planning a campaign targeting pro-choice Democratic officials. His notebooks contained surveillance notes and lists of internet-based people search engines he used to find home addresses and family information.¹⁴

Reporting on Boelter’s background pointed to a mix of religious extremism and political radicalization. He was ordained in 1993, spent years in evangelical missionary work overseas, and from 2021 to 2023 made at least four trips to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he preached at a Pentecostal church in Matadi.¹⁰¹⁶ In a 2023 sermon recorded in Matadi, he condemned American churches that supported abortion rights, calling abortion “ritual child sacrifice” and “something that empowers demons.”¹⁷ In the years before the attacks, his personal fortunes had declined. He moved between states and jobs, worked in food service and hauling cadavers for funeral homes, and followed far-right conspiracy content online.¹⁸

The Federal Guilty Plea and Sentence

On July 15, 2025, a federal grand jury in the District of Minnesota indicted Boelter on six counts: two counts of stalking, two counts of murder through the use of a firearm, and two federal firearms offenses tied to the attacks on the Hortmans and the Hoffmans. The charges carried potential penalties up to life in prison or death.¹⁹

On June 10, 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche authorized prosecutors not to seek the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bradley Endicott and Matthew Forbes wrote to the court that the attorney general had “authorized and directed the government not to seek the death penalty against Defendant Vance Luther Boelter in accordance with the terms delineated in a proposed plea agreement.”²⁰ One factor behind the decision was a legal question about whether the stalking charge qualified as a “crime of violence,” a prerequisite under federal law for pursuing capital punishment. A federal judge in New York had recently ruled that stalking did not meet that threshold in the separate prosecution of Luigi Mangione.²¹

On June 11, 2026, Boelter appeared before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim and pleaded guilty to all six counts. Under the agreement, he accepted two consecutive life sentences plus 40 additional years, which will keep him from ever being released. U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said the guarantee of permanent imprisonment was “an opportunity that we just could not pass up.”²²² Sentencing is scheduled for July 23, 2026, at the Diana E. Murphy United States Courthouse in Minneapolis.²³

The Hoffman family responded to the plea with a statement asserting there is “no justice” for the victims and calling on the public to “stop de-humanizing each other, and to stop dividing our country with hate and rhetoric.”²⁰

State Charges Still Ahead

Boelter also faces separate charges in Hennepin County District Court. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed two counts of first-degree premeditated murder for the killings of Melissa and Mark Hortman, along with counts of attempted first-degree murder for the attacks on Senator Hoffman, Yvette Hoffman, Hope Hoffman, and Representative Kristin Bahner. Additional charges include felony cruelty to an animal, tied to the Hortmans’ dog Gilbert, and impersonating a police officer.²³ The state case was placed on hold during the federal proceedings. Moriarty’s office has said it will move forward with prosecution after federal sentencing and is coordinating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office on transferring Boelter into state custody.²⁴

The Victims and Their Recovery

Melissa and Mark Hortman

Melissa Hortman was 55. She had served in the Minnesota House since 2005 and was elected Speaker in November 2018, holding the post for six years across three legislative sessions.²⁵²⁶ After the 2024 elections left the House tied, she brokered a power-sharing agreement in which Republican Lisa Demuth became Speaker and Hortman took the title of Speaker Emerita.²⁷ Governor Walz called her in a eulogy “the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history.”²⁸

On June 27, 2025, Melissa and Mark Hortman, along with their golden retriever Gilbert, lay in state at the Minnesota Capitol rotunda. About 7,500 people paid their respects. Hortman was the first woman to receive the honor. A private funeral the next day at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis was attended by former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Governor Walz, who served as a pallbearer.²⁹

The Hoffman Family

Senator Hoffman survived his nine gunshot wounds and spent months in the hospital, including a nine-hour surgery in November 2025 to address damage to his kidney, bladder, and colon.³⁰ Yvette Hoffman, shot eight times, also recovered. On February 17, 2026, Hoffman returned to the Senate floor for the 2026 session with Yvette at his side, thanking staff at Mercy Hospital for his care.³¹

Their daughter Hope released a statement on July 15, 2025, describing the trauma of watching her parents nearly killed and having a gun pointed at her own face. She said her parents pushed her out of the way during the assault, throwing her against a washing machine, and credited her survival to “nothing short of dumb luck.” Her parents in turn credited her quick call to 911 with saving “countless other lives” by alerting police that the attack was targeting a state senator, which sped the response to the Hortman home.³²⁴

Political and Legislative Aftermath

Governor Walz called the attacks “politically motivated assassinations” and told Minnesotans, “We are not a country that settles our differences at gunpoint.” Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar and Representative Tom Emmer released a joint statement expressing “outrage, grief, and condemnation.”³³ On June 25, 2025, the U.S. House unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the attacks, 424 to 0. Speaker Mike Johnson said the vote showed that “every House Republican and Democrat stood united.”³⁴

Hortman’s death left her District 34B seat vacant and the Minnesota House locked in its power-sharing arrangement. A special election was held on September 16, 2025. DFL candidate Xp Lee won with 60.9 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Ruth Bittner and returning the chamber to a 67-67 tie.³⁵

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NY1/AP. Man Pleads Guilty to Killing a Top Minnesota Democrat and Her Husband While Posing as an Officer
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U.S. Department of Justice. Boelter Pleaded Guilty to His Role in Stalking and Murder of Minnesota State Legislators
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CNN. Takeaways From the Criminal Complaint Against Vance Boelter
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ABC News. Minnesota State Sen. Hoffman Credits Daughter With Saving Countless Lives
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CNN. Takeaways From the Criminal Complaint Against Vance Boeltera>
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CCX Media. Rep. Kristin Bahner Confirms Gunman Stopped at Her House
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NPR. Minnesota Shooting Suspect Vance Boelter Arrested
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U.S. Department of Justice. Suspect Charged in Shooting of Two Minnesota Lawmakers and Their Spouses
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NBC News. What We Know About Minnesota Shooting Suspect Vance Boelter
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CNN. Vance Boelter Minnesota Shooting Investigation
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Minnesota Reformer. Did Religion Motivate Assassination of Minnesota Lawmaker
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PBS NewsHour. Minnesota Shooting Suspect Had a List of Dozens of Potential Democratic Targets
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Axios. Democrats on Vance Boelter Minnesota Shooting List
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Star Tribune. A Devout Christian With Failed Ambitions and an Arsenal of Firearms Chooses War
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NPR. The Religious Context of the Minnesota Shootings
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New York Times. Minnesota Shootings Vance Boelter
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U.S. Department of Justice. Vance Boelter Indicted for Murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman and Shootings of John and Yvette Hoffman
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NOTUS. Guilty Plea in Minnesota Lawmaker Shooting
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Our Quad Cities/AP. Feds Won’t Seek Death Penalty in Plea Deal
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CNN. Vance Boelter Federal Plea in Minnesota Lawmaker Killing
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Star Tribune. Federal Sentencing Date Set for Vance Boelter in Minnesota Lawmaker Shootings
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KARE 11. Hennepin County Attorney Moving Forward With State Charges Against Vance Boelter
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CBS News Minnesota. Melissa Hortman Mark Hortman Funeral
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CBS News Minnesota. Sen. John Hoffman November Surgery
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Fox 9. Redacted 911 Transcript Released in Sen. Hoffman Shooting
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Politico. Minnesota Shooting Democrats Republicans
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The Hill. House Resolution on Minnesota Shootings
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Minnesota House of Representatives. Special Election Results for House District 34B