The Nebraska man who disappeared into the Black Hills with his wife and two children last March will spend at least three years in the South Dakota penitentiary.

“It’s hard to balance your impact on hundreds or thousands of people against the real reason for you conduct,” 7th Circuit Court Judge Merton Tice told Matthew Schade when he sentenced him to six years in prison, suspending three years of the sentence.

Tice deviated from deputy Pennington County State’s Attorney Tracey Decker’s request for a 10-year sentence, but only after he asked questions about the children’s welfare during their days in the forest.

Tice noted that the children were not harmed. Matthew Schade’s intentions were not malicious, but he fled to keep his family together, Tice said.

Decker urged Tice to consider the time and effort that went into searching for the family and Schade’s serious felony past.

Schade, 26, his wife, Rowena Schade, 29, and their two children disappeared from their Creighton, Neb., home last March because they feared an investigation by social services after police responded to a domestic violence call at their home.

The family spent several days hiding in the Black Hills before resurfacing 18 days later back in Nebraska. They returned to Nebraska in a fire truck taken from the Silver City Volunteer Fire Department.

Local authorities conducted a massive search for the family at a time when winter snow storms made their survival questionable.

The elder Schades were on probation for a 2004 series of burglaries, and Matthew Schade was only three weeks from the end of his probation when the family fled.

“I really screwed up,” Matthew Schade said, standing in shackles before Tice. “I should have faced the accusations. I should have sought help from my probation officer or my church.”

He confessed that his actions had cost him his family, including the two children he adopted.

Tice recently gave Rowena Schade a suspended jail sentence after she pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony. At her sentencing, she told the judge she was in the process of divorcing Matthew. The children are currently living with a sister, and she is working to regain custody of them.

Tice said there was no evidence that Matthew Schade had ever abused or threatened the children.

“It would have been 10 years, if I had any reason to believe you had,” Tice said.

Schade was also ordered to pay court costs and $131.18 in restitution for the cost of gas to return the stolen fire truck. The county did not ask for compensation for the search.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com.