John Dabritz listens Sept. 28, 2021 at the White Pine County Justice Court in Ely as the judge hands down a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for the killing of Nevada Highway Patrol Sgt. Ben Jenkins. (Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)
ELY — A 67-year-old Nevada man with acknowledged bipolar disorder was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole for ambushing and killing a veteran highway patrol sergeant on a remote state highway in March 2020.
John Leonard Dabritz, a former resident of the small White Pine County mining town of Ruth, avoided a death penalty trial when he changed his plea in July to guilty but mentally ill in the death of Sgt. Ben Jenkins, a decorated highway patrol officer from Elko.
White Pine County District Judge Steve Dobrescu told Dabritz at sentencing the shooting was "haunting" and "pure evil," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
"Whatever was driving or not driving you makes no difference," the judge said. "You took the life of a man who stopped to help you."
White Pine County District Attorney James Beecher had said he agreed to let Dabritz withdraw his earlier plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and avoid a trial to provide Jenkins' family "with swift and final closure, without protracted appeals or requiring them to relive the horrific incident."
Dabritz, shackled and dressed in orange jail scrubs, was swiftly led away by officers after sentencing.
Dabritz was previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder and held in custody at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City.
He underwent about two months of treatment at a psychiatric facility before he was deemed competent last year to stand trial on murder, arson, vehicle and firearms theft charges.
Authorities said Dabritz was heavily armed and fled with Jenkins' uniform and patrol pickup truck before crashing and surrendering as troopers and sheriffs deputies arrived not far from the White Pine-Lincoln County line.
Following the killing, the Review-Journal reported that Dabritz spent weeks leading up to the shooting on a paranoid quest to warn people of his theory that COVID-19 was spreading through the water and sewer systems.
His was treated at William Bee Ririe Hospital in Ely and at a behavioral health hospital in Las Vegas before his release one week before Jenkins was killed.
Jenkins, a 47-year-old married father of four, won the highway patrol's highest honor, the Gold Medal of Valor, in 2011.
Officials said he stopped to check on an apparently stranded vehicle just before dawn on U.S. Highway 93 outside Ely.
Jenkins was the ninth NHP officer killed in the line of duty since 1911. A 10th, Trooper Micah May, died July 29 — just days after Dabritz changed his plea — when he was struck by a vehicle driven by an armed carjacking suspect trying to elude troopers on a busy freeway near the Las Vegas Strip.
