On the morning of November 5, 2004, Anton Uebelhoer, a 43-year-old business traveler from Regensburg, Germany, was fatally shot at the Comfort Suites hotel in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Uebelhoer was staying on the third floor near the room where a domestic dispute turned deadly when 25-year-old Gregg Phillips shot his 23-year-old girlfriend, Sandra Wisniewski, then stepped into the hallway and fired indiscriminately.

Uebelhoer was an unintended victim of that hallway gunfire. Two other guests were wounded—one in the hallway and a woman struck through her hotel-room door—and both were taken to a local hospital in stable condition. Phillips later took a man from the Chicago area hostage, contacted a television station during the standoff, and surrendered to a SWAT team about 30 minutes after negotiations began.

Uebelhoer worked for the packaging manufacturer Krones AG and left behind a wife and five-year-old twins.