Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Sierah Joughin

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

A beautiful young woman's brutal murder at the height of Midwestern summer shatters her community's sense of safety forever and exposes a monster hiding right there in plain sight. Please join us in supporting justiceforsierah.org For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-sierah-joughin 

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And today, I want to tell you about a beautiful young woman whose brutal murder at the height of summertime shattered her community's sense of safety forever. And in the process, set police's sights on a monster hiding right in their very midst. This is the story of Sierra Joggin.

On the evening of July 19, 2016, in Fulton County, Ohio, about 40 minutes away from Toledo, a young man named Josh Kolozinski is taking advantage of the warm summer night and going for a ride out in the country with his girlfriend, Sierra Joggin. Now, they're riding side by side down a country road in the middle of like farmlands, like kind of the middle of nowhere feel

that you can only get in the Midwest when you're surrounded by cornfields on all sides. And Sierra's on her purple bike while Josh rides slow on his motorcycle. It's one of those like perfect summer nights here in the Midwest where, you know, the sky's clear, like the heat's starting to dip, cutting through that humidity.

Oh, I can just picture it. There's like a nice little breeze, no bugs, except for maybe some fireflies in the field. Exactly. Exactly. So it's a great night to be out getting some fresh air and having some quality time, especially for a couple like Josh and Sierra

who've been dating since middle school. Now, they've talked some about getting married, but they're both still so young, like Sierra's only 20, so they're not in any kind of hurry to take the next step. They're more focused on enjoying one another, going to school, living their best lives as partners,

and then they'll just take the next step when they're ready. Now, ignoring the awkward selfie angle, Josh actually snaps a photo of them together, his arm in the frame and Sierra riding behind him. You can see that they're smiling, they're having a good time. He uploads it to Snapchat because he wants to remember this moment before college starts back up and their lives get busy again.

Eventually, on this ride, Sierra tells Josh that she's ready to ride home and call it a night. Now, they're near the Evergreen High School, which is out on County Road 6, near the town of Metamora, but this is still like in the middle of nowhere. So being the good boyfriend that he is,

Josh rides back towards home with Sierra until she's like, listen, you go home, you don't need to go all the way to take me home and then ride home. I can get the rest of the way on my own. It's no big deal. She's done this ride a hundred times before. Now, Josh isn't thrilled about leaving her alone,

but Sierra insists she's going to be fine. And besides, it's still light outside and literally everyone in the area knows everybody else. It's that kind of small town safe that makes so many of us comfortable thinking that there's just nothing to worry about. So according to Rachel Tross reporting for NBC News, Josh leaves Sierra at around 6.45 p.m. near the high school.

He kisses her goodbye, promises he'll reach out to her later, and rides his motorcycle back home. True to his word, Josh texts Sierra a few times over the course of that evening. But when he tries to call her at around 10 p.m., the call goes to voicemail. Right away, this feels unusual to Josh, because Sierra's usually great about answering her phone.

And so he keeps calling, only to have every single one of his calls keep going to voicemail. Had she been answering his texts earlier? I'm actually not 100% certain if she is or not. Police records describe it as they were, quote, exchanging text messages, but it doesn't say, like, what time, so I can't tell you for sure either way.

But by 10 o'clock, though, we know Sierra isn't answering anything. So with Josh's anxiety at an all-time high, he decides to take matters into his own hands, and he calls Sierra's mom at around 10.30. But instead of telling him, like, good news, like, she's home, everything's fine, it's all, you know, a big misunderstanding, she tells him something that makes his heart sink.

She hasn't seen Sierra either. In fact, Sierra never came home after their bike ride. Right away, Josh and Sierra's family start looking for her. They're worried that maybe she's been hit by a car. I mean, she could be lying hurt somewhere with no way to contact them. Like, all of those worst-case scenarios start, like, flooding their mind. Finally, sometime between 11 and 11.30 that very night, Sierra's mom calls the police to report her missing.

According to Michelle Liu's piece in the Toledo Blade, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department hop on the investigation immediately, and they are out there in the fields on County Road 6 that very same night, searching for a sign to tell them where Sierra might be. Since Josh is the last person who saw her, he's able to tell them where to start looking, and he's even able to pass over that Snapchat photo that he took, which shows exactly what Sierra's wearing

right down to the fitness tracker on her wrist. So police are clearly thinking that Sierra's in some sort of danger. Yeah, I mean, from what I can tell, I mean, I know in a lot of cases we see people like, oh, you know, maybe they just need some time. From everything I've seen, there is no talk of her just potentially taking off on her own. Like, this is feeling wrong to everyone who's involved.

According to investigation discoveries, living a nightmare episode about this called The Long Way Home, around midnight on July 20th, so this is just over five hours after Josh and Sierra parted ways, and within an hour of her being reported missing. A deputy sheriff is driving when he sees something strange. Some corn has been, like, knocked over in one of the fields, and when he pulls over to check it out with his spotlight,

the scene gets even odder, because with every breath he takes, he's hit with the smell of gasoline, and on the ground he sees some fuses. The hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up. The deputy backs out, he keeps looking around this darkened field, and sure enough, there's more.

He spots two pair of sunglasses on the ground, like little breadcrumbs inviting him to go deeper, and as he shines his spotlight further down into the corn, the light suddenly hits something shiny. A closer look shows it's a reflector attached to a purple bicycle that matches the one Sierra was riding. The interesting thing is the bike isn't laying down

like it's been abandoned, though. It is standing up with its front tires facing out, almost like it was backed into the field, about three or four rows back in the corn. All around the bike, more corn has been trampled, and worst of all, police find blood on the handlebars and on the bike seat. In addition to the fuses and sunglasses from earlier,

law enforcement find motorcycle tracks going north, a green sock, and a bloody screwdriver, along with more blood on the corn. Now, there's not enough blood here to make police think that someone necessarily died here, but they are certain that someone fought here, struggled here, and there's no telling where they are now. Between the bike being hidden like this with the tire tracks

and all of the blood at the scene, law enforcement take it as confirmation of their worst fears, that Sierra's been abducted, and this was only a half mile away from her house. Oh, my God, so she had almost made it home. She got so close that it breaks my heart. And it's one of those things where it had to have literally been, like, when you think about the last thing in the world

she was expecting. Everything in the field from the fuses to the sunglasses gets sent straight back to the lab for processing. Since it's pitch black outside, law enforcement has a challenge on their hands in these crucial first hours, but they're not totally hamstrung. The road gets blocked off right away,

and that same Toledo Blade piece that I mentioned earlier reported that an infrared-equipped helicopter actually goes out in the sky to scan the area that very night. Additionally, Fulton County Sheriff's reach out to the Ohio State Police almost immediately to help join their search and the investigation, and by the next day, the FBI is involved. That seems really quick.

I feel like we usually don't hear FBI getting involved until much later in an investigation or when they know that the crime has cross-state lines or something. Well, when police pull Sierra's cell phone records, Rob Quinn reported for NewsR that they see that on the night she vanished, Sierra's phone actually pinged up near the Michigan border,

which is actually just a few miles away from where her bike was discovered. And as a result, law enforcement has to reach out across state lines, so I would imagine that having the FBI there to coordinate with all these different agencies is like imperative and probably why they got brought in so early. Now, it's later that same day on the afternoon of July 20th

that officers who are out processing the cornfield suddenly get their first big break. About 12 hours after Sierra was first reported missing, the farmer who owns the cornfield that police are searching in actually approaches them and he hands over a bloody motorcycle helmet. What? According to the law and crime network,

this farmer tells police that he was out driving with his son last night, headed south along the road where Sierra's bike was found when he spotted a motorcycle helmet on the side of the road. So instead of just like driving on by, the farmer tells police that he had his son get out and tossed the helmet into the bed of his truck. Now, he knows that motorcyclists loved

like those paved country roads, so finding one of their helmets didn't really seem important to him at the time, but then he heard about Sierra's disappearance and now with law enforcement literally like looking on his land, the helmet has taken on this whole new meaning to him. I'm sorry, but how do you find a bloody helmet and not have your mind instantly jumped to

like something terrible has happened here, even if it's just like someone's been in an accident or something? I mean, you know, first thought is, they're probably not crime junkies, I guess, but the other thing I was thinking about is the motorcycle helmet itself is actually black and my research doesn't specify exactly

what time the farmer found it. So I'm thinking that if it was already dark, maybe they just didn't even notice the blood. Like, you know, he could have just thrown it in, then heard about the story, seen that they're searching his land, then gone to like the bed of his truck and taken a good look at it in the light of day.

Which that's totally fair in my own experience living in the country. Those county roads don't usually have any street lights. So it would be super, super dark. Right. Well, whatever the reason, as soon as police get a look at this thing, they know that this is a huge break

because not only is there, like I said, all of this blood, but there are prints, including a partial palm print embedded into the stains. The helmet gets sent off for testing, but with this huge piece of evidence now in the mix, along with the tracks found near Sierra's bike, police are now confident that whoever snatched her probably rides a motorcycle.

And so following along that theory, police turned to look at a person who they know rides a motorcycle and who by all accounts was very, very close to Sierra. And that's her boyfriend, Josh. Even though Josh seems to be totally distraught and just like wracked with guilt about not riding home with Sierra

all the way back to her house. According to People magazine, Josh is adamant that they parted on good terms and he has no idea what could have happened to her. Josh agrees to let police search his house and his vehicles. And when they look at the motorcycle, it looks totally fine. Like it's not damaged, there's no sign of blood,

no sign of hair, nothing like that. But when they search Josh's pickup truck, law enforcement comes across a set of dirty coveralls. And we're not talking like some little splatters or whatever, but like this big reddish brown stain on them that looks like it could be blood. And if it is blood, it is a lot of blood. And according to Living a Nightmare,

when police do some initial tests on it, their theory is confirmed. So they go and confront Josh with this. And he's like, listen, it is blood, but it's just deer blood from hunting. Okay. And considering this is such a rural area, I feel like that could be a real possibility. Right. I mean, it's a total possibility,

which is why they have to check this out right away. And it is actually a super easy test to do. You're not talking like a full DNA sequence and profile. So they get this done within the first like 24 hours. And the results do show that the blood isn't from a human. So after interviewing Josh pretty thoroughly, police conclude that he is telling the truth and he's eliminated as a person of interest.

Meanwhile, as news of Sierra's abduction spreads like wildfire through all of the small communities in the area, police are inundated with hundreds of volunteers coming out to help in the search efforts. Now, to put this in perspective, the town of Lyons, Ohio, where Fulton County is and where Sierra grew up, it has like a population of like under 600.

Oh, wow. And so for that many people to turn out, we're talking like half the town's worth of people is out there looking for her. And an undone donor even puts up $25,000 of their own money as a reward. I mean, I grew up in a small town, so this doesn't surprise me at all.

Everybody knows everybody. And if they don't know Sierra herself, then they probably, you know, went to school with her mom's gradient dog groomer or something. It's just how small towns are. Right. And for police, the more boots on the ground, the better, especially in cases like this where the search area is so tricky.

And the amount of volunteers out in the corn looking for her actually frees up more officers to canvass the people who live out there in the country. But hour after agonizing hour goes by without any trace of Sierra. It's 24 hours and then 36 hours. Each is more painful for her family than the last. And while this is going on,

the crime labs are working overtime to get results back. And according to the police records, one of the first things to come back are results from both pairs of sunglasses picked up at the cornfield. They both come back with DNA evidence on them. One set of DNA belongs to Sierra confirming one pair was hers. But the other pair shows DNA belonging to an unknown male

who's not in their system. As the case makes national headlines in places like, I mean, it was on People Magazine and Dateline. Police decide to try something a little different and they broaden their search to all of Fulton County specifically to sex offenders and violent felons. Now, as they're going through the offender list, one name in particular jumps out to law enforcement right away.

This man named James Dean Worley. According to CBS News, James is 57 years old. He's a convicted felon and he lives just a few miles away from where police discovered Sierra's bike. And as police look closer at James's past, that's when they come across the details about what crime he had committed to get on this list of violent offenders in the first place.

And it's that that really makes him stand out because the crime has some eerie parallels to Sierra's disappearance. This crime that first put him in the system goes back to July 4th, 1990 in another small town just outside of Toledo. That's when a 26-year-old woman named Robin Gardner decides to go out for a bike ride.

She leaves her suburban neighborhood and bikes out into the farmland heading west towards a nearby park. And before long, she hears this car coming up. Now, this is in the days before bike lanes, not even that like rural country roads even have bike lanes still. So Robin doesn't think too much of it and she doesn't even turn around to check

and see, you know, who's coming or how fast they're going, none of it. Not until it's too late. And suddenly this truck hits her, knocking her clean off her bike and into the ditch. Through her confusion and panic, Robin hears a man get out of the truck and ask if she's all right.

And even though she's pretty shaken up by what just happened, she says, yeah, like I'm fine. You're probably assuming like it was some kind of terrible accident. But as Faith Karimi and Steve Visser reported for CNN, the man who hit her from behind shoves a screwdriver to her throat. And in a voice that will haunt her forever, he says, quote, do what I say or I'll kill you.

I'm serious. I'll kill you. Oh my God. Robin's survival instincts kick into overdrive. And even though she does what he says and gets into his truck, she keeps fighting. This guy has handcuffs. And in that moment, Robin knows beyond a shadow of a doubt

that she is fighting for her very life. The cold metal slaps around one wrist and she's so scared she almost blacks out. But then in the distance, Robin sees a motorcyclist coming down the road. So screaming and struggling with all of the strength that she has left, Robin gets the driver's attention, manages to get out of the truck

and runs to the person on the motorcycle, pleading hysterically for help. That driver ends up taking her home where Robin's mother immediately calls the police. When police go out to the field where Robin was attacked, incredibly, the guy in the truck is still there. What? According to Vanessa McRae's article in the Toledo Blade,

he tells police, hey, you know what? That lady actually ran into me. And I only handcuffed her, so she wouldn't flee the scene before you guys got here. Flee the scene of a bike running into a truck? What? You got it.

Yeah, police can smell the BS from a mile away. So they arrest him and charge him with kidnapping. According to John Sewer's reporting for the Associated Press, the journal News, James took an Alfred plea in that case, which our crime junkies will know means that he's not admitting guilt,

but he was admitting that prosecutors had enough evidence to get a conviction. He was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison for abduction, but got out for good behavior in 1993 after only serving three years. Okay, so knowing all of this, police have to go talk to him right away about Sierra. Oh yeah, they totally do,

because they're thinking the exact same thing that you and I are, that all of this sounds way too familiar. So a group of four officers goes out to talk to James on July 21st. This is about 40 hours or so after Sierra was reported missing. And pretty much from the second they lay eyes on him, something about James starts setting off alarm bells

in all of the officers. Now, James is pretty clearly irritated that they're even there. And just looking at him, police can see he's had a rough time recently. I mean, his legs are all bruised up, and he's got marks on his arms that look pretty fresh. Like what kind of marks?

Like scrapes, scratches, like bug bites? I don't know. The police records just say marks, but that's not even the most interesting part, because it's what James says that makes police side-eye him way, way more. So when law enforcement tell him that they're there searching for a missing woman,

James actually tells them, and this is a direct quote, I'm not out here killing chicks. No one has said anything about murder yet. Exactly. So police get his consent to search the house, which James is sharing with his elderly mom. And when they get to his bedroom,

James does it again. Except this time, not only is he repeating that he hasn't killed anyone or has never killed anyone, he's also saying that he never raped anyone either, which again, dude, like nobody mentioned anything about rape. We're here looking for a missing girl.

These are all super weird things to just like drop into a conversation with law enforcement. So as you can imagine, all of the alarm bells in these officers' minds are like screaming at this point. Like they know in their gut that there's something seriously off about this guy. And then as they keep moving through the house,

James puts himself there at the scene of Sierra's abduction. According to police records, yes, according to police records, James claims that he was riding in the area when apparently his motorcycle broke down. And he's like, oh, like mentions that he happened to have seen like two bicycles there in the cornfield

instead of just the one. But police never found anything to indicate evidence of like a second bike, right? No, I think he's trying to like put someone else with her, who was never with her. And that's not even all he has to say because he informs police that they're probably going to find

his fingerprints on her purple bike. Oh. He's basically like, oh yeah, I mean, I touched it. And then he keeps talking. Like this is total word vomit at this point. So remember all of that stuff police found with Sierra's bike? Yeah, there was like a screwdriver,

the bloody helmet from the farmer, some fuses and sunglasses, right? Right. So James is like, by the way, I should let you know I also lost some stuff in the cornfield. Specifically, I lost all of those things. Cool, cool.

Right. What's interesting is like police never released any of this to the public. Like you had to have either really lost those things or been the guy who was there and abducted her. Because all that they told the media at this point is that they found signs of a struggle in the cornfield. But nothing about the things recovered

and definitely nothing about a bloody helmet. Nothing of anything had been recovered, just a struggle. Exactly. There is only one way James could know any of this information. Right, he had to have been there himself. Right. Which like, yes, he's admitting to. But I don't think there's a person out there who'd buy

that this guy who has been convicted of kidnapping just happened upon a similar abduction scene while he was like mind you holding a bunch of fuses and screwdrivers and stuff like dangling out of his pockets and he's touching a bloody crime scene. Like, no. But as if this isn't wild enough. According to Sean Haggerty's reporting for ABC 13 News

this guy has the audacity to demand police give him the motorcycle helmet back. Oh my God. Yeah. Even though they feel confident with every instinct they've got that this is the man who snatched Sierra Joggen police don't let on that they know and they keep moving through the property.

Now James's workshop doesn't set off any alarm bells but as soon as they get to the barn on his property James immediately gets agitated. The barn's got dirt on the floor and the dirt's been freshly raked as if someone might have been trying to hide something as police start moving bales of hay around they find a green box wrapped in chicken wire. At first glance it looks like the kind of thing

that you'd expect in a barn like just a wooden crate for transporting animals, different things around whatever. But when they open the lid any thoughts of this being a legit piece of farm equipment vanish. According to David J. Kors piece in the Fulton County Expositor police find bondage restraints, adult diapers, white tube socks, sex toys, latex gloves, lingerie, zip ties, duct tape and several pairs of women's underwear.

Like it's already concerning to find this stuff in such an unusual spot but beyond that one of the pairs of underwear is bloody. Oh my god. With dread for Sierra's safety growing in their minds police asked James about the stuff in the box and his answer chills police to the bone because he calls it quote girl friend stuff

and he denies having any underwear and starts raving and this is the point where he starts like going off and shutting down the consented search almost trying to like say that the officers are trying to kink shame him and you know they're just judging him for things and he's like you've seen enough at this point. Now they know this is their guy. So they you know consented search is over

they can't do anymore but they're definitely not going to leave James alone. They take him down to the station for questioning promising that they're going to come back to the barn and finish what they started this time with a warrant. I mean at this point are they thinking that Sierra could still be alive? I mean I think they're trying to find that balance

between being hopeful and being realistic right because I mean this guy's clearly a scumbag with a history but without finding Sierra on his property alive or dead I mean they're just holding out hope that she can still be rescued at this point. So that same night armed with the full powers of a warrant law enforcement returns to James's barn and what they find next shakes even the most hardened officers

right down to their very core. Hidden behind some more hay bales in James's barn police come across a secret room even though it's a warm July night every single person in there feels chills run down their spine as they take in what they're seeing. There are restraints hanging from the walls all of the windows have been spray painted black

from the inside so that no one can see in and no one can see out. According to reporting by Lauren Lindstrom in the Toledo blade a strange piece of plywood with holes drilled through it lies on the floor and when police lift it up to see what's underneath they find a freezer that has been dug right there into the ground secured shut with a ratchet strap.

Hearts pounding police get the freezer out of the ground they open it up and it is empty and there had to have been this like mix of relief and fear and that thank God she's not there but still where is she and the site of this freezer is terrifying in and of itself because the freezer the dug into the ground freezer

is lined with carpet and smells like bleach So it's been cleaned? Yes, but even the stinging reek of bleach isn't enough to hide another scent all too familiar to crime scene technicians and that's decomposition. When they test the freezer sure enough it tests positive for blood.

The Fulham County sheriffs request James's cell phone records while they and other members of law enforcement turn his property upside down. Every single extra bit of evidence they turn up becomes another piece in this grisly puzzle like the blood they find on his motorcycle the air mattress they find in his barn and more adult diapers in his house

along with recording devices, guns, ammo, nanny cams, journals and maps. Out in his green pickup truck police find even more zip ties and a trash bag stuffed with used paper towels. In another truck though this one's a red one which just so happens to be freshly washed they find a hunting kit.

You see according to WTOL news James had been driving around with even more zip ties, duct tape, a ski mask and a mace. I mean the police have to be thinking that this guy could be a serial killer right? Like everything you've told me so far he's checking like all the boxes. 100% multiple pairs of women's underwear?

I mean I just don't think there's any way he just went dormant between getting out of jail in 93 and 2016. And these investigators are no dummies either. So they are more determined than ever to scour every single inch of his property for anything that they can learn about potentially other victims

again while they're still looking for Sierra. And everything that they find including the air mattress all of it gets sent back to their lab for analysis. James Worley is arrested on July 22nd three days after Sierra's disappearance and he's charged with one count of abduction. But later that very same day Sierra is found.

A farmer calls police after spotting an unusual mound of dirt in a field out on County Road 7 just a few miles away from James's house. Below a hastily dug shallow grave they discover what they've spent the past three days so frantically searching for. But they were too late to save her.

I mean everything about this it goes beyond just that like one time chill down my spine. It makes me want to look over my shoulder again and again. Honestly for the rest of my life to make sure the monster who did this isn't hiding right behind me

almost in plain sight. I mean it's kind of one of those things that you just think doesn't happen in real life. I mean like surely there were signs right? Like we should have been able to stop this before it got to a carpeted freezer dug into the ground. And we should have because

after James is arrested it comes out that he told his freaking therapist that he learned from his first conviction and he said that he was going to bury the next one. Oh so like not I learned what I did was bad and I'm going to do better now. Oh yeah or I learned why I do it and I'm coping with whatever.

No. But when he said I learned to do better I mean learn to do crime better. Yeah I learned to like not let the victims survive. So I don't know. This is what I don't know and I don't know if it's going to be like not a trained therapist over here

but I thought like if they're making comments like this if you're making comments that are a threat to yourself or to other people that it has to get reported. And I don't know if you also wonder like if the therapy was like court ordered because of his conviction if that would then like require even more reporting.

I mean I don't know and I get it like because you want people to be completely honest with your therapist and I don't know if they're only allowed to say some things if you make like specific threats against specific people but to me a guy who's like convicted convicted of kidnapping someone

is then telling his therapist like learn my lesson never gonna let them. Next time I get. Yeah. Like surely there was something else that could have been done here right to like raise a red flag

and get this guy on someone's radar before something this bad happened before there was a freezer in the ground. I mean I hope so but this whole thing just terrifies me. Because it is terrifying. Now Sierra's body is taken for autopsy and over the next couple of weeks

while they wait for the coroner's report police continue searching James's property for evidence of other victims. Because like we said this doesn't feel like a one-off thing. I mean he proved that he tried it before and many many years have passed. Again you don't dig a freezer

into the ground overnight. And while they don't find any human remains out there they are able to continue building their case against him for now Sierra's murder and they are able to upgrade the charges to aggravated murder and not just abduction.

Now he's already admitted to being out in the field where Sierra was abducted but his cell phone records show that he stayed there for almost two hours that night. And the records also put him right near where Sierra's body was eventually found. Interestingly when they search James's computer it shows him looking for things like

hog-tied teen, gag, rape and helpless all fantasies of total control. Most damning of all Sierra's DNA shows up all over James's stuff like on some duct tape, the air mattress one of the pairs of underwear that he had the motorcycle helmet and on a handcuff key from James's key ring.

When the autopsy results finally come back around the middle of August they show that Sierra suffered blunt force trauma consistent with being hit by a motorcycle helmet and that she actually died of asphyxiation from something being shoved in her mouth. So do you think he meant to kill her that way or do you think it was an accident?

Like obviously I think he planned to kill her all along but I mean... No I know you mean and I wanted that too because interestingly the autopsy also doesn't show signs of sexual assault which kind of really took me by surprise because literally everything else about this case seems so hypersexual to me.

Yeah. But ultimately he's not saying, right? Like he won't tell police what he meant to do what he didn't mean to do and due to decomposition and the impact of the warm weather it's impossible for the authorities and the medical examiner to estimate like the exact time of death. James stays in prison until the case finally makes it to trial

in March of 2018. He's charged with 17 counts altogether including two counts of aggravated murder which if convicted could get him the death penalty. According to Toy Creel's piece on the NBC News 24 website one of the people who testifies against James at his trial none other than Robin Gardner the woman who escaped his clutches back in 1990.

Wow. So on March 28th of 2018 after deliberating for less than six hours the jury finds James Worley guilty of murdering Sierra Joggen. He's sentenced to death and while he's granted a temporary stay of execution later that same year he remains on death row while his appeals are pending.

Investigations into his potential other crimes are also pending. A reporter for WTOL News named Emily Nelson did some research into other unsolved crimes within a few miles radius of James' property and she came up with a list of six murders and one disappearance going all the way back to 1980. The victims are all women ranging from teenagers to women in their 30s

including 14-year-old Laurie Ann Hill whose body was found in 1985 not too far away from where Sierra was found. She was just a little girl. So have police done anything with DNA comparisons or anything? Not that I know of but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Even though James has never been charged in connection with any of these crimes

considering his profile again the blood and the barn the freezer all of it police are still looking at the very real possibility that this man spent what almost 40 years using this area as his hunting ground preying on innocent women and girls when the corn was high enough to conceal his terrible deeds. In August of 2020 the Fulton County Sheriff's

and the FBI excavated some of James' old property but nothing seems to have been disclosed yet about what they did or did not find on his property. In the midst of their grief Sierra's family has taken it upon themselves to try and prevent another innocent person from meeting the same fate. Bolstered by Sierra's memory they advocate for the state of Ohio to create a violent offender database

which they believe would have led police to James sooner and maybe even have brought Sierra back alive. Wait, I thought you said that police found his name because he was a convicted felon. They did so this was a new thing that I learned. As I understand it James didn't show up on the list and they searched immediately. The night that they searched for Sierra

because he's not a registered sex offender. We have a list to show you all of those people right away but he wasn't a sex offender because the case before this was just kidnapping. I think they had to start pulling all of the names of people in the area who were committing violent crimes or had one by one by one which is a really long process. Like single pulls, not one compiled list.

Right, so her family is saying if this violent offender list existed at the time it could have been searched right away and maybe that very night we could have gone to his house we could have seen that it was a similar crime and potentially saved her. Yeah, that makes sense. After several years of lobbying their efforts pay off. Senate Bill 231 known as Sierra's law

was signed into law in December of 2018 and it came into effect in March of 2019. Since then Sierra's family has continued their activism with the nonprofit they founded in her name which is called Justice for Sierra. The nonprofit includes a program to introduce self-defense into school curriculums so youth of all genders can be more empowered and better equipped

in case the worst happens. We have actually made a contribution to their organization and we do this, thank you to you guys. We do this with funds from advertising from our fan club and they actually do. So they have a couple of events every year. There's a run that you guys can look at. Just go to justice4sierra.org

but they also have something that they do every year. Sierra's birthday so far. And that's what we are going to be sponsoring. There isn't a date yet so all this is a little bit TBD but we're hoping that you and I can go that we can actually fill our table with some of our Toledo based fan club members so if you're in the fan club in Toledo

keep an eye out over the next year. Once we have a date you might get a surprise reach out from us to go with us. But I encourage you guys to just take a moment go to justice4sierra.org You spent 40 minutes listening to this episode you can spend another 5 to 10 minutes to visit the organization

see how you can be a part of real change and prevention in this true crime space. We will link directly to the organization in our show notes or you can find it on our blog crimejunkiepodcast.com Don't forget to check out justice4sierra.org that's linked out in our show notes and you can find all of the source material

for this episode on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. today is an audio chug production. So, what do you think? Do you approve? Do you approve?