Despite maintaining his innocence, a Neillsville man will spend 20 years behind bars for the 2002 shooting deaths of a Sparta couple in what a judge deemed ‘a case of cold-blooded murder’.
              
44-year old Larry Schaffer pleaded no contest in August to two counts of reckless homicide in the deaths of Kale Kvistad II and his girlfriend, Connie  DeGeorge.

Schaffer was given the maximum sentence possible, which will include 10 years on supervision after his release.

Thirty-year old Kvistad and 34-year old DeGeorge, disappeared from their home on Easter Sunday in 2002, leaving behind three children in the house. A hunter found their remains in December 2004 under brush in a remote area near Fort McCoy. Both had been shot in the head.

According to the La Crosse Times, Schaffer’s former girlfriend told investigators in 2005 that Schaffer ripped off drug dealers and had come home in the spring of 2002 with an ounce of cocaine and told her he ‘took care of’ a guy and his wife.

Schaffer’s sister testified last year that she witnessed him rape DeGeorge before shooting her and Kvistad.