MORGANTOWN – The motivations of Joe Nevera’s one-time best friend John Claburn were key to both the prosecution and defense Friday, in the fourth day of Nevera’s trial for murder in Monongalia County Circuit Court.
Nevera, 52, of River Road, was charged with that act in the first degree, after the skeletal remains of Kim Osborne were found in a shallow grave near his house in November 2024.
Osborne, 48, who lived with Nevera, but was in the process of breaking off their relationship, had gone missing on Mother’s Day of that year.
That afternoon, family and friends witnessed her and Nevera arguing in the driveway at her mother’s house.
And that evening, as Claburn testified, Nevera drove down to the camper on River Road where Claburn was residing to tell his friend that not only had he killed Osborne – her body was in the back passenger seat of the Silverado pickup he was driving.
“Joe, this isn’t good,” he recounted to jurors after Nevera, he testified, opened the passenger door to show him the body. “What have you done?”
Gabrielle Mucciola, Mon’s prosecuting attorney, and Nevera’s counsel Christopher Wilson both delved into the network of mutual friends, and mutual indiscretions, shared by the couple.
Nevera, even with a sometimes coiled personality, could be a nice guy until he started drinking.
Could be, his friends said.
When he was drinking, Osborne told friends, the abuse started.
He once strangled her to the point of unconsciousness, she said.
And there was his arrest for domestic abuse in January 2022 after another argument, during which he chopped through one the doors to his house with an axe, terrorizing Osborne.
During the course of their relationship, Osborne also dealt and used cocaine, those same friends said – despite being a caring mom to her three children and a good, nurturing person to pal around with.
After being questioned by Mucciola on Thursday afternoon, Claburn was on the receiving end of Wilson’s cross-examination Friday.
Claburn was charged in January with being an accessory, after finally telling his story to authorities.
He counted Osborne as a friend, also, he said. He was haunted too long, he said, by knowing of her murder and not saying anything.
Besides, he said: There were all those rumors on River Road. He ratted out his friend. He participated in the murder.
The ensuing investigation cleared Claburn, though, as the soil found on his confiscated work boots didn’t match the composition of the dirt at Osborne’s makeshift grave.
Wilson, though, wondered aloud if it still wasn’t self-preservation over justice. After all, he said, Nevera’s friend is now facing jail time, too.
“You were looking for a deal, weren’t you?” the attorney asked.
“Deal?” came Claburn’s reply.
“There’s no ‘deal’ here, sir. I’m looking at five years. I’m gonna lose everything.”
Friday’s proceedings also included testimony by Joshua Ward, the county detective who arrested Nevera on the domestic abuse charge four years ago and took Claburn’s statement in January.
The prosecution used the detective to counter the defense attorney’s musings.
Mucciola: “Did John Claburn ask for immunity?”
Ward: “No.”
“Is there any evidence that he had a motive [for murder?]”
“No.”
“Do we intend to convict him of being an accessory?”
“Yes.”
Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Monday.
