GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Back before a judge for a second resentencing, a man who murdered a woman in Grand Rapids not long before his 18th birthday received a term of years that will make him eligible for parole by about 2039.
Marc Osborne has been in a state prison since he was convicted of the 1999 rape and murder of Jessica Ledford, 18, in Highland Park. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to between 40 and 60 years. That means he will be eligible for parole in about 15 years.
Ledford’s family said the resentencing process forced them to relive the horror of her murder and stripped away the justice they thought they had been served.
“What he did to her wasn’t bad enough. He threw her away like trash. And he gets a chance to live a life,” Ledford’s stepmother Vicki Buitendyk said.
With 2nd resentencing ordered, ‘juvenile lifer’ could get chance at parole
Osborne was granted a resentencing because he was a so-called “juvenile lifer” — someone sentenced to mandatory life in prison without a chance for parole for a crime committed while still a juvenile. He was 50 days from turning 18 when he killed Ledford.