Man to be sentenced in killing of Nevada Highway Patrol sergeant

ELY — A justice is expected to sentence a 67-year-old antheral to beingness successful prison connected Tuesday for the fatal shooting of a Nevada Highway Patrol sergeant past year, the agency’s archetypal line-of-duty decease in much than a decade.

In July, the defendant, John Dabritz, withdrew his archetypal plea — not blameworthy by crushed of insanity — and pleaded “guilty but mentally ill” to sidesplitting Sgt. Ben Jenkins connected March 27, 2020. Dabritz is diagnosed with Type 1 bipolar disorder.

In exchange, White Pine County prosecutors agreed to propulsion superior punishment disconnected the table. The woody besides eliminated the request for a trial, which would person taken spot this period successful Ely.

At the time, White Pine County District Attorney James Beecher told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the woody was extended to Dabritz with the volition of providing the sergeant’s household members “with swift and last closure, without protracted appeals oregon requiring them to relive the horrific incidental done trial.”

Beecher besides said astatine the clip that his bureau planned to question a beingness condemnation without the anticipation of parole.

District Judge Steve Dobrescu is expected to manus down a condemnation Tuesday afternoon, aft helium hears from the sergeant’s relatives and friends, and pursuing grounds from aesculapian experts regarding the defendant’s intelligence health.

In the days aft the killing, which unfolded connected a distant road conscionable northbound of Ely, the Review-Journal learned that Dabritz had agelong suffered from bipolar upset and alcoholism, and had spent the weeks starring up to the shooting on a paranoid quest to pass radical of his theory that COVID-19 was spreading done the h2o and sewer systems.

His efforts landed him astatine William Bee Ririe Hospital successful Ely connected a ineligible intelligence wellness clasp earlier helium was flown connected astir March 14, 2020, to Desert Parkway Behavioral Healthcare Hospital successful Las Vegas. He was released connected March 20, tribunal records show, a week earlier Jenkins was killed.

“The happening is, they fto him out, and they truly shouldn’t have,” the defendant’s younger brother, Karl, antecedently told the Review-Journal. “He was wholly retired of his mind, if you cognize what I mean.”

A psychiatrist, who, under tribunal order, had treated Dabritz pursuing his apprehension echoed galore of the Review-Journal’s findings during a competency proceeding successful October.

According to Dr. Steven Zuchowski, Dabritz had a “very classical presentation” of Type 1 bipolar disorder. Symptoms that led to the diagnosis, Zuchowski said, included paranoia, utmost irritability and choler “that was precise hard for him to power and would person been intolerable for idiosyncratic to fake successful immoderate benignant of sustained way.”

Dabritz’s blameworthy plea covered charges of first-degree murder, third-degree arson, expansive larceny of a centrifugal conveyance and expansive larceny of a firearm.

Authorities person said the shooting occurred soon aft Jenkins pulled implicit connected U.S. Highway 93 to cheque connected a stranded motorist. After the gunfire, according to authorities, Dabritz stripped the sergeant of his azygous and weapon, and past acceptable occurrence to his broken-down pickup motortruck earlier fleeing successful Jenkins’ patrol vehicle, prompting an hourslong manhunt.

“The serviceman had travel up to the broadside of the road, and I had changeable him,” Dabritz told Dobrescu successful July, erstwhile helium changed his plea to blameworthy but mentally ill.

Jenkins, a 47-year-old Elko native, was joined with 4 children and astatine slightest 5 grandchildren. In his honor, the Highway Patrol retired his patrol number, H-4196, during a memorial work past summertime successful Elko, the assemblage helium served for much than 21 years.

This is simply a processing story. Check backmost for updates.

Contact Rio Lacanlale astatine rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale connected Twitter.