The man accused of assassinating the top Democrat in the Minnesota House held deeply religious and politically conservative views, telling a congregation in Africa two years ago that the U.S. was in a “bad place” where most churches didn’t oppose abortion.

Authorities say 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter allegedly impersonated a police officer and gunned down former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their suburban Minneapolis home. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz described the early Saturday shooting as “a politically motivated assassination.”Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were shot earlier by the same gunman at their home nearby but survived.

On Sunday evening, Boelter was arrested in rural Sibley County following a two-day manhunt.

Friends and former colleagues interviewed by the Associated Press described Boelter as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for President Donald Trump. Records show Boelter registered to vote as a Republican while living in Oklahoma in 2004 before moving to Minnesota where voters don’t list party affiliation.

Near the scene at Hortman’s home, authorities say they found an SUV made to look like those used by law enforcement. Inside they found fliers for a local anti-Trump “No Kings” rally scheduled for Saturday and a notebook with names of other lawmakers. The list also included the names of abortion-rights advocates and health care officials, according to two law enforcement officials who could not discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

Both Hortman and Hoffman were defenders of abortion rights at the state Legislature.

Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said at a briefing Sunday that Boelter is not believed to have made any public threats before the attacks. Evans asked the public not to speculate on a motivation for the attacks.

“We often want easy answers for complex problems,” he told reporters. “Those answers will come as we complete the full picture of our investigation.”

Friends told the AP that they knew Boelter was religious and conservative, but that he didn’t talk about politics often and didn’t seem extreme.

“He was right-leaning politically but never fanatical, from what I saw, just strong beliefs,” said Paul Schroeder, who has known Boelter for years.

Beliefs on Africa trip

Boelter, who described himself online as a security contractor, gave a glimpse of his beliefs on abortion during a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023. While there, Boelter served as an evangelical pastor, telling people he had first found Jesus as a teenager.

“The churches are so messed up, they don’t know abortion is wrong in many churches,” he said, according to an online recording of one sermon from February 2023. Still, in three lengthy sermons reviewed by the AP, he only mentioned abortion once, focusing more on his love of God and what he saw as the moral decay in his native country.

He appears to have hidden his more strident beliefs from his friends back home.

“He never talked to me about abortion,” Schroeder said. “It seemed to be just that he was a conservative Republican who naturally followed Trump.”

A married father with five children, Boelter and his wife own a 3,800-square-foot house on a large rural lot in Sibley County about an hour southwest of the Twin Cities that the couple bought in 2023 for more than $500,000.

Reinventing himself

He worked for decades in managerial roles for food and beverage manufacturers before seeking to reinvent himself in middle age, according to résumés and a video he posted online.

After getting an undergraduate degree in international relations from St. Cloud State University in his 20s, Boelter went back to school and earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in leadership studies in 2016 from Cardinal Stritch University, a private Catholic college in Milwaukee that has since shut down. While living in Wisconsin, records show Boelter and his wife, Jenny, founded a nonprofit corporation called Revoformation Ministries, listing themselves as the president and secretary.

After moving to Minnesota about a decade ago, Boelter volunteered for a position on a nonpartisan state workforce development board, first appointed by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2016, and later by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. He served through 2023.

In that position, he may have crossed paths with one of his alleged victims. Hoffman served on the same board, though authorities said it was not immediately clear how much the two men may have interacted.

Brewing troubles

Records show Boelter and his wife started a security firm in 2018. A website for Praetorian Guard Security Services lists Boelter’s wife as the president and CEO while he is listed as the director of security patrols. The company’s homepage says it provides armed security for property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone black and silver pattern similar to a police vehicle, with a light bar across the roof and “Praetorian” painted across the doors. Another photo shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a ballistic vest with the company’s name across the front. Aside from the website, the company appears to have little presence online.

In an expansive online résumé, Boelter also billed himself as a security contractor who worked oversees in trouble spots in the Middle East and Africa. On his trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he told Chris Fuller, a friend, that he had founded several companies focused on farming and fishing on the Congo River, as well as in transportation and tractor sales.

“It has been a very fun and rewarding experience and I only wished I had done something like this 10 years ago,” he wrote in a message shared with the AP.

But once he returned home in 2023, there were signs that Boelter was struggling financially. That August, he began working for a transport service for a Twin Cities mortuary, mostly picking up bodies of those who had died in assisted-living facilities — a job he described as he needed to do to pay bills. Tim Koch, the owner of Metro First Call, said Boelter “voluntarily left” that position about four months ago.

“This is devastating news for all involved,” Koch said, declining to elaborate on the reasons for Boelter’s departure, citing the ongoing law enforcement investigation.

Boelter had also started spending some nights away from his family, renting a room in a modest house in North Minneapolis shared by friends. Heavily armed police executed a search warrant on the home Saturday.

In the hours before Saturday’s shootings, Boelter texted two roommates to tell them he loved them and that “I’m going to be gone for a while,” according to Schroeder, who was forwarded the text and read it to the AP.

“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,” Boelter wrote. “I don’t want to say anything more and implicate you in any way because you guys don’t know anything about this. But I love you guys and I’m sorry for the trouble this has caused.”