CHAMBER OF HORRORS
WHEN police investigated the abduction and slaughter of a pretty university student, the trail led to evil James Dean Worley. But when they swooped on his home, not only did they find a killer, they also discovered a serial abductor’s blood-stained dunge
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.
Hogtied
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 news@sundaysport.co.uk 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 “mild-mannered oddball” throughout his life, despite the fact he had a relatively normal upbringing.
Suspicions
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 walked over to the biker and said: “Don’t listen to her, she’s crazy.”
He didn’t even flee the scene when the police arrived.
Worley was convicted and served less than three years in jail before being released in 1993.
He spent another two years behind bars from 2000 to 2002 after pleading guilty to the illegal manufacture or cultivation of marijuana and having weapons while under disability.
Threat
After the abduction attempt, Worley was ordered by a judge to see a therapist.
With a grim sign of things to come, he’d told the therapist he had “learned from each abduction” and the next one he was “going to bury”.
If only his veiled threat had been taken seriously.
Sierah disappeared on July 19, 2016. Later that evening, her bike was found abandoned in a field, surrounded by trampled corn.
Her body wasn’t discovered until three days later, despite a frantic manhunt.
There’s no way of knowing when Sierah died or how long she was kept in captivity before she was choked to death.
But awful details of her ordeal were revealed by the autopsy.
While there was no evidence of sex assault, coroner Dr Cynthia Beisser described a deep laceration on her forehead, a broken tooth and a hairline fracture at the back of her skull.
Dr Beisser said a yellow foreign object – a dog chew – had been placed in Sierah’s mouth attached to a binding that was fastened at the back of her neck.
She concluded the object asphyxiated her, and that the process could have taken as long as 10 agonising minutes.
Sierah had also been dressed in long white socks and an adult nappy.
The same nappies were later found in Worley’s dungeon.
His motorcycle helmet, meanwhile, was also found at the scene. It was covered in his own blood, suggesting Sierah had fought for her life.
In the end, Worley implicated himself.
When police were going door to door, canvassing people who lived in the area, Worley told them he’d been riding his motorcycle near to where Sierah was last seen and the bike had broken down.
He said he’d pushed it into a field, where he had then mislaid his helmet, screwdriver and sunglasses.
He claimed he’d then stumbled upon a bicycle in the field, telling cops: “My fingerprints would likely be on the bike.”
Search warrants for Worley’s property were promptly issued – and his lair uncovered.
Sierah’s DNA was found on rope, duct tape and paper towels inside Worley’s creepy barn.
Sick
Sheriff’s Department’s Sgt Matthew Smithmyer wrote at the time: “Worley fits the profile of a serial offender and could potentially have additional unknown victims who could have been kept at the above described location”, adding that he knows “based upon knowledge and experience that these types of offenders will often keep trophies”.
The jury eventually heard how Worley had
viewed sick pornography sites, searching for phrases including ‘rape’, ‘forced’, ‘hitchhiker’,
‘helpless’, ‘stranded’ and ‘gag’.
And yet, despite the mountain of irrefutable
evidence stacked against him, Worley still protested his innocence.
He even had family members walking out in disgust after telling the courtroom: “Don’t ask me why she wasn’t raped. She was a beautiful girl.”
Worley was charged with murder and gross abuse of a corpse and was eventually sentenced to death in March 2018.
For Sierah’s mum, Sheila Vaculik, the sentencing came as a bittersweet relief.
Paying tribute to her daughter, she said: “This was a soul that embraced life and everything it had to offer.
“It’s hard to put into words the feelings I’ve experienced over the last year and nine months, the hole that will never heal in my heart.
“Sierah’s life was worth far more than the 20 years she was able to live.
“As her mother, I could not be prouder of the person she was.”
Vanished
Thoughts have turned to other potential victims.
One link already being investigated is the unsolved murder of Lori Ann Hill, a 14-year-old who vanished from Swanton, Ohio, in 1985.
Her naked body was found four days later in woodland.
Who knows if Lori had also entered Worley’s chamber of horrors?