WAUSEON — A woman snatched in 1990 by a Fulton County man arrested Friday for allegedly abducting a still-missing Metamora woman recounted with grim detail the unsettling similarities between the two cases.
Though separated by decades, the scenes are familiar: A hot July day when the corn was high, a young woman on a bike, a lonely country road.
Robin Gardner was just 26 on that humid 4th of July in 1990 as she biked along Obee Road near Whitehouse. Her holiday pedal past farm fields was brutally interrupted when James D. Worley passed her once and then moments later struck her with his red flat-bed truck from behind, court records state. She tumbled into a roadside ditch.
The stranger stopped and asked if she was OK. Then he came up behind her, struck her on the head, dragged her to the side of the truck, and threatened to kill her.
He opened his glove box and pulled out handcuffs.
“I was screaming in the cornfield at the top of my lungs — a blood-curdling scream, a scream I didn’t know I had in me,” said Ms. Gardner, who is now 52 and moved out of state after the abduction.
She fought — “with every ounce of energy” — escaped out the driver-side door, and jumped onto the back of a motorcycle whose driver had stopped down the road after seeing her flailing inside the truck.
A quarter-century later, the memories still haunt her. On Friday, they rushed back with full force when Worley, long-since released from prison after being convicted of her abduction, was arrested for allegedly abducting Sierah Joughin.
Ms. Joughin, a 20-year-old University of Toledo student, was last seen Tuesday evening as she biked in rural Fulton County. Her abandoned purple bicycle was found amid trampled corn in a field off County Road 6, five miles from Worley’s house.
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“It’s like this guy strikes when the corn is high,” Ms. Gardner said in a telephone interview. “My heart hurts.”
Police and volunteers continued their days-long search for Ms. Joughin on Friday, pledging to work late into the night and scouring the area and searching for evidence at Worley’s three-acre property on County Road 6.
Investigators held out hope they would find her alive, but they remained tight-lipped about the canvassing and police work that led them to arrest Worley, 57, of rural Delta at 3 a.m. Friday.
“Do I believe that he did it? At this point in time, all I can say is we had enough probable cause that the prosecutor believed they could file those charges, so that’s what we’ve got,” said Fulton County Sheriff Roy Miller.
Worley was found guilty in Lucas County Common Pleas Court for the abduction of Ms. Gardner, who suffered a concussion and a skull fracture, as well as several bruises and cuts.
Worley, arrested 13 days later, was indicted for kidnapping and two counts of felonious assault but ultimately entered an Alford plea — not admitting guilt — to abduction. He was found guilty and sentenced to four to 10 years in prison. He entered prison in November, 1990, and was paroled in December, 1993.
Worley was arrested again on another abduction charge Friday, this time in the disappearance of Ms. Joughin.
Investigators, who refused to discuss the earlier case, said Worley has not spoken to them. He remains jailed at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio without bond.
Police did not know of a connection between the suspect and Ms. Joughin, though both graduated from Evergreen High School. Worley graduated in 1978; Ms. Joughin followed decades later.
Her mysterious disappearance has flooded the tight-knit community with pictures of her smiling face — from small flyers pinned under windshields and staked in yards to a large, roadside billboard just down the road from the high school where officials operated a command center.
Local businesses and churches posted messages offering prayers for her safe return, and UT President Sharon Gaber emailed the campus community to offer support and prayers.
On Friday, official vehicles came and went from Worley’s property, mostly obscured by crops and trees.
The traffic included two excavators, a forensic dive team from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and a small boat. Aerial images show a pond is located near a back corner of the property, and one searcher was spotted wearing waders.
Police kept media and onlookers away from the property throughout Friday, a sweltering, nearly cloudless day during which temperatures climbed into the low 90s.
Back at the high school, Joughin family spokesman Paul Bishop thanked volunteers who helped search despite the heat.
Worley’s neighbors said investigators had been out at the scene since late Thursday. Worley has listed the Fulton Township site as his residence since at least 1990, though several neighbors and passers-by declined to talk about him Friday, saying they either didn’t know him well enough or didn’t want to talk until after the investigation.
Mr. Bishop said a reward for information leading to finding Ms. Joughin has been increased to $100,000. He and investigators urged residents to help identify a motorcyclist spotted on County Road 6 near County Road T or S between 6:30 and 8 p.m. Tuesday, the last day Ms. Joughin was seen.
About 10 hours after his arrest, Worley was arraigned by video at the Fulton County Western District Court in Wauseon before Judge Jeffrey Robinson.
The abduction charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
The suspect told the judge he made $1,000 last year and requested the court appoint as his representative attorney Mark Powers of Wauseon, who has represented Worley before.
“I need to speak to someone that I know and trust. I don’t know of a more honest person,” Worley told the judge.
An employee who answered the phone at Mr. Powers’ office said he had no comment. Fulton County Prosecutor Scott Haselman did not return requests seeking comment.
In 2000, Worley pleaded guilty to illegal manufacture or cultivation of marijuana and having weapons while under disability, both felonies. He was sentenced by Fulton County Common Pleas Judge James Barber to two years in prison.
Those convictions resulted in his return to prison in October, 2000. Worley left in September, 2002, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Back in 1990, before he was sentenced for her abduction, Ms. Gardner told the court she wanted him locked behind bars.
“I also don’t want him to do this to anyone else,” she said, according to court records.
Years later, she still can’t walk in the woods alone or go bird watching or bike by herself. She moved to an urban area because she doesn’t like living in the rural countryside anymore.
Now, upon hearing of his suspected link to the missing Ms. Joughin, Ms. Gardner is eager to help bring about justice.
“He is a sick person,” she said. “I really want him to never get out again.”
Worley’s next hearing on the most recent charge is scheduled for Wednesday.
Blade staff writers Lauren Lindstrom, Jennifer Feehan, Gabby Deutch, Elena Saavedra Buckley, Ryan Dunn, and Alexandra Mester contributed to this report.
Contact Vanessa McCray at: vmccray@theblade.com or 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @vanmccray.
First Published July 23, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
