A candlelight vigil for Melissa and Mark Hortman was held outside the capitol building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 18 June 2025. The man charged with their murders pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Guilty Plea in Political Assassinations
Vance Boelter, 58, pleaded guilty to murdering Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband Mark Hortman. He also admitted to the non-fatal shootings of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman. The attacks occurred in the early hours of 14 June 2025, when Boelter, disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car, approached their homes.
The Hortmans' golden retriever was so severely injured that it had to be euthanized.
Capture and Charges
Boelter was captured near his home in rural Green Isle the day after the shootings following what prosecutors described as the largest search for a suspect in Minnesota history. He also faces state charges, which have been on hold pending the resolution of his federal case.
The US attorney's office in Minneapolis notified the court on Wednesday that the Justice Department would not seek the death penalty against Boelter in accordance with a proposed plea agreement. The court then set the change-of-plea hearing for Thursday.
Minnesota abolished capital punishment in 1911 and has never had a federal death penalty case. Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, said the federal plea deal would not affect Boelter's state charges.
While the Trump administration has pushed for greater use of capital punishment, there were questions about whether Boelter's case would qualify for the death penalty under federal law.
Political Motive
Prosecutors have called the shootings political. When they announced the federal indictment in July, they released a rambling handwritten letter they say Boelter wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel, in which he confessed to the attacks. However, the letter did not make clear why he targeted the Hortmans or the Hoffmans.
In some messages to media, Boelter referenced a vague and cryptic "investigation" he had been carrying out, sometimes suggesting it was about the Covid-19 vaccine.
Friends described Boelter as an evangelical Christian and occasional preacher and missionary, who held politically conservative views and had been struggling to find work.
Victims' Injuries
John Hoffman said in a lawsuit filed against Boelter in April that his left arm and hand would probably 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 present and called 911 but was not shot, suffered severe psychological trauma.
