Ten years later, and still wondering ‘why?’

By Robb Murray

FAIRMONT — Even 10 years later, it doesn’t take much to get Shirley Crawmer crying at the memory of Sheri Osborn.

Today is the anniversary of the day Osborn failed to show up for work and people began wondering where she was.

It would take another two weeks, a massive community effort and the confession of a killer for anyone to see Osborn again. But by then it was too late.

Osborn, a woman known for doing good deeds, was killed by the drunk man she offered to drive home that night.

“I should be sitting here having lunch with Sheri,” said Crawmer, sitting in the same Perkins Restaurant where she and Sheri met monthly. “She was always willing to help somebody, and that’s what got her killed.”

The killer was Ryan Owen, who is serving a 23-year sentence in the Stillwater prison. And he’s the only one who can answer the only question the family has: Why?

“The world would be a better place if she were here,” said Crawmer, Osborn’s sister-in-law. “And all her friends in Winnebago would say the same.”

Osborn was reported missing Oct. 12, 1998, when she didn’t show up for work at MET, an electronics plant in Winnebago. Soon thereafter, area law enforcement — led by the Faribault County Sheriff’s Department — organized a massive search.

The investigation focused on Owen almost immediately. Witnesses told authorities they saw Osborn leave with Owen from a bar in Granada at about 1 a.m. Oct. 11. She had offered to give Owen a ride because he’d had too much to drink.

That was the last time anyone but Owen saw her alive.

Teams of mostly law enforcement volunteers were bused or trucked out to rural areas of the county around Winnebago. They were told to look for areas of freshly dug up dirt.

Meanwhile, evidence continued to mount against Owen. One witness said Owen had inquired whether bones would burn up in a house fire. Another witness said he’d seen scratches on Owen’s car that were not there prior to Osborn’s disappearance.

Mary Kay cosmetics were found in a ditch near Owen’s residence. Osborn was a Mary Kay saleswoman. And blood was found outside his residence and on a gun found inside his pickup truck.

Owen was interviewed several times, and each time his story changed. First he denied even knowing Osborn. Then he said he got a ride with someone else (when asked to corroborate, that person denied giving Owen a ride). Eventually he admitted lying about how he got home because he feared, due to his criminal background, police wouldn’t believe he wasn’t involved.

Still, there was no body. And eventually law enforcement asked for the public’s help, and dozens of Osborn’s neighbors heeded the call.

“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.”