Convicted killer of Chris Bagley pleads guilty to jail beating of drug informant

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Marion man convicted in the 2018 murder of Chris Bagley pleaded guilty Thursday to charges he assaulted a drug informant in jail to prevent him from testifying against a drug dealer.

Johnny Blahnik Church, 35, formerly known as Drew Blahnik, pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness and willful injury causing serious injury. The plea was an Alford plea, meaning that Blahnik Church still holds he is innocent of the charges, but admits that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict him in a trial.

Per his plea agreement, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which will run consecutively with the 57-year sentence he was given for Bagley’s murder and the five-year sentence he was given in October for federal charges of possessing a firearm as a drug user.

According to a criminal complaint, Blahnik Church, along with Gregory Sills, 49, of Oelwein, followed Ethan Palmer, the drug informant, into the bathroom in their cell pod at the Linn County Jail on May 27, and began “striking” Palmer. They eventually dragged Palmer out into the main area of the cellblock and continued to attack him.

Blahnik Church and Sills “repeatedly punched, kicked and hit Palmer with a metal lunch tray causing serious injuries.” Palmer’s injuries included a broken nose, two broken orbital bones, a torn retina, chipped teeth and a broken knee, the complaint states.

Palmer was set to testify at the federal trial of Justin Michael Buehler, who was charged and later convicted of two counts of distributing methamphetamine. Palmer still testified in the trial, which started 12 days after the assault. Palmer had been in the jail awaiting trial on drug and theft charges out of Black Hawk and Fayette counties.

A complaint hasn’t been filed on Sills, who would be charged separately in the assault.

Palmer’s wife, Laurie Palmer, gave a victim impact statement during the hearing, in which she called Blahnik Church a “pathetic shell of a person” and told him he had accomplished nothing by doing someone else’s “dirty work,” except to get himself more time in prison.

“The only thing more disgusting than looking at you is sharing the air you breathe,” Laurie Palmer said.

Trish Mehaffey of The Gazette contributed to this report.

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