After someone abducts a vivacious Ohio undergrad in broad daylight, local police join forces with the FBI. The discovery of blood-soaked evidence kicks the case into high gear and brings investigators face-to-face with the depths of human depravity.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Here's what we're looking for here's the ultimate goal for why we're even here today is this girl
00:16could be alive or this girl could be dead if this girl is alive we'd like to find her there are people
00:26who commonly disappear unexplained for hours at a time that couldn't be anything further from the
00:33truth in this case do they ask him about the panties the blood all over him when deviant sexual
00:39behavior is a motivator after every place that we travel on this property the only room that you
00:44were nervous in is that room i've been somewhat nervous since you showed up dan all bets are off
00:50there's a legitimate freezer in the ground somebody has a dream and they want to make it live why is
00:56the air holes in there i don't think a person would fit in there there are people in this world
01:00who are patently evil and if they're awake they're planning a crime like this nancy hit that girl
01:07no you didn't take her somewhere no do you know where she's at right now no can you take me to
01:11her right now no okay i don't believe it i spent my career closing murder cases
01:20but i'm not the only one who answered the call
01:27it takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable to catch a ruthless killer to find justice for the dead
01:37that's what it takes to be an american detective
01:48are you speeding speeding my name is major matt smithmeyer
01:53i started with the fulton county sheriff's office in january of 1994.
01:57i knew i always wanted to work in fulton county i know the people and i know the area
02:06i have a sense of pride in my community and what i can do to give back
02:16we're in a very small farming community of metamora ohio everybody knows everybody else
02:24it's 11 30 at night and smithmeyer is fast asleep
02:37i was kind of wondering like who's knocking on my door at 11 30 at night
02:44he finds a crowd of people on the porch who are concerned about their dear friend
02:51sierra joggin they started explaining that sierra had gone missing no one can find her
02:58it's something's out of the ordinary it's every parent's worst nightmare my daughter had graduated
03:05with her and i grew up with the family it's personal at that point smithmeyer's determined to help the
03:13jogging family find their little girl when someone's reported missing a lot of times you look into the
03:23the history of the individual have they run away before has there problems with family home life
03:30drug issues and when we're dealing with sierra
03:35that wasn't the case there was some sense of urgency that
03:40something's going on and we need to get on top of this as fast as we can
03:48we were really worried everyone knew sierra and knew this isn't something that she would
03:55she would just do she was a ball of energy she was a force to be reckoned with for sure she was exciting
04:06adventurous she was one of those friends that would do anything with you sierra joggin is 20 years of
04:15age she goes to college in toledo 40 miles away and she's home for the summer
04:25she had plans in the fall to return to the university of toledo for her senior year she wanted
04:31to graduate work in the business field and she wanted a backpack
04:38life was really good for her she was in a good place she was really happy oh my god
04:48she's ready to begin her life and now she's disappeared in a puff of smoke
04:54smith meyer goes to see sierra's mom someone he has known all his life the mother reports to major
05:08smith meyer the last person to see her was josh kolosinski the daughter's boyfriend there they are
05:16future husband and wife let's have a little smoochie for the camera
05:26josh and sierra met i believe when they were probably around 12. they had already had a
05:32friendship and it just turned into a relationship and um blossomed from there they were a good couple
05:46sear's mom told us sear had left home around five o'clock to go to her boyfriend's house on her
05:52bicycle it's six miles from her house to her boyfriend's house that's a long ride on a bike
06:01but she pedals off into the evening and it's the last time her mother sees her
06:06around 10 30 josh called family have you know have you seen sierra did she make it home
06:21no she hasn't they still thought she was with you
06:25then the concern started and the family started searching the area to see if they could find her
06:36sierra and i shared each other's locations on our iphones and you can always see where they're at
06:44it tells you a town a state where they're at how many miles away and when her location
06:51said location not found my stomach sank because for it to say nothing that was a big red flag
07:06maybe she was in an accident maybe she got hit by a car and the person took off and she's laying
07:10there hurt we contacted all the local hospitals and nothing we couldn't find her searching for someone
07:19is a process of elimination once you begin to eliminate those things you begin to focus on
07:26something more nefarious
07:33toledo is one of the largest cities for sex trafficking
07:40instantly my mind went to that someone took her someone is trafficking her
07:50your mind just goes into a thousand questions all right we have this where where do we take this
07:56what's what's our next step smith meyer immediately puts out a bolo to be on the lookout for this girl
08:04she was last seen riding a bicycle purple in color she was riding this while wearing a pair of
08:10shorts and a hulker top and sneakers and green socks
08:17during a missing person investigation you you always have to start with the person that they
08:22were last with in this case my boyfriend josh was the last one to be seen with her
08:30so they talked to josh well tell me what happened well she came over got there about 5 30 or so we
08:35hung out for about an hour alone and then she left and i told her i was going to follow her in my
08:41motorcycle to make sure she got home
08:50josh had followed along with her for a few miles
08:54we also had video josh had taken on a cell phone he was posted on facebook and just teasing
08:59her and telling her right faster come on about halfway they parted away she said she's fine i'll
09:06write home you go back and finish doing what you're doing at home
09:12if you're going to go so far as to escort somebody you'd go all the way
09:17seemed a little odd and he stopped because she said he didn't need to continue
09:22josh had told her you know call me when you get home he never received a phone call josh was more
09:36than helpful but he's a person of interest until we can prove otherwise so you consider the facts the
09:45facts are so far she's riding away from josh her boyfriend on her bicycle on county road six
09:53at precisely 6 43 p.m the time stamp on the video was 6 43 p.m so she is alive
10:04josh calls her home at 10 30 three hours and change later and she's out there what could have happened to her
10:15and it'll be in the way of free district 292 13. what concerns major smithmark is this town is only
10:25two miles from the michigan state line it's only 50 miles from the indiana state line if she has been
10:32abducted for sex trafficking purposes it's possible she's in another state by now so he gathers all the
10:40help he can get and even contacts the fbi my name is mark evans i'm a special agent with the fbi
10:50fulton county is a small rural county this isn't something that many jurisdictions see
10:56on a regular basis the bureau what we're able to offer is is manpower we can bring a lot of people in
11:04in a short amount of time that can break things down speed up the process hopefully
11:12that night we had officers in the area driving up and down the roads also
11:18looking for any sign of of an accident her bike sierra what would explain why she's missing
11:26deputy simon was in the area while he was searching the area he had come across something weird
11:37as i was driving i had my alley lights on my spotlights just so i could see on the sides of
11:42the roads because it was dark we're closing in on midnight at this point five and seven right and it
11:49just caught my eye this broken corn stalk normally in uh august september that one i wouldn't have
11:58thought twice about it in the middle of july when they're still growing that stalk is pretty healthy
12:02that is sturdy and it takes more than a deer to break a leaf off so he gets out his light and he
12:08walks toward that broken stock as i looked over there i didn't quite know exactly what i was looking
12:19at and then i realized that it was a bike when deputy simon sees that purple bicycle he knows he's
12:29standing in a crime scene we have a purple bicycle but we don't have the rider where could she be
12:38you can take 10 steps into a cornfield in july and no one can see you no one you're just gone
12:57i hollered a few times to see if there was somebody out there and they were injured
13:01i didn't get any response i went back to the roadway that's when i called i said i need help
13:10deputy simon advised that her bicycle that she was riding at the time was found
13:23we didn't want any traffic any persons coming or going from there she was almost home less than a
13:30quarter mile from home when we found the bicycle in the cornfield we had two groups of crime scene
13:37technicians that could gather secure log any evidence that we might find they searched the
13:43area around the bicycle very thoroughly and they find an orange screwdriver they also discover two pairs
13:50of sunglasses one pair is identified as belonging to sierra joggin who owns the other pair we also knew
13:59that sierra was wearing bright green socks we were able to find a singular bright green sock in the cornfield
14:07people do not walk around wearing only one sock there's been a physical confrontation here
14:13i started seeing blood on the corn stalks we knew someone was hurt we assumed that was sierra
14:21it was at that time that we realized that the likelihood of sierra leaving that area on her own free
14:29will wasn't possible this was an abduction
14:39we were just shared the information that they had the bike and um there was a crime scene we didn't know to
14:46the extent of it was she hit by a car was she disoriented and walked away where could she be we also
14:54observed a spot where they looked like motorcycle tracks in the dirt well who says he was with sierra
15:00for a period of distance on a motorcycle her boyfriend josh two and two still makes four
15:07we need to talk to him and rule him in or out as a viable suspect so they make contact with josh he
15:17gives them permission to search anywhere they like he says i've got nothing to do with this we knew when
15:23somebody left that crime scene they were bleeding so we're looking for items that may contain blood
15:29we also photographed his motorcycle the tires on the motorcycle they look at his motorcycle there's no
15:36blood on it they look at the house they find nothing no blood he also has a truck now he becomes
15:43interesting as we conducted the search of josh's truck we found the tan para overalls and immediately
15:50we noticed that there was red staining on them consistent with blood blood in the coveralls can this
15:57be explained he's become more of an interesting person than he was in our interview with josh we
16:05learned that their relationship wasn't having any issues there were no problems we also spoke with
16:11friends of sierra they were asking us how is josh as a boyfriend have you ever seen him mean to her
16:18hit her anything like that and josh is a complete teddy bear and so for them to think it was josh we
16:25just thought it was comical once we discovered the overalls in the rear of josh's truck we of course
16:32asked him what is this blood he explained that he had recently been on a hunting trip state crime lab
16:41tested the blood on there and found it to be animal that's not sierra's blood so we could rule that out
16:48we also found the tire tracks didn't match the bike that he was on
16:52we don't see any reason to believe that he's involved in this he wasn't there he wasn't responsible
17:00for what happened it's now been over 24 hours since sierra's been missing and the amount of pressure
17:08being applied to law enforcement is growing by the moment but there is still some level of hope that she
17:14could still be alive we just don't know where she could be we immediately decided we needed to set up a
17:20command post so that information could flow in and flow out pretty fast and the school district
17:28blessed us by opening up that school we were receiving phone calls any tips that would come in
17:35and be investigated the police are reaching out from that command post and the press picks up on their
17:41wide search and they start driving the story
17:44behind me a large-scale search is about to begin for the missing young woman sierra jogan she was
17:53last seen at 6 45 at night she was last seen riding a purple bicycle there was calls going out for
17:59people to help search the fields it was amazing to see your community come together and really um
18:07um boots to the ground we definitely were trying to just keep it together her purple bike was found
18:16on county road 6 about three or four rows into that cornfield where could she be we were searching we
18:23walked hand in hand going back and forth with our feet trying to see if we could find any sign of her
18:30the corn sits you know at that time was eye level maybe a little bit above my head um so it's up there
18:40it's almost like its own little jungle you get even a few rows off a roadway and you can't see
18:52deputy smith meyer and i and bci agents were waiting on things to get been processed kind of talking
18:58through what was going on when deputy smith meyer was advised that a resident had potentially found
19:05something this person advised that he and his son noticed a motorcycle helmet laying along the road
19:15they got to look at the helmet and it looked like it was covered in blood
19:19we know there was a motorcycle at the bicycle concealment site because of the tire track now we
19:25have a motorcycle helmet near the cornfield with blood all over it what are the odds that this
19:30connects to the crime they are very very good
19:40it's more than 24 hours that sierra has been missing and now major smith meyer is meeting with a
19:46farmer who has found a motorcycle helmet on the side of the road when the helmet was picked up it was
19:53getting dark out he had his son jump out of the vehicle and grab it and throw it in the bed of
19:59the truck he doesn't think anything of it until the next day where he sees and hears that something had
20:05happened upon our initial view it's now daylight we can see blood on the helmet the evidence says there's
20:18been a physical assault and an abduction we must learn more we need to develop a suspect someone to look at
20:33was there someone that she was having issues with was there any problems with work school any of that
20:39we didn't find anyone that maybe had a beef with her so that led us to believe this this was a
20:48stranger abduction kidnapping which leads us to be a little more concerned stranger crimes are very
20:55difficult because there's no connection to the victim only three to five percent of homicides in the
21:00united states occur between perfect strangers you're looking for someone who has assaulted people in the
21:06past you need somebody with a criminal history
21:14this is a sparsely populated area however there are a few houses and one of the houses is less than
21:21a couple of miles from their cornfield where they found the bike
21:26so who lives in there and what is his story so they look and they find a person named james worley
21:37they discover that he served three years in prison for an attempted abduction of a 26 year old female
21:44in 1990. now they have somebody to play with let's go have a chat with him see what he knows about a missing girl
21:56an agent myself stopped at mr worthy's residence is this going to be like a time-consuming thing
22:06why don't i ask me any questions we explained to him that we were going door to door we were checking
22:14all the residences up and down county road six where the abduction happened did anybody see anything
22:20if i was going to attack a chick and i've been around the block would i leave any evidence whatsoever
22:28to be found you're saying you've killed before and you know not to leave evidence i'm just saying sir
22:35and that's not cool to say that no i haven't killed anyone we all kind of looked at each other like
22:43well that's that's weird you really can't pinpoint it but when you know something's just not right
22:50with somebody your spidey senses kick in he started describing how on the night of the 19th
22:59he was riding his motorcycle i run wherever i go i wasn't really paying attention but i went i
23:06had started having trouble with the bike i adopted the cornfield because i just been going for
23:11how far i did the cornfield probably about 10 foot i don't want anybody to see it and i don't know
23:16you to see me when he said he saw a bike laying on the side of the road that he wasn't a thief and
23:23that he had moved the bike and then he went on to tell us that he lost his helmet his sunglasses
23:30i had a pack of fuses my glasses screwdriver uh orange goes with this set right here we had to
23:41take the seat off to get to these tools to try to get his motorcycle started and he lost all that
23:47and then you say you've got my helmet we have a black helmet well it's probably my own okay
23:53mr worley is an idiot among his other issues he doesn't grasp the fact that he puts himself
24:02at the crime scene he thinks he's creating an alibi and he's creating an arrest warrant with his name on
24:08it when we finally left the residence we all kind of looked at each other and like
24:14this is our guy at that point that i went obtained a search warrant for the property
24:21to look for anything related to the abduction of sierra
24:27they're looking for blood they're looking for a hiding place where you could keep a human being
24:32against their will we still had hope that we would still find sierra alive
24:42the property was large there was a house there was a garage and a barn on the property
24:48they go out to the barn
24:53he says well there's no need to go in there there's nothing in there if i was going to have some little
24:58chamber or whatever it wouldn't be someplace at my house where it could be found and at that moment
25:04smithmeyer knows that's exactly where they want to be in that farm because that's exactly where really
25:11doesn't want them to go i did not hurt anyone i did not lay in the cornfield and wait and attack
25:19anyone honest god he never said good what is this place and what goes on in there
25:25if i was in that barn i would be keeping my eyes on mr whirley because he's at his most dangerous
25:33right now he's about to be discovered
25:41this girl could be alive or this girl could be dead if this girl is alive
25:47we'd like to find her they have no answer for that the search for sierra continues
25:54and whirley starts to really get upset all he wants to do is get rid of these guys when they
26:00focus on the barn he wants them out i don't want to do it today because it's so hot but go ahead and
26:05take your peek once we got into the the barn it was kind of strange they noticed that all the windows in
26:16the place they're spray painted black you can't see out and more importantly you can't see in
26:24we noticed where it looked like the ground the dirt had been freshly raped that didn't make sense
26:31and then all these bales of hay sitting in the middle of the room not towards the edge
26:38kind of drew their attention as well what's in there they start to move these bills of hay and
26:45they discover a green crate it's like an animal cage you're start to get a little anxious right like
26:53what is this they open it and it's filled with plastic bags that are labeled lace panties bras
27:05thongs all ladies underwear lots of it so now we're really thinking what is going on here
27:15why would someone have all this women's clothing one of the cops looks at him and says what are you
27:20doing this stuff look look i drift out lingerie and stuff like that okay what the is wrong with
27:28that nothing you give it out that's all girlfriend stuff do they ask him about the panties the blood
27:35all over them we also found a pair of purple underwear that had a spot of blood so now we were
27:44really concerned that we think sarah was probably at this location dude that in there pain her blood
27:53mr worley was asked about those items what we found and he claimed that was material that he was
28:00going to use while he was filming this new uh corn business that he wanted to start that back section
28:06of the barn is going to be turned into my own little studio i'm going to have a foreign thing
28:13hey video and running as a business so you're an amateur movie maker mr ruling
28:20he has become patently ridiculous trying to explain away things he cannot explain
28:27do you know where she's at right now no can you take me to her right now no okay i don't believe it
28:38where is she right tell us where she is let us get answers for the family if she's still alive
28:44let us know what can i tell you then
28:47who any crisscross questions here for me not to just step before you guys he remained defiant that
28:56he wasn't involved he didn't do this we continue to remove more hay bales once we get all the hay bales
29:03outside you can see a sheet of plywood over the ground that has holes poked in it
29:10they very carefully lift the plywood up and what they discover under it
29:15there's a trap door in the floor they realize it's a chest freezer it's big enough to hide a human
29:21being in it it's buried sitting inside the ground why is there air holes in there i don't think a
29:29person would fit in there at this point people are hearing what's going on then coming into the
29:36search area thinking this is where they're going to find sierra they take a breath because they're afraid
29:41what they're going to find in there and they open the freezer door
29:52it smells very strongly like clorox clorox will destroy blood and also destroy dna
30:00the agents started asking him about why is there a freezer buried in your barn
30:06dude that's my dope stash spot i grow weed i smoke weed that's it
30:16that didn't make sense in that that it was carpet lined and that the the chemical smell that came
30:22out of there your freezer's kind of odd everything about that room is odd and it smells like leaf
30:31like or ammonia no like film i bug sprayed i sprayed that whole building down with bleach
30:37a week ago how the hell would you do that to kill anything in that building but it doesn't kill bugs
30:44full snow but it sterilizes and cleans straw we searched all his vehicles that were on the property
30:56we found zip ties duct tape a mask pepper spray one could look at them as potential abduction kits
31:06the freezer they find is a jail cell a place to hide a human being a place that will convince
31:16the human being to be terrified and to insist if they cooperate they will come to no harm
31:23wurley enjoys the sickness of that mental torture he doesn't want to kill him that he's not done playing
31:28with him this is the worst of humans the absolute worst after the items that we found at that location
31:37knowing that mr wurley was in the same area as sierra at the time of her abduction
31:43he was arrested and taken to our our local jail on an abduction charge now wurley when he goes to jail
31:51invokes his right to remain silent okay we invoke our right for you to remain under arrest we continued
32:00the search of the property for another day and a half after that we had a a missing person and we
32:06didn't know where she was at so when we're gonna stop i continue to ask the public for any assistance
32:13that that you may be able to provide of course news media is out there you know they're asking questions
32:19and and we put it out if anybody saw him if anybody saw sierra let us know
32:27anything out of place anything out of the ordinary and it just so happened that this farmer checking his
32:32property on the 22nd day three since she went missing and he walked up and you know noticed hey wait
32:41that's not normal that mound of dirt right there isn't normal they all respond ohio bci the fbi and smithmeyer
32:52they discover a shallow grave they smell the odor of decomposition which you never forget
33:04and they know what they've found
33:05today's a very tragic day as there was a press conference held earlier this morning where the
33:22sheriff's department along with the fbi announced that they believe they have found the remains
33:27of 20 year old sierra jogging the entire town and several different law enforcement agencies were
33:34focused on finding sierra jogging alive and now they're standing over her grave once we got most of
33:44the dirt removed and could expose her face then we knew we knew it was sierra
33:58the worst possible crime scene you can ever have as a homicide detective as someone that you know
34:06it was emotional
34:08oh it was hard
34:27you know her family and her friends we're all just on the porch screaming in agony
34:35it was like the last bit of hope that we had that it was crushed
34:47once they had dug down they removed sierra from there it was at that time that we were able to see
34:54how she was bound her hands were handcuffed behind her back so that her feet and hands were
35:02hog tied together there was a rubber dog toy that was tied into her mouth
35:09the plastic dog toy had been shoved in her mouth with such force
35:14that it chipped one of her teeth blocking her larynx and causing her to suffocate
35:23all the evidence items that we had had recovered were sent to bci for dna testing
35:28um one of the first things that came back was the motorcycle helmet that motorcycle helmet had dna on
35:36it of course the interior of that helmet being from james worley the blood on the outside was sierra
35:43jogging those initial things put the two of them at the crime scene the blood at the scene on the
35:52cornfield was sierra's the spot of blood in the underwear matched sierra's dna the evidence they
36:01had against mr worley is what prosecutors dream of without doubt it is him and him alone
36:08yeah trying to figure out what happened um trying to understand how it went from her riding her bike to
36:19now her in a grave in the cornfield
36:22worley never offered a word of explanation or an admission of any kind but the police
36:29sierra is just what happened doing the search on mr worley's computer he had watched a lot of porn on
36:36his computer that day prior to the abduction and some of that porn was kidnapping abduction
36:43uh kind of material we believe once he watched that he got himself worked up into a frenzy and went out for
36:52a ride on his motorcycle
36:56police theorized that he passed sierra on his motorcycle he selected her as his victim he then sped up
37:06waited for her to come by and might have even flagged her over
37:18and he nails her in the head with a helmet
37:24at that point he drags her into the cornfield where there's the struggle abducts her at that
37:29location ties her up um then leaves the scene on his motorcycle
37:35he then waited for darkness which wasn't far off
37:41drove back in his pickup truck loaded her up and took her to this chamber of horrors in a barn
37:48mr really is evil to his core
37:57as far as the trial went the prosecution they they did a fantastic job of of of telling the story
38:04linking james worley's dna building the best possible case
38:10the amount of evidence was overwhelming but mr really was adamant that he he wasn't involved
38:20no remorse
38:22whatsoever
38:25ultimately at trial james worley was was convicted of aggravated murder of sierra
38:31jogging uh and was sentenced to to the death penalty
38:38he is scheduled to die in the ohio state penitentiary in 2025. my personal opinion i think they
38:46should carry out the execution by shoving a plastic dog toy down his throat after they hit him in the
38:53head with a motorcycle helmet but that's just an opinion
39:00after the trial we were thinking about ways that we could help the community and provide
39:05life-saving tools for them so we created a self-defense and self-awareness curriculum called sierra strong
39:16we do community programs that provide self-awareness and self-defense classes for the youth and adults
39:24in addition to that sierra's family passed a law called sierra's law which created a database of
39:31violent criminal offenders at the time of sierra's disappearance mr worthy's criminal past wouldn't have
39:38been public knowledge that was sickening to us that we had no idea this person lived in our community
39:45and sierra's family was really adamant about creating some kind of database that would protect
39:52the public and other people in their communities knowing where these violent offenders were
39:58we worked so hard for sierra's law to be able to have a violent offender database that police can use
40:05in those crucial moments when somebody goes missing
40:13we hope sierra's law will give law enforcement another avenue they something like this just happened in
40:20their areas she would not want anyone to remember her for what happened to her but
40:30the amazing things that are happening because of her life she's still fighting and she's still pushing
40:37for change and positivity even from heaven
40:47it is unusual for families to go to that length but it's to be admired that they found something wrong
40:53with the system and they did something about it in memory of their daughter who lost her life to an animal
41:01and her only crime was riding her bike down a dirt road in the middle of ohio
41:10on the next american detective he's been beaten to death in the back of the head
41:18there are pieces in here only the killer would know how much worse will it be if we don't get who did
41:23this do we have somebody roaming around the city killing people what do we do if we're going to keep
41:28finding bodies
41:40you
41:40you
41:42you
41:44you
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41:50you