Going skydiving. All right. Yeah, let's do it.

Special reason for that living life.

Just into our newsroom, the Fulton County Sheriff's Office is asking for your help to find a missing woman.

Take me back to that day.

I'm going on a bike ride.

I remember exactly what I said. I kissed her. I told her I loved her and to text me when she got home.

Instantly I knew something was wrong.

Right away.

Right away they said, hey, there's something going on. We can't find Sierra. She's missing.

So you're thinking at this point maybe she was in an accident. Tell me about the search. What was going on?

I just remember thinking the whole time like, oh, my God, what if we find something? What if we find something? Time is of the essence and it's not good. You could see the red and blue lights flickering.

It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You just had this eerie feeling that you knew that this wasn't an abduction site.

I'm with Fulton County Sheriff's Office. Fulton County, Ohio. We've got a missing person.

At any point you can encounter evil, small town America in the middle of nowhere. It could happen to anybody. You had a young lady, 20 years old, just riding a bike out in the country.

What's the girl's name?

Sierra.

There are evil people out there, and they can live right down the road.

They've got concerns of life threatening circumstances. They live amongst us. A lot of times they go on for years without getting caught.

She left her boyfriend's house at seven to ride her bike home. Your mind just starts racing. Where's Sierra?

Ultimate Bike Ride on a beautiful summer day in 2016 on this country road surrounded by cornfields in the tiny town of Metamora, Ohio.

Metamora, Ohio is this very sweet, very rural community.

It's about 40, 45 minutes outside of Toledo.

Just kind of what you think Midwest Farm, USA looks like. There's probably more corn and cows than people.

Very tight knit. Everybody knows everyone. Just small town, simple life. Very simple. You know everyone's parents, you know where everyone lives. We always joke about where we grew up, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by corn.

Anybody you talked to prior to all of this would say the same thing, that this would never happen here. But here I am. And it did happen. Lots of times I'd say, you know, why me and why her?

Josh Kolesinski and Sierra Jagen were a well known metamora couple.

She was an extremely outgoing person. There really wasn't anybody that wasn't her friend.

Sierra's mom, Sheila Vacuovic, says that Sierra had that exuberant personality from the very beginning. Sierra was your firstborn?

My firstborn, yes. You had a nickname for her, c or Cece. Is it fun? Cece.

What was she like as a little girl?

Very energetic. She liked to help. She loved animals. She was so content.

You've described her as a perfect child.

I did. She was just so easy. It's almost as tall as you are.

How would you describe your niece, Sierra Vivacious?

She was born when I was 16. So she was like my real live baby doll. And as I got older, I just loved her. I couldn't get enough of her. She was a ball of energy. My name is Shara. You just couldn't stop laughing and having fun with her. She was a singer. We loved a good karaoke.

Here's her spirited take on the Barbie girl song.

Feels so weird being back here. I know. Junior year hallway. Here we are. And Sierra was across. We both went to high school with her. Here.

Right here?

Yes. She was the life of the party. She always had those evergreen colored cheerleading skirts.

She wasn't a cheerleader, but she just.

Loved to dress up as a cheerleader.

One, two, three, go.

Always said, I wish that I could bottle her confidence because so many girls do go through. I'm too short, I'm too fat, I'm too this, I'm too that. And she was just very comfortable in her own skin.

It strikes me that you were more than aunt and niece. That you're more like companions.

Yeah.

Close friends.

She was my niece. She was my sister, my best friend, my daughter. She was everything.

She just became part of our family and we took her on vacation and part of Christmas. She was our daughter.

Are you serious? Oh, my God. Nuh.

Take care of it.

Done. You.

It's in your name. So your car.

She went to college at the University of Toledo. How was that going for her?

Really, really good. She was in the college of business.

What were her dreams?

She wanted to be big. She wanted to change the world.

The summer of 2016, before her junior year in college, sierra moves from Toledo back to Metamora into her grandparents'house. Why did she live with her grandparents and not at your house?

Just for room's sake. It was going to be short term. So this is Sierra's room. She loved to do crafts. So actually this painting here she did.

And that's Josh up there?

That is Josh.

She liked her little world here.

She did. She felt comfortable here. So when she moved back home for the summer, I was ecstatic. I'm like, yes, she's back home. Safe environment.

Take me back to that day. July 19, 2016.

I got home from work. It was probably going on 05:00 in the evening. She said she was getting ready to go for a bike ride. She was going to ride over to Josh's.

The bike was purple.

Bike was purple, which is one of her favorite colors.

And how long would it have been, that bike ride to Josh's house?

About 6 miles.

Her route was on county road six. Can you describe that road?

Very rural, not a ton of people. But you have a couple of houses that she'd be passing.

And you must have thought nothing of it.

No, not at all. Then she took off on her bike and headed towards Josh's.

Beautiful cornfields bucolic. What would be better than taking a little bike ride? You would never imagine?

Never.

Not out there. Sierra's bike ride will soon turn into a nightmare.

My heart drops. I said, this doesn't sound right. Like something's not right. Where's she at? Where is she?

What's going on right now?

Going skydiving.

And there any special reason for that?

No living life.

I'm a firm believer that you should be best friends before you enter a more personal relationship with somebody, and that's exactly what we were. She was my best friend. We went skydiving together.

That was awesome. Really good.

Now you can go down. Give that guy a big hug.

Josh Kolasinski and Sierra Jagen's relationship dated back years.

We got a special connection.

So me and Sierra were six years old when we first met. She was a family friend.

They grew up young, knowing each other.

By the time high school came around, it was me and her. We were always together. She was stubborn, she was hard headed, and she had a very strong personality and win too many fights. We liked to go to get togethers and parties, but we didn't need parties. And all that stuff at home was nothing to do. That was some of the best times that we had. Being together for six years. Getting married was definitely a big talk, really. The summer that this happened was when conversations were about to take place for asking her to marry me. That day, she rode her bike from her house to my house. It's a hefty bike ride. And I remember she showed up and she's just sweating and regretting her decision of riding her bike that far. She didn't stay too long. She decided to leave. I'm fairly old school, so I was going to follow her. I had a motorcycle. I hopped on that and just started riding beside her. When we were just pulled out of my house, I did take two Snapchat videos. For anybody that knows us. It was a running joke that I'm on the motorcycle and she's on a.

Bicycle, so I'm going on a bike ride. Move your ass.

Sierra, being the strong person that she is, right about a mile in, she's like, okay, that's enough. You can go home now. You don't have to follow me the whole way. Another mile of hearing that, I decided to stop and turn around.

It's 06:43 P.m. When Josh takes those snapchats. It's ten minutes later when he and Sierra separate.

I remember exactly what I said. I kissed her. I told her I loved her and to text me when she got home.

09:00 P.m.. Sierra's mother is driving past her parents house and looks up at Sierra's window.

I noticed that her bedroom light wasn't on, which really did strike me as OD. But in my head I was thinking, well, maybe she was tired. I wasn't concerned enough to run up there and see if she was in.

Her bedroom around 09:00 ish. I remember looking at my phone and she never texted me. And I was kind know, okay, that's weird. Sierra's, she was really good about saying, hey, I'm here shooting me a text and just, hey, made it.

I was in bed when Josh called and he was asking if I had talked to Sierra. He goes, I'm trying to call her. It's going right to voicemail. I can't get a hold of her. And instantly I knew something was wrong right away. Right away. She never doesn't respond. So I hung up and I called my parents and I said, can you check on Sierra?

Your daughter Sheila called you and asked you if Sierra had come home.

I knew she wasn't in her bedroom. And I said, let me go out and see if her bike's here. So I went out to the barn.

The bike would have been in here, right?

Would have been in here, and her bike was not here. And then that started everything.

We all knew something was very wrong.

It's now dark out and nobody knows where Sierra might be. Her room light is off. Her bike is not in the barn, and she's not answering her phone. Concerns are mounting, and the search for Sierra is about to begin.

Josh said he was going to retrace the way Sierra came home.

I was thinking maybe she got hurt. Maybe she's unconscious in a ditch somewhere.

I chose to take 120 and head into Lions, which is a town next to Matamora. A lot of times there is a sheriff that will sit in the Lions Fire Department. It was about 1030 when I left my driveway.

So you were thinking at this point, maybe she was in an accident. Right?

Right.

She's by the side of the road, right?

In a gully in a ditch. As soon as I hit the fire station, there was a deputy parked there. So I literally pulled up right beside her.

So you walk up here and the squad car is here?

Yes, the deputy is parked right here. I go up to her and I PROCEED to tell her that my daughter went for a bike ride and on her way home, she didn't make it and her bike was missing. And she calls 911 and then yes, she does. Put that through.

Sheriff Miller's office.

Hold on a second. She just pulled up next to me.

Got you.

So then she asked for the information, her name, her birth date, what's the girl's name, what's her name? She left her boyfriend's house at seven to ride her bike home.

Does Sarah have any medical issues?

Any medical issues or anything? No.

All right, let me see what I can do here.

Okay.

You're getting agitated.

I am I'm frustrated. Just kept trying to emphasize know, time is of the essence. Like, this is serious. Immediately. You know, something's not right. I did what I could here, which was posting on Facebook, contacting every one of her friends. I had that feeling that I had never felt, and I felt something was very wrong. Sick to our stomach immediately.

Like an intuition thing.

Yeah.

I got a phone call from somebody. They said, hey, there's a bunch of police officers on County Road Six.

You could see the red and blue lights flickering right down County Road Six. This was all barricaded. And I felt like they must have found something.

Major Matt Smithmeyer with Fulton County Sheriff's Office. Been working here for 29 years. I'm friends with Sierra's family, and Sierra graduated with my daughter on July 19, 2016. I was home asleep when I found out that there was a problem. Friends of the family had stopped at my house. It was 1130 at night, midnight.

They came, knocked on your door?

Yes.

They said, hey, there's something going on. We can't find Sierra. She's missing. At that point, I had called our office and asked what was going on.

It's around midnight, and this road right by where Sierra lives has been shut down by law enforcement. Her family can't get through. So they're left to wondering, why are the police here and what have they found?

It was blocked. It was barricaded.

When you ran up to them, they.

Said, we're not letting anybody down there. All they could say was that they were investigating.

You must have wanted to break through.

Oh, my gosh. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible.

This is police dash cam video of Sierra's grandparents pacing at the scene. How difficult was it?

It was horrible. Because you want answers. Why can't you tell me anything?

It turns out a police deputy, Jeremy Simon, has just made an alarming discovery.

The deputy was traveling southbound on County Road Six. He noticed that he saw what he thought to be Matted Down cornstalks. He put a spotlight on it, confirmed that there was definitely something out of the ordinary there. Got out of the vehicle. He walked over to the cornfield.

Happened.

To shine his light up, and at some point, somehow, his light hit one of the reflectors of the bike.

It was Sierra Joggins bike, hidden in a cornfield just a half a mile from her home.

At that time that he made phone calls to his command staff, and they shut down the area.

Just so you know. All units are headed up towards Six and F-A-M reference that missing person. Jeremy may have found something up there. Called BCI to come out and start processing the scene that night.

Megan Roberts is a special agent with Ohio's BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, part of their crime scene unit.

Home sleeping, and I got called out around one in the morning.

What does the phone call say?

They said that they potentially may have found an abduction site. And they were asking if I could come out and assist examining the crime scene. When I arrived, the corn stalks were over my head. It was very dark, and you couldn't see anything out here. There's no streetlights. Her bike was over here in the cornfield by this blue marker. It was that's kind of how I remember where it was found.

The bike was immediately sent out for forensic analysis. So this was Sierra's bicycle?

Yes, it was. And it was sitting just like we see it here today.

Standing up?

Standing up. Kickstand down just three or four rows into the cornfield.

How was it identified?

Family. It gave us a description of the bicycle.

I'm going on a bike ride and.

The boyfriend, and plus we had video from his cell phone that evening when he was riding alongside her.

And it turns out there was blood on the handlebars and on the seat.

There was spots that were tested, and they sent to the lab right away.

The bike itself had not been damaged.

There's no damage to the bike. It's the same condition as it was when she was riding it.

And that's even her water bottle?

Correct.

It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You just had this eerie feeling that you knew that this wasn't an abduction site.

The bike was here and she was not.

Right. We just kept walking the field until we found more evidence. We found a screwdriver. We found men's style sunglasses. We found a sock. We found a set of fuse boxes.

There was tire tracks of a motorcycle tucked into the cornfield.

And there were streaks of blood on the cornstalks.

It wasn't a massive amount of blood. I knew somebody was injured, but they probably weren't injured so badly that they died. You could tell a struggle had definitely occurred. I could look down the row of corn and see the broken stalks all the way down the corner.

While law enforcement is investigating, they keep a tight lid on what they found.

We didn't want anything to get out to the media. We didn't want the items of evidence that we were finding to get back to the suspect. So we kind of kept everything to yourselves, to ourselves, until we could figure out what was going on.

When did you finally find out that they had found Sierra's bicycle in that cornfield?

It wasn't until the morning they had actually assigned an FBI agent to us, and actually they were the ones that kind of told know, okay, we found the bike.

And that kind of sealed the deal that something was really wrong.

That's when you knew that it was not good. Time is of the essence, and it's not good. I'm going on a bike ride.

Until we rule people out, everybody's a suspect. Josh was the last person to see Sierra alive. He was the last one to have any interaction with her.

Is her boyfriend being honest with us, or has something else happened?

I remember two gentlemen walked up and said, we need to talk to you. I put on the record that you're making me nervous.

You should.

He looked at me and he said, where's she at?

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We're following a story just into our newsroom.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office is asking.

For your help to find a missing woman. We had a call into the newsroom telling us that there was a young girl that was missing. So as all newsrooms are, we started to scramble.

Her name is Sierra Jogan. She's 20 years old.

She was last seen last night in the Evergreen School District, and she was riding a purple bicycle that morning, I will never forget.

We pulled up to Evergreen High School. They're the FBI. They're detectives. They're us.

Marshals.

And I called my boss and I said, there's a problem out here. This is bad. There are investigators everywhere in this high school parking lot. Something has gone on.

Deputies say she's about five five, weighs about 130. She has brown hair and brown eyes.

If you know where she is, you're.

Asked to call the Fulton County Sheriff's Office.

Tell me about the search, what was going on?

Everybody wanted to be a part of it. We didn't have to ask for volunteers. They were just coming.

They formed search teams. They were handing out flyers. It was basically the entire community that was looking for her.

They were basically walking each cornfield just in case Sarah was injured and on the move and maybe disoriented, and she couldn't find her home.

I remember walking through those cornfields, watching the men and women that were out there assisting us with the search, coming out yellow from the pollen of the corn.

As a kid, we always loved hiding in the corn. Now it's like you look at it a little bit differently. The corn can hide a lot. It's thick, it's dense.

You helped in the search.

It was hard. Just walked like a foot 2ft apart and just scanned the field. I just remember thinking the whole time, like, oh, my God, what if we find something? What if we find something?

Meanwhile, his family and friends have been frantically searching. The police have been handed an important clue.

A farmer found a helmet on the side of the road the night before. The farmer took the helmet. He thought it would be a good fit for his son. When he woke up the next morning and saw the media coverage about Sierra missing from that location, he brought the helmet over to us.

And then when he brought it back to the scene, when we started to look at it, it was covered. What we believed it was blood.

These were blood stains?

Yes.

You could see all the fainted blood stains all over the side of the helmet. There was a lot of information pointing us in the direction that someone who was riding a motorcycle was involved in Sierra's disappearance.

We knew at this point that Sierra's boyfriend had a motorcycle, and he was the last person to see Sierra alive. So we had to look at Josh.

I remember two gentlemen walked up and said, we need to talk to you. And I said, yeah, let's do it. We went over to Evergreen High School. I saw their whole mobile command center.

Did you go by Josh or Joshua? Josh.

And how long have you known Sierra?

So you follow her? About.

3 miles.

3 miles, okay.

I gave every single bit of information that my brain could possibly I drew a map. I can draw it, and I can draw the route that she took. I remember saying, this is the route she took. If it ain't this route, it's this route, and I will never forget this. He asked me if I wanted a drink.

Is there, like, a pop machine or something around? You need something to drink?

No, I'm good.

Then they both leave, and I'm like, in this room by myself? They both came back in, and the dynamic changed very quick. They came in, and he looked at me and he said, where's she at?

Do you know what happened to her?

I have no idea.

Okay?

I swear. I wish I did. I immediately got scared.

The two of you didn't have any argument, physical or otherwise?

No.

Nothing?

No.

Okay. You don't have any ideas as to her whereabouts or anything?

I was like, oh, you might think it's me. Can I put on the record that you're making me nervous? They were like, yeah, you should be scared.

You should. Honestly, I understand that. Okay? I understand that.

Josh was very forthcoming with information. Josh was very helpful. So we got consent to search his residence. We went through his residence top to bottom.

Josh let me go through his bedroom. We looked for blood spatter evidence on the clothing.

We searched his motorcycle. We went through his truck.

And at one point, we found a pair of coveralls with blood on it.

She says, look, that's old.

It's from a deer hunting trip. Please take it, test it. And we were able to determine that it was animal blood.

It's a very invasive process, but wasn't anything to hide. I take care of Sierra.

I do.

You can ask anybody. I do take care of your care of her.

What about Jonas? Did you have any suspicions?

Oh, absolutely not.

No, never.

He really treated Sierra well, so no, never ever did I think that he would have anything to do with that. Go ahead and question him. Do your job, but let's move on, because it's not no question.

We weren't able to find anything that put us in the direction that Josh had any involvement in disappearance of Sierra.

Everything, in fact, was pointing that he didn't have a role in this, that something had happened in that last half mile.

So now we're looking more towards stranger abduction, chance encounter.

So this starts to feel like a totally random crime. This feels like a guy that maybe just out of nowhere, targets this woman riding her bike. And that's really scary to people.

There's so many possibilities that could happen.

We would get a little bit of sleep, and then we're back up just chasing leads. What's next? Who's next?

Has she been taken somewhere? Is she being held captive?

Police make the rounds in a desperate search to find Sierra.

Not out there stealing chicks, robbing chicks, stealing people.

How are you coping with the unknown that nobody knows where she is? It's hard on everybody. I mean, I feel like a protector of the family, you know? Did she have any enemies?

No. To know her was to love her. There's still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the disappearance of 20 year old Sierra Joggin. The FBI, bureau of criminal investigation and Michigan state police are assisting in the search.

Everybody was out knocking on doors.

We just start going house to houses all around to see if anyone saw anything. Did you see any suspicious vehicles, persons?

We were driving away, and Matt Smithmeyer mentioned he wanted to make a stop. He said, there's a guy that lives out here, and it was actually on county road six, the same county road that Sierra lived on. He apologized because he said James Worley is his name. He likes to talk a lot.

Who is James Worley?

At the time, he was in his early 50s. He was a caretaker. He was taking care of his mom and his brother that lived on the property. He did some small engine repair. I grew up a quarter mile down the road from his house. He was an individual that calling complaints, would see suspicious vehicles. We knocked on the door. It was a moderately kept rural home. And orley answered the door in boxers in a shirt.

Immediately it was kind of, why are you here? What are you doing? So we explained a young lady had gone missing. He says, yeah, I was out riding my motorcycle. I went up and around Lyons, Ohio, down on County Road Six. We're like, okay. So he brings us in. We walk in the house. We go into the living room, but.

I remember saying, hey, have a seat. We are like, no, no, we're fine. He goes, no, you're going to sit down.

Mr. Whirley makes a statement about how he was riding his motorcycle, and his bike is having issues. It sputters out. He goes into a cornfield.

I thought, this guy knows something. It was at that point where I thought, well, I need to be recording this.

And Dan motioned at his phone that he was going to start recording. Mr. Whirley was not aware that he.

Was being recorded, and he was quick to say, what are you doing on your phone? You got an issue with the phone? I'm texting my boss, well, why don't you just let him go?

He just was very astute if we were doing something. He wanted to know what we were up to.

I pushed my bike into the cornfield because the end rows are open. It's 500 pounds. I was in my head thinking, I'm going to ditch this thing. But there's these bikes here. Any are pedal bikes, right? Yeah.

See? Just two bikes sitting in the wheat field. He says, there's a gray one and a Bluish. And we knew Sierra's bike was purple.

Did you see anybody around the bike, the bicycles? The only people I saw were cars driving by.

Mr. Whirley continued to talk about his motorcycle.

I thought, Man, I'm going to stick my bike in here and I'm going to walk home. Now, don't go ramping this up in your head like, oh, park the bike and attack the chick. That ain't no, I got it back out, and I commenced to pushing. I restarted. I rode away, quit on me. Restarted, rode away, quit on me. And then I made it home here about 10:00. I'm not out there killing chicks, dude. I've had a number of girlfriends. I'm trying to get one started online a little bit right now. And she's been out here and guess what? She went home alive. Why would you say I didn't kill someone? That's not something would come up in normal conversation.

He seemed like he was making this almost a joke.

It was almost a joke. But what you just explained matches up with what we found at the scene. And the interesting thing, he was more intrigued in asking us questions, as opposed to we were asking him, so are you really hitting every house up and down?

Yes.

Or did you find my fingerprints on a bike or something?

And that's when he said, well, I did pick up one of the bikes. I was going to ride it home.

So you picked it up? Picked one up. I stood one of them up. And laid it back down. Are my fingerprints on these bikes? I'm asking you a direct question.

I want a direct it's a little too quickly. Stuff doesn't happen like CSI. Mr. Warley suspected we were lying to him, that we were not going to every house. He kept asking us, Why are you really here?

I know you got an ongoing problem, but don't try to beat me into the position of being part of it, because I'm not. And how are you going to kidnap somebody or take them on a motorcycle?

We just try to calm his fears and make him understand, no, you're not a suspect. We just want information at this point.

What's her name, by the way? It said it on the paper, but sierra.

Sierra.

Sierra. What do I say? It's the world we live in and it isn't me. Just a weird kind of response.

What was going through your mind when you were talking to him?

I can't believe what we just did. We didn't have a lead up to that point.

I know. We just kind of showed up.

Well, yeah, you kind of showed up. It's a bad reason that you're here, obviously.

Yeah.

We got up to leave and he wouldn't quit talking. I do the best I can each day with what I got, which ain't much. But I'm not out there stealing chicks, robbing chicks, stealing people.

I'm not out there stealing chicks, robbing chicks, stealing people. What was your reaction?

That's just something that stuck in our heads. Like, why these responses?

And as you're listening to all this, how suspicious are you becoming?

Very suspicious. At that point, we knew that we needed to leave there to get a search warrant for the property.

When they enter the barn, it's extremely concerning.

So behind the bales of hay you find this.

There was so many things there that were just really wrong.

I kind of had to stop my jaw from falling.

It is like a barn of horrors.

In my 29 years in law enforcement, this has been the most disturbing set of evidence that I've ever seen.

The fear, the heartache of knowing she's out there and is she scared, is she hurt?

You just had this eerie feeling that you knew that this wasn't an abduction site.

Bike was here and she was not.

Right.

There were a lot of discoveries on this property.

There was just got an eerie feeling about what was in there.

What did the rake marks tell you?

Someone's cleaning up, someone's trying to hide something.

Everything about that barn screamed to me, kidnapping?

Who keeps lingerie in a barn? And I remember thinking to myself, this guy is going to kill me and he's going to put me in the field. He's going to do this again.

Our alarms just went berserk, almost beg.

Him, is Sierra alive? Where is she? Young woman riding her bike on a summer night and she gets abducted. This kind of stuff does not happen around here.

This is a picture of Sierra jogging. She was last seen Tuesday night leaving her boyfriend's house on her bike. But Sierra never made it home. Your hope is starting to waver. Just keep thinking, where is she?

This was the original abduction site where Sierra was taken from. Her bike was over here in the cornfield.

So where are we here?

So this is James Worley's residence.

What led investigators to this property?

Major Smith Meyer knew this guy. I remember him saying that this guy was just odd. He was an OD resident. So they sent a team down here to speak with Whirley.

Investigators were very suspicious. After talking to James Whirley, mr. Whirley.

Makes a statement about how he was riding his motorcycle. And his bike is having issues. It sputters out. He goes into a cornfield, and he mentions that he lost his helmet, his fuses, his screwdriver, and his sunglasses. I kind of had to stop my jaw from falling. None of that had been released to the media yet.

Our alarms just went berserk. He's placing himself at the scene.

So now investigators want to search his property, and they visit him a second time. Walked up and knocked on the door. He answered the door, and he appeared to just have gotten out of the shower.

This time he was a little more agitated and nervous. Okay, so you guys got some suspicions for something here? I talked to him about the helmet. What about the helmet? You found a helmet? Yes. Well, bring it on here, because I want my helmet back.

Well, that's why we're here mostly, is because the helmet looks like it might have some blood on.

Ah, no.

We spoke a little bit at the door, and then he agreed to accompany us through the house to make sure that Sierra wasn't on the ground somewhere.

So we looked through the residence. Didn't see anything. So we proceeded outside and searched the rest of the property.

James Worley's property had a main house, which sat to the left. To the right side was a barn.

Once they got to the barn, Whirley didn't want to cooperate anymore. His demeanor changed.

I'm watching Jim become very nervous, very agitated, and concerned that we were even in the room. He was trying his darndest to get us to move on. Let's get out of him. Come around back.

You just got an eerie feeling about what was in there. The floor had been raped.

What did the rake marks tell you?

Someone's cleaning up. Someone's trying to hide something. You could smell bleach.

This was the entry door to the north part of the barn. The reason we took this for evidence is you could see that the window was spray painted black.

You couldn't see.

No one could see into the area. Someone had really taken the time to conceal whatever was going on in that portion of the barn.

This barn was located the furthest away from the house. It was almost secluded in a way that the people in the home probably couldn't hear much of what was going on in the barn.

While scouring the property, investigators continue to question James Worley about what he did the night Sierra vanished. There's no sense in trying to and, you know, we're here for a reason.

Oh, and then here comes the drone, the bike, and I attack, huh? Is that what you're thinking? It's not what happened. I'm not involved in it. I want to find her alive. Dude, I do not have her stashed, hidden, buried. Whatever it is you're thinking, I haven't done it.

So we finally realized they've got the search warrant.

Like, thank goodness we broke that property apart.

One of the primary areas that we wanted to search was that north area of the barn. It had the floor that was recently raked. Our initial view in were hay bales, and as we were removed a hay bale. We were looking most astonishingly. We found this green crate.

So behind the bales of hay, you find this?

Yes, this is the green crate.

When they opened that crate, they found numerous labeled bags, like ziploc bags containing items. Things that were labeled were, like stockings, tube tops, daisy Duke shorts, panties. There was duct tape.

Who keeps lingerie in a barn?

You just knew that this wasn't right.

His reasoning for having female undergarments in a barn was he gives them out as gifts to girlfriends. Didn't fly well with us. What's wrong with getting stuff to treat girls? They like that. And you know what? If I was going to go out and rape and kill whatever, a chick or whatever, how in the hell would I use that much lingerie? I buy stuff that I think girls would like to have. I mean, I've had a pretty good sex life my whole life, and all the girls are still alive.

Dan, by the way, he was just full of it. What do you think he really was using it for?

I think he was wanting a victim that he would abduct to wear some of those clothing for his fantasy. There was a freshly made sandwich sitting in that crate.

A freshly made sandwich? Sandwich.

It led us to believe that someone was being held in that area of the barn, because why else would you have a sandwich there? Everything about that barn screamed to me. Kidnapping and sexual assault.

We were slowly getting more information, and at one point, they had found that evergreen High School had video showing what looked to be. Mr. Whirley's truck driving on the road that evening.

Look, there's school video that have you.

In my truck going by. I drove down the road and back looking for the helmet. That was me driving the truck.

So now he puts himself there, leaving and coming back. But this time when he went back, he did not take the motorcycle. He had taken one of his vehicles.

We were thinking, this is the vehicle. He went and picked her back up from that area.

During the interview with Mr. Worley, somebody pulled me aside and said, hey, come here and take a look at this.

Every bale of hay was moved out of that barn. When we get down to that third floor, we find a piece of plywood with holes in it. They look like breathing holes to me.

You're thinking, this could be a hiding spot. Tense anticipation starts to rise. Is this where we're going to find her?

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I think birds are the most amazing creature on this planet. That's a blue jay. They're resilient and they can survive horrible circumstances. I'm Robin Gardner. I've been a birder since I was twelve. I heard about Sierra when she was missing from a neighbor, and he said, I am so sorry if this upsets you, but there's a girl that's missing and they have checked on Worley's house. We've seen at least six Fulton County deputies here, along with the Ohio State Highway Patrol. I was shocked, cried a lot. It was a very difficult process for me to go through.

A couple of days after Sierra had gone missing, we started looking into Mr. Whirley's past and saw that he had a very similar occurrence 26 years earlier. He tried to abduct a young lady riding her bicycle.

This was almost, if not identical, to what happens Sierra.

It was the summer of 1990. Robin Gardner was 26 years old and living with her mom in White House, Ohio, just 20 minutes from where Sierra lived.

On July 4, my mom was making potato salad and getting ready for the neighborhood picnic that we all did every year. It was noon and I got bored easily, so I said, I'm just going to go for a bike ride. And I got on my bike and took off. That's me when I first got the bike, and I got maybe mile from the house. There were no cars, no houses, and a truck came by me, passed me. So I thought, I'm going to turn around and go back home. And as soon as I was ready to turn around, I heard a car coming. That is the truck and that's the one that hit me. So I flew into a ditch. This person got out the car to check on her and he was asking her if she was okay. So I got up from the ditch. He came up and I wasn't looking at what he was doing and he hit me over the head with a hammer on the left side of my head. And I was terrified. Instantly. He just looked like a normal guy. And I almost blacked out. I had like, black curtains closing in on me.

I kind of stood back up again, didn't know what to do. I've got trained to fight people. He was six foot one, I'm five foot one, and he got me in a stranglehold and put a screwdriver in my throat and said, get into the truck and stop screaming. I thought, there's nothing else I can do but scream because I can't fight. And on both sides, it's corn. So I was screaming into corn and I remember thinking to myself, this guy is going to kill me and he's going to put me in the field. Then all of a sudden, he grabbed her and was dragging her and got her into the truck. And the next thing I know, he opened the glove box and got handcuffs out. I just looked at them and I just instantly thought I was dead. So he got them attached to the right wrist. I quickly grabbed the steering wheel with my left wrist and I just fought as hard as I could so he couldn't get both hands behind me.

She caused such a commotion that a motorcycle that was approaching on that county road stopped.

She then runs, jumps onto the back of a motorcycle and takes off.

If that motorcyclist didn't come, I wouldn't be here. There's absolutely no doubt I call him my guardian angel. When I got home, the police came, the ambulance came and they said, we found him. He's still at the scene of the crime. I found out his name is James Whirley. I never knew him, no connection at all. So this is another photo that we took a few days after the attack. Just showing all the bruises on my arm.

James Whirley was 31 years old at the time. He ended up taking a plea to an abduction charge and served three years.

And I knew after my attack he was just not going to be a normal person in society. He's going to do this again. I moved back to California where I felt safe, because ever since my attack, I can't be alone. I cannot be where someone can't hear me screaming. I can't go bird watching.

It was eerily similar in both attempted abduction of Robin Gardner and the actual abduction of Sierra.

Sierra and I were two strong, independent women, and we just thought we'll be fine. We'll just ride home. And we just unfortunately crossed paths with a monster.

Knowing that James Whirley attempted to abduct another young woman on a bike, investigators are frantically searching his barn for Sierra, and they make a chilling discovery.

We remove the bales of hay from the barn, and then at the back, at the rear side, there is a piece of plywood over the floor.

And so we removed that piece of board, and then we found what was a chest freezer. This was buried in the floor in the barn.

A freezer.

A freezer.

And when you opened this freezer, were you concerned that Sierra might be inside of here?

It was one of our biggest fears. There was that moment of everyone holding their breath, and we raised that freezer lid up.

Our hearts just sunk.

There was nothing in there. It was an empty thing.

We thought we had her, and then we didn't.

And it was filled with a brown carpet that was saturated with some blood. It's troubling when you see a freezer, lightning carpet to soundproof the freezer more.

Was it big enough for a body to be put in there?

Someone could fit in there? Yes. That was one of our concerns, that someone was kept in this freezer.

Was it wet?

Wet from bleach type of item.

We assume she was probably in this freezer at some point. We were just trying to find her.

In my 29 years in law enforcement, this has been the most disturbing set of evidence that I have ever seen.

Mr. Whirley has now become our primary subject. We have to make sure that we do everything to locate Sierra.

We went back and spoke to Mr. Whirley and kind of brought up, hey, why in the world do you have a freezer buried in your barn?

There's a freezer buried in that one back room that you were concerned about, where you raked. Dude, that's my dope stash spot. I grow weed. I smoke weed. That's it. I don't buy there's no weed in it. Jim Worley had an answer for everything. She on this property? No, she's not. Was she on this property? No, she was not. Was any part of her body on this property? Not that I know of, no. That's a different answer.

Yeah, that's not a answer.

It was so very difficult to look at James Whirley and really to just almost beg know, is Sierra alive? Where is she?

While there's no sign of Sierra, detectives find some alarming clues.

We found what I called were kidnap kits, zip ties that were pre started. Who does that? Authorities, including the FBI, say Sierra Jargan was last seen Tuesday night. The latest on today's search in day three.

So the hours have gone by. They turn into days. How are you feeling then?

I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feeling defeated, because the more time that goes by, the more that I fear that the end will not be what we hope for.

This is weighing on you still hoping to find her alive?

That was our goal. We wanted to fight her.

There is a heavy police presence surrounding the home. You see behind me here, there is a barn that we have seen officers go in and out of.

At the same time, the community searches for Sierra investigators continue to pour over James Worley's property.

After we found the deep freezer, the lingerie, all his items being found at the abduction site, they finally had enough that the prosecutor said, okay, go ahead and let's arrest him.

Early that morning, he said, you know something? I think I'm going to go to bed. And I said, no, you're under arrest. You're not going anywhere now. He just turned around and gave up his wrists. He knew at that point Jake was out. On what grounds did you make the arrest? You didn't have Sierra or her.

We didn't have Sierra, but we made an arrest for an abduction charge. We were confident we'd had enough problem caused. I really couldn't use a good night's sleep, and it'd be nice just to be locked up in, like, my own little room. Is that doable?

After Whirley is taken into custody, we're hoping that he's going to at least tell us where Sierra is. We're hoping she's still alive at this point, and that he's going to review her location, because we have no clue where she's at.

Still, you wrote in a search warrant, whirley could potentially have additional victims. Correct.

And during the process of the search warrants, we found what I called were kidnap kits. Zip ties that were pre started, pieces of rope that were taped together in short lengths, handcuffs.

Who does that police know about the Robert Gardner case 26 years earlier. But could James Worley have also been involved in a third abduction involving a woman named Claudia Tinsley?

Mr. Worley, during the first interview, brought up Claudia Tinsley, who none of us were familiar with at the time, and he brought her up as, oh, the police think she's one of my victims.

Where's she from, claudia. Toledo. Toledo? People in her family called her sissy. That's what she went by. She was a mother, and she was a prostitute.

Sissy. She was beautiful.

She had blonde hair. She was kind of like a model. Tall and skinny and real pretty. I mean, all the boys liked her. She was a sweetheart. Funny.

But she got into some things that she normally wouldn't do if she was sober or not in need of money.

Or things like that.

I had spoke with Claudia's mother, and she told me that on the day that Claudia disappeared, she was leaving the house. And Claudia's mother asked, where are you going? Who are you going with? And she pointed to a car that was down the street, and the car was the car that james whirley was driving at the time. And she felt uneasy about him.

Sissy got in the car in front of baker street.

And rode away and never came back. James worley was brought in for questioning like a week after she came missing.

James worley was the last person that was seen with claudia tinsley. He admitted to being with claudia. He stated that he was with her for a period of time, that they drove around for maybe 45 minutes.

He then dropped her off at an unknown location. And then he claimed that that was the last time he had any interactions.

To this day, she has never been found, and no one has ever been charged with her disappearance. We had no proof, couldn't disprove what he was saying. As far as him dropping her off. Absent a confession, there was just nothing to go on.

To this day, james worley denies. Playing any role in claudia's disappearance. And has never been charged with any crime related to the case. Law enforcement continues to need any information that's available. That would lead to the safe return of sierra.

I remember when the sierra joggins case started and he became a suspect, it was very, very gut wrenching. It was very tough.

Word had spread throughout the community. That we were still looking for her. And a farmer called in indicating that he had a disturbance on his property.

They definitely looked like somebody had dug up part of his property.

We immediately got investigators out there.

The fear, the heartache of knowing she's out there, and is she scared? Is she hurt? All those things were just really running rampant. Based off records that we obtained, the property and barn. That officials are searching. Is owned by 57 year old james whirley. Now he was arrested this morning and is charged with abduction. Now whether whirley's arrest. Is related to the disappearance of sierra joggen, officials are not saying.

Had you heard the name james whirley before?

I had never heard the name james whirley before, no.

Or any connection to sierra?

No, absolutely not.

They have a guy, but sierra still misses. But they felt like they had the right person. It must have felt like a race against time. Yeah. Every day that went by is you're losing that race, and you're going crazy.

Right.

So what do you do?

We waited.

It's July 22, three days after your daughter has gone missing, and police are searching the fields for her.

Still not knowing is the absolute worst. And my heart breaks for any mother. That does not know where their children are.

So we needed to look as quickly as we could. And we had numerous people involved in the search. And a farmer called in indicating that he had a disturbance on his property.

And it happened to be a gentleman. Driving down the road. And saw a broken cornstalk. 2 miles from the suspect's house.

And the community had been told, look.

For something, anything suspicious, just to stop and look at a broken cornstalk. We'd see that all the time, but everybody was trying. He stops, gets out. Then he found a spot where it was freshly dug in the ground.

That would be strange to see that.

Yes.

So we sent agents, deputies, available people to go over to that location, and they started to exhume that ground.

They quickly discovered that it didn't go too deep, so they knew they didn't have anything there.

They started investigating the surrounding area. Upon going to the other side of the road, they again started noticing some push down corn stalks.

Myself and a team of agents, we start digging, and we immediately can smell, like an odor of decomposition.

And tragically, they found Sierra.

Everything has to slow down. You have to rake the area, make a level surface. We have to grid the area. And then we're digging on hands and knees with basically hand shovels. So this process normally takes a very long time. We have to go layer by layer. It was 95 degrees out, and it took us almost 5 hours to remove Sierra from the grave. It actually went quicker than normal, I think, and that's only because nobody wanted to take a break.

It was so difficult to be in that hole with Sierra.

We were heartbroken, and we just wanted her out of that ground as quick as possible.

What was the state of Sierra's body when you found her?

She was tied up, bound, gagged, and.

Handcuffed and handcuffed with her hands behind her back. What kind of person would do this sort of thing?

Evil person. It's terrible to find someone like that.

Now fall in it. See? Fall in it.

And then you get the phone call. She's been found. I can't imagine the grief that you and your family were feeling at that point.

It was horrible. Everybody was sobbing and crying and falling to their knees. It was painful, and it just literally sucks the life right out of you. Had to do a lot of therapy to get that sound out of my head. The crying, the despair. We were all out in my mom's front yard, and and just everyone was just broken. It was just yeah, you can't even explain it. It was heartbreaking. Your mind just goes to, did she know how much we loved her? Did she know? I know she did.

It was just one of the worst pains.

You can ever have.

It thinking about what the rest of my life looks like, because every single plan and every single goal is immediately gone.

Based on the forensic evidence collected at the crime scene and James Whirley's. Barn, investigators have meticulously pieced together what they believe happened to Sierra.

James Worley sees Sierra. She's on her purple bicycle. He was on his motorcycle, so he passed her on his motorcycle. Got to county road six, he waited for Sierra to pass his location.

This was believed to have been used as the weapon?

Yes.

What did he do with it?

We believe that when Sierra was coming up riding by on her bicycle, that he came out of the cornfield and struck her in the head with this helmet.

He then abducted her and took her to the barn located on his farm, where he proceeded to keep her until she asphyxiated and he disposed of her body. From my understanding, there was no evidence of a sexual assault.

Had he known her before this? Did he know who she was?

I think it was opportunity.

Random.

Yeah.

As the frantic search comes to a heartbreaking end, the quest for justice begins. But it'll take two long years before Sierra Jagged's family what happened to Sierra? James faces her accused killer in court.

This is where they found Sierra's bike, about three rows in. What does that it says, you left us beautiful memories. Your love is still our guide. Although we cannot see you, you're always at our side.

You give me a sense of how close the bike was to your parents house.

It was I can't even say it was half a mile, probably. It was very close.

Yeah.

That gets to you. Yeah, it does, because.

She'S almost home. I mean, she was almost home.

Almost two years after Sierra's death, james Whirley's trial begins. Today, jurors started hearing testimony in James.

Whirley's capital murder trial. In opening statements, prosecutors said today that's here's, DNA was found on rope, duct tape, and paper towels inside a barn at Whirley's home.

You went to James Whirley's trial. What was that like?

It was hard to be that close. And then the anger inside that you were the last person to see her. The very first time that I seen him walk into the courtroom, he came in like he was this broken disheveled. Poor me. I don't even know why I'm here shuffling in with his orange jumpsuit and his cuffs on.

I am not the person that I've been painted to be, and I'm not guilty of Sierra's death.

He pretended to be the victim.

Yeah.

Did he make eye contact with you?

Yeah.

Wow. What did you see in those eyes?

Black, empty desk. Nothing.

The court case was a month and a half long of reliving in extreme detail. The worst three days of my life.

Blood found in the fields also matches Joggers and Whirley's. DNA can be found on her bicycle.

Bloody motorcycle helmet appears to have led police closer to Whirley.

As we were going through the trial, we quickly realized that we had significant, overwhelming amount of evidence.

We had men style sunglasses that came back to James Whirley. Those were found at the abduction site. We had a screwdriver found at the abduction site that came back to James Whirley. There was a pair of pink underwear found at. The barn that had Sierra's DNA on it. Every scene that we went to was linked back to the both of them.

The coroner testified that there was DNA evidence found under Sierra Joggins nails, but that DNA evidence did not belong to James Worley. So the question became, who did it belong to?

During his testimony, the prosecution's forensic expert explained that the DNA found under Sierra's fingernails could have easily been deposited there in a manner completely unconnected to any criminal activity. And in the trial, how crucial was all this evidence?

It's amazing. A lot of people would wish for this amount of evidence in a case, and we were fortunate enough to be able to put it all together into one strong case.

Robin Gardner also testified in court.

Yes, she did. And I was the last one on the witness stand, and that was terrifying. And he was in the room. I was grateful that she had the courage to get up and face him and retell her story. And so I just told my story and left the courtroom and just fell apart crying. But I felt very strongly. I had to be her voice. I knew the fear. She wasn't there. I had to speak for her.

When it came time for Whirley's defense, his lawyers implored the jurors, as they said, to use common sense. They claimed that the lack of Worley's DNA on some of the evidence meant there was reasonable doubt in the case.

We feel that after reviewing all of the exhibits, after hearing the testimony that's put before you, that you can come to the one conclusion, and that is that the state of Ohio has not proven each and every essential element beyond a reasonable doubt.

Once the verdict came down, we all went into the courtroom and you could hear a pin drop. Breaking news out of Fulton County. The jury has reached a verdict. In the murder case of Sierra Jogging.

We find the defendant guilty of the offense of murder.

James Worley has been found guilty on all the counts against him. That includes abduction, kidnapping, Polonius, assault, murder, and aggravated murder.

I want to express to you how pleased we are that justice has been served today and this murder was found guilty on all counts. The verdict comes down guilty. Your reaction?

I mean, it feels good to know he was guilty on all charges, but it didn't bring her back. It wasn't anything to celebrate.

Whirley is literally fighting for his life. He faces the death penalty.

The judge sentenced him.

We, the jury, unanimously agreed the aggravating.

Circumstances committed by the defendant outweigh the.

Mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt and.

Hereby unanimously find the defendant should be sentenced to death.

We said, well, what now? And the attorney looked at both of us and he said, you need to move on with your life now.

It's hard.

What have you been doing in the aftermath of Sierra's murder?

Two one. Everything's alright now.

Keep your eyes on the road.

Yeah, no, right here's. Rocket hall. We're here because in 2016, Sierra Joggin was a student here at the University of Toledo. On July 22, her dreams were cut short. This was really to ensure that the spirit and determination of Sierra would continue to live on. Sierra loved a theme, she loved a party, and she loved fun races. So being able to celebrate her life and her legacy here with a color run, it's just a really great time.

What has life been like for this family without Sierra?

It was such an emptiness not having her, that I needed to fill it for me. I needed to have something concrete yes. To focus on. We started slow with justice for Sierra.

Justice for Sierra is a foundation. Tara started with two missions. The first, empowering kids to protect themselves.

My sister is trying to instill a curriculum which helps teach in the schools self defense techniques for safety and awareness to our kids.

They've also worked to pass Sierra's law, which created a violent offender database. And today, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed off on Sierra's law.

It creates a statewide violent offenders registry that would be accessible to the public and police. It's just amazing that she is continuing to make changes in this world. Happy birthday, dear Sierra.

Happy birthday.

I get invited to her friends'wedings or baby showers, and it's hard, you know, it's hard to go and see her friends growing up and living. And I'm thinking she should be here or this could be her.

I do have a wife now, kid.

Now.

You have to be okay with the path that you've taken. Whether it's your choice or not, it's what led you to where you are now. And luckily, I found someone to help.

Me.

Weave the path there.

Dunham dunham dunham dunham dunham. Her favorite saying was, live, love, laugh. We want people to be able to do that. We want people to be able to live in their life and love and laugh. Life is so short. You just never know when it can be taken away. And so we should live fearlessly and don't put off tomorrow what you can do today. I love you. All right. Yeah. Let's do it. That was awesome.

Haunting and valuable words, David. Ohio Supreme Court has upheld James Worley's murder conviction, though he still has a federal appeal left.

And from death row, we should point out, Deborah, that he did send 2020.

A letter more than 100 pages long claiming his innocence. That is our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.

And I'm Deborah Roberts.

Thanks so much for watching.

From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.

Baseball fan or not. You've probably heard of Babe Ruth, hank Aaron and Willie Mays. But what about Satchel Page, josh Gibson? Or my Grandpa Norman turkey Stearns? They're baseball greats, too, but for decades, they were kept out of our record books and halls of fame.

They were denied their rightful place in history.

Now we're asking what would justice look like? After so many years of exclusion?

Who are you to tell us that we are now major Leaguers? We always considered our relatives as Major leaguers.

From ABC Audio Reclaimed the Forgotten League Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.