The suspect in the Minnesota attack that killed a prominent lawmaker and her spouse was taken into custody Sunday after a sprawling, two-day manhunt that gripped the nation as the shootings sparked fears of rising political violence.

Over the weekend, police identified the suspect as Vance Luther Boelter, a 57-year-old who is alleged to have disguised himself as a police officer before fatally shooting state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband on Saturday, after wounding state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in another shooting. Officials say they found a list of dozens of Democratic lawmakers and other leaders who supported liberal causes that the attacker left behind in a vehicle near the scene.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and officials across the country have condemned the bloodshed, describing the shootings as “targeted political violence.”

Boelter is expected to appear in state court Monday at 2 p.m. Eastern time and in federal court at 2:30 p.m.

Here’s what we know about the attack.

What to know about the suspect

Boelter worked for a Twin Cities-area home-security company called Praetorian Guard Security Services, serving as its director of security patrols, according to the company’s website. He split his time between a rural home where he lived with his family and a Minneapolis home that he shared with roommates.

His bio on Praetorian’s site said he had received training from private security firms and “people in the U.S. Military” and had “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.”

Boelter took classes in the mortuary science program at Des Moines Area Community College in 2023 and 2024, the school confirmed.

He worked at Metro First Call funeral home in Savage, Minnesota, from August 2023 to February 2025 before voluntarily leaving ahead of a trip to Africa, owner Tim Koch said. Boelter also previously worked at Wulff Funeral home, according to manager Ryan Scharfencamp, who did not provide dates of employment but said Boelter left before the weekend shooting.

Boelter had quit his job at a funeral home before going to Africa and was “struggling a little bit” when he returned, his roommate David Carlson said. After Boelter returned to the United States, he held a job extracting eyeballs from cadavers so they could be used for organ donation, Carlson said.

“He wasn’t as cheerful as he used to be,” Carlson said.

The suspect’s online presence indicated he was well-traveled and connected to several religious groups. He is listed on federal tax forms as the president of a Minnesota-based nonprofit called You Give Them Something to Eat — an apparent reference to the biblical episode in which Jesus feeds a large crowd with two fish and five loaves of bread. The organization’s tax forms report no income or spending.

Tax records also appear to show that the suspect and his wife once led a nonprofit known as Revoformation Ministries. An archived version of its website calls the suspect “Reverend” and says he was ordained in 1993.

“Prior to 9-11, Vance had already made several trips to violent areas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank where suicide bombings were taking place,” the site said. “He sought out militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”

In recent years, the suspect worked in Africa and sought to spread Christianity to “Islamic militants,” according to his LinkedIn profile and other traces of his activity online.

Two years ago, he posted on LinkedIn that he was working in the Democratic Republic of Congo as CEO of a company called Red Lion Group.

His post referred to multiple trips to the country, as well as to Washington, where he said he was working with the country’s ambassador to the United States.

In a video posted to YouTube that shows Boelter preaching to a large church in Congo, he urges the congregants to embrace Christian joy even in difficult times. He shared a story about being at his mother’s home in Minnesota when he learned that a friend doing missionary work in Zimbabwe had been killed.

“Even though that hurt, I knew Jesus, and I knew my friend knew Jesus,” the suspect told the crowd. “I knew he was in heaven.”

Boelter worked for several large food companies during the past 25 years, including Nestlé and Gerber, Johnsonville Sausage, and Del Monte, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Minnesota governors appointed him at least twice to serve on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, an advisory group on which Hoffman also served. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) appointed Boelter to the board in 2016, and Walz (D) did the same in 2019.

A grim-faced Walz told reporters late Sunday that violence cannot be the way the country deals with its political differences: “This cannot be the norm.”

Boelter was captured late Sunday and charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder, according to a complaint unsealed Sunday night in Hennepin County District Court.

What details have officials shared on the attack?

Around 2 a.m. Saturday, the attacker first struck the home of Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin, authorities said. The couple were treated for multiple bullet wounds and remained hospitalized.

The suspect, wearing a badge and black body armor, then allegedly drove roughly five miles to the residence of Hortman and her husband, Mark, in Brooklyn Park and fatally shot them, the city’s police chief told reporters.

The gunman’s SUV resembled a “police vehicle” with flashing lights, officers who responded to the scene noted. But it became apparent that the man standing in Hortmans’ doorway was no colleague when he “immediately fired upon officers,” Mark Bruley, the police chief, said.

A shootout ensued, police said.

The gunman escaped toward a neighborhood golf course, setting off the two-day search. He left behind an SUV, in which police found the list of political leaders supporting abortion rights and other liberal causes.

According to the complaint, officers found at least three AK-47 assault rifles and a 9mm handgun in a Ford Explorer parked at the Hortman home.

Hoffman was injured by nine bullets and is getting “closer every hour to being out of the woods” as he undergoes surgeries, his wife said in a statement from the hospital Sunday that was posted by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) online.

Yvette Hoffman, who said she was shot eight times, said in the statement that the couple was “gutted and devastated” to hear that Hortman and her husband had been killed.

“We have no words,” Yvette Hoffman wrote. “There is never a place for this kind of political hate.”

What questions remain in the case?

Law enforcement officials are investigating whether Boelter acted as part of a network. However, they said they are confident that he carried out the shootings alone.

Officials have suggested it was a targeted attack but have not disclosed an exact motive. The specifics of Boelter’s political views and the details of the documents investigators found have not been publicly released.

Carlson, Boelter’s roommate, said he received text messages from Boelter this weekend saying he would be “gone for a while.”

Carlson said he read the messages to reporters, instead of sending screenshots, because he didn’t want the suspect’s wife to see the images of the texts on television.

“David and Ron, I love you guys,” the messages said, according to local news reports. “I made some choices, and you guys don’t know anything about this, but I’m going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn’t gone this way.”

In an earlier interview, Carlson called what happened in Minneapolis “a tragedy.”

“It’s a tragedy. That’s all I’ve got to say. Tragedy all around,” he said.