A 20-year-old man will spend at least 45 years in prison for killing an Oneida couple.
Vance Reed received an automatic life sentence Monday, after he entered no contest pleas to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide for the stabbing deaths of 77-year-old Harry Brown Bear and his 66-year-old wife Lorraine last September.
Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis determined Monday afternoon that Reed won’t be eligible for parole for 45 years.
District Attorney Carrie Schneider says Reed was friends with the couple.
“He called them [friends,]” District Attorney Carrie Schneider said about Reed and the Brown Bear’s. “People in the community said that Harry and Loraine Brown Bear would be friends to everyone, so we have a community that just had people ripped from them for no reason.”
Prosecutors say Reed was at the couple’s home drinking for much of the day before the stabbings.