Witness testifies about dismemberment of St. Paul man whose remains were found in Lake Superior

DULUTH — Robert West testified that he has long known what he would do if he ended up with a body he needed to get rid of — a plan he offered when his friend Jacob Johnson showed up to his trailer with Ricky Balsimo Jr. laid out, dead, in the backseat of his car.

"We live next to the largest lake around," West told the jury, referencing Lake Superior. "I said I always thought if I had a body, I'd drop it in 5-gallon buckets."

Johnson, 37, is on trial in the death of Balsimo, the longtime friend he is accused of shooting seven times and dismembering. Balsimo's body, distributed among buckets and a tote, was recovered from Grand Portage Bay less than a month later. Johnson is charged with two felony counts of second-degree murder in the Cook County case that was moved to the St. Louis County Courthouse because of the attention West's trial received in Grand Marais this past January.

Johnson claims self-defense in the shooting. Meagan Bierhof, the mother of Johnson's daughter, told the jury on Monday that Balsimo was waving a knife and threatened to kill her and Johnson as they drove around the Twin Cities early in the morning of June 20, 2021.

In testimony that spanned two days, West offered the gruesome details of how Johnson tended to Balsimo with power tools in an RV in rural Wisconsin, while West fed a fire with evidence. West spoke frankly, whether describing a trip to Menards for supplies or the disassembled body parts he saw the one time he looked into the RV.

It was a sight that he cannot unsee, West said.

Some members of Balsimo's immediate family, gathered in rows in the courtroom, exhaled sharply during West's testimony. His mother, Kim Balsimo, left the courtroom. The tight-knit crew from St. Paul has been embedded in the case since they first lost contact with Ricky and set out to find him — knocking on the doors of people who misled them and would later end up on the witness list.

West told jurors how he and Tommi Hintz, who pleaded guilty for her role earlier this year, drove separately up the North Shore to Grand Portage. They met up with a fisherman who took West out on his boat in the dark of night to drop the buckets, which were weighed down with concrete.

West said he was releasing his dead grandmother's valuables and late dog, but hinted that the fisherman would not want to know the truth of the trip.

Earlier this year, West was found guilty of interference with a dead body and being an accessory after the fact to murder. He faces charges in Wisconsin for disposing of the gun used to kill Balsimo, mutilating a corpse, harboring a felon and possessing a firearm. He is testifying in exchange for assurance that he won't serve more than 15 years in prison.

Otherwise, he told the jury, he might be in prison until he dies.