The timeline: The terror began at 2 a.m. Saturday. The manhunt ended in a field nearly two days later.

The terror began with a predawn knock at a lawmaker’s door and gunshots from a man impersonating a police officer. It escalated with a police sergeant’s hunch to check another lawmaker’s home nearby, where police discovered two bodies and exchanged gunfire with a suspect who eventually fled through the back door.

And it dragged on for nearly two days, with suspect Vance Boelter evading a massive law enforcement dragnet that included suburban and urban neighborhoods, and rural fields and woods.

The pursuit of Boelter ended in rural Minnesota on Sunday after dusk, when law enforcement officials took Boelter into custody.

“One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Walz said at a news briefing later Sunday night.

The shockwaves reverberated through the state with the news Saturday morning that Minnesota House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, seriously wounded.

Hours before the tragedy unfolded, Hortman and Hoffman spent Friday night among colleagues at their party’s annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner, where Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker spoke.

Boelter spent that same night at the north Minneapolis home of a childhood friend, who told the Minnesota Star Tribune he was renting a room there while working in the metro area.

Boelter would later text his friend, “I wish it hadn’t gone this way.”

This account is based on interviews, statements and documents provided by law enforcement. Boelter has not spoken publicly and, as of this writing, it was not clear if he had been assigned a lawyer.

Police and medics were called to Hoffman’s split-level home in Champlin, south of the Mississippi River, at 2:05 a.m. Saturday. Charges reported that a caller said a masked man had come to the door “and then shot their parents.”

Surveillance footage revealed that Boelter, wearing a mask, blue shirt, and “police-style tactical vest,” knocked on the front door and announced himself as a police officer before entering and shooting the politician and his wife, according to charges. He had what officials described as a “yellow-gripped gun.”

Over the police scanner, an official asked for two rooms at Mercy Hospital, about 6 miles away.

“One female victim,” an official radioed, talking about Yvette Hoffman. “3 GSWs [gunshot wounds]. Two to abdomen. One to arm.”

“Advise Mercy, we have an older male, multiple gunshot wounds. … Two to the chest, one to the abdomen … left elbow. He’s definitely got bleeding going on his stomach as well," the audio obtained by the Star Tribune continued.

A “very intuitive” Brooklyn Park police sergeant assisting Champlin police asked officers to check on Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman’s home about 6 miles southeast, out of “due diligence,” Brooklyn Park Chief Mark Bruley said at a news conference.

Approaching Hortman’s house at about 3:35 a.m., officers noticed “a vehicle that looked exactly like an SUV squad car” in the driveway with emergency lights on, the police chief said.

The officers then witnessed Boelter, “still dressed as a police officer,” shoot Mark Hortman through the open door of the home, charges said.

“This is somebody that clearly had been impersonating a police officer ... using the trust of this badge and this uniform to manipulate their way into the home,” Bruley said.

The suspect moved back into the house after police began exchanging gunfire.

A medic on the scanner said, “The shooter is still in the house,” with sirens in the background. “They believe barricaded with the firearm.”

The officers looked into the home and reported seeing a man who “was down, clearly had been struck by gunfire,” Bruley said. They then made “limited” entry into the home, where they believed the shooter was hiding, and dragged the gunshot victim, Mark Hortman, outside. He was pronounced dead shortly after aid was administered.

Officers including SWAT officials surrounded the home and flew a drone inside, where they found a second gunshot victim, Melissa Hortman, who also died.

Officials believe the suspect escaped through the back of the home.

In the SUV, officials found lists of targets that included “prominent pro-choice individuals in Minnesota, including many Democratic lawmakers,” people familiar with the investigation told the Star Tribune. Papers with “NO KINGS” written on them were also found in the vehicle, an apparent reference to the nationwide demonstrations planned for Saturday to counter President Donald Trump’s military parade.

Officers additionally found at least three AK-47 assault rifles and a handgun in the vehicle, the charges said. In the surrounding area, they found a ballistic vest, another gun, mask and “gold police style badge,” the charges continued.

Champlin Mayor Ryan Sabas said the Brooklyn Park sergeant’s precautionary call “likely stopped this individual from going on and committing other crimes.”

“It was a lucky call, and we are saddened that it wasn’t 10 minutes earlier,” Sabas said.

By Saturday morning, thousands of Brooklyn Park residents were under a stay-at-home order and Americans woke up to news of a political assassination with a suspect still at large.

Police stopped Boelter’s wife, Jenny, and three relatives at a Casey’s convenience store just off Hwy. 169 in Onamia in central Minnesota.

Mille Lacs County Sheriff Kyle Burton said metro law enforcement learned that Jenny Boelter was traveling through the area and requested assistance in locating and stopping her vehicle.

A store employee told the Star Tribune that she saw the vehicles’ occupants — two young women, an older woman and a young man — seated in lawn chairs behind the store while under the watch of state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents.

Burton said the occupants of the car were taken from the scene by Hennepin County law enforcement.

Throughout the afternoon, “No Kings Day” demonstrations continued around Minnesota, despite a few cancellations and warnings from Walz and other officials that protesters should stay home.

Police loaded an unmarked black SUV from the Hortman home onto a tow truck and drove it away around 1:15 p.m. It had a white license plate sign that said simply “POLICE.” Blue and red lights inside of the squad car were still flashing.

Authorities first publicly named 57-year-old Boelter as a suspect around 3 p.m. and asked the public for help finding him. They showed a picture of Boelter wearing a light-colored cowboy hat in footage taken from a Minneapolis business.

The Brooklyn Park police chief said the manhunt involved “hundreds and hundreds of police officers.” The FBI offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to Boelter’s arrest and conviction. Officers were working in pairs of two and officials said residents should not respond to any individual officer approaching them.

By Sunday morning, Boelter’s location was still unclear.

Residents near Boelter’s home, near Green Isle in Sibley County, in the far southwest stretches of the Twin Cities metro, received emergency alerts in the late morning disclosing that officials found an unoccupied vehicle belonging to the suspect. “Suspect not located. Keep your doors locked and vehicles secured,” the alert read.

The dispatch wasn’t a shelter-in-place order. “Law enforcement will be going to area residences to ask to search properties,” the alert continued.

More than 20 officers and police dogs searched a farm field and woods near the spot where the black sedan was found.

Late Sunday night, Boelter was arrested by authorities in Sibley County. A photo shows law enforcement in what looks like camouflage tactical gear taking him into custody in a field after dusk.

Boelter was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree attempted murder by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.