Man held after Minnesota lawmaker killing 'went to homes of other politicians'

A man accused of dressing up as a police officer and shooting two Minnesota state lawmakers in their homes - killing one and her husband - also went to the houses of two other legislators the same night intending to assassinate them, authorities revealed yesterday.

- Richard Luscombe

Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was captured on Sunday night after a massive two-day manhunt and charged by state prosecutors with the second-degree murder of the Democratic representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence in Brooklyn Park early on Saturday.

He was also charged with the attempted murder of the state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin.

Boelter was scheduled to make an initial appearance before a district court judge in St Paul yesterday afternoon after officials announced a separate 20-page federal indictment, which could include the death penalty for Hortman's murder, at a late-morning press conference.

The acting US attorney for the district of Minnesota, Joe Thompson, told reporters that as well as the attacks on the Hortman and Hoffman residences, Boelter had been spotted at the homes of two other unnamed lawmakers, one a state representative, the other a state senator, in a "planned campaign of stalking and violence".

At one of the properties nobody had been home, he said. At the other, Boelter was confronted by a police officer, who had been called to make a wellness check, and fled the scene.

"It is no exaggeration to say that his crimes are the stuff of nightmares," Thompson said.

"Boelter stalked his victims like prey. He went to their homes, held himself out as a police officer, and shot them in cold blood."

Hortman's killing, at the final house he visited, "was a political assassination", Thompson added.