Guns by the dozens, cash, disguises: Court filing lists what investigators found in Minnesota shooting suspect's home
Published in News & Features
MINNEAPOLIS — State criminal investigators were inside the Green Isle home of Vance Boelter within hours of the political shootings he’s charged with carrying out, scooping up guns by the dozens, a stash of money and disguises, according to a new court filing.
A search warrant affidavit in connection with the predawn shootings Saturday includes an inventory running more than seven pages detailing what the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension seized from Boelter’s home outside Green Isle in the hours after Judge Charles Webber gave the go-ahead.
Boelter, 57, was arrested Sunday night near his residence on murder and attempted murder charges stemming from the wounding of State Sen. John Hoffman and wife Yvette Hoffman in their Champlin home, and the killings of State Rep. Melissa Hortman and husband Mark Hortman soon afterward in their Brooklyn Park residence.
The BCA said it found roughly four dozen guns including pistols, semiautomatic firearms, pistol-grip rifles, rifles capable of firing multiple types of ammunition, a .357 Magnum revolver, several shotguns, and a rifle with a scope.
The BCA seizure list included a notecard “w/public officials’ names/states” in a main-floor desk. The recently unsealed federal complaint written during Boelter’s flight read that “there is probable cause to believe that Boelter has fled the State of Minnesota in order to avoid prosecution, custody, and confinement.”
The guns were in various locations including two in an outbuilding, and others in the basement’s storage area and in safes on the main and upper floors.
Ample amounts of ammunition and magazines — enough to be stored in a tote and tub — were also located and seized during the search.
The search also turned up a full-body military-style camouflage suit, and numerous masks of various styles and colors, among them one depicting the Japanese demon Prajna. Boelter is accused of wearing a Halloween-style latex mask during the shootings.
Apart from the arsenal, the BCA also seized nearly $18,000 in cash from a safe in an upstairs hallway closet, and a cardboard silhouette and a traditional shooting target placed in an exterior trash bin.
Various computer towers and laptops, well as a cellphone were also seized for analysis of its data.
(Staff writer Sarah Nelson contributed to this report.)
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