CHAMBER OF HORRORS

MONSTERS OF DEATH ROW

SUFFERED: Sierah could have choked for 10 mins before dying

GUILTY: Yet Worley continued to protest his innocence in court

HELL HOLE: Cops found Sierah’s DNA on rope and duct tape in Worley’s barn

OFFICIALLY, James Dean Worley’s kill count stands at just one.

He was sentenced for the 2016 abduction and murder of 20-year-old Sierah Joughin, who’d disappeared while riding her bike near her home in Toledo, Ohio.

But when detectives searched Worley’s home, not only did they find evidence linking him to Sierah’s killing, they also discovered a hidden room specifically designed for “holding a human against their will”.

The police reports describe walls smeared with blood.

Worley had previous, too. He’d served three years in prison for another, eerily similar abduction attempt in the 1990s.

Experts believe he is responsible for countless other disappearances in the area, fingering him as a suspect in as many as 20 unsolved cases.

Poor Sierah, a student at the University of Toledo, was found in a shallow grave in a cornfield, hogtied, with rope. How many other bodies are buried in similar locations?

Only Worley knows. But it’s not likely he’ll be revealing his secrets any time soon – he’s always protested his innocence.

Judge Jeffrey Robinson kept his comments brief after sentencing Worley to death, saying: “If I thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell you were innocent, I’d have given you life.”

Sierah’s uncle, Howard Ice, read a heartbreaking statement from his grieving family shortly after the sentencing.

Choking back tears, he said: “When Sierah went missing, little did we know the harrowing series of events that would unfold.

“How did this happen to our family?

“It’s hard to put into perspective the emotions we’ve gone through over the past 18 months.

“Our family wanted two things. The first was justice for Sierah. The second was to make this tragedy accountable for future good, to find something that could help law enforcement, give them the upper hand, and sharpen their focus when the next person goes missing.

“From the start we recognised a flaw in Ohio’s criminal database system – that there’s no centralised location to search for violent offenders.

“James Worley could have been visited by police within hours of Sierah going missing, rather than days. That could have been the difference between her living and dying.

“We can wilt from the grief, or be strong and determined to raise something out of the ashes of misery.”

Visibly struggling to compose himself, Howard went on: “Sierah loved Halloween. She loved to dress up as a superhero. She was Batman, she was Superman. She was strong and she was determined.

“In real life, Sierah really was a superhero because she ended up taking down a killer, a killer with a violent past, with the devil in his eyes, someone who had the look of travelling this path many times before.

“And in the end our beautiful Sierah won the battle of good versus evil. We believe that her sacrifice has saved other lives which were to come.”

Worley, who still lived with his mother at the age of 57, had been described as a “mildmannered oddball” throughout his life, despite the fact he had a relatively normal upbringing.

One expert described him as being “isolated, both emotionally and physically”, which caused him to seek comfort in depravity.

He’d had a string of failed businesses and earned a living repairing engines, but locals had suspicions about him.

Lisa Peluso had paid him a visit, with her young daughter in tow, just days before Sierah disappeared.

She had met Worley just once before, in 2015, but says: “I was really shocked he remembered my name. And he looked at my daughter and was like, ‘ You’re 12, aren’t you?’ Madalynn and I looked at each other and I thought, ‘That’s weird’.

“I was kind of scared. I had this gut feeling. There was just something about him that made me think he was strange.”

If only Lisa – and everyone else in the community – knew about Worley’s horrific past.

In 1990, he had pulled alongside 26-year-old Robin Gardner as she cycled and shouted: “Get in the truck or I’m going to kill you!”

Robin, who managed to escape, was forced to relive those fearful moments as part of Worley’s trial for Sierah’s murder. She bravely told the jury of her getaway as Worley had tried to handcuff her.

She recalled: “The door closed on the passenger side so I slid across the seat and the driver side door was still open.

“I ran into the street and flagged down a passing motorcyclist. I ran up to him and said, ‘Please help me – this guy is going to kill me’.”

Worley had calmly