A Minnesota woman who helped police capture shooting suspect Vance Boelter on Sunday night first thought it was a member of law enforcement she saw lurking and squatting in a nearby field.
But when Wendy Thomas realized there was no one else around and no police cars, “I started freaking out,” she told reporters.
She flagged down an officer in Green Isle, and less than two hours later Boelter was in custody for the shooting deaths of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband as well as injuring two others early Saturday morning.
The intense two-day manhunt ended in Sibley County, about a mile from Boelter’s home.
“I didn’t think he was in the area at all. I thought he was long gone,” Thomas said, who was on the phone with her father when she went to a friend’s house in Green Isle to pick up an address book at around 8 p.m. local time.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, they’re clearing properties.’ That’s what I figured it was,” she said. “And the more my brain registered, I’m like, ‘Dad, there’s only one person. There’s no vehicle.’ And then I started freaking out.”
Thomas said she flagged down an officer who was driving down the road.
“I rolled down the window and started waving … ‘He said is everything OK?’ … I said no, there is somebody here, there is somebody in the culvert,” Thomas said. “And I started pointing, there he is, there he is.”
Police then used a speaker to call for Boelter to come out of the field and surrender, KSTP reported.
In addition to gunning down state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, police say Boelter first shot and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Boelter faces federal murder, stalking, and firearms charges.
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