‘One of the most heinous crimes I’ve ever seen:’ Pleasanton man sentenced for killing, beheading fiancée

OAKLAND — A Pleasanton man was ordered Tuesday to spend at least 15 years — and potentially the rest of his life — in prison for a killing that one Alameda County judge decried as “one of the most heinous crimes I’ve ever seen.”

“The inhumanity of your actions are beyond my ability to comprehend,” said Judge Scott Patton, while directly addressing Joseph Roberts, 43. “There are some people who should not be free to walk among us in society, and you’re one of those people.”

Roberts stared silently ahead while the Patton handed down his sentence for the beheading of Rachel “Imani” Buckner, 27, whose mangled body was found stuffed inside a garbage bag in July 2023 near the Bay Farm Island Bridge in Alameda. A jury later found Roberts guilty of second-degree murder after authorities say he killed Buckner inside their Pleasanton apartment and used power tools to cut off her head, hands and feet — none of which were ever found.

In court on Tuesday, friends and relatives described Roberts as a manipulative man who was prone to bouts of extreme violence. They claimed he once punched and stomped on Buckner’s grandmother so badly that she broke an arm and suffered a brain injury. Then they claimed he turned his anger on his fiancée and systematically isolated her from her family.

Several of Buckner’s relatives and close friends expressed fear and dread at the thought of Roberts ever being released from prison — describing him as a “dangerous” man who “visited a reign of terror” on Buckner and those around her.

“This has been a total nightmare for me and my family,” said Buckner’s grandmother, Miriam Benford, in a statement read by another relative. “None of us are safe if he is out on the streets. He has desecrated our lives. He should never be free.”

Buckner’s mother, S. Jamila Buckner, lamented how Rachel’s preschool-aged daughter still cries out: “I want my mommy, I want my mommy.”

“She’s only 4, and she’s had to try to understand the complexity of her mother being dead,” S. Jamila Buckner said. She recounted how the girl repeatedly wonders aloud about how her mother died, asking over and over: “Did her heart stop?”

Roberts opted not to speak during the sentencing hearing. His attorney, Annie Beles, said that the court had no discretion in determining the length of Roberts’ prison term, and expressed “a hope for peace” for everyone involved, including the couple’s families.

Roberts and Rachel Buckner met while studying law at Golden Gate University. During their relationship, Roberts penned an op-ed for USA Today, decrying the #MeToo movement by saying that he’d been falsely accused of sexual harassment while in college. Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. Secretary of Education under President Trump, used Roberts as an example as she championed rolling back Obama-era protections for alleged victims of sexual assault on college campuses.

All the while, prosecutors suspect Roberts ruthlessly beat and abused Rachel Buckner.

In the lead-up to the killing, Pleasanton police officers handled some 17 reports of loud screams, bangs and thumps coming from the couple’s apartment. Yet little came of those calls, because Pleasanton police usually left the couple’s house after only a few knocks, prosecutors say. Other times, Buckner insisted she was fine and told officers to leave.

Authorities say Roberts killed Buckner in mid-July 2023 in their Pleasanton apartment. Prosecutors said Roberts then went on a Tinder dating spree and continued on with his life as if nothing happened.

Investigators later spotted a bone fragment containing Rachel Buckner’s DNA in the couple’s bath drain, near large bottles of cleaning chemicals. The body itself contained partial cuts from “false starts” where Roberts’ saw snagged on a bone, according to court testimony.

On Tuesday, Rachel Buckner’s family and friends opted to focus on the life that was cut short — one of a doting mother who appeared destined for a promising career as an attorney. It all would have happened, they say, had she never met Roberts all those years ago in law school.

“He tore my first born child away from me,” S. Jamila Buckner said. “I felt like my insides were ripped out of my very soul.”