Man sent to prison for 1992 break-in, sexual assault and robbery in Clinton

ADRIAN — A man who committed a series of violent crimes in three states more than 30 years ago likely will die in prison after being sentenced Friday in Lenawee County Circuit Court.

Ricky Nelson Bixler, 64, was in prison in Ohio in February 2023 when he was arrested on charges that he broke into a home in Clinton, sexually assaulted a woman inside and stole money from her in November 1992. Clinton Police Chief Tony Cuevas, who became chief in 2018, had noticed the sexual assault kit with a DNA sample taken after the attack in Clinton was still in the police department's evidence room, Lenawee County Prosecutor Jackie Wyse said. He had it retested, and a match in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) was made to Bixler.

CODIS maintains DNA samples collected from known offenders as well as a samples collected from submitted evidence.

Bixler, who originally is from the Bowling Green, Ohio, area, has been in prison since 1994 and has a long criminal history with several felony convictions, including kidnapping, robbery and sexual assault in Kansas and Ohio. DNA technology and testing processes have improved over the years, said Cuevas and retired Clinton Police Office Tory Terrill, who was the original investigating officer. Kansas had to update its laws to collect DNA from newly convicted felons and those already in prison for Bixler's sample to be put into CODIS. A match with his DNA led to his incarceration in Ohio.

A circuit court jury convicted Bixler in February of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, armed robbery and breaking and entering a building with intent for the Clinton assault.

On Friday, Circuit Judge Anna Marie Anzalone sentenced Bixler to 30 to 50 years in prison on the criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, armed robbery convictions and 10 to 50 years on the breaking and entering charge. The sentenced will be served concurrently. She credited him for 444 days already served since being arrested and ordered him to pay court costs. She read through some of Bixler's criminal history, beginning in 1977 with a trespassing charge and continuing with burglary and theft convictions in Michigan and Ohio before committing the assault in Clinton and others in Ohio and Kansas in 1992 and 1993. His history includes a sexual assault of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, she said.

"I thank God for technology, I thank God for Chief Cuevas, who had the commitment to keep submitting (the DNA sample), we were able to locate you this many years later," Anzalone told Bixler before issuing the sentences. "…I don't know how many women you've raped, but you're the reason women and girls are not safe in their homes, in their schools, in their cars. You're part of the reason women are not safe anymore.

"I'm glad you seek forgiveness, but that's between you and God because you're obviously not getting it here today from anybody."

The woman who survived the attack in Clinton, as well as the victims in assaults in Ohio and Kansas, addressed the court Friday.

The Clinton survivor told Anzalone she was home with her two children and five other children she was babysitting when "a stranger walked through the back door, put a large knife to my throat and was pushing me towards the back door. I thank God I was able to convince him that I cannot leave all these little kids alone. So he forced me upstairs into a bedroom where he proceeded to rape and rob me just a few feet away from a newborn baby."

Before leaving, he pointed the knife at her back and threatened to find her if she told the police, she said, thinking that he would stab her right then.

The assault had lifelong effects, she said, describing feelings of fear, distrust, depression and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I've lived in fear my whole life until today when he is sentenced," she said, asking that the court give him a life sentence like the one he gave her.

"May God have mercy on his soul," she said.

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The victim from Kansas talked about Bixler breaking into the church that she loved and where she was in charge of children's programming. He was arrested about a week after the assault and has been incarcerated since. She said the assault had long-lasting effects on her family and her church family. She said she contemplated suicide and discussed the fears about HIV and victims' rights in the 1990s.

"We knew nothing about HIV. The first thing my 15-year-old son said to me was, 'Mom, what if he gave you something?' I didn't know. I had no rights to his HIV information. Every time my children took a drink of my pop, I thought, 'Oh my God. I might have just killed them.' Because we didn't know back then how HIV was spread."

He begged Anzalone to keep Bixler behind bars. He was scheduled to be released from his Ohio prison term in 2028. She said she didn't know if she could keep living where she is now if he's released.

The woman Bixler attacked in Putnam County, Ohio, in 1992 wondered how someone as bad as Bixler could have survived living in prison for so long.

"Why isn't he dead yet?" she asked. The reason, she said, is so that the victim from Clinton could have her day in court.

She said she's at peace with what happened, but she does not want Bixler released and for him to take accountability. She said he has not taken responsibility, blaming the police for not arresting him.

Bixler, with a long, gray beard and wearing black-rimmed glasses and orange jail clothes, told the court that while he's been in prison he has become aware of what he did and has "faced it every day that I look into the mirror."

He said he seeks forgiveness from God and to the victims he said he is "sorry for what you went through."

He also said he wants the state of Ohio to update its statute of limitations laws to allow older cases to be prosecuted and that he will admit to his past crimes.

The women's strength and courage have been the catalyst for his changes, he said.

"There is no place in society for people like me," he said.

Wyse, in addressing the court, noted that Bixler still hadn't taken responsibility, saying he was "sorry for what they went through."

"It's not what they went through. It's what he put them through," she said.

The women, she said, "will forever be heroes to me for what they've been through."

Hearing Bixler saying there are other victims gave her chills, Wyse said, adding that his true aim in offering to resolve his crimes in Ohio is an attempt to return there and not do his time in Michigan.

Bixler having "been a good boy" in prison does not lessen the effects of his actions, said Lenawee County Assistant Prosecutor Amanda Wagner, who stepped in with Chief Assistant Prosecutor Allison Arnold to fill in after Wyse became ill the morning the trial began.

"I don't want to refer to (the women) as Mr. Bixler's victims after today because they survived him," Wagner said. "And the support they have shown each other in showing up here for each other is something like I've ever seen before."

It was clear the Bixler had never experienced that kind of love and support, she said.

Wagner challenged Bixler's statement during the trial that the police didn't do their jobs. She said Terrill, former Clinton Police Chief Mike Randolph, Cuevas and others did their jobs. She also credited Wyse for putting in the work so that she and Arnold could take over for the trial.

"Good police work and technology brought us here," Terrill said in the courtroom after the hearing.

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Prison for 1992 break-in, sexual assault and robbery in Clinton