The Barn of Horrors

September 23, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the chilling case of Sierah Joughin. When she fails to return home after a bike ride, her family and friends fear the worst. As concern grows, the police launch an investigation, retracing her steps from that fateful evening.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland.

Let me tell you guys something. Stop what you're doing, and if your finger is on the skip button, you better pull it off the screen because you're not going to want to miss this announcement. Our Halloween merch drop is available now! We got it out a month early. Can we get a round of applause for Murder With My Husband for finally doing something early? Also, a round of applause for those helping us with the merch, because they pushed us to do this a month early.

There are some amazing options—lots of options. Some that are a little bit more lowkey, and some that are, I don't know, a little bit more out there. Go check them out. I mean, Halloween merch, what more could you want? And yeah, we got it out a month early to make sure that you have it to wear all through October, so get it now so you can wear it all spooky month long.

Okay, and if you are not catching our Thursday Twitch streams—live streams on Twitch, Tuesday and Thursday—you're missing out. You are literally not living correctly!

Also, we have a new YouTube channel just for our Twitch stream content. It's clips, it's shorts. We are actually posting three times a week on there. It's just different clips and funny and cool moments from the streams. You can check it out—there will be a link down below if you're listening to the podcast. Same with YouTube, there's going to be a link right there. We're going to post them all over Instagram, kind of everywhere. Check them out. Please check out our Twitch stream, check out our new YouTube channel, come say hi. It's a little bit more of Payton and Garrett, but with some true crime stuff as well.

So yeah, those are all the announcements we have.

If you're watching on YouTube, the lighting is really bad. We haven't gotten drapes for this window right here, and so it's really bright, and my legs look pasty white, so please don't look at them. You can see there's a lot that you shouldn't be able to see, but that's okay.

Okay, was the lighting your 10 seconds, or do you have something better?

The lighting can be my 10 seconds, because we’ve had a lot of announcements, and I know some people are like, "Oh my gosh, you guys are talking too much." Yeah, that's kind of what we've got.

I've been playing pickleball again. I just started playing pickleball again, so that can be my 10 seconds. And next week I will have a hot take for everyone, so be ready!

On that note, let's hop into today's case.

Our sources for this episode are ABC News, chillingcrimes.com, Oxygen, Medium, Wikipedia, mia.com, cbsnews.com, deseret.com, Court News Ohio, Supreme Court Ohio, 2020 on Hulu, and happyscrub.com.

A sense of community is important. Whether we live in a city or a small town, most of us have neighbors nearby that we count on from time to time. Whether we're close enough to ask them for a cup of sugar when we're out, or to grab the mail when we're away. Or, if you're our neighbors and Garrett left the hose on in the pool and suddenly our house is flooding, they could also go turn the hose off as well.

I would like to clarify that I did not leave the hose on—the people that clean our pool left the hose on. Our wonderful neighbors did go and turn the hose off after our yard flooded, but it didn’t get into our house.

Neighbors can also help with other things, like crime. It's good to have someone to knock on their door and say, "Hey, my bike's missing, did you take it, or have you seen anyone suspicious in the area?"

Wait, that wasn't even in the script. Did you just make that up?

Yeah, I could tell because I heard you add, “anybody suspicious in the area.”

Neighbors are supposed to look out for each other. They should be people you can count on. It’s even written in the Bible: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But in reality, many of these people are perfect strangers to us, with nothing more in common than buying property close to ours. They have their own lives, their own history, and their own secrets that usually aren’t disclosed when they move in next door.

Which is why today’s case will truly make you wonder: How well do you really know the person living next door to you?

Today’s story takes us to the rural farm town of Metamora, Ohio. It’s about 45 minutes outside of Toledo, and it’s pretty much what you imagine when you think of the rural Midwest—a place where corn grows tall in the summer and comes down in the fall, where everyone knows everyone, if not by name, then by a nod and a smile. It’s a place where you wouldn’t think twice about letting your kids bike to their friend’s house, especially on a beautiful summer evening. Just a sweet, wholesome, simple place. It’s the last place you’d expect today’s story to unfold.

This is where Sierra Jogin grew up. On February 11, 1996, Sierra came into the world and was immediately given the nickname “C” or “CeCe.” Sierra was actually my age. She was described as a bright ball of energy, always lifting spirits and putting smiles on people’s faces. Her mother, Sheila, always said Sierra was the perfect child. She loved to help out, loved animals, and had no problem being silly and having a good time.

Her mother said Sierra was dedicated, caring, and compassionate, and she had a confidence about her—she was comfortable in her own skin. These qualities made people in the small town of Metamora gravitate towards her, and they helped her become one of the most popular girls in town.

After graduating from Evergreen High School in 2014, Sierra enrolled at the University of Toledo’s Junior College of Business, where she began studying human resources. This was the perfect role for Sierra, who loved people and wanted nothing more than to support their well-being. At the same time, she interned at her uncle’s camping business.

In the summer of 2016, Sierra was preparing to go into her junior year at the University of Toledo. That summer, she needed a temporary place to stay, so she decided to move in with her grandparents, who had an extra bedroom available for her. Plus, it was close to her boyfriend’s house. This was the high school sweetheart that Sierra had actually been dating for years—a boy named Josh Kinski.

Sierra's family loved Josh, partly because they had been best friends well before they started dating. In fact, they had known each other since they were both six years old. It was a very small-town thing—they grew up together, and once they began high school, their relationship blossomed.

Josh really loved Sierra, especially how passionate and strong her personality was. He said he rarely ever wanted to argue against her opinions. By the summer of 2016, Josh and Sierra were seriously discussing their future together. By this point, they had been together for seven years and were talking about getting married after they graduated college. Both of them knew they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together; it was just a matter of how and when.

But everything changed on the night of July 19, 2016.

It was around 5:00 p.m. that summer evening when Sierra mentioned to her mother that she was going to head over to Josh's house. She planned to take her purple bike, as she had done once or twice before. It was about a six-mile bike ride, so on a warm summer evening, the ride was definitely going to be sweaty and exhausting. But Sierra, who had been known to skydive, literally loved a good adventure. She took the most efficient route over, which was County Road 6. It was a rural street that passed several cornfields and only a handful of houses along the way.

It's kind of like Payton's small town.

I was going to say there are definitely places in my town where this would be a real thing. It's weird to see your small town not so small anymore.

I know.

Sierra wasn’t worried about encountering anyone dangerous; she was more concerned about getting hit by a car. But this route didn’t have many cars on it, so she wasn’t too worried.

When the 20-year-old Sierra finally made it to Josh's house, she was sweaty and said she regretted riding her bike that far in the heat. Sierra and Josh didn’t hang out for very long that night. Around 6:45 p.m., less than two hours after arriving, Sierra decided she needed to ride back home before it got too dark. Josh insisted on escorting her back—he didn’t want her to ride alone. So, he hopped on his motorcycle and followed her.

During the ride, Josh even took a Snapchat video of the two of them. He joked about going for a bike ride while Sierra was on her bicycle and he was on his motorcycle. It was obviously a playful moment shared between the couple and their friends. In the video, the two were laughing and smiling.

But after that video was taken, Sierra and Josh made a decision that would change everything. Sierra stopped and told Josh he should turn back—she didn’t need him to escort her the entire six miles. She was already halfway home and felt she could make it the rest of the way just fine. After Sierra insisted several times, Josh finally gave in. He stopped, gave her a kiss, told her he loved her, and asked her to text him as soon as she got home. Sierra promised, got back on her bike, and rode off.

Around 9:00 p.m., Sierra's mother, Sheila, was driving past her parents' house when she noticed that Sierra's bedroom light was off. This was unusual for Sierra because she always let her family know if she planned to spend the night somewhere. Sheila assumed maybe Sierra had just gone to bed early.

Then, around 10:30 p.m., Sheila got a call from Josh. He asked, "Have you heard from Sierra? She never texted me when she got home. I’ve been trying to call her, but it’s going straight to voicemail, and I’m worried." Sheila immediately called her parents' house to see if Sierra had made it back from Josh's, but they told her, "No, she's not in her room, and her purple bike is nowhere to be found."

Panic set in. Their first thought was that maybe Sierra had been in an accident, fallen off her bike, or collapsed somewhere on the side of the road.

This makes me think of Disturbia.

Why?

Because you talked about neighbors at the beginning, and their neighbor was creepy. I mean, he was a killer.

Right, he was insane.

Josh and Sheila split up and retraced Sierra's possible routes, hoping to find her. As Sheila was driving, she spotted a police officer on the side of the road. She pulled over and told him her daughter was missing. The officer called it in, and soon, more officers were dispatched to search for Sierra.

A few hours later, around midnight, Sheila received a phone call. The police had been called down to County Road 6—the same road Sierra had been riding home on.

Just a short time before, a deputy traveling down the road had noticed a row of matted corn stalks leading from the road into the field. He pulled over, followed the path of the broken stalks, and found an abandoned purple bike out in the field.

Oh my gosh.

The bike was less than a quarter mile from Sierra's grandparents' house—that’s how close she had been. There was no sign of Sierra, just her bike standing upright, propped up on its kickstand. It wasn’t damaged, and her water bottle was still in its holder.

However, there were traces of blood on the handlebars and the seat.

Oh gosh.

The police immediately expanded their search, combing through the fields for more clues. They found a few things: a screwdriver, a sock, a pair of men’s sunglasses, small streaks of blood on some of the corn stalks, and motorcycle tracks.

For now, investigators kept these discoveries under wraps, not wanting anything to leak to the media that could disrupt the investigation. But Sierra’s family and friends were already fearing the worst.

Sierra’s disappearance now seemed to be more than an accident—it looked like she had been targeted, maybe even kidnapped. The focus shifted to finding her and bringing her home safely. Facebook pages, missing persons posters, and a reward of $100,000 from an anonymous donor were set up.

The day after she disappeared, a farmer came forward with a new and crucial clue. He told the police that the night Sierra vanished, he had found a motorcycle helmet on the side of the road. At first, he picked it up, thinking it would be useful for his son, but then he noticed it was covered in blood. When he saw the news about Sierra’s disappearance, he figured the helmet might be connected and immediately turned it in.

Now, investigators had several disturbing clues: motorcycle tracks at the scene, a blood-stained motorcycle helmet, and a troubling question—who had been the last person to see Sierra alive? That person was her boyfriend, Josh, who owned a motorcycle.

The police brought Josh in for questioning. The first thing they asked was whether he and Sierra had any sort of fight that night, but Josh said, "No." He was visibly nervous during the interrogation, which he even acknowledged, but he explained that anyone in his situation would feel the same. He knew the police would see him as a suspect, so he offered to be as helpful as possible. Josh provided a detailed map of the route they took, allowed the police to search his home, truck, and motorcycle, and even handed over a pair of overalls with blood on them. Josh explained that the blood was from a recent hunting trip, and forensic analysis confirmed it was deer blood.

Everyone who knew Josh and Sierra said their relationship was solid, with no signs of trouble. Even Sierra’s family was adamant that Josh couldn’t have been involved in her disappearance. After a thorough investigation, the police found no evidence to suggest Josh had anything to do with it.

This cleared Josh, leading to an even more terrifying possibility—that Sierra’s disappearance was the result of a random abduction by a complete stranger. So, the police figure the next course of action is to start going door to door around the area, seeing if there's anyone who knows anything. But there's one person in particular they want to speak to, and it's this guy named James Worley. Freaking James, man.

James lives on a 3-acre property off County Road 6, so he's one of the houses she would have ridden by. He's in his early 50s and runs a small engine repair shop out of his house, which he shares with his mother and brother. The reason police want to talk to him is that he's kind of a loudmouth. He's always calling the police department with different complaints—suspicious vehicles driving by, parties. He's a bit of a snitch, so they figure if James Worley knows something, he'll probably talk. He was probably out looking around, too.

Sure enough, when they knock on the door, James answers, and he immediately starts setting off red flags. When the police mention they're there to ask about the missing girl in the area, James goes, "Oh yeah, I know exactly the area you're talking about, right up the street." He says, "My motorcycle actually broke down right near there earlier on the day she disappeared." Then he says, "Yeah, somewhere during that time, I was trying to fix my bike, and I lost my screwdriver, my sunglasses, and my helmet."

All of those things were found at the crime scene, and he just instantly says, "Hey guys, this is what's going on." Yeah, he says, "Earlier, before she was abducted, my motorcycle broke down, and I lost all that stuff. Got it?"

The police are also noticing that, while he's telling them all of this, he has what looks like a bunch of fresh scratches and bruises all over his arms. But James continues gabbing on about his story. He says he realized he couldn't fix his bike, so he decided to roll it into the cornfields to hide it for a bit. He says he walked home and came back to get it with his truck later. But while he was doing that, he actually spotted a purple bike in the cornfield as well. He says he picked it up from its side and put it on its kickstand.

Now, these are details that are not exactly public, and James probably shouldn't have known that the purple bike was standing straight up unless he was there, which he is saying he did. But wouldn’t he have noticed the blood? Because there was blood on the bike. Also, why, if the bike was lying down, would he put it back up and then just leave it? You know what I mean? I'm not believing James right now.

But then he says something even more triggering to the police. He says, "I'm not out there killing chicks, dude." He goes on and on about how he has plenty of girlfriends and meets women online, so he doesn’t need to be kidnapping and killing 20-year-olds.

But that's exactly what someone who kills young women would say. Especially because the police know James Worley already kind of has a bit of a criminal record, which is probably why he was always so eager to rat other people out. In 2000, he was convicted of growing marijuana and possessing weapons while on disability, which is actually a third-degree felony. He was released in 2002, 14 years earlier. But prior to that, James had served time for a much more violent offense.

So, back on July 4th, 1990, we are going back in time. A woman named Robin Gardner was living in Whitehouse, Ohio, which is about a 25-minute drive from the small town where our story takes place. She was about the same age as Sierra when she decided to go out for a little bike ride before her family barbecue—just a good Fourth of July bike ride.

Robin said that about a mile away from her house, she noticed a truck coming up behind her, and it hit her, sending her flying into a ditch along the side of the road. She says the man then stopped the car, got out, and asked if she was okay, but meanwhile, he was actually approaching her menacingly. Then, she noticed the hammer in his hand just before he hit her over the head.

The assailant then dragged her back to the car and tried to force her into handcuffs, but Robin fought back against the six-foot attacker with every ounce of strength she could muster, despite being run over and hit on the head with a hammer. Yeah, and it actually worked. A passing motorcyclist stopped when he saw the struggle. Robin hopped on the back of the stranger's bike and got away from the scene with her life.

When she got home, Robin immediately called the police, who worked fast and tracked down her attacker. And who was it? Thirty-one-year-old James Worley. What a surprise—James again.

This was back in 1990, so James was charged with kidnapping. He took a plea deal, which meant he only served three years behind bars. By the mid-90s, he was back on the streets of Ohio. And guess what? He attacked another woman.

I say this so much, and I will continue to say it, but it will always bug me. I will never understand—when someone gets out for doing something insane like that, they go and do it again, they get put back in, and then they get out again. And the next time, they escalate and kill the person, and someone actually dies. Like, at some point, yes, I know James is at fault, but at some point, our justice system has to take accountability. I don’t know, man. I know it's complicated—it's just frustrating.

So then, in 1996—six years later and actually the year Sierra was born—Claudia Tinsley from Toledo was leaving her house one afternoon when her mother asked her where she was going and who she was going with. Claudia just pointed to a truck parked outside. She hopped in the passenger side of the car, and after that, she was never seen again. When her mother went to the police to describe the man in the vehicle, it led them back to none other than Mr. James Worley.

Now, James actually admitted that he was the one who picked Claudia up. The mother was right. He said he drove around with Claudia for about 45 minutes and then dropped her off at some unknown location. To this day, Claudia's body has never been found, and James has never been charged with her disappearance, despite admitting he was basically the last person she was seen alive with.

Knowing all of this—the first girl was on a bike, hit by his truck; the second girl has never been seen again after being with James; and now we have Sierra, who was also riding a bike and is missing right near his house and the crime scene—he claims he was actually there. So, police are like, we have our number one suspect.

So, back on July 4th, 1990, we are going back in time. A woman named Robin Gardner was living in White House, Ohio—about a 25-minute drive from our small town where our story takes place. She was about the same age as Sierra when she decided to go out for a little bike ride before their family barbecue. Just a good Fourth of July bike ride.

Robin said that about a mile away from her house, she actually noticed a truck coming up behind her, and it hit her, sending her flying into a ditch along the side of the road. She says the man then stopped the car, got out, and asked if she was okay. But meanwhile, he was actually approaching her menacingly. Then she noticed the hammer in his hand just before he hit her over the head.

She said the assailant then dragged her back to the car and tried to force her into handcuffs, but Robin fought back against the six-foot attacker with every ounce of strength she could muster, after being run over and hit on the head with a hammer. Yeah, and it actually worked. A passing motorcyclist stopped when he saw the struggle. Robin hopped on the back of the stranger's bike and got away from the scene with her life.

Now, when she got home, Robin immediately called the police, who worked fast and actually tracked down her attacker. Who was it? Thirty-one-year-old James Worley. What a surprise, James again.

This was back in 1990, so James was charged with kidnapping. He took a plea deal, which meant he only served three years behind bars. By the mid-90s, he was actually back on the streets of Ohio, and guess what? He attacks another woman.

I say this so much, and I will continue to say it, but it will always bug me. I will never understand when someone gets out for doing something insane like that, they go and do it again. They get put back in, they get out again, and then the next time they escalate and kill the person. And someone actually finally dies.

Like, at some point, yes, I know that James—obviously it's his fault—but at some point, our justice system has to take accountability. I don't know, man. I know it's complicated, it's just frustrating.

So, then in 1996—this would be six years later and actually the year that Sierra was born—Claudia Tinsley from Toledo was leaving her house one afternoon when her mother asked her where she was going and who she was going with. Claudia just pointed to a truck parked outside. Claudia hopped into the passenger side of the car, and after that, she was never seen again.

When her mother went to the police to describe the man in the vehicle, it led them back to none other than Mr. James Worley. Now, James actually said, okay, he was the one who picked Claudia up, the mother was right. And he said he drove around with Claudia for about 45 minutes and then dropped her off at some unknown location. To this day, Claudia's body has never been found.

Holy crap. And James has never been charged with her disappearance, besides admitting that he was basically the last person she was seen alive with.

However, knowing all of this—I mean, the first girl was on a bike, hit by his truck. The second girl has never been seen again after being with James. And now we have Sierra, who was also riding a bike and is missing right next to his house and the crime scene he claims he was asked about. So police are like, "We have our number one suspect."

So, on July 22nd, three days after Sierra was declared missing, police returned to James Worley's house with a search warrant. This time, James was a little less forthcoming, but he let the police in to search his home anyway. Inside, police didn’t find anything of note, but when they told him they were going to search his barn, he became a lot less cooperative. He immediately got angry and nervous.

As they approached the barn, the first thing police noticed was that the window on the front was spray-painted black, so no one could see inside. When they opened the doors, they found two things right away. First, it looked like the dirt on the barn floor had been raked, like someone was trying to clean something up. Also, the place reeked of bleach. Bleach in a barn?

Investigators started moving things around, and after shuffling some barrels of hay to the side, they found this green crate. Inside this crate, they saw Ziploc bags labeled with all sorts of women’s clothing. I’m talking bags that said things like “stockings,” “tube tops,” “jean shorts,” and “underwear.” They also found duct tape, along with a freshly made sandwich in a bag in this crate. This made police wonder if Sierra was actually still alive and being held captive somewhere nearby, and if he was taking this crate to change her clothes and feed her, like it was his little cubby. I mean, why else would you have an almost brand-new sandwich sitting in your barn?

Yeah, so police were completely scrambling at this point. Along the rear side of the barn, they found a piece of plywood lying over the floor. So, they decided to lift it up. They removed the floorboard, and underneath was one of those giant chest freezers. They raced to get this thing out of the floor. They needed to remove it, and when they opened it up, there was nothing left inside but a wet carpet lining the interior, which looked to be soaked in blood and bleach.

Now, inside that barn, they also found a corner with a blood-soaked mattress with handcuffs and zip ties on it. Holy crap, this is insane. So, they were like, “Hi James, why do you have a bloody fridge and a bloody mattress in your barn?” And he goes, “Oh, um, this is my own makeshift pornography studio.” With blood?

This is stomach-turning, and it’s more than enough for police to arrest him that afternoon. James Worley was charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, assault, possessing criminal tools, and a few other offenses. But the question was, where is Sierra? She wasn’t found in the barn.

As police were bagging and tagging evidence, they actually got a phone call from a nearby farmer. He lived about two miles down the road from James and had noticed a disturbance in his cornfield, like someone had been digging a hole on his property. Police rushed over and found what looked like a covered-up grave. They began removing the dirt slowly, noticing the smell of decomposition as they dug further and further. That’s when they spotted her.

It was the body of Sierra, dragging in the 95-degree heat. They actually spent the next five hours exhuming her body, refusing to take a break until she was out of the grave.

Sierra was found with her wrists handcuffed and her ankles bound with rope. She also had—I'm going to give a trigger warning here—what appeared to be a rubber dog toy stuffed down her mouth. During her autopsy, the medical examiner believed this was what had actually caused her death, and her cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation.

Sierra also had a hairline fracture along the back of her skull, which police think was caused by a motorcycle helmet being used to knock her unconscious before she was abducted. However, there were no signs that Sierra had been sexually assaulted.

After James’s motorcycle was processed by forensics, they found Sierra’s blood on his bike, as well as on zip ties, a can of mace, and a ski mask that was confiscated from his property. They also found pieces of duct tape that had both James’s and Sierra’s DNA on them. Plus, they learned that on the day Sierra was kidnapped, James had used his computer to look up pornographic sites and had Google-searched terms like “hogtied teen,” “hitchhiker forced,” “helpless,” and “gag.”

What the freak? This isn’t okay.

When James Worley’s trial began in 2018, 156 jurors were dismissed from the case before the hearing could even begin. Several of them were excused because they knew or lived in close proximity to James Worley or the Joughin family. It took about three months to put together a jury, and when testimony finally began, the prosecution painted a compelling picture of what likely happened to Sierra that night.

They said that James Worley, who pleaded not guilty despite all of the evidence against him, likely spent the day on those pornographic websites. Later that night, while riding his motorcycle, he ran into Sierra by pure chance and decided to act on his fantasies. He likely pursued Sierra into that cornfield, hit her over the head with his helmet, and then waited there for nearly two hours until it got completely dark. This theory was supported by James’s cell phone location data, which showed that he sat in the cornfield for two hours. He then went home on his motorcycle, got his van, and returned to pick her up before bringing her back to the barn where he likely killed her. Later that night, he buried her body just a few miles away in his neighbor’s cornfield.

The defense tried to work a very weak angle. They said that James did not know Sierra and that he had no motive for the crime. They also argued that although his DNA was found on the majority of the evidence recovered by police, it wasn’t found on all of it. Plus, they referred to one witness report that said a man wearing red shorts was spotted in the cornfield near Sierra’s bike that night, but no red shorts were found at James Worley’s home.

Ultimately, the case against James Worley was strong, with the star witness for the prosecution being Robin Gardner. She testified that, like Sierra, she was a strong, independent woman who happened to cross paths with James Worley. Unlike Sierra, however, she got away with her life, but Sierra didn’t.

So, when all was said and done, the jury returned to read the verdict. The 58-year-old James Worley was found guilty of aggravated murder and the kidnapping of Sierra Joughin, as well as all the other counts he was charged with. Now, the question was what would become of James Worley. His sentencing hearing was on April 16, 2018.

James spent 45 minutes at his sentencing talking about how he was innocent, how he did not kill Sierra, and how he had been framed for this crime. Dude, what a loser. The judge replied, “If I thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that you were innocent, you would still be looking at a life sentence.” Instead, the judge gave James Worley the death penalty. In addition, he received 11 years in prison for kidnapping, eight for assault, 11 months for possessing criminal tools, and 36 months for tampering with evidence. His execution date is actually set for May 20, 2025. Do you think it will go through? I don’t know.

Sierra’s family has worked hard in the years since to make sure her fate doesn't become someone else’s. So I want to end on Sierra’s legacy. Not only has the family carried on her legacy through a nonprofit dedicated to keeping their community safe from repeat offenders, but Sierra’s death also sparked the creation of a new bill that has been passed through the Ohio Senate.

During the search for Sierra, police mentioned to her family that there was no local, state, or federal database tracking all violent offenders. Her family believed that if something like that had been available, law enforcement might have noticed that James Worley—who had already done something similar to two other girls, one of whom was on a bike—was in the area. His name could have popped up immediately when they ran a check on people around the area she disappeared. How does something like that not exist?

In December 2018, the family helped get a new law enacted, known as Sierra’s Law. This statute led to the creation of a violent offender registry in Ohio. While the public can’t access the site online, they can go to their local sheriff’s office and request that a search be performed on their behalf. This helps ensure that their neighbors aren't a threat to their family, or if their daughter goes missing, they can ask the police to check for violent offenders in the area.

Sierra’s family also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Worley, which was settled in 2018. The family received over $3 million, but more importantly, they won the rights to the 3-acre property where Sierra was killed. This was significant because Sierra’s family and friends would no longer have to drive down County Road 6 and look at the barn where Sierra’s life was taken. After getting ownership of the property, the family had the barn destroyed.

Sheila, her mother, told reporters, “I’m not going to lie, there is emotional gratification in tearing down and burning something that you loathe so much. We look forward to removing the darkness and opening it up, letting the light shine in.”

And that is the story of Sierra Joughin. It’s so sad, heartbreaking, and senseless. Again, it's so frustrating when someone who has been let out of prison for something violent ends up doing it again.

There are two ways to look at it. There are statistics that show a high percentage of violent offenders reoffend, but it also takes away from those who don’t reoffend and actually change. Unfortunately, cases like this overpower the good because repeat offenders tend to stand out more. While there could be changes to the reformation process, right now, too many violent offenders are being released and eventually killing people.

How many times in these cases is it said, “Oh, they’ve done this before,” and now it's happening again? It’s honestly ridiculous. Now it's happening again.

Alright you guys, that was our story for this week and we will see you next time with another one.

I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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