Accused assassin Vance Boelter said US was ‘turning against Israel’
Vance Boelter — the man accused of shooting dead a US Democrat and her husband and seriously wounding two others — had grown increasingly religious and pro-Israel in the years before the attack.
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Accused Minnesota assassin Vance Boelter expressed fears the US was “turning against Israel” years before he allegedly carried out a sickening political assassination, a former work acquaintance claimed.
Boelter, 57, appeared to become increasingly frustrated by society in the years leading up to the twisted attack and had warned that the US was losing its “Judaic/Christian foundations,” Charlie Kalech, CEO of a web design firm commissioned by Boelter, told ABC News in the US.
Kalech’s firm, J-Town, was chosen by Boelter because they are Jerusalem-based and he wanted to show support for Israel, he said, adding that he worked with Boelter for more than a decade doing web design for various projects.
While working on a concept for a book Boelter had written called “Revoformation,” Kalech said the accused assassin said American leadership “is slowly turning against Israel.”
“I am very concerned that the leadership in the US is slowly turning against Israel because we are losing our Judaic/Christian foundations that was [sic] once very strong,” he wrote in a PowerPoint presentation he sent to Kalech in September 2017 about “Revoformation.”
Kalech took the name of the book to be a mashup between “revolution” and “reformation.”
“I believe that if the Christians are united and the people who are leading this Revoformation are a blessing to Israel that it will be good for both Israel and the US,” the presentation continued.
“Revoformation” was also the name of a ministry that Boelter tried to start, ABC News reported.
Neither the book or the ministry ever appeared to get off the ground.”It seemed to me like maybe he volunteered more than what was good for him,” Kalech said.
“In other words, he gave too much away instead of worrying about earning money, because he didn’t always have money. It was never clear to me if the ministry really existed. Are there congregants? Is there a constituency? I don’t know. Or was it like something in his head that he was trying to make? That was never clear to me.”
Despite his naivety, Boelter didn’t obviously demonstrate any signs of radicalism that could have inspired him to allegedly murder a congresswoman and her husband in cold blood, and target many others, Kalech said.
“I think he sincerely believed in the projects that we worked on, that he was acting for the greater good. I certainly never got the impression he saw himself as a savior. He just thought of himself as a smart guy who figured out the solution to problems, and it’s not so difficult — so let’s just do it,” Kalech said.
Kalech last had contact with Boelter in May 2022, he said.
Among Boelter’s other schemes was a project to end hunger in America, according to a PowerPoint presentation he sent to Kalech.”We should be embarrassed as a nation that we let this happen and have not correctly [sic] this injustice 100 years ago,” one slide read.
Boelter remains in federal custody on charges of murdering Minnesota Democrat Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and of trying to assassinate state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette on Friday night.
ACCUSED ASSASSIN’S GRUESOME JOB REVEALED
It has also been revealed that Boelter’s most recent job was extracting eyeballs from corpses at a funeral home.
Boelter — a 57-year-old married father who allegedly murdered Democratic state politician Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their dog, Gilbert, and wounded another Minnesota politician and his wife on Saturday — was carrying out his gruesome extraction work as part of an organ donation program, former friend and roommate David Carlson told The New York Post.
“I knocked on his door, and I said, ‘Hey Vance, are you there?’,” Carlson recalled of his interaction with the accused killer — just hours before Boelter unleashed his carnage.
“He goes, ‘Yeah, I’m in bed, and I’m trying to get some rest for work’,” Carlson said from the home in north Minneapolis where Boelter rented a room from him.
“He’d always said, ‘I need rest for work so I’m sharp’ because he was extracting eyeballs. You gotta be sharp for that,” Carlson said.
That day, Boelter also eerily thanked Carlson and their other roommates for their friendship.
It wasn’t unusual for Boelter — who once worked in the food industry and also as a manager at a 7-Eleven — to go to bed so early so he could be on call for work.
Boelter was on call for 12 hours on the night he allegedly murdered the Hortmans at their Brooklyn Park home and tried to assassinate Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in nearby Champlin.
He worked six days a week between two funeral homes — helping one of the businesses remove bodies from crime scenes, the Post reported.
The alleged assassin had taken courses in mortuary science in 2023 and 2024 at an Iowa community college, a rep for Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) told Local 5.
It isn’t known whether Boelter carried out the mortuary science courses in person or online. Both are offered by DMACC, the representative said, citing federal privacy laws.
Boelter has not been a student at DMACC since 2024.
He was working for a funeral home in Savage, a southern suburb of Minneapolis, before leaving his job voluntarily in February, his former employer said, without elaborating.
“We would like to extend our thoughts and condolences to the families of Rep. Hortman and Sen. Hoffman,” Metro First Call funeral home said in a statement to KARE 11 after Boelter’s arrest.
“This is devastating news for all involved. As far as Vance Boelter is concerned, he worked for our company from August 28, 2023, until he voluntarily left on February 20, 2025.”
ACCUSED FACING DEATH PENALTY
Boelter has been hit with federal murder and stalking charges and could face the death penalty, prosecutors said Monday — as they detailed how he carried out the cold-blooded shootings that rocked Minnesota.
Acting US Attorney Joseph Thompson gave a rundown of the six federal charges against Boelter at a press conference Monday morning, stemming from Sunday’s ambush attack of the Minnesota politicians and their spouses, which he called “the stuff of nightmares.”
Included among the charges are two counts of stalking, two firearms offences for the non-fatal shootings of Mr Hoffman and his wife Yvette, and two counts of murder for the killings of former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.
The penalties for the six counts range from 20 years in prison to life, with the death penalty on the table for the federal murder charges, despite Minnesota abolishing it in 1911.
Thompson said Boelter meticulously planned his attack, researching the victims and their families and conducting surveillance of their homes.
When police searched his black SUV — which was outfitted with police lights and a police license plate — they found five additional firearms, including assault-style rifles and a “large quantity” of ammunition.
Boelter allegedly disguised himself as a police officer, then shot and killed the Democratic state representative and her husband at their home early Saturday.
DRAMATIC CAPTURE CAUGHT ON CAMERA
He was captured in Sibley County, a rural area about an hour southwest of the Minneapolis suburbs where the killings occurred, police and state officials said.
“After (a) two-day manhunt, two sleepless nights, law enforcement have apprehended Vance Boelter,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz told a late-night news conference.
Police said he was taken into custody without the use of force after the largest manhunt in the state’s history, with 20 SWAT teams and several agencies working to find him.
A Sibley County resident reported their camera captured an image that “was consistent with Boelter”, local media reported citing authorities.
SWAT teams converged on the area and used drones to identify the suspect’s location. Boelter attempted to evade arrest but officers crawled through ditches in the area’s farm fields to confine him, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
POLITICIANS NAMED IN HITLIST
A notebook containing the names of other politicians and potential targets was found inside a car left by Boelter at the Hortmans’ home, which Drew Evans, head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said Sunday was not a “traditional manifesto.”
The attacks renewed fears of persistent political violence in America.
“(This is) a moment in this country where we watch violence erupt,” Walz said after the arrest.
“This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences.” US President Donald Trump has condemned the attacks in Minnesota on the politicians and their spouses. The president was asked in a Sunday interview with ABC News if he planned to call Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the election Mr Trump won last year.
“Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person,” Mr Trump said.
“But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.”
PHOTO OF BOELTER IN HALLOWEEN MASK RELEASED
At the height of the search the FBI released a chilling image of the Halloween mask-wearing Boelter — who was a former appointee of Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Boelter lists himself on LinkedIn as the CEO of the Red Lion Group, which is based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He left behind a “manifesto” in his car listing the names of 70 politicians, including Mr Walz and his deputy Peggy Flanagan, and a stack of papers stating “No Kings” in reference to the nationwide anti-Trump protests, according to police
The apparent hit list included abortion providers, clinics and Planned Parenthood, sources told The New York Post. Both of the Democrats he targeted were pro-choice.
– Additional reporting by Tiffany Bakker, Zoe Smith, Adella Beaini
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