Man who killed Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman receives consecutive life sentences

Vance Boelter was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years for shooting one Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and killing another and her husband last year.

Boelter, 58, was sentenced after pleading guilty to stalking and murdering former Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, in their Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, home on June 14, 2025.

Melissa Hortman was a Catholic who once taught Sunday school and volunteered in her parish’s children’s faith formation program.

She and her husband “had been a part of the St. Timothy Parish community,” Father Joe Whalen, the pastor of the Blaine, Minnesota, parish, said in a statement following the murders.

U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim sentenced Boelter in federal court on July 23.

Boelter was also sentenced for the stalking and shooting of Sen. John Hoffman, D-Minnesota, and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, and the attempted shooting of their daughter Hope Hoffman, who all survived Boelter’s attack in their Champlin, Minnesota, home.

Boelter previously pleaded guilty June 11 to the six charges including two stalkings, two murders through use of a firearm, and two federal firearm-shooting offenses.…