Jeremy Jason Worley, Appellant-Defendant v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff (2026)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] In November 2025, a jury found Jeremy Jason Worley guilty of murder, and he later pled guilty to being a habitual offender. Worley appeals his conviction, alleging the evidence was insufficient to prove he committed murder and the court abused its discretion in instructing the jury that intent to kill may be inferred from use of a deadly weapon. We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] In February 2024, Worley resided with Deon Perry in Perry's apartment. Perry's sister regularly came to the apartment to assist Perry due to his health issues. On February 4, Perry's sister came to the apartment to clean and do laundry, then left. Worley was also at the apartment at that time. Surveillance video showed that Worley and Perry left the apartment separately around 5:00 p.m. that day. They then returned together at 5:07 p.m. That evening, Perry's sister called Perry's phone. Worley answered the call and told Perry's sister that “he would take care of [Perry] that night” and she did not need to come over. Tr. Vol. II p. 147. Surveillance video showed that no one else entered the apartment that evening.

[3] Around 9:30 a.m. the next morning, Worley left the apartment alone, carrying a white trash bag and a brown garment bag. He threw the white trash bag over a fence outside the apartment building, walked to a bus stop, and boarded a bus around 10:30 a.m.

[4] Around 11:30 a.m., Perry's sister returned to the apartment and noticed the apartment was “spic and span” and “a different clean than [she] clean[s].” Id. at 149-50. She then found Perry face down on the floor in his bedroom. There was blood on his head and the nearby wall, and his pants were “halfway down his butt[.]” Id. at 151. Perry's sister “knew he was dead[.]” Id.

[5] Perry's death was ruled a homicide, and his autopsy revealed that he died from “massive head injury due to blunt force trauma.” Tr. Vol. III p. 108. He had “multiple blunt force traumas on [his] face and back of the head.” Id. at 85. The fracture on Perry's face was circular and two inches in diameter, and the injuries on the back of his head were radiating and about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Forensic pathologist Dr. Zhuo Wang opined that these injuries were “likely from some tools[,]” id. at 87, and “could be caused by a hard object with a round face.” Id. at 92. Dr. Wang also observed superficial injuries on Perry's face, likely caused by falling to the floor after he lost consciousness.

[6] Police recovered a sledgehammer that had a two-inch diameter head. Worley's DNA was not located on the hammer; however, Perry's DNA was recovered from the head of the sledgehammer. Police also recovered the white trash bag that Worley tossed over a fence when he left the apartment on February 5. The trash bag contained a bottle of bleach with Perry's blood on it and a pill bottle with Perry's name on it.

[7] On May 14, the State charged Worley with murder and later alleged he was a habitual offender. After a November 2025 trial, a jury found Worley guilty of murder, and he subsequently pled guilty to the habitual offender enhancement. The trial court sentenced Worley to sixty-four years for murder, plus a six-year enhancement because he was a habitual offender, all executed in the Indiana Department of Correction. Worley appeals. Additional facts are provided as necessary.

Discussion and Decision

I. Sufficiency of Evidence

[8] Worley contends the State presented insufficient evidence to prove he committed murder. Our standard of review is well settled:

When reviewing sufficiency of the evidence in support of a conviction, we will consider only probative evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's judgment. The decision comes before us with a presumption of legitimacy, and we will not substitute our judgment for that of the fact-finder. We do not assess the credibility of the witnesses or reweigh the evidence in determining whether the evidence is sufficient. Reversal is appropriate only when no reasonable fact-finder could find the elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, the evidence is not required to overcome every reasonable hypothesis of innocence and is sufficient if an inference reasonably may be drawn from it to support the verdict.

Gary v. State, 124 N.E.3d 90, 93 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019) (citations omitted).

[9] To convict Worley of murder, the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he “knowingly or intentionally kill[ed]” Perry. Ind. Code § 35-42-1-1(1) (2018). “A person engages in conduct ‘knowingly’ if, when he engages in the conduct, he is aware of a high probability that he is doing so.” Ind. Code § 35-41-2-2(b) (1977). “A person engages in conduct ‘intentionally’ if, when he engages in the conduct, it is his conscious objective to do so.” Id. at (a).

[10] Worley argues the State failed to prove he “intended to kill Perry[,]” alleging that intent was inferred by impermissible inference stacking. Appellant's Br. p. 10. However, the State alleged in its charging information that “Worley did knowingly or intentionally kill” Perry. App. Vol. II p. 36. Because the charging information is written in the disjunctive, mirroring the murder statute, the State only needed to prove one or the other. This distinction matters because the “highest degree of culpability” is “intentionally.” Palmer v. State, 654 N.E.2d 844, 847 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995) (quoting Trevino v. State, 428 N.E.2d 263, 267 (Ind. Ct. App. 1981)). Conduct that is intentionally performed must also be knowingly performed. Id. But the inverse is not true: conduct can be knowingly performed without being intentional. See Ind. Code § 35-31.5-2-168 (2012) (defining crimes requiring only “a lesser kind of culpability” as an “[i]ncluded offense”). Thus, we assess whether the State presented sufficient evidence to prove Worley knowingly killed Perry.

[11] “[A] murder conviction may be based entirely on circumstantial evidence[.]” Young v. State, 198 N.E.3d 1172, 1177 (Ind. 2022) (quoting Kriner v. State, 699 N.E.2d 659, 660 (Ind. 1998)). “[A] jury may be convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt, by looking at ‘a web of facts in which no single strand may be dispositive.’ ” Id. at 1176 (quoting Kriner, 699 N.E.2d at 664). The circumstantial evidence is sufficient if the totality of the evidence favorable to the State and the reasonable inferences that the jury could draw from the evidence “fit together into a coherent whole that incriminates the defendant.” Id. at 1177.

[12] Here, surveillance footage showed Worley and Perry enter the apartment together on the evening of February 4. No one else entered the apartment after them that night. The next morning, Worley left the apartment alone. No one else entered or exited the apartment until Perry's sister arrived a couple of hours later. When she arrived, Perry was dead and alone inside the apartment. Perry had “multiple blunt force traumas on [his] face and back of the head.” Tr. Vol. III p. 85. The fracture on Perry's face was circular and two inches in diameter, and the injuries on the back of his head were radiating and about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. These injuries “could be caused by a hard object with a round face.” Id. at 92; see id. at 103. Thus, the jury could reasonably infer that Worley, while alone with Perry, used a hard object to inflict the traumas on Perry's skull. From that conclusion, the jury could then infer that Worley knew there was a high probability that his actions would kill Perry.¹ See Cole v. State, 69 N.E.3d 552, 559 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017) (“Knowledge may be proven by circumstantial evidence and inferred from the facts and circumstances presented” to the jury.), trans. denied.

[13] In addition, police recovered from Perry's apartment a sledgehammer with a head two inches in diameter. Perry's DNA was on the head of the hammer. Further, when Worley left Perry's apartment, he tossed a white trash bag over a fence outside the building. That bag contained a pill bottle with Perry's name on it and a bottle of bleach with Perry's blood on it. And Perry's sister later testified that Perry's apartment had been cleaned in a way that was “a different clean than [she] clean[s].” Tr. Vol. II p. 150. The totality of these circumstances “fit[s] together into a coherent whole that incriminates” Worley. Young, 198 N.E.3d at 1177. Thus, the State sufficiently proved Worley knowingly killed Perry.

II. Jury Instruction

[14] Worley also argues the court erred when it instructed the jury that “intent to kill may be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon used in a manner likely to cause death or great bodily harm” (Instruction 17). App. Vol. II p. 57. “We review a trial court's decision to give or refuse a jury instruction for an abuse of discretion.” Keister v. State, 203 N.E.3d 548, 552 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (citing Hernandez v. State, 45 N.E.3d 373, 376 (Ind. 2015)). When reviewing a court's decision to give an instruction, we look at whether the instruction correctly states the law and whether there is evidence in the record to support the giving of the instruction.² Id.

[15] Worley concedes Instruction 17 is a correct statement of the law. But he challenges whether there was sufficient evidence to support the court's decision to provide the instruction on the ground that “the record is devoid of evidence even identifying what weapon was used.” Appellant's Br. p. 14. In deciding to give Instruction 17, the trial court stated:

The victim's skull wasn't crushed by someone's fist. I would presume that a weapon was used per Dr. Wang's testimony. So it could have been any weapon. It didn't have to be the hammer. It could have been a bat, a wrench, whatever it is. But it's an accurate statement of the law. It's not covered by any other instructions. And there's evidence to support a weapon was used because there's circular indentations. So I'm not saying that it's the hammer. I'm just saying that a weapon was. So I'll give that instruction.

Tr. Vol. IV p. 73.

[16] We agree with the trial court that there was evidence that some weapon was used in a manner likely to cause Perry's death. That is, Perry had multiple large fractures on his skull that were “likely from some tools[,]” Tr. Vol. III p. 87, or “could [have been] caused by a hard object with a round face.” Id. at 92. And the “multiple blunt force trauma[s]” from such an object did, indeed, cause Perry's death. Id. at 108. Contrary to Worley's assertion, conclusive evidence of what weapon was used was unnecessary. Because the evidence showed that some deadly weapon was used, the trial court's decision to give Instruction 17 was not an abuse of discretion.

[17] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Worley relies on his impermissible inference stacking argument solely to argue that the State failed to prove he intentionally killed Perry. To the extent that Worley would have relied on the same argument to challenge whether he knowingly killed Perry, that reasoning would fail. It is true that “a factfinder's determination cannot stand if it is based upon mere speculation or conjecture or on an inference on another inference.” Lewis v. State, 535 N.E.2d 556, 559 (Ind. Ct. App. 1989). However, where an inference is supported by “an evidentiary fact having independent validity[,]” that inference can itself be taken as the basis of a new fact. C.T. v. State, 28 N.E.3d 304, 309 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015) (citing Brown v. State, 36 N.E.2d 759, 760 (Ind. 1941) (“A fact in the nature of an inference may itself be taken as the basis of a new inference, whether intermediate or final, provided the first inference ha[s] the required basis of a proved fact.” (emphasis added))), trans. denied.Here, the independent facts are that Worley and Perry entered the apartment together; Worley left alone; no one else entered or exited the apartment until Perry was found dead; and Perry had blunt force injuries on the front and back of his head. Those facts independently verify the first inference—that Worley inflicted blunt force traumas on Perry's skull. Thus, that first inference may be taken as the basis for a second inference, i.e., that Worley knew there was a high probability that inflicting blunt force injuries on Perry's head would kill him.

2.   The standard of reviewing jury instructions sometimes includes a third consideration—whether the substance of the proffered instruction is covered by other instructions. However, we have viewed that consideration as applicable only when the challenge is to the trial court's refusal to give a tendered instruction. See Keister v. State, 203 N.E.3d 548, 552 n.2 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023). Thus, we don't consider it here, where the challenge is to the court's decision to give an instruction.

Scheele, Judge.

May, J., and Pyle, J., concur.