Within hours of the shooting of two lawmakers and their spouses in the US state of Minnesota, social media posts began claiming, without evidence, that Governor Tim Walz ordered a "political hit" on his rivals,

Authorities said in a news conference Sunday evening that Vance Boelter was not in custody.

Authorities are searching for a 57-year-old man whom they suspect of killing the Minnesota lawmaker and her husband.

The suspect wanted in the slaying of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, as well as in the injury shooting of a state senator and his wife, was found Sunday night armed and crawling in a field in a sparsely populated stretch of Minnesota,

In a hail of gunfire, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot dead in their Brooklyn Park home.

Authorities said Boelter exchanged gunfire with police outside the Hortmans' home before fleeing on foot.