MORGANTOWN – Kim Osborne had fresh bruises on her neck the night she told police Joe Nevera strangled her.
That was on Jan. 21, 2022, when Sgt. John Cunningham of the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department responded to the River Road house she shared with Nevera after she called 911.
A hunter would find her body in a shallow grave just a couple of miles from that house in November 2024.
She had gone missing on Mother’s Day of that year.
Nevera was arrested and charged with first-degree murder shortly after the discovery of her skeletal remains.
Monday was the fifth day of Nevera’s trial.
Mon Prosecutor Gabrielle Mucciola rested her case after playing bodycam footage from Cunningham for jurors.
The jury will get the case after Nevera’s counsel Christopher Wilson makes his final argument Tuesday morning on his client’s behalf. The proceedings resume at 9 a.m. in Monongalia County Circuit Court.
“Arguing,” was the watchword, Osborne tearfully recounted to Cunningham, via that footage.
Their frequent verbal sniping, she said, often escalated to assault – especially when Nevera was drinking, she said.
“I begged and begged him to stop,” she said.
On that evening back in 2022 as the couple quarreled, she said, Nevera’s anger became swift and terrible.
She was sitting on a couch, she told the sergeant, when suddenly, Nevera was sitting on her – with his hands around her neck.
While Nevera could be controlling and violent, as friends of both he and Osborne testified during the trial, he could also be a nice guy when he wasn’t drinking.
And Osborne, those friends said on the stand, was also carrying duality in her nature.
She was a doting mom to her three children and was a nurturing friend to her River Road neighbors – but also used and dealt cocaine, while reportedly stealing money from Nevera.
Nevera admitted to alcohol abuse in a self-assessment he was mandated to take through Morgantown-based Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center, following his arrest after the events of that January evening.
After verbal altercations with his one-time domestic partner, he was often “overwhelmed, spiteful and pressured,” he wrote.
Osborne, he said, was made to feel “unheard” and “abused,” he said.
Jurors on Monday got to hear Nevera’s first official words in court after Circuit Judge Cindy Scott asked if he understood that it was his choice to testify – or not.
“Yes, your honor,” he said.
