MN lawmakers shooting: Meet the woman who spotted Vance Boelter right before his arrest
Green Isle residents help capture Vance Boelter
Vance Boelter was spotted Sunday by neighbors in Green Isle, leading to his arrest after a 43-hour manhunt.
GREEN ISLE, Minn. (FOX 9) - Wendy Thomas still can’t fully process what happened on Sunday night. She figured Vance Boelter was headed out of state, not lurking in grassy fields so close to his own home.
"I’m still processing it, I’m shocked that it was him," she told FOX 9, standing on the driveway where she spotted him.
"I’m shocked that it all panned out the way that it did."
Neighbor details spotting Vance Boelter leading to arrest
A Green Isle resident spotted Vance Boelter on Sunday, eventually leading to his arrest in rural Sibley County.
A chance sighting of a lone man
The backstory:
Sunday night, Wendy had gone to pick up a neighborhood address book from a home about mile and a half to the west of Boelter’s property.
As she began driving back down her friend’s driveway, she saw a lone person walking in the marshy grass along the driveway. She didn’t immediately think it was Boelter, but she certainly got suspicious, since her friend was out of town.
She got more suspicious when the man dropped to hide when she got near.
As it was Father’s Day, she was on the phone with her dad.
"Dad’s like hang up the phone, call it in. And I’m like dad, he just ducked because I know there’s a culvert here. So when he had got to the culvert he had ducked. I could still see him."
The manhunt tightens
What happened next:
Wendy didn’t need to call 911, since a deputy happened to be passing by as she reached the end of the driveway.
Law enforcement was there in force since the car Boelter had been driving was found abandoned early Sunday about five miles away. Then, Sunday afternoon, a trail camera picked up him just south of where Wendy was, so the law enforcement presence was strong.
The officer took her tip and told her to head to the roadblock at County Road 11 for her own safety.
"As I was turning my truck," she said, "I could see him clear as day, just squatting there and I’m like that’s a person!"
It was about 90 minutes later when word of Boelter’s arrest came down. He’d emerged from the field at nearly the same spot where Wendy had first seen him duck away.
Surprised neighbors
What they're saying:
Kevin Effertz owns the property where Boelter was surrounded. He’s known him casually for a few years, having plowed snow at his home.
"A guy you shake your hand with him and everything else and then he does this," he said. "It’s really strange."
He had a hard time believing this was the same Boelter that lived a few properties over.
"Every time I talk to him, it’s just here and there about plowing snow or whatever, five ten minutes here or there," he told FOX 9. "But he never had any political views that we talked about. It was always about the weather, what’s going on, how’s your family, stuff like that."