Woman recalls seeing Vance Boelter on foot, telling officer 'he's right there!' just before arrest

Paul Walsh, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Jun 16, 2025

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MINNEAPOLIS — Wendy Thomas said she was driving shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday, after stopping by a friend’s house to get a phone number, looked to her left and there he was, the most wanted of men in Minnesota.

“There is a person in the grass,” Thomas said Monday, her pace of speech accelerating as she recounted her unanticipated countryside encounter a few miles east of Green Isle.

She knew at that moment it had to be him, Vance Boelter, the subject of a two-day man hunt on allegations that he shot two state legislators and their spouses in their Twin Cities area homes.

“He walked toward the culvert, and he squatted,” she said, thinking her gaze must have made Boelter, dressed in black and muddied, lower his profile.

At first opportunity and while narrating the experience over the phone to her father, Thomas continued, “I throw my arms out the side of the truck to alert (officers). ‘Are you OK?’ ” she recalled one of them asking her.

“‘He’s right there!’” Thomas said she told the officers. “I’m pointing. But then I’m doubting myself. Am I wasting my time? I was just hysterical. I was freaking out.”

Moments later, Thomas said, “there was a heavy-duty truck and other vehicles coming from other directions” before bright lights shone as dusk settled in on the scene of the arrest.

As country life would have it, Thomas and Boelter crossed paths from time to time — under friendlier circumstances than Sunday night’s.

“This is crazy,” she said. “I did not think it was him.”

Thomas described Boelter as “more quiet and kept to himself. I know his wife. … I brought over some wood, and they were grateful. We had them over for a hog roast."

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