Mitchell County Sheriff supports plea deal made in Osage man’s murder case

OSAGE — The Mitchell County Sheriff says he supports the recent plea agreement struck between prosecutors and an Osage man accused of the 2021 murder of a Mason City woman.

24-year-old Nathan Gilmore pleaded guilty on August 17th to one count of second-degree murder after being charged last August with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 29-year-old Angela Bradbury. Bradbury went missing in April 2021, with authorities accusing Gilmore of picking her up near the Cerro Gordo County Jail on April 6th of that year and later murdering her.

At this week’s meeting of the Mitchell County Board of Supervisors, Sheriff Greg Beaver said the plea deal was a good resolution to the case.  “There’s a lot that goes into those negotiations. It’s something that the defense came to us with. We agreed to that, but only agreed to it with the blessings of the family. We don’t make those decisions based solely on the legal side of that negotiation. The family has to be involved in that because they are impacted the most. They thought about it and agreed that was the best resolution. That avoids a lot of court time and court prep and some of those things that would have occurred in October.”

Beaver says prosecutors had to act quickly after the plea agreement proposal was made.   “When the negotiations started to develop and the state accepted the plea, our condition was that it had to be done almost immediately within a couple of days. We didn’t want them to go back to his cell and rethink their position and then say ‘oh no, we’re not going to do that’. Then all the court dates that were currently set would have been wiped out and it would have just pushed it further down the road.”

Second-degree murder is a Class B forcible felony, with Gilmore facing a 50-year prison term when he is sentenced on October 16th. With the forcible felony, Gilmore would face a mandatory 35 years in prison prior to his being eligible for parole.