MORGANTOWN – Joe Nevera has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2024 slaying of Kim Osborne, his one-time girlfriend and domestic partner.
A jury of five women and seven men deliberated three hours or so Tuesday afternoon before delivering the verdict in Monongalia County Circuit Court.
While Nevera, 52, of River Road, was expressionless as the verdict was read, the case – his defense attorney Christopher Wilson said in his closing statement that morning – was brimming with nothing but expression and nuance.
And, he said, no concrete evidence.
That’s because it was built by Mon Prosecutor Gabrielle Mucciola on talk and nothing else, he told the jury.
“You are not allowed to guess, ladies and gentlemen,” Wilson said. “You may not like him, but you are not allowed to speculate.”
Guilty on a murder charge means guilty beyond any measure of reasonable doubt – but the prosecution, the defense attorney stressed, delivered nothing but that.
“What we do know is that Kim Osborne disappeared May 12, 2024, and was discovered Nov. 15, 2024,” Wilson said.
“That’s all we know,” he continued. “We don’t know how Kim Osborne died. We just don’t.”
A hunter discovered the skeletal remains of Osborne, 48, near the house on River Road shared by her and Nevera.
Forensic evidence delivered by expert witnesses for both the prosecution and defense was at times inconclusive and contradictory, he said.
Wilson questioned the veracity of John Claburn, who said Nevera showed up at his River Road camper on May 12, with Osborne’s lifeless body in the passenger seat behind the driver’s side of the cab.
Claburn considered Nevera his closest friend and liked to pal around with Osborne, also.
Meanwhile, Claburn told police in January of that encounter, more than 600 days after Nevera allegedly strangled Osborne to death.
“Why did he wait so long?” Wilson mused.
A swath of time doesn’t matter when one is doing the right thing, Mucciola said. Claburn, she said, is now facing jail time as an accessory after the fact.
The only one with a true motive to kill Osborne, she said, was Nevera.
Joe Nevera returns to the courtroom after being found guilty of the first-degree murder of Kim Osborne in Monongalia County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
What was left at the heart of the proceedings in the courtroom when it was all done were two moms, both emotional: Rose Osborne, the mother of Kim, brushed tears and hugged the person next to her. Eleanor Nevera wept silently for her son.
Deliberations on the penalty portion of the trial begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
