Left: Cole Kolstad (Rice County Jail). Right: Brian Stoeckel (Boldt Funeral Home).
High on drugs, a Minnesota man believed someone told him that either he or his roommate “needed to die by midnight.”
A man named Cody Kolstad took a loaded shotgun from an unlocked gun cabinet, approached his sleeping roommate, and shot him in the neck, causing his death. Kolstad, aged 35, admitted to second-degree murder in the killing of Brian Daniel Stoeckel, 41, in 2022.
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The incident took place at their residence in Morristown, a small town with a population of fewer than 1,000 residents, located around 60 miles south of Minneapolis. Following the shooting on May 31, 2022, Kolstad dialed 911 at approximately 12:40 a.m.
During the call, Kolstad asked the dispatchers to come and see what had happened, and he also requested them to bring the coroner. Upon the arrival of deputies from the Rice County Sheriff’s Office, they discovered Kolstad lying face down in the grass.
“I shot him in the head, dude,” he told one deputy. “It’s in the head. I’m going to jail/prison.”
Deputies walked inside the home and found Stoeckel dead from a gunshot wound to the neck.
Post-Miranda, Kolstad asked deputies to “put one in my head and burn me in that building. I fell asleep that’s the cover story. It’s all f—ing lies.” When asked why he should die, he told them “because I took a life.” He also said he took “lots of drugs,” according to the affidavit.
The defendant went on to tell deputies that “another person had told him either he or Brian needed to die by midnight.” That’s when he grabbed the shotgun and fired two shots at Stoeckel, one of which hit the victim in the neck while the other struck the wall.
Prosecutors charged Kolstad with first-degree murder. As part of his plea to second-degree murder, Kolstad faces 25 years in prison when he’s sentenced on May 2.
According Stoeckel’s obituary, his death left a “huge hole” in the hearts of his family and friends “who were always entertained by his stories and interesting sense of humor.”
“No matter the circumstance, you’d always leave with a story of something funny or crazy Brian did or said when you were with him,” the obituary said.
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