Inset: Kimberly Osborne (McCulla Funeral Home). Background: Joseph Nevera, center, at sentencing in West Virginia for Osborne’s killing (WDTV).
A West Virginia man has been ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison after prosecutors said he carried out a chilling threat to put his girlfriend “in a grave,” strangling her and burying her body in a wooded area.
Joseph Nevera, 51, received a life sentence following his conviction for first-degree murder in the death of Kimberly Osborne, 48, near Morgantown. The sentence was handed down without mercy, meaning Nevera will never be eligible for parole.
Osborne was reported missing on Mother’s Day 2024. For six months, deputies with the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Office searched before finding her remains in a shallow grave near the home she shared with Nevera. Authorities arrested him a few weeks later.
According to a courtroom report from local CBS affiliate WDTV, a key trial witness testified that Nevera had threatened Osborne before, saying he would choke her until she would “end up in a grave or a hole in the ground.” Prosecutors said Nevera was enraged because Osborne intended to leave him.
After Osborne was killed, Nevera took her body to his friend John Claburn, showing him that she was in the passenger seat of a Silverado truck.
“I killed her,” Claburn recalled Nevera saying, according to the Dominion Post. “You gotta help me.”
“Joe, this isn’t good,” Claburn reportedly told his best friend.
The two drove to a remote area where Nevera buried the body as Claburn stood watch. Claburn was convicted of accessory after the fact.
Osborne’s mother testified she held out hope that her daughter may still be alive as the search for her continued. But those dreams were dashed when cops showed up at her doorstep to tell her they had found her body.
“She was my child,” she reportedly testified. “She was my baby. And I’m angry.”
Osborne, a mother of three, was known for her “boundless generosity and joyful spirit.”
“Kimberly’s presence was a light that guided many through times of darkness,” her obituary reads.
The post Man who warned girlfriend she would ‘end up in a grave’ was accurate in his prediction — and is now going to prison first appeared on Law & Crime.
