Vance Boelter extracted eyeballs from corpses for a living, on call night of double murder

Vance Boelter, 57, is accused of murdering Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, along with wounding another politician and his wife. Boelter, who had been working as a mortuary science technician, was extracting eyeballs at a funeral home just hours before the attack.

His roommate, David Carlson, recalled, “He’d always said, ‘I need rest for work so I’m sharp’ because he was extracting eyeballs. You gotta be sharp for that,” Carlson said. "I need rest for work so I’m sharp," Boelter said on the night of the incident.

Boelter has taken mortuary science courses over the past couple of years and had been employed at two funeral homes until leaving one in February 2025.