California man sentenced for killing, dismembering fiancée and dumping remains near shoreline

ALAMEDA, Calif. (TCN) -- A 43-year-old man will spend 15 years to life in prison for the slaying of his fiancée, whose dismembered remains were discovered in a trash bag in 2023.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office announced Joseph Roberts’ sentencing guidelines on July 2 after a jury convicted him in May of the second-degree murder of 27-year-old Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner. The defendant will also have to pay $19,818 in restitution.

On July 20, 2023, the Alameda Police Department discovered Buckner’s remains in a bag along the shoreline near the Bay Farm Island Bridge. Investigators found Roberts’ DNA on the duct tape he used to seal the bag.

According to prosecutors, "Although Ms. Buckner was living with Mr. Roberts at the time of her disappearance, the evidence showed that he never reported that she was missing."

Roberts and Buckner reportedly met at Golden Gate University Law School in 2019. The two lived together in Pleasanton, where officers had responded to in the past for domestic violence calls.

The judge presiding over the case called Roberts’ crime "one of the most heinous he had ever seen."

District Attorney Pamela Price said, "Words are inadequate to describe what Rachel Imani Buckner’s family must be feeling in this moment after their loved one was tragically taken from them in such an unthinkable way."

Buckner had recently graduated from law school before her death, KNTV-TV reports.