Wendy Thomas knew that Minnesota’s largest-ever dragnet was trained on her neighbor, Vance Luther Boelter, the suspect in a crime that has shocked Minnesota and the nation.

“I thought he was long gone,” Thomas said as police searched for Boelter, the man accused of ambushing two state lawmakers at their suburban Minneapolis homes.

State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, survived multiple gunshot wounds early on June 14.

A tip from Thomas led police to Boelter near his home, even though she doubted her own eyes in the fading evening light of June 15.

Thomas, 43, gave The Epoch Times a detailed description of the events that unfolded before Boelter’s arrest on the night of June 15. She and others also provided more insights about the suspect and his possible motives, as did police statements, public records, and videos featuring Boelter’s own words.

Before tipping off police, Thomas was in her truck near her home. She spotted a person in dark clothing crawling through the high grass of her rural neighborhood in Green Isle, Minnesota.

She initially thought that the dark-clad individual was among the police force that had been scouring the area for Boelter.

But Thomas realized that it made no sense for a lone officer to be there with no backup or police vehicle nearby. She said she “drove right past him” and then saw the person hide in a culvert. She did not know whether the man saw her. Her concerns grew.

Thomas spotted a police cruiser, apparently part of the manhunt. She waved her arms to get the officer’s attention and relayed her observations.

Her mind raced. Thomas worried that she might have been “wasting everyone’s time.”

Thomas previously had limited contact with the Boelters, who lived a few doors away. She described the family as “very Christian.”

“They came to a party we had last year,“ she said. ”They were very appreciative, respectful.”

Thomas detected nothing amiss.

As to why Boelter came so close to his family home, knowing that the police were following his trail, Thomas said she and another neighbor believe that “he wanted to die at home.”

When Boelter appeared in federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 16, he told a judge that he could not afford an attorney. Court records show that a federal public defender, Katherian Roe, is the lead attorney representing him. The Epoch Times has sought comment from Roe and a second lawyer. Boelter’s next federal court hearing is set for June 27.

Boelter also lived part-time with roommates in northern Minneapolis—an arrangement that may have been for Boelter’s convenience, because the family homestead is about an hour’s drive away from the city, Thomas said. Living in a second location near the city is a common practice for Green Isle residents, she said.

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Boelter reported earning a doctorate in 2016 from Cardinal Stritch University, a now-defunct private Catholic college in Wisconsin. Boelter and his wife founded Revoformation Ministries, a nonprofit. They moved to Minnesota about 15 years ago.

His most recent known job—other than his own businesses—was at Metro First Call, a mortuary service company.

Owner Tim Koch told The Epoch Times that Boelter worked for the company—which offers transport, embalming, and cremation—for nearly two years. He left voluntarily in February.

Koch said it would be “irresponsible” to say more, other than offering condolences to the shooting victims’ families.

Boelter also formed Praetorian Security Services.

That is the type of vehicle that Boelter drove to his crime scenes, authorities allege.

Before the shootings, Boelter allegedly texted two roommates, telling them that he loved them and that he might end up dead.

A court record shows that he also wrote a text to his family in the aftermath that reads, “Dad went to war last night ... I don’t wanna say more because I don’t want to implicate anybody.”

First, the suspect allegedly went to the Hoffmans’ home in Champlin, driving a black SUV equipped with emergency lights and a fake license plate reading, “POLICE.”

The silicone-masked man told the family that he was a police officer and blinded them with an illuminated flashlight, the affidavit states. After the Hoffmans recognized that he was impersonating an officer, the gunman opened fire. The Hoffmans’ adult daughter called the police.

He drove to a second suburb, Maple Grove, and rang the doorbell at 2:24 a.m., but his intended target—another state lawmaker—was on vacation and not at home, according to court records.

The suspect’s third stop was in New Hope, police stated. There, his plans were thwarted. He encountered police who were doing a wellness check at an undisclosed officeholder’s home in the wake of the Hoffmans’ shootings, the affidavit states.

Finally, authorities allege that Boelter went to the Brooklyn Park home of Hortman at about 3:30 a.m.

When police arrived, they saw the suspect standing near the front door.

“Moments later, Boelter fired several gunshots into the home,” a Justice Department statement reads.

The suspect ran through the house and escaped on foot, leaving the SUV behind.

A few blocks away, investigators found other evidence, including a disassembled Beretta 92 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Boelter had bought it 25 years ago.

Using cellphone data, investigators tracked down Boelter’s wife, Jenny. She consented to a search of her phone and vehicle. In addition to text messages from her husband, officers found two handguns; $10,000 in cash; and passports for her and the Boelter children, who were in the car.

Thomas said she doubts that Boelter’s wife would have fled, based on her personality. She described Jenny Boelter as “calm,“ ”monotone,” and “super Christian.”

Investigators tracked down a witness who told police that Boelter, whom he had just met, bought an electric bike from him at about 7 a.m. on June 14 at a north Minneapolis bus stop.

Boelter also arranged to buy the man’s Buick sedan, the witness said. The two men drove to Robbinsdale, Minnesota, where Boelter allegedly withdrew $2,200 from an automatic banking machine, emptying his account. Cameras captured him wearing a cowboy hat.

At about 2:30 a.m. on June 15, officers received a tip about a person riding an e-bike about two miles east of the Boelter home in Green Isle.

Officers found the just-purchased Buick abandoned on a highway near the reported e-bike sighting.

After using a drone to ensure that the car was not booby-trapped, investigators searched the Buick. They found a cowboy hat and a handwritten confession addressed to the FBI. Boelter admitted to “being the shooter at large” in the two Minnesota shootings, the FBI affidavit states.

In 2021, he told a congregation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that he had dedicated himself to God and Christian teachings and was living “a moral life”—no drinking alcohol, smoking, or cursing.

Boelter fell to his knees during his sermon, demonstrating how he thanked God for changing him into “a person who cared about other people first.”

Boelter said he harbored no bitterness for his friend’s killers because “if they had known Jesus, they wouldn’t have done that.”

He described feeling such joy for Christ that he felt like dancing. To express that emotion, Boelter hopped on one foot, then the other, spinning and exclaiming praises aloud as sermon attendees cheered.

Welner, who teaches at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, said there is a common thread among suspects accused of “spectacle crimes”—those sure to draw extensive publicity.

“[These alleged perpetrators] see the murder of ‘a somebody’ as a cure for being ‘nobody,’” he told The Epoch Times.

Boelter survived unscathed, Welner said, and now he is taking in “the fruit of his spectacle”—notoriety for himself and his ideological cause, whatever that might be.

Welner, chairman of The Forensic Panel—a group of scientists who assist courts—said more exploration is needed “to untangle the rational or irrational aspects” of Boelter’s motivation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the death of the state representative, a fellow Democrat, “a politically motivated assassination.” The wounded state senator is also a Democrat.

Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said pinning down motivation for the attacks will require more digging.

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