In The News

Trucker helps rescue beaten mentally-disabled man, then disappears

An unknown truck driver may have saved a disabled man’s life earlier this month.

Police reported that Justin Hamilton, a mentally disabled man from Lakeville, MN, was severely beaten Oct. 10 and 11 by four men he thought were his friends.

Hamilton, 24, was kicked, tied to a tree, and burned on Oct. 10 and 11 in an apparent case of vigilante justice. According to the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office, a 16-year-old girl told the men that Hamilton had assaulted her – an assertion police have concluded is false.

The men lured Hamilton to a wooded area, where they pushed him to the ground and “beat him for several hours,” the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. The group then drove to Hamilton’s house and reportedly “demanded money or property.” Hamilton said they could have Xbox games.

The following day, Hamilton was with the same 16-year-old girl, when he was reportedly forced inside a truck by Ries, Diepold and Maniglia, and driven to the same wooded area. Hamilton was tied to a tree, burned with a lighter and heated credit card, and beaten unconscious.

Sometime late Saturday or early Sunday morning, Hamilton awoke and began walking down a highway, where he was picked up by a truck driver. The driver took Hamilton to a police station, then the hospital.

The four men have been arrested. Jonathon Michael Diepold, 22, Glen Richard Ries, 33, John Maxwell Maniglia, 19, and Timothy John Ketterling, 22, spent several days in the Dakota County Jail this past week in lieu of $100,000 bail.

The 16-year-old female also faces charges.

Police reportedly found Hamilton’s wallet in Ries’ pickup truck, along with a baton.

Hamilton suffers from the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. He was raised by adoptive parents.

Dave Bellos, Dakota County Chief Deputy Sheriff, said law enforcement officers were struck by the callousness of the young man’s beating.

“What made this even worse is you have individuals, suspects, that know it’s a developmentally disabled man and they beat him senseless,” Bellos told Land Line. “The other piece of this is they not only do it once, but they bring him back a second night to do the same thing.

“I’ve heard some people refer to it as vigilante justice, but we don’t live in the Old West. This is 2008, and when you believe a crime has been committed you call the police. They weren’t trying to wrong a right; it was gratuitous violence to beat this man and torture him. I’ve been in this business 30 years, and this man’s injuries were severe but the crime itself – the preying upon this disabled man– was something I had not seen before.”

Ries, according to the Star-Tribune newspaper, works for an organization that serves disabled adults.

For 25 years, the Goodyear Highway Hero program has recognized the sometimes unheralded actions of truck drivers who save lives and provide roadside assistance every day in North America.

Bellos said that the highway Hamilton was walking by is in a fairly rural area with a moderate amount of traffic.

The unknown driver, he said, committed a good deed.

“Clearly, I think you can say he was instrumental in this man’s life being saved,” Bellos said.

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