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MORGANTOWN - Joseph Nevera, the Morgantown man found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2024 slaying of his one-time domestic partner Kimberly Osborne, was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no mercy.
Monongalia Circuit Judge Cindy Scott handed down the sentence, which means no chance of parole for Nevera.
Life with mercy, in turn, would have granted the possibility of a first parole hearing 15 years into the sentence.
Monday's hearing was the coda to a seven-day trial this past April, where jurors heard testimony recounting Nevera's history of violence against Osborne, also of Morgantown, who was in the process of breaking off their relationship with him at the time of her death.
A sportsman practicing target-shooting with his bow in November 2024 discovered her skeletal remains in a shallow grave in a wooded expanse near Little Indian Creek Road - around two miles from the residence she shared with Nevera.
Months later, John Claburn, one of Nevera's former friends, would tell a Monongalia County detective that Nevera showed him Osborne's body in the back cab of his truck on the night of her murder.
Claburn has since entered a plea of guilty to being an accessory after the fact, for not coming forward sooner.
Meanwhile, Osborne's mother, Rose Osborne, testified in April of not wanting to give up hope - while also giving in to grim reality at the same time.
She was sitting at her kitchen table, seven months' into her daughter's disappearance, when she heard a knock on her door and saw the silhouette of an officer through the window shade.
In that wrenching moment, she testified, she knew her daughter was dead.
"She was my child," she said then.
"She was my baby. And I'm angry."
Monday's proceedings featured more impact statements of the same, as Rose Osborne again addressed the court, along with several other family members.
"I think they're relieved to have this part of the chapter closed," said Gabrielle Mucciola, Mon County's prosecuting attorney.