SUPERIOR, Wis. — The Superior man convicted of murdering Ricky Balsimo Jr., 34, of St. Paul, on Father’s Day 2021 was sentenced in Douglas County Circuit Court on Tuesday to an additional 7½ years imprisonment for dismembering Balsimo’s body.

Jacob Colt Johnson, 38, is serving a 40-year prison sentence in Minnesota for the shooting death of Balsimo, a friend he’d known since they were young. He pleaded no contest in Douglas County Circuit Court on Jan. 3 to one count of being a party to mutilating a corpse.

After the killing, Johnson drove the body to a camper in rural Douglas County, where the dismemberment took place. Balsimo’s body was placed in buckets and totes with cement and dumped off a boat into Lake Superior in Grand Portage.

“It is like a script from a horror film,” Judge George Glonek said. “I have to ask myself over and over what type of person is capable of doing something as inhumane as this.”

Balsimo was a son, a brother, an uncle and a father. Pictures of the victim were laid out on benches outside the courtroom by his family, who wore T-shirts seeking justice for Ricky.

“Jake took everything from me. Ricky was my only son. He was my heart, my world, my love,” said Balsimo’s mother, Kim.

“I miss my boy hugging me.”

The murder was a traumatic crime, District Attorney Mark Fruehauf told the court, but Johnson’s actions after the murder made the family suffer a whole different level of anguish and despair for weeks while they were looking for Ricky.

“This defendant meticulously and coldly tore this victim’s body apart, treated it like garbage, dumped it in cement, dumped it in cement-filled buckets, and arranged to have it dumped in the lake where he hoped it would never be found,” Fruehauf wrote in his sentencing memorandum.

Ricky’s sister Raquel Turner said Johnson has shown zero remorse every step of the way.

“You destroyed us,” Kim Balsimo said to Johnson in the courtroom. “And once again, he can’t even look at us or say ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s all I want to hear from Jake.”

Family members asked that Johnson be given the maximum sentence and that it run consecutively to the Minnesota murder sentence. He poses a danger to the public, they said.

“This man does not deserve to see another day as a free man, for society, for us, for my brother, for his children, for your children, for people that live in this area,” Turner said.

Johnson’s attorney, Fredric Anderson, argued that the dismemberment was taken into account as an aggravating factor in the Minnesota homicide case. He asked that the dismemberment sentence run concurrent to the Minnesota sentence, which Johnson is appealing.

Fruehauf argued that the murder and dismemberment took place on different days, in different states, and warranted consecutive sentences.

Glonek gave Johnson the maximum sentence — seven and a half years of initial confinement, five years of extended supervision — and ordered him to serve it consecutively.

“This is a separate and calculated crime with separate elements from that which the defendant was sentenced for in Minnesota,” Glonek said. “This crime was deliberately planned and carried out on a separate date in a secluded location here in Douglas County … It is a distinct crime that deserves a distinct sentence.”

The family stood outside the courtroom following the sentence.

“Honestly, throughout this whole situation, there’s nothing, no amount of time that could make this right,” Turner said. “It could never bring my brother back and it can never give us back the time we lost in trying to find him.”

They plan to return to the courthouse next month when Johnson’s accomplice, Robert Thomas West, 43, of South Range, has his next hearing. West faces felony counts of party to mutilating a corpse, harboring or aiding a felon, and possession of a firearm by a felon in Douglas County. He was sentenced in August to 15 years imprisonment in Minnesota for being an accomplice to second-degree murder and interference with a dead body in connection with Balsimo’s death.

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A .500 record might not sound like much.

But to the Gophers men’s basketball program, that mark in Big Ten play is not considered mediocre. Minnesota has accumulated only six seasons with a .500-or-better record in conference games across the past 25 years.

Head coach Ben Johnson reminded his players this week about a chance to add another notch in a positive direction this year.

“That’s the challenge,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “I think our guys are hungry. They want to be able to start moving the needle with what they are doing.”

The needle went backward Wednesday as 5.5-point underdog Indiana cruised to a 70-58 win over Minnesota at Williams Arena. Minnesota (18-12, 9-10 Big Ten) will now need to win at Northwestern to reach .500 in the regular season.

Johnson said the poor game came as a surprise because the team had two good days of preparation.

“Sometimes you can normally have a little bit of an inkling or a feel if you are going to be flat or just not have it,” Johnson said. “I definitely didn’t have that coming into (Wednesday), so we’ve got to figure it out because that is a mentality thing. 100 percent. It’s, ‘Are you ready to compete from the jump?’ For whatever reason, I just felt like they brought the fight to us.”

The loss to the Hoosiers stings further because it came in the U’s final game at The Barn this season, and it snapped a five-game home winning streak.

“It’s weird because this is the last game at The Barn at home, and you would think that we would be fired up,” said Parker Fox, who led the U with 14 points. “I can’t put an exact thing on it. Jack Wilson made a joke at the end of the bench. He said there was some weird juju in the air.”

Indiana big man Kel’el Ware had a game-high 26 points and 11 rebounds. The Hoosiers had 48-32 advantage in points in the paint.

Indiana (17-13, 9-10) has won three straight. Amid a down year for the Hoosiers, the Indianapolis Star reported hours before tipoff that Mike Woodson would be retained as head coach for next season.

Minnesota, which played without Braeden Carrington (concussion) for a second straight game, looked flat with a six-man rotation that didn’t include backup guards. All three guards — Elijah Hawkins, Mike Mitchell Jr. and Cam Christie — played at least 38 minutes and combined to shoot 8 for 33.

Minnesota guards also shot poorly in the 74-62 loss at Indiana on Jan. 12. As a team, the Gophers were abysmal from 3-point range, making only 5 of 26 (19 percent).

To close the first half, Minnesota amassed empty possessions and managed only one basket in the final eight minutes. Indiana went on a 12-2 run to take a 30-25 lead at the break. The slow moving carried over to the second half, which has usually been a time for the U to go on a run.

Pharrel Payne fell to the court a few times in the first half and moved gingerly near the bench. He then got stimulation on a back injury that has bothered him at times this season. But he played only six minutes in the second half.

Before the game, the Gophers were seventh in the Big Ten standings, but fell below Michigan State and Indiana after Wednesday’s games.

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After losing by 56 points in the final game of the regular season, every single player on the Gophers women’s basketball team entered the Big Ten Tournament with something to prove.

To themselves more than anything else.

Either they were going let that embarrassment carry over or they were going to show some pride and fight back.

The scrappy sophomore guard Amaya Battle chose the latter. She scored a career-high 32 points on Wednesday night at the Target Center to lead No. 11 seed Minnesota to 77-69 win over No. 14 seed Rutgers. As a result, the Gophers will play No. 6 seed Michigan on Thursday night at the Target Center.

That incredible effort from Battle helped spoil a special performance form Rutgers forward Destiny Adams. She recorded 31 points and 24 rebounds, proving to be unguardable down low.

It was clear from the onset that Battle was out for blood. She nailed a pull up jumper to get herself, scoring scored from every level  en route to 14 points in the first quarter. She capped the offensive explosion with a shot form beyond the arc that beat the buzzer.

It looked like the Gophers might runaway with the game early in the second quarter as they stretched their lead to 12 points  That’s when the Scarlett Knights got hot from beyond the arc, chipping away at the deficit with Battle on the bench to make things close again.

It was back and forth in the third quarter with Adams imposing her will inside until Gophers head coach Dawn Plitzuweit opted inserted sophomore forward Nia Holloway into the game for her defense. Though she couldn’t stop Adams from scoring, Holloway seemed to at least bother her.

As the game wound to a close int he fourth quarter, Battle took over once, nailing a clutch jumper before hitting some free throws to put the finishing touches a game she won’t soon forget.

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