Murder Charges Filed in Monticello Stabbing Death

(KNSI) — Charges have been filed in a Monticello murder case where authorities likely prevented it from becoming a double homicide.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Wright County, deputies were dispatched to 9127 State Highway 25 Northeast in Monticello just before 7:30 a.m. on September 3rd and found the body of 57-year-old Daniel Ferdelman. Ferdelman’s girlfriend came home and found him in bed covered in blood before calling 911. She told deputies she, Ferdelman, and her brother, Steven Stahlberg, all lived there, and that Stahlberg and Ferdelman had gotten into a physical fight hours earlier over the couple’s cat. She explained Ferdelman called her at work between 12:00 and 3:00 a.m., telling her that Stahlberg had been drinking, had barricaded himself in his bedroom with the cat, and that “someone was going to get hurt” if another confrontation happened. The woman told investigators that if Stahlberg intended to hurt someone else, she believed he may have been heading to their father’s home in Remer as well.

Investigators reviewed nearby surveillance footage showing a man matching Stahlberg’s description leaving the property in a pickup truck just before 1:20 a.m. Wright County deputies, along with the Cass County Sheriff’s Office and agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, launched a statewide search for Stahlberg. His truck was found near Remer around 9:45 a.m., and he was taken into custody. A loaded shotgun was found on the passenger floorboard.

Stahlberg has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

The investigation is ongoing.

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