Exclusive: Roommate says financial woes, mental health – not politics – drove Minnesota shooting suspect to violence

The friend and part-time roommate of Vance Boelter, who allegedly killed a Minnesota state legislator and his wife and wounded two others, says Boelter’s actions couldn’t have been motivated by politics.

David Carlson spoke with The Lion on Monday about their relationship and the deadly shooting that took place early Saturday.

Vance, disguised as a police officer, allegedly shot and killed Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, after shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Hoffman and his wife were shot multiple times but survived.

Carlson, 59, who has known Boelter since childhood, spoke candidly about his grief amid growing media scrutiny. He and Boelter shared a house in Minneapolis on a part-time basis. 

Carlson dismissed the idea that Boelter’s political views – support for Donald Trump and a staunch pro-life stance – could have justified the killings in Boelter’s mind. 

“Killing people doesn’t change votes,” Carlson said, adding it was more likely his friend was overwhelmed by the financial strain of trying to start up a security company, which he said was a childhood dream of Boelter’s.

Multiple media reports said the murder suspect was trying to start a security company in Africa’s Congo.

“He wasn’t some master security guy, either,” Carlson said about Boelter. “That was a dream of his and he bought vehicles trying to get it going, but it never got going. He didn’t have any employees. He had no clients that I knew. You know, he always talked about it.”

Carlson, who was raised in the small, south-central Minnesota towns of Sleepy Eye and St. James, was happy to answer many questions but declined to share his current profession out of privacy concerns.

Carlson said he felt badgered by the media and had particular scorn for Fox News and the U.K.’s Daily Mail.

He accused Fox of calling Boelter a “psychopath,” which Carlson said he thought was unfair. 

“I used to think when shootings happen, ‘Man, that guy was crazy,’” Carlson said. “But right now, if you knew the guy, and grew up with the guy, and then one day, you just wake up and found out he did murder, you know, it’s just like, wow, how did this happen?”  

He also said a reporter from the U.K.’s Daily Mail offered him $1,000 to take photographs of Boelter’s room.  

At first, the reporter was trying “to help me bring in my groceries, trying to be a nice guy,” noting he felt the approach was “all exploitive.”

The reporter turned on him when the offer was refused, accusing Carlson of trying to protect a murderer, he said. 

Carlson told The Lion his reasoning: the police had just searched the room and everything was in disarray, so he worried a photograph would portray his friend as a “crazy guy, psychopath.”  

“I know the game,” he said about the media. 

Carlson also denied knowledge of whether Boelter’s wife once worked for Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat.

The website LegiStorm, which tracks staffing of members of Congress, indicates someone named Jennifer Boelter was an intern in then-Rep. Tim Walz’s office in 2010. 

Carlson said neither he nor Boelter supported Walz, pointing out once again that such political disagreements could never justify murder. 

“Why am I not killing?” he asked rhetorically. “I mean, I’m really pro-life, you know? You don’t represent the pro-life movement by committing murder.” 

Boelter served on a state workforce development board after being appointed by Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton and reappointed by Gov. Walz.

Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated assassination,” but the state was also quick to scrub any information about Boelter from its website.

Carlson said he understands people want quick, simple answers when events like this happen. 

“And then they’ll point fingers and both sides are arguing, and then it just explains and raises more temperature in the country about politics. Why can’t we just say it was [his] mental health?” he asked.