Man sentenced to 25 years for fatally shooting housemate

A man has learned his prison sentence for fatally shooting his housemate in Rice County in 2022.

On Friday, Cody Vernon Kolstad, 35, was sentenced to 25 years (300 months) in prison, with 1,068 days of jail credit already served.

Earlier this year, Kolstad pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree intentional murder and in exchange, prosecutors dismissed a first-degree intentional murder charge.

As previously reported, a man was found dead during the overnight hours on May 31, 2022, in the 100 block of Second Street Southeast in Morristown.

The criminal complaint states that when deputies arrived, Kolstad said, “I shot him in the head, dude,” and added, “I’m going to jail.” They then found 41-year-old Brian Daniel Stoeckel dead in a bed.

Authorities also noted a hole in the wall consistent with a shotgun blast and injuries on Stoeckel, indicating he’d been shot in the neck.

When questioned by deputies, Kolstad told deputies to “put one in my head and burn me in that building,” saying he deserved to die because “I took a life.” When further questioned, the complaint states that Kolstad claimed a person had told him that either he or Stoeckel needed to die by midnight, so he grabbed his shotgun and fired at Stoeckel twice.

Kolstad also said he’d taken lots of drugs and was stressed out, the complaint states.

“They say the brightest stars burn out the quickest,” said Stockel’s sister, Amy Kraemer, during the sentencing on Friday. “Cody, you took our star. He didn’t burn out; you made that fire go out.”