Chad Aanerud admitted killing neighbor Lyle Maske and abducting a pregnant woman and her four children after a violent night east of Brainerd.

BRAINERD, Minn. — A Crow Wing County judge sentenced Chad Aanerud on Feb. 17 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years for fatally shooting neighbor Lyle Maske and kidnapping his pregnant girlfriend and her four children during a 2024 crime spree.

The sentence closed the criminal case from a night that began with an assault report and quickly widened into a killing, a house fire, an abduction and a statewide Amber Alert. Aanerud pleaded guilty in December to first-degree murder, kidnapping, first-degree burglary and two counts of second-degree assault. Prosecutors dropped more than a dozen other charges under the plea deal, including second-degree murder, criminal sexual conduct, arson and additional kidnapping and assault counts.

According to court records, deputies were called at about 1:50 a.m. on Nov. 1, 2024, to Loerch Road in Oak Lawn Township, east of Brainerd, on a report of a shooting. They found Maske, 62, dead in a driveway from gunshot wounds. The violence had started next door late on Oct. 31, when Aanerud went to the home where his girlfriend and her four children were staying. The woman later told investigators that he sexually assaulted her and threatened to shoot the children. The children ran to the Maskes’ home and told the adults there that Aanerud was robbing them. Maske decided to go check on the situation. He chose not to bring a rifle because, his wife later told investigators, she believed it could make things worse. A second woman drove him down the driveway and then returned to stay with the children.

About 10 minutes later, records say, Aanerud came to the Maskes’ door carrying a rifle and demanding that the women hand over what he called “his kids.” He threatened to kill them and fired the rifle inside the home before forcing the woman and the four children outside and into a white Chrysler Pacifica van. When the other woman went looking for Maske, she found him on the ground, covered in blood, and called 911. First responders trying to help Maske also saw that the nearby house where Aanerud’s girlfriend and the children had been living was on fire. The children were later found unharmed, but investigators said the woman had visible injuries to her face, neck and chest. Police also said Aanerud smelled strongly of gasoline or another flammable substance when he was arrested. The sheriff’s office said the victims in the van were a 33-year-old woman and children ages 14, 11, 7 and 3.

The case drew attention across central Minnesota because of how fast it spread across several crime scenes. Authorities said the shooting death and the apparent abduction were connected from the start. The sheriff’s office issued an Amber Alert, and the van was stopped in Morrison County at about 7:15 a.m., roughly five hours after deputies first responded in Crow Wing County. Investigators said a man in Morrison County recognized the vehicle after hearing the alert, helping officers find it. Sheriff Shawn Larsen said at the time that the quick, shared response mattered. “The prompt response definitely made a difference in this situation,” Larsen said after the stop. By then, officers had a dead neighbor in Brainerd, a burned home on the property, a woman who reported sexual violence and four children taken across county lines before sunrise. The broad scope of the investigation helps explain why the original charging document included murder, criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, arson and assault allegations.

In later interviews, investigators said, Aanerud gave his own account of the confrontation with Maske. Court records described him as saying Maske had “stuck his nose” where it did not belong. The pregnant woman told police she saw the confrontation in the driveway and watched Aanerud fatally shoot Maske. She said he then told her, “I told you, shut up,” and threatened to kill her if she did not get into the van. Prosecutors used those statements, along with witness accounts and the timeline from the 911 response, to build the murder and kidnapping case. Some questions never fully went to trial because of the plea agreement. There was no public jury verdict on the dismissed counts, and the plea deal meant prosecutors no longer had to prove the dropped allegations beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. What remained was enough to carry the heaviest sentence in the case: life with parole eligibility only after 30 years on the first-degree murder conviction.

Maske’s role in the case was brief but central. By investigators’ account, he was not the target of the earlier dispute inside the neighboring home. He stepped into the middle of it after children came to his house asking for help. That detail shaped how the killing was remembered in local coverage and in court filings. The records portray a neighbor responding to a fast-moving emergency next door, then being shot in his own driveway after a confrontation with an armed man. The facts also placed the violence in a rural residential setting where several households were close enough for children to flee on foot in the middle of the night. The burned house added another layer of loss to the case. KSTP reported the structure was a total loss. The property became both a homicide scene and a fire investigation, with officers and emergency crews sorting through evidence while the kidnapped family was still missing. Those overlapping scenes turned a domestic violence case into one of the region’s most serious criminal investigations of the year.

The legal path changed sharply in late 2025. Aanerud pleaded guilty in December to five counts: first-degree murder, kidnapping, first-degree burglary and two counts of second-degree assault. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed more than a dozen remaining charges at sentencing. The dropped counts included second-degree murder, criminal sexual conduct, arson and additional kidnapping and assault charges. That kind of agreement can narrow the issues before sentencing while still preserving a punishment that reflects the most serious conduct. In Minnesota, a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 30 years on a first-degree murder conviction sets a long minimum before any release review can begin. The sentencing hearing on Feb. 17 brought the district court case to its main endpoint. Unless future appeals or post-conviction filings are brought, the next major milestone in public terms is not another hearing this year but the long wait built into the sentence itself. For Maske’s family and the surviving victims, the ruling fixed the case in the court record after more than a year of investigation, charging decisions and plea negotiations.

The story also carried smaller details that showed the fear and confusion of those hours. One woman stayed inside with the children after dropping Maske near the driveway, then heard the chaos return to the front door. Court records said Aanerud came in armed, demanded the children and fired shots inside the house. The children, who had already run once for safety, were forced back outside and into the van before daybreak. Hours later, they were recovered alive after the statewide alert and traffic stop. That end to the search spared the case from becoming even more deadly, but it did not lessen the damage already done at the property east of Brainerd. By sentencing day, the bare facts were settled: Maske was dead, a home had burned, a pregnant woman had reported abuse, and four children had been taken from the scene at gunpoint. The judge’s sentence answered the criminal charges, but it could not undo the chain of events that began with children running to a neighbor’s house for help.

Aanerud is serving a life sentence with parole eligibility after 30 years, and the Crow Wing County case has moved out of its trial phase. The next public marker is any appeal or post-conviction filing, though none was announced at sentencing.