Politics
Minnesota Assassin’s Wife Detained With Weapon, Passports As Manhunt Continues
The wife of suspected political assassin Vance Boetler is being detained and questioned after police recovered a weapon, cash and passports in her car during a traffic stop on Saturday morning. Federal and state law enforcement agencies are continuing to search for the gunman accused of gunning down Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.
Jenny Boetler was stopped by police while driving in a car with several relatives near Onamia, Minnesota, late Saturday morning around 10 a.m., local outlet KTSP reported. A witness reported seeing about a dozen law enforcement vehicles converging on the scene, where they stayed for more than three hours.
Sources told the outlet that the vehicle contained a weapon, ammunition, cash and passports. The report further stressed that no arrests have been made and that the vehicle’s occupants are only being detained for questioning as of this report.
Photo: Vance Boelter via Facebook
After Hoffman and his wife were attacked at their Champlin home, officers conducted a welfare check at Speaker Hortman’s residence in Brooklyn Park at around 3:35 a.m. and saw what appeared to be a police officer and a squad car outside, officials said. When officers approached the vehicle, the suspect opened fire on them and fled the scene.
Boelter’s now-deleted LinkedIn page lists him as the CEO of a security company, while in past interviews he said he “has ties” to two funeral homes. He has also worked closely with non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that primarily focus on the Middle East and Africa, online biographies show.
He worked closely with Minnesota Africans United, a statewide organization working with African immigrants in the state, according to a report from the New York Post. Vance Luther Boelter is also listed as the CEO of the Democratic Republic of Congo-based Red Lion Group.
In 2022, Boelter participated as a keynote speaker in his capacity as CEO of Red Lion Group for a seminar held jointly by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Minnesota Africans United and Global Minnesota, re-surfaced video shows. “This all started back in 2019, when my partner, McNay Nkashama, brought in the ambassador from the DRC to Minnesota, and we had meetings, the bulk of them in Minneapolis but the bulk of them that I was at was in Worthington, Minnesota where we made those connections,” Boetler said.
Throughout the speech, the suspected assassin detailed plans for several agricultural projects that he believed would “create a lot of jobs fast” and “serve as a model” for future investors into the impoverished African nation.
“We’re partnering with 400 farmers who are ready to go on a farming project… we’re doing a fishing project that works with like 500 fishermans…that’s off the coast of Rwanda,” Boelter went on to say. “Another one that we’re looking at doing is a totally women led motorcycle-taxi business, where all the operators are women, and the leadership is women, so we’re excited to get that off the ground,” he added.
The Minnesota Africans Union told the New York Post that it never hired, paid, or contracted Boetler, adding that he never served with the organization in any official, or unofficial capacity.
Boelter, 57, is believed to have posed as a police officer when carrying out the killings. Chilling security camera footage shows the suspected gunman wearing a latex Halloween mask while knocking on the door of the slain lawmaker’s home.
Jenny Boelter is listed as the president and CEO of the Praetorian Guard Security Services, while the suspected assassin was listed as the “director of security patrols” on the company’s now-deleted website.
“Dr. Vance 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,” the site says. “He brings a great security aspect forged by both many on the ground experiences combined with training by both private security firms and by people in the U.S. Military.”
In addition to his web of business and NGO roles, Vance Boelter was twice appointed to state government roles by two Democrat governors. In 2016 then-Governor Mark Dayton named Boelter to the Workforce Development Council, and in 2019, current Governor Tim Walz tapped him for a four-year stint on the Workforce Development Board, documents show.
Boetler last registered to vote in 2022 as a Republican.
