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FILE - In this undated file photo provided the Wilberger family, Brooke Wilberger is shown. Authorities said Monday, Sept. 21, 2009, that the remains of missing Oregon woman Brooke Wilberger have been found. (AP Photo/The Wilberger Family) NO SALES

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FILE - In this Wednesday, May 26, 2004 file picture, volunteers fan out along a bank during their search near Marys River in Corvallis, Ore. for missing 19-year-old Brigham Young University student Brooke Wilberger. Authorities say the remains of Wilberger have been found more than five years after the Brigham Young University student disappeared from an apartment complex in Corvallis. District Attorney John Haroldson said Monday, Sept. 21, 2009 the suspect in the killing, Joel Courtney, accepted a plea deal in which he avoided a possible death sentence. In exchange, Courtney told investigators the location of Wilberger's remains. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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** FILE ** FILE- This undated file police photo from video, shows Joel Patrick Courtney, charged with the murder of Brooke Wilberger, a college university student who disappeared from a Corvallis, Ore., apartment complex in May 2004. Authorities said Monday, Sept. 21, 2009, that the remains of missing Oregon woman Brooke Wilberger have been found. District Attorney John Haroldson said Monday that the suspect in the killing, Joel Courtney, accepted a plea deal in which averted a possible death sentence. In exchange, Courtney told investigators the location of Wilberger's remains. (AP Photo/Police Photo via Albuquerque Journal)

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For the first time in five years, Brooke Wilberger’s family knows where she is.

The 19-year-old BYU student disappeared from an apartment building in her hometown of Corvallis, Ore., on May 24, 2004, and was never seen or heard from again. Police connected a man who was eventually convicted of kidnap and rape in New Mexico with Wilberger’s disappearance, but still no body.

On Monday, that man, Joel Patrick Courtney, accepted a plea deal that would spare him the death penalty and in exchange told police where her body was. Courtney, 43, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after entering the plea. Wilberger’s family had said they would support a plea deal if Courtney would reveal the location of the her remains.

Wilberger’s friends found out about the discovery on Monday afternoon; their reactions were happy, all things considered.

“I am just so happy for her family, for them to have all this closure on all aspects of things,” said Trisha Nef. “It’s hard to have all the memories brought back up, but it’s wonderful to have everything resolved.”

Another friend, Nikki Duke Waite, said hearing the news on Monday brought back all the pain she felt when Wilberger disappeared. But it also brought happiness because now they have closure.

“I am happy, especially just for her family,” she said.

She remembered Wilberger as someone who was always willing to help.

“She was just the warmest, kindest person,” Waite said.

Waite and Nef lived on the same floor of Deseret Towers that Wilberger did their freshman year at BYU. Six women from that floor, including those two, planned to live together for their sophomore year.

By the time the year started, their numbers had dropped. Wilberger had been missing for three months, and her best friend didn’t come back to BYU, Nef said. For the first few years they kept in touch with the Wilbergers, but that has slowed in recent years, she said. Now, though, they’re figuring out schedules and trying to work in a trip to Oregon.

“A group of us would like to make it up there for the funeral,” she said.

She talked to a couple of them after she found out about the discovery on Monday afternoon, and they all echoed her thoughts, Nef said: shock that it was happening, pleased with the resolution.

After Wilberger’s disappearance, BYU students held candlelight vigils and started a Web site to help find her. A massive search in Oregon that included family, friends and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned up nothing, and investigators struggled to find a lead.

Then a detective in the New Mexico case called Oregon investigators, and a troubling picture of Courtney emerged, linking him to Wilberger.

Courtney’s sister told investigators Courtney began using drugs at age 11, developed an interest in Satanism by the age of 15, and once had to be hit over the head with a clock to prevent him from raping her.

He served time in jail in Oregon for a 1991 sex abuse conviction in Washington County, where he grew up.

It was luck, bravery and the sheer determination of the student victim in New Mexico that tripped up Courtney when she escaped and called police.

Court documents show Courtney grew up in the Portland area before moving to Alaska, Florida and New Mexico, working at times as a fisherman, mechanic and janitor.

He eventually married and settled in Rio Rancho, N.M., an Albuquerque suburb. It seemed he was living a quiet life until details emerged from the investigation suggesting he was a secretive, angry man who drank too much, used crack cocaine and frightened his wife and three children.

The first major break in the Wilberger case came in 2004 when an Albuquerque police detective made a call to Oregon to check on Courtney’s criminal record.

Evidence quickly accumulated indicating Courtney was in Corvallis the day of Wilberger’s disappearance.

After his return to Oregon, Courtney was also charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping and attempted rape involving two former Oregon State students the same day Wilberger disappeared.

BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said the administration did not have anything planned for students to commemorate the discovery, but added the campus community had been praying for the family for many years.

“Those prayers certainly continue today for the Wilberger family,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.