Jaren Kuester gets life in mental facility for triple homicide

Published on: 2/3/2014

A Waukesha man convicted of beating three people to death in a southwestern Wisconsin farmhouse was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.

 Jaren KuesterBefore he was sentenced, Jaren Kuester, 31, apologized for the slayings and said he’d lost touch with reality.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a statement to the court. “Looking back, I never imagined anything like this happening.”

Prosecutors said Kuester broke into the rural farmhouse near Wiota in April and killed the victims with fireplace pokers.

Lafayette County prosecutor Kate Findley said the killings were among the most vicious crimes ever committed in the county. She asked the judge to sentence Kuester to three consecutive life commitments to a mental institution.

Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust acknowledged the request but instead included conditions that Kuester never be released from confinement.