Wisconsin man sentenced to 11 years for his role in mutilating the body of a St. Paul man

SUPERIOR, WIS. – Robert Thomas West, 44, was sentenced Thursday to more than seven years in a Wisconsin prison, plus four years of extended supervision, for his role in dismembering Ricky Balsimo Jr. and the lengths he went in covering up the murder of his longtime St. Paul friend.

West, of South Range, Wis., didn’t operate the power tools used to mutilate Balsimo’s body, but he revived a longtime idea he had about what to do if he happened on a situation like this one: dispose of the body in weighted containers in the depths of Lake Superior.

West took the killer — his friend Jacob Colt Johnson — to a recreational vehicle in rural Wisconsin, gathered the tools and manned a fire outside while Johnson cut the body to pieces. Then West burned the bloodied clothing and bleached the RV, drove weighted buckets up the North Shore to Grand Portage, and dropped them off the side of a commercial fishing boat into the lake. He dismantled the gun and tossed it in Middle Lake.

Johnson was sentenced last month to 40 years in Cook County District Court for Balsimo’s murder, and West was sentenced in August to 15 years in prison in Minnesota for his role in Balsimo’s death.

West was arrested after the murder on drug charges and offered law enforcement officials information about Balsimo, whose family had been looking for him in Duluth and Superior for about a month.

In outlining West’s role, Douglas County Judge George Glonek described the scene as “heinous” during the sentencing, the result of a plea agreement in which West didn’t stand trial in Wisconsin and testified against Johnson.

West participated in Thursday’s sentencing via phone from the state correctional facility in Faribault, after a miscommunication with staff that made Zoom impossible.

Balsimo’s parents, Kim and Rick, and sister Raquel Turner, all dressed in shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with Ricky’s face, made the trip to Superior from St. Paul to offer victim impact statements — which they have done again and again as three defendants in the case have been sentenced, two in both Minnesota and Wisconsin courts.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped a few drug charges against West. He interrupted the sentencing to ask whether they would appear on his record and affect his ability to get a job after he is released.

It was a moment that hit hard for the Balsimo family. “I hear Rob planning his life,” said Kim Balsimo, Ricky’s mother. “Asking if he’s going to be able to make a job application. My baby didn’t get that.”

None of this has been satisfying for the Balsimo family, who did their own legwork and hired a private investigator to find Ricky. West was one of the people they asked to help with the search.

“That man drove my father around in the same truck he drove my brother’s remains to Grand Portage in,” Turner said. She called it a “smack in the face” that West didn’t have to face them in court.

While driving through the Twin Cities in July 2021, Johnson fatally shot Balsimo in his Audi. Two other passengers ran off into the night and Johnson returned to Superior by way of back roads with the 35-year-old sprawled dead in the back seat.

According to court documents, Johnson enlisted West to dispose of Balsimo’s body. Before they did anything else, however, they parked on a residential street, covered the body and attended Johnson’s daughter’s birthday party at a Duluth hotel.

During his trial in Grand Marais, West provided a grim, matter-of-fact narrative about how Johnson used power tools to dismember Balsimo’s body. As Johnson worked, West burned some of the evidence and later made a run to a Menard’s store for more tools and clothing.

A short time later, West and another accomplice, Tommi Hintz, drove up the North Shore to Grand Portage. West went out in a chartered boat and dropped the buckets and totes containing Balsimo’s body into Lake Superior.

The Balsimo family later received a late-night phone call from Hintz that led to divers finding Ricky’s body.

Johnson claimed self-defense during his trial in Minnesota, saying Balsimo was waving a knife and threatening to kill him and his daughter’s mother, who was driving the car they were in. He pleaded no contest in Wisconsin as part of a plea deal, and will spend seven and a half years in prison for mutilating a corpse.