In the early morning hours of September 3, 2026, a dispute escalated to a fatal conclusion in a Monticello, Minnesota mobile home, resulting in the death of 57-year-old Daniel Lawrence Ferdelman. The man's girlfriend discovered him unresponsive in their bed, covered in blood, when she returned from work at approximately 7:30 a.m. and immediately contacted the authorities.
Upon their arrival at the residence on State Highway 25 Northeast, deputies from the Wright County Sheriff's Office found Ferdelman deceased. The Midwest Medical Examiner's Office later confirmed that he had died from a shotgun wound to the chest, and his death was ruled a homicide.
The investigation quickly centered on a man who shared the home with the couple: Steven Ralph Stahlberg, the 47-year-old brother of Ferdelman's girlfriend. The woman informed investigators that Ferdelman had called her at work twice in the hours preceding his death. During these calls, he detailed a growing conflict with a drunken and belligerent Stahlberg over the household's new cat. The argument reportedly began when Stahlberg took the cat and barricaded himself in his room. This led to a physical altercation, with Ferdelman telling his girlfriend that if Stahlberg were to confront him again, "someone was going to get hurt."
Fearing the worst, Ferdelman's girlfriend suggested to the police that if Stahlberg had killed her boyfriend, he was likely on his way to their father's residence in Remer, Minnesota, with the possible intention of killing him as well. This vital piece of information prompted a statewide search for Stahlberg. Law enforcement, utilizing surveillance footage from a neighboring property that captured a man matching Stahlberg's description leaving the residence in a pickup truck around 1:18 a.m., was able to track him down. At approximately 9:45 a.m., deputies with the Cass County Sheriff's Office and agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Stahlberg's Toyota Tundra near Remer and took him into custody without incident. A loaded shotgun was discovered on the front passenger floorboard of his vehicle. Stahlberg was arrested and transported to the Wright County Jail, where he was booked on probable cause for homicide. He has since been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, and his bail was set at $1 million. The case against Stahlberg is proceeding through the court system, with the possibility of the charges being elevated to first-degree murder pending a grand jury review.
