Jacob Johnson, left, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the killing and dismemberment of Richard Balsimo, center, after a second-degree murder conviction. Robert West, right, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for dumping Balsimo’s body in Lake Superior in 2021. (Johnson and West photos from Minnesota Department of Corrections and Balsimo picture from GoFundMe page)
The man who killed a father, dismembered his body and put parts in several buckets and a tote bag before dumping them in Lake Superior was sentenced to 40 years in prison, according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.
A jury convicted Jacob Johnson of second-degree murder in the death of Ricky Balsimo last month, and a judge handed down the sentence on Monday.
“I am pleased to see the court hold Jacob Johnson fully accountable for the severity and cruelty of the crime he committed. My thoughts continue to be with Mr. Balsimo’s family and loved ones. Not even the maximum penalty under law can bring Ricky Balsimo back to them, but I hope this sentence brings them some measure of accountability,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement.
Investigators believe Johnson killed Balsimo in St. Paul around June 20, 2021. Balsimo was reported missing shortly after that, and dive teams working off the coast of Lake Superior in Grand Portage, Minnesota, discovered the dismembered remains on July 15 and 16, 2021.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Duluth News Tribune, witnesses told police that Balsimo and Johnson drove from Duluth to Minneapolis and St. Paul the night before Balsimo went missing.
In the Twin Cities, the pair allegedly picked up two women.
The women told police that the defendant and the victim began arguing, eventually leading to Balsimo threatening everyone inside Johnson’s Audi Q5 with a knife. Soon after that, the women said they heard what was described as a loud noise. They scrambled out of the car and ran away.
The noise was the sound of Balsimo being shot in the head, investigators said.
After the shooting, Johnson drove Balsimo’s body to Superior, Wisconsin, where he enlisted the help of Robert Thomas West. That’s when Johnson dismembered Balsimo’s body and put it in the buckets and tote bag, prosecutors said. West, along with a woman, then drove the body about 150 miles along the coast of Lake Superior to Grand Portage.
The woman told police that when she asked West if he was paranoid while on the way, he allegedly replied, “Ya, with a dead body in the back.” When they got to Grand Portage, West hired a commercial fisherman to go out to the lake where he could dump the body.
The boat’s owner told police the defendant described the dead man’s remains as valuables belonging to a grandmother and as the body of a dead dog.
Balsimo’s family hired a private investigator who pieced together that he was a victim of a homicide and put together a witness list that led police to find his body in the lake. Johnson was taken into custody about a month after Balsimo’s body was found.
A jury convicted West of being an accessory after the fact of a murder in February and sentenced to 15 years in prison. A third man, Tommi Hintz, pleaded guilty to aiding an offender after the fact and was given five years probation.
A GoFundMe page described Balsimo as an amazing man with a “heart of gold” whose life was stolen.
“Ricky was a father, son, brother, uncle, nephew and friend,” the page said. His “life mattered to so many.”
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
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