State v. Worley
| Citation | 164 Ohio St.3d 589,174 N.E.3d 754 |
| Decision Date | 01 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 2018-0757,2018-0757 |
| Parties | The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. WORLEY, Appellant. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Ohio |
Scott A. Haselman, Fulton County Prosecuting Attorney, for appellee.
Gary W. Crim, Dayton; and Andrew P. Avellano, Columbus, for appellant.
Donnelly, J. {¶ 1} Appellant, James Worley, murdered Sierah Joughin in July 2016. After a trial, a Fulton County jury convicted him of aggravated murder with an escaping-detection specification, kidnapping, felonious assault, possessing criminal tools, tampering with evidence, and having weapons while under a disability. Following the jury's recommendation of a death sentence, the trial court sentenced Worley to death.
{¶ 2} We now review Worley's direct appeal of right and, for the following reasons, we affirm his convictions and sentence of death.
I. TRIAL EVIDENCE
{¶ 3} Evidence adduced at trial showed that Worley kidnapped, restrained, and killed 20-year-old Joughin between July 19 and 22, 2016, in Fulton County. He attacked Joughin as she was riding her bike home one evening. He then struck her on the head with his motorcycle helmet and dragged her into a cornfield. Worley handcuffed Joughin, left her in the cornfield, and drove his motorcycle home. He returned to the cornfield after dark in his pickup truck and took her to a barn on his property. He dressed Joughin in lingerie, bound her, and shoved a rubber dog toy into her mouth and tied it in place, causing
her death by suffocation. He then buried her body in a nearby cornfield.
A. Joughin goes missing
{¶ 4} In July 2016, Joughin was living on County Road 6 in a rural area in Fulton County. Her boyfriend, Joshuah Kolasinski, lived nearby on County Road 12.
{¶ 5} On July 19, around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., Joughin rode her bike to Kolasinski's house. She left to ride back home around 6:45 p.m., with Kolasinski riding alongside her on his motorcycle part of the way. Kolasinski recorded two videos of Joughin on her bike during the ride. She was wearing sunglasses, athletic shoes, shorts, and a tank top, and she sat on a checkered dishtowel draped over her bike seat.
{¶ 6} After Kolasinski headed back to his home, Joughin continued riding toward her home. Around 7:20 p.m., a motorist named Mary Stine was driving south on County Road 6 when she noticed a bike lying beside the west side of the road in an open area before the rows of corn began. As Stine passed by, she saw a man bent
over at the waist about two or three rows deep into the cornfield. She later told police that the man was Caucasian and was wearing red shorts and possibly a white shirt.
{¶ 7} Kolasinski spent the next couple of hours at his house with a friend. Around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., Kolasinski texted Joughin, but he did not receive a reply. Kolasinski called Joughin's mother, Sheila Vaculik, around 9:30 p.m., who told him that Joughin's bike was not at the family's home. The two of them drove around in Vaculik's car looking for Joughin, but they did not find her. They stopped at the fire department, where Vaculik spotted a police officer sitting in a police vehicle. Vaculik spoke to the officer and explained that she was looking for Joughin and asked for help. Later in the evening, police informed Vaculik that there was police activity on County Road 6.
{¶ 8} Sometime after 7:00 p.m. on July 19, a local farmer named Troy Vandenbusche was driving south on County Road 6 when he noticed a helmet beside the east side of the road. On his way home, Vandenbusche stopped, picked up the helmet, and tossed it into the bed of his truck. The next morning, when Vandenbusche heard that there had been police activity on County Road 6 the previous evening, he turned the helmet over to law enforcement. The helmet had reddish-brown stains on the exterior and also on the inside lining. Subsequent testing indicated that the stains were blood.
B. The likely abduction site is found
{¶ 9} Jeremy Simon, an officer with the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, and his K-9 partner searched for Joughin's bike in the late evening hours of July 19 into the early morning hours of July 20. Shortly after midnight, while traveling north on County Road 6, Simon saw a small section of the cornfield on the east side of the road where, upon inspection, he noticed many disturbed cornstalks, a "strong smell of gasoline," a motorcycle tire track, and a box of fuses. He saw a pair of women's sunglasses lying on the road near the painted white fog line on the west side of County Road 6. He also found a purple mountain bike in the cornfield on the west side of the road.
{¶ 10} The bike was collected and upon inspection, officers observed reddish-brown stains on its handlebars and seat. Subsequent testing confirmed that the stains were blood. Joughin's mother and boyfriend identified the bike as Joughin's. Investigators also found a checkered dishtowel with a reddish-brown stain approximately 1,000 feet north of the County Road 6 abduction site.
{¶ 11} Later that morning, agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation ("BCI") arrived and assisted in the search for Joughin. BCI crime-scene specialist Megan Roberts noticed two areas in the cornfield on the west side of County Road 6 that were "consistent with paths or point[s] of entry or exit."
{¶ 12} In the west cornfield, agents found broken cornstalks, reddish-brown stains on some corn leaves, and pattern impressions in the loose dirt. About 20 feet into the same cornfield, Roberts found a green sock with reddish-brown stains on it. Approximately 35 feet south of that location, Roberts found a pair of men's sunglasses and an orange-handled screwdriver.
C. Worley is interviewed
{¶ 13} On July 21, Dan Van Vorhis, an employee of the Ohio Adult Parole Authority who was assigned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ("FBI") violent-crimes task force, Major Matt Smithmyer of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, and FBI Special Agent Devon Lossic went to
Worley's property at 10627 County Road 6, which is near where Joughin disappeared, to ask whether Worley knew Joughin or whether he had any information regarding her disappearance. Van Vorhis testified that Worley was "very friendly" at first, and that he invited the group into his living room. For approximately 90 minutes, Worley described his activities on the evening of July 19. Van Vorhis recorded part of that interview.
{¶ 14} Worley gave the following account. Around 5:45 or 6:00 p.m. on July 19, he departed his property on his motorcycle, but the motorcycle stalled when he was driving on County Road U. He got the motorcycle running again, but it stalled once more when he was driving on County Road 6. He stopped near a cornfield that abutted a wheat field, where he saw a blue bike and a light gray bike lying on the ground. He pulled his motorcycle into the cornfield out of view from the road because he planned on riding one of the bikes home. But he changed his mind and alternated between getting his motorcycle to start and riding it and pushing it home. He did not see anyone on his trip and got home around 10:00 p.m.
{¶ 15} Worley told the investigators that he lost some belongings when his motorcycle broke down. He volunteered that his helmet, fuses, a screwdriver, and sunglasses were missing. Worley asserted his innocence multiple times during the interview, but also asked whether the police had any evidence against him, such as fingerprints.
{¶ 16} Later on July 21, BCI Special Agent Thomas Brokamp was at the police command center when he "overheard a conversation regarding a guy wanting his helmet back." After hearing this, Brokamp and other FBI and BCI agents went back to Worley's house that day. The group talked with Worley on his property for the next 14 hours, off and on. This second interview was recorded by Brokamp and Van Vorhis.
{¶ 17} On the investigators’ arrival, Worley was told that a black helmet had been found. Worley immediately stated that he wanted it back. When Brokamp said that the helmet looked like it had blood on it, Worley told the investigators that that was impossible. Later during the interview, Worley said that he still did not understand "this deal with [his] helmet * * * that [his] helmet [has] this lady's blood on it."
{¶ 18} Worley allowed the investigators to walk around his property, which consisted of a residence, two barns, a machine shop, and a trailer. BCI Special Agent Dave Hammond testified that when investigators
walked into the north barn, Worley's "reaction to [them] being in there was a little unsettling or a little alarming." When another investigator approached a green crate in the barn and lifted its lid, Worley "got very upset with him, * * * told him to close that, and then made [the investigators] all get out rather quickly."
{¶ 19} Van Vorhis testified that when they entered the north barn, Worley's body language and demeanor indicated his anxiety over where the investigators were looking. Before leaving the barn, investigators were able to see that the green crate contained many clear plastic bags filled with women's lingerie.
Worley told the investigators that the bags contained lingerie that he would give to women he was dating.
{¶ 20} The sand floor in the north barn had been recently raked. Worley said that he had just cleaned it up in preparation to raise rabbits. Investigators found an inflated air mattress behind stacked straw bales. Worley told the investigators that the
only DNA they would find on the mattress would be his mother's.
{¶ 21} Agent Brokamp informed Worley that a security video from the Evergreen High School complex—located on County Road 6 in between Worley's property and the site where he likely kidnapped Joughin—showed a motorcycle traveling north on County Road 6 on July 19. Despite this video, Worley initially stuck with his original story that he had returned home on his motorcycle around 10:00 p.m., that he had not...
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