Sentence in Bicyclist’s Death Displeases Family of Victim

The family of a Kansas City crime victim fumed Monday as a Jackson County judge sentenced their loved one’s killer to 15 years in prison.

Before Judge Jay Daugherty announced the sentence for Fabian D. Brown Jr., Robert Osborn’s brothers urged him to tear up the plea agreement and take Brown to trial, hoping that he would get a life sentence.

But with conflicting testimony between co-defendants—particularly as to who pulled the trigger—the plea bargain held.

“The judge followed the bureaucratic guidelines,” said Rick Osborn, Robert’s oldest brother. “That was the safe course to go.”

At his guilty plea in October, Brown said that he and co-defendant Rapheal Willis killed Osborn in November 2005 after they saw him riding a bicycle near 47th Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard.

Brown said he fired two shots from a hunting rifle but missed. The pair then drove down the road and ambushed Osborn, this time killing him with a 12-gauge shotgun.

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When Willis pleaded guilty in August, he said Brown killed Osborn.

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