Action News Now host Hayley Watts shares new information on how investigators caught and convicted serial killer Ryan Blinston in Butte County.
BUTTE COUNTY, California – Investigators are sharing new details about how they sentenced a serial killer who felled trees to life in prison.
On May 23, 2020, Ryan Blinston showed up at a couple’s home in Los Molinos.
He had just done some pruning work for them and came back to slit both of their throats.
Homer Severs escaped and ran to his nephew Frank for help.
“For this guy to do something like this to my uncle, who is a veteran, on Veterans Day weekend… sad,” Frank Severs said.
“Here comes my uncle through my back door covered in blood from head to toe. I said, “Have you fallen again?” He was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. He said, “No, a guy with a mask came in and killed your aunt and tried to kill me. I thought it was a dream,” Severs said.
Frank’s 88-year-old aunt, Loreen Severs, did not survive.
Blinston’s next victim was another trim customer, 82-year-old Sandra George of Oroville.
“It seemed like it started with the older people and spread to the others as well,” said Neils Bringsjord, assistant district attorney for Butte County.
Blinston then killed his girlfriend, Vicky Cline, and set her car on fire.
On June 21, fishermen found Cline’s body in the Feather River near Belden.
But a week earlier, a Butte County Sheriff’s SWAT team tracked Blinston to an RV on Milsap Bar Road in Brush Creek.
“Before our SWAT team arrived in the middle of the night, Blinston attacked him. And he fought for his life. And he managed to get him out of the RV and locked the door, and Blinston armed himself with an ax and started trying to break through that door,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said.
Blinston’s acquaintance Robert Smith was incredibly lucky to survive.
“Any other night there wouldn’t have been anyone to help him, and at some point Blinston could have smashed through the door with that hatchet,” Sheriff Honea said. “It’s a miracle, and I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but this is a true miracle.”
The Butte County District Attorney’s team did not have a murder weapon or an eyewitness to the three murders, so obtaining a conviction was not easy.
“In a case like this it was complicated, it was mostly circumstantial… There was actually some surveillance video that we were able to use for the trial, of some private individuals who had some cameras on the street, so that was a big help,” Bringsjord said.
Smith spoke at the sentencing hearing.
“I have to wake up every morning and look in the mirror and see the scar on my neck from the wound inflicted that reminds me of that horrible night,” Smith said.
The judge sentenced Blinston to three life terms.
“The guy wouldn’t look at anyone. He sat there staring at the wall, staring at the table,” Severs said. “I don’t know how to describe it. No, he has no regrets for anything he’s done.”
And as for the motive?
“I imagined it was just the thrill of the killing,” Bringsjord said.
Homer Severs later died of other medical problems in 2020, but his nephew believes Homer apparently died of a broken heart following the loss of Loreen.
Robert Smith recently died of a drug overdose.
www.actionnewsnow.com
https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/investigators-share-new-details-about-tree-trimming-serial-killer/article_d859a32a-ff3e-11ed-a4d9-9f400a6e3672.html
