Victim: Stabber sought vengeance

When they arrested him on main street, cops said they found a bloody knife in his pocket and blood smeared on his pants.?

A man lay on the street nearby, stabbed in the chest.??

And now Gustav Ryerson, 34, is going to prison for five years, after admitting to second degree assault with a deadly weapon Jason "Jan" Robnett. In a plea agreement with the district attorney, charges of attempted murder and menacing were dropped.??

The case is notable not just because it's a rare case of violent crime in Telluride, nor for its serious punishment.

It's notable for what might have been the motivations behind it.??

Some statements to police indicate that this was more than just a bar brawl that escalated, and that Ryerson was more than just a man who lost control of his temper.?

The two men had dealt with each other before, long before things got bloody. One time in Silverton, Ryerson said, Robnett threatened him and kept him from leaving a building, then stalked outside a bar where Ryerson was hanging out, peering in the window. Robnett said that Ryerson had long accused him of crimes against women.

Then, on Sept. 4, the two men clashed outside O'Bannons.

Witnesses said that Robnett, for some reason, was angrily kicking random objects, including a bicycle that did not belong to him, and that Ryerson came out of the bar and confronted him.

"Get out of here!" witnesses heard Ryerson yell. "Get the [expletive] out of this town!"??

The stories differ at this point, as to who advanced on who, and who swung first. Ryerson indicated he acted in self defense, while Robnett said Ryerson stalked him down the street.??

Whatever immediately led to the stabbing, Robnett told police that Ryerson had long been "slandering" his name with what he called "lies," accusations that he used Rohypnol to sexually assault women, accusations that he had raped a Silverton woman.

Robnett thought that Ryerson was trying to be a "hero." He said that, as Ryerson plunged the knife into his chest, Ryerson said: "Have you raped anyone lately?"??

According to police officials, Robnett has never been charged or connected in any criminal case in either San Miguel or San Juan counties, the counties where Robnett seems to have recently lived.??

And though these reports paint a picture of Ryerson as a vigilante out for revenge, Ryerson himself did not give that as an excuse. When he was arrested, he said virtually nothing to police, and asked only for legal council.??

Ryerson's lawyer, Jeralyn E. Merritt, said that Ryerson would deny having made the above statement. Ryerson intended to plead simple self-defense, on the grounds that he had "knowledge at that time of Jason Robnett's prior acts of violence and propensity for carrying deadly weapons, and as a result of a prior confrontation with Robnett in which Robnett displayed threatening behavior toward him," according to court filings from Merritt.?

In the end, though, Ryerson decided to take the plea agreement.??

"Neither side's case was perfect," Ryerson's lawyer, Merritt, wrote in an e-mail. "While Gustav [Ryerson] had a viable self-defense argument, it was not without risk. Ultimately and as frequently happens in such cases, a compromise was reached that both sides felt was in their best interest. I know Gustav sincerely regrets and accepts responsibility for his part in the incident."?

Ryerson will be formally sentenced Aug. 16 in District Court.

Reilly Capps write for the Telluride Daily Planet.