“I think deep down inside, we probably did know she was gone,” Crawmer said.

Even a woman who claimed to have had a vision of where Osborn’s body lay offered her services. She took one of the family members to within an eighth of a mile from where the body would eventually be found; divers searched but found nothing.

The search ended Oct. 29 when Owen finally broke down and confessed to murdering Osborn. As part of the deal Owen reached with prosecutors, he agreed to reveal Osborn’s location.

Divers pulled her body from the Blue Earth River. She’d been weighted down with a heavy object.

In the immediate aftermath, the family was not happy with the sentence.

Jim Crawmer, Osborn’s father, at a news conference following the guilty plea and 23-year sentence determination, said, “He deserves a lot more. He should get the same as she got.”

Osborn’s son had held out hope his mom would come home alive. He was crushed when he heard the news, “but I’m glad it’s over,” he said.

Owen’s official release date is Feb. 21, 2022. Even though it’s still 14 years away, Shirley Crawmer says it’s not long enough.

“She would have been 51 today,” she says, holding tight to a cup of coffee. “We weren’t just sister-in-laws, we were sisters.”