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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.”
Cody Kolstad proceeded to grab a loaded shotgun from an unlocked gun cabinet, walk up to the roommate who was sleeping in bed and blast him in the neck, killing him. Kolstad, 35, on Friday pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2022 death of 41-year-old Brian Daniel Stoeckel.
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After he shot Stoeckel at their home in the 100 block of 2nd St SE in Morristown, a town of less than 1,000 people some 60 miles south of Minneapolis, Kolstad called 911 around 12:40 a.m. on May 31, 2022.
He told dispatchers to “just come look,” a probable cause arrest affidavit said. He also said “just get here, please” and “bring the coroner.” When deputies from the Rice County Sheriff’s Office arrived, they found Kolstad facedown 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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