GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Ricky Balsimo Jr. and Jacob Colt Johnson were longtime friends.
The 2 attended school together and Johnson was “treated like family” by the Balsimos, staying over at their house and being someone Ricky’s parents could call on once they were frightened about their son.
In truth, Rick Balsimo Sr. said, the 2 men were mere blocks from the family home in St. Paul when Johnson fired no less than 4 shots that killed his friend in a moving automotive on Father’s Day 2021 — indicating he ignored more-sensible options to resolve an antagonistic situation.
“Ricky had big love for Jake,” the daddy said within the Cook County courtroom. “Jake was considered one of the last people on the planet I believed would do that to my son, or could do that.”
The Superior man, who subsequently drove Balsimo’s body several hours north to the Twin Ports and elicited the assistance of others to dismember and eliminate the stays in Lake Superior, was handed the statutory maximum sentence for second-degree murder.
In imposing the 40-year prison term, Judge Michael Cuzzo said the case was “so horrific that it’s hard to even describe without my stomach churning.”
“I never thought I’d be sitting here as a judge presiding over a case involving the extent of disregard that was shown for the body of Ricky Balsimo,” Cuzzo told the defendant.
Johnson, who declined to talk on the hearing, mostly looked toward the bench and avoided facing several Balsimo members of the family as they described an immeasurable level of grief that has shown few signs of subsiding greater than two years later.
“What Jake did to my brother destroyed not only me, but my entire family,” Raquel Turner told the court. “It took the sunshine out of the family. It just looks like a dark cloud surrounds every family event because he’s not there.”
Kim Balsimo said her son “was a mama’s boy (and) he’ll all the time be a mama’s boy though he isn’t here.” She described struggles to sleep at night and said the family couldn’t even hold a correct funeral as a consequence of the state of the body.
“He took every little thing from me,” she said, loudly weeping as she struggled to get through her statement. “He took my life away from me. I don’t live like I used to. I don’t have joy anymore. I’m all the time leery and don’t trust anyone anymore.”
‘Barbaric’ crime
Balsimo, a 34-year-old father of three, was riding in a automotive with Johnson and two women when he was killed. Defense attorneys presented evidence that Balsimo was under the influence of methamphetamine, threatening people and waving around a knife in a fashion that caused Johnson to shoot in self-defense.
But prosecutors portrayed Johnson as indignant and annoyed with the victim, irrationally selecting to shoot with none warning. A Duluth jury agreed in early August, finding Johnson, 37, guilty of each intentional and unintentional murder.
Assistant Minnesota Attorney General Dan Vlieger said the aftermath of the killing was “barbaric, and that’s not even a powerful enough word.” Johnson eventually took the body to an RV in rural Douglas County and cut it up with a circular saw, encasing the stays in several 5-gallon buckets and a big tote.
He received assistance from a friend, Robert Thomas West, who purchased supplies and helped eliminate evidence. West then drove the stays up the North Shore to Grand Portage and threw the buckets from a fishing boat commissioned by one other friend, Tommi Lynn Hintz.
“If every little thing played out the way it supposedly played out, you probably did not must take him apart,” said Cassandra Hernandez, one other sister of the victim. “You probably did not must make jokes. That doesn’t make him remorseful.”
Rick Balsimo, though, said the dismemberment was not about attempting to cover up the crime, which the family quickly tied to Johnson after launching their very own investigation once they felt police weren’t doing enough to resolve the case.
“Jake had other, ulterior motives,” Balsimo said. “He tried to construct a repute on my son’s brutal murder. He did his actions out of cruelty — to not attempt to get away with it.”
Drugs permeated case
Defense attorney Steve Bergeson indicated his client can have been misguided but he maintained he was acting in response to an aggressive Balsimo.
Requesting the presumptive guideline sentence of 30 ½ years, he said it was not a cold-blooded killing, random murder, hate crime, revenge killing or another form of case that may warrant the utmost.
“It’s clear Mr. Johnson just isn’t the sort of person,” Bergeson said. “He has a drug problem. Drugs permeated the lives of everyone involved on this case.”
Vlieger, though, noted the jury unanimously found aggravating aspects based on the dismemberment and concealment of the body.
“If there was more time I could ask the court for, I might,” the prosecutor said. “It pales compared to the pain and suffering that was imposed on this family.”
Cuzzo, who recently denied a defense motion to overturn the decision, appeared to don’t have any qualms about handing down a sentence that can keep Johnson in custody for nearly 27 years before he’s first eligible for supervised release.
“You were involved in only desecrating the body of Ricky Balsimo,” the judge said. “It played a major role and can proceed to play a major role within the depth of agony and loss this family has to take care of.”
Cuzzo last month gave West a 15-year sentence for his role, as he was found guilty by a jury in February of aiding an offender as an accomplice to second-degree murder and interference with a dead body. West, 43, of South Range, entered right into a post-conviction agreement with the prosecution and testified at Johnson’s trial in exchange for having his sentence capped.
Hintz, meanwhile, agreed to cooperate in trials of each men and was placed on five years of supervised probation as a part of a plea agreement to aiding an offender. She was also ordered to serve two 90-day jail stints, but can have those waived if she maintains sobriety and a productive lifestyle.
While Monday’s sentencing wrapped greater than two years of litigation in Minnesota, additional business stays in Wisconsin, where each Johnson and West are charged with mutilating a corpse. Johnson moreover faces a count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Several members of the family and supporters said they hope Johnson never again walks free.