Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hartman and her husband Mark are lying in state in the Minnesota capital today Hartman and her husband were shot and killed in their home earlier this month in what authorities are calling a targeted attack their golden retriever Gilbert was seriously wounded in the shooting as well and had to be euthanized he will lie in state by their side members of the public will be able to pay their respects until 5:00 p.m.
today local time now today’s tribute comes on the same day as the accused gunman faces a judge in federal court Vance Bolter faces half a dozen charges including multiple counts of murder and stalking prosecutors say he was disguised as a police officer when he shot and killed the Hartman’s inside their home he’s also accused of shooting and wounding Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife now they survived the FBI says Bolter had a hit list of dozens of prosecutors including several from at least three other statelet’s bring in Anna Shaker
Minnesota House Democratic leader dead after targeted
she’s the senior coordinating producer for CBS News Crime and Public Safety Unit uh so Anna can you walk us through what’s happening at today’s proceedings sure well Vance Feltre uh walked into the federal courthouse um in St Paul and he had a public defender assigned to him and there was a little bit of courtroom drama because almost immediately she approached the judge and started explaining the horrific conditions she says that he’s in he is on suicide watch in a local county jail uh she said he hasn’t slept um
there’s loud banging lights are constantly on there’s an issue with the someone in the neighboring cell and she asked for a continuance so what that means is a delay so we haven’t even heard a plea from Vance Belter we expect to hear that likely next week um so today we kind of heard a little bit more about what life has been like he even addressed the judge uh telling the judge um I haven’t slept in about 12 to 14 days so I need to get my sleep is essentially what he was saying his lawyer said “I can’t even do my job cuz
Minnesota lawmaker killed in ‘politically motivated’
I can’t get him on the phone he’s he’s exhausted.” Um so that’s what happened and it was unexpected today um it was sort of an unusual hearing in federal court and federal prosecutors did not argue with that um essentially they agreed and so next week July 3rd we will likely hear more okay so July 3rd is really now the focus based on what happened today um you know what what do we know about the investigation into the shooting and and what the motive was here i mean
I think that’s what everyone’s wondering we actually know so much about this investigation because police put out a lot of information during that manhunt remember they didn’t find him for a whole 36 hours so as they were getting information you know surveillance camera images of him how he was on the run they were putting all of that out to the public now what they found in his vehicle was a list of more than 50 mostly Democrats
The targeted shootings of Minnesota Sen. John Hoffman
investigators tell CBS News um also abortion rights advocates who were on this list that investigators believe was essentially a hit list and that he was going down a line and the other thing we know is that he went to a total of four homes in the middle of the night and luckily he didn’t get to two of them and unfortunately he shot uh John Hoffman and then shot and killed Melissa Hartman and her husband well we know you’re going to continue following this and you’re always a very busy woman anna
