Sophie Hortman, Colin Hortman, and Gov. Tim Walz stand behind the caskets of Melissa and Mark Hortman during funeral services for Mark and Melissa Hortman at The Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, Minn., on Saturday, June 28, 2025. Mark and Melissa Hortman were shot and killed in their homes on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Alex Kormann/Minnesota Star Tribune pool photo)
MINNEAPOLIS —Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman’s life embodied the American dream. She was raised in a family that owned a junkyard, became a lawyer but declined a life of comfortable wealth for public service, emerging as among the most influential legislators in Minnesota history.
Now she’s an emblem of the American nightmare, another victim — along with husband Mark Hortman and their golden retriever Gilbert — of the political violence that’s consumed America in the past decade, adding Brooklyn Park to Buffalo, El Paso and other grim signposts of a damaged democracy…