A page in a notebook of the man charged with shooting Twin Cities legislators and their spouses was titled “Finding people.”
And the notes that followed, according to federal charges, weren’t top-secret methods: Vance Boelter, 57, listed websites that are readily available to look up people to find their addresses and names of relatives. Some are government websites that are free and others are private people-search engines, according to the federal charges against him.
“Anyone with a credit card can get this information,” said Todd Axtell, former St. Paul police chief who now runs the Axtell Group, which consults with corporations on executive protection.
The criminal complaint doesn’t specify what methods Boelter ultimately used to find the addresses of the four legislators whose homes he’s accused of going to early Saturday.
Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were photographed Friday, June 13, 2025, at the annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Minnesota House DFL Caucus)
He is charged in the fatal shootings of Democratic-Farmer-Labor state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, at their Brooklyn Park home, and in the shootings that injured DFL state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, at their Champlin house.
After the violence, the Minnesota Legislature removed lawmakers’ home addresses from its website, though not all legislators’ addresses were included in their online bios. Hoffman’s address was previously listed on the website; it didn’t appear Hortman’s had been recently.
But a search by the Pioneer Press on one of the various websites that Boelter had written in a notebook quickly turned up Hortman’s address. The search cost $0.95 for a single record with seven-day trial membership. A more detailed search was available for another $19.95.
Internet data privacy service sees spike in subscribers
Various people-search engine websites say they source information from public records, mailing lists, surveys, public social media profiles and other sources.
One of the sites suggests people can use its info to date safely online and reconnect with old friends. It includes reviews from a man who said he used the website to find a phone number after a crash because the driver initially gave him an incorrect phone number, and from another man who said he checked out someone he was going to buy a puppy from, which kept him from being scammed.
Axtell said he subscribes to a people-finder website for research for his security consulting firm.
People-search engines include instructions about how individuals can have their information removed from the sites.
DeleteMe, an internet data privacy service, has seen an approximately 300 percent increase in daily subscribers, co-founder Rob Shavell said Tuesday. The service, which costs $129 a year for one person, says it removes “your personal information that’s being sold online.”
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“This is a horrific trend,” Shavell said of the violence in Minnesota and instances in other states. “… All enabled by data brokers collecting and selling personal info on every American.”
In 2020, authorities say a man who’d found the address and personal information online of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas posed as a deliveryman when he went to her New Jersey house, and fatally shot her 20-year-old son and wounded her husband.
In 2022, when the husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked in their California home, their address was “hardly a secret,” Politico wrote. The Pelosi house had been the site of political protests and defacement.
“Unfortunately, we know the tragedy of when political violence hits home very well,” Pelosi wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday after the Minnesota lawmakers were targeted.
Internet makes targeting easier
Since UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, of Maple Grove, was gunned down on a New York street, security experts have been hearing more from business executives.
While they have the financial resources for security assessments of their homes and other measures, “state lawmakers aren’t necessarily wealthy people, so my heart really goes out to them,” said Carol “Rollie” Flynn, formerly executive director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and now president of the Arkin Group, a security and intelligence firm based in New York.
Still, an initial assessment can help public figures determine “what they really need,” she said.
In the Twin Cities shootings, Boelter is accused of posing as a police officer and ambushing the two couples at their homes in the middle of the night. “That makes it pretty hard if you sleep in your residence and a suspect shows up at 2 o’clock in the morning,” Flynn said.
For public officials, there’s a balance between being available to constituents and protecting their own safety, Axtell said. As police chief, Axtell was the subject of threats, and said he was fortunate they didn’t lead to anyone going to his home.
In his work now, Axtell recommends executives hire services that continually review any online personal information about them, their families and their home addresses.
Some people advise, to keep personal information from public property tax records, to buy a house under a limited liability company, but that can also bring financial drawbacks, Flynn noted.
Political assassinations, while rare, have been seen throughout history. “But the … profiling of individuals who are potential targets has become easier because of the internet,” Flynn said.
Matt Ehling, board member of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information, expects lawmakers’ home addresses will be a future topic at the Legislature.
“It’s a terrible, tragic situation, and legislators will obviously be looking for a way to address this kind of thing going forward,” he said. “In a democratic and free society … there has to be a way for the public to reach out and interact with their public officials. And so those things are … going to be looking for a balancing point.”
Judges’ home addresses protected
In addition to home addresses being stricken from the Minnesota Legislature’s website, the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board removed home addresses from its website last weekend.
After the killing of the federal judge’s son in New Jersey, Congress passed the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act in 2022.
Ramsey County Senior Judge John Guthmann, co-chair of the Minnesota District Judges Association’s judicial safety committee, has been working on protecting judges’ home addresses from public access in Minnesota.
When he was elected as a judge in 2010, Guthmann’s certificate of election included his home address and was posted on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website. He asked to have his address redacted or the document taken down and worked with the Minnesota Judicial Branch for two years, but was told it was a public document and would remain online.
After a law passed in the 2024 legislative session to make home addresses of judges private information, Guthmann said the certificate of election with his home address was finally removed from the state website within an hour of his requesting again that it be taken down.
Additional provisions passed in this year’s legislative session will mean judges’ home addresses won’t appear in public property tax records when requested.
“I think this type of protection is really important for all public officials, as evidenced by our recent events,” Guthmann said. “Someone should not have to die in order to bring attention to the need for this kind of protection. Public officials sacrifice a lot just to be in the position they are to do good for the public, and no one intended to perform public service at the cost of their life or the life of their loved ones.”
Safe at Home program
Minnesota has a program, called Safe at Home, that anyone can apply to for address confidentiality.
There are approximately 40 states with a similar program, though Minnesota is one of few that allows broad eligibility, according to Dianna Umidon, Safe at Home director. While domestic violence is the most reported reason that people apply, Safe at Home is open for anyone who fears for their personal safety.
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People with safety concerns due to their profession are eligible to apply and, since 2020, the state has seen an increase in people applying for that reason, Umidon said. There are about 5,000 people enrolled in Safe at Home, of which approximately half are children of people in the program.
The program has received some inquiries about applying over the past few days, but Umidon said it’s too soon to note if it will be a trend.
Safe at Home provides a government-issued post office address in lieu of a person’s real address for all interactions.
“There is no way to truly and effectively erase information that has already been shared, disseminated and made public,” Umidon said. “It’s virtually impossible to put toothpaste back in the tube. Therefore, relocation around the time of enrollment is the only way for Safe at Home to be an effective safety strategy.”
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