UPDATE: Anthony Sowell Sentenced to Death

wow! i'm scared and i don't even live in the same state of him.. it's like a horror movie!

Just changed the title of the thread again......11 bodies.

Police found at least four more decomposing bodies and the skull of another person at Anthony Sowell's house Tuesday, making his home on Imperial Avenue among the deadliest crime scenes in Cleveland history.
Crews continued digging for corpses in Sowell's back yard after dark, even erecting a heated tent so they could work into the early morning.
At the same time, the city prosecutor filed five counts of aggravated murder against Sowell, for the bodies found at his home last week that investigators determined were strangled. Detectives were stunned by the scope of the killings.
"He had an insatiable appetite to fill," Police Chief Michael McGrath said.

Workers today are expected to begin slowly taking apart the house on Imperial Avenue piece by piece to make sure they aren't missing any bodies, police said.
Police have now found 10 dead bodies at Sowell's home plus a skull wrapped in a paper bag in the basement.
Sowell is scheduled to be in court Wednesday morning to be arraigned on the aggravated murder charges. He also faces unrelated charges of rape, kidnapping and felonious assault...........
..............Sowell often knew the women he attacked, according to interviews and court records.
"I have to believe all these victims voluntarily went to the residence," McGrath said.
A review of police reports and court records shows Sowell struck up conversations with women, usually by offering them alcohol. Two women told police that once they were inside Sowell's home, he choked them, stripped off their clothes and raped them. A third woman told police Sowell offered her a beer and choked her, but she was able to run off before he could sexually assault her.

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omg BJ every time I check back they found another body! This guy is like John Wayne Gacy it's just frighting.

I remember John Wayne Gacy well. I was living in MN at the time so it was close to home. Sowell's going to fry. What in the world could his defense be? He's killed his last person.

I hoe I don't have to change the title of the thread again.

Elusive victim
Cleveland police went to arrest Anthony Sowell Thursday night on a rape charge, 37 days after a woman told them she was beaten and raped inside Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue. The time between the report and attempted arrest has raised questions about whether police should have acted more quickly. Police said it took more than a month for the victim to meet with them and provide the information they needed to make an arrest.

Sept. 22: The woman told police she was drinking with Sowell inside his home when he inexplicably became angry, punched her and choked her with an extension cord. He then raped her. She passed out from being choked and was able to get away after promising Sowell she would bring him money and not tell police, according to the report.

Sept 25: The case was reviewed by the Police Department's Sex Crimes Unit and assigned to a detective.

Sept. 28 and 29: Messages were left with the victim, asking her to call the detective.

Sept. 30: The detective went to the victim's home and left a business card. The victim's mother told police her daughter was hard to get hold of but promised to let her know police were looking for her.

Oct. 8: The detective spoke by phone with the victim and agreed to meet in person three days later. The victim did not show up for the meeting.

Oct. 19: The detective went back to the victim's mother and asked her to have her daughter meet with police.

Oct. 27: Police interviewed the victim.

Oct. 28: Police got an arrest warrant for Sowell and a search warrant for his home.

Oct. 29: Police went to the home to arrest Sowell. He was not there but police found the dead bodies inside.

SOURCE: Cleveland police records

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Continued in the next comment

Thirty-seven days passed between the time a woman told police Anthony Sowell choked and raped her in his house and when police went to Imperial Avenue to arrest him.
That time gap has raised the question -- among the crowds of neighbors gathered outside Sowell's home, victims' advocates and at least one city councilman -- if more could have been done to track Sowell, whom police charged Tuesday with five counts of aggravated murder for some of the people found dead at his home.
"I'm not going to point fingers but at the end of the day, someone clearly dropped the ball," Councilman Zack Reed said Tuesday.
Reed wants to hold hearings about how so many warning signs about Sowell -- from the foul odor coming from his house to calls to police about him -- weren't acted upon fast enough.
Police said they did all they could to bring Sowell to justice for the Sept. 22 attack, but were hampered by a victim who was difficult to track down and hesitant to meet with detectives.
Mayor Frank Jackson defended the work of the police.
"He believes the police did their job properly," said Andrea Taylor, Jackson's spokeswoman.
Sowell's interactions with police and other safety forces underscore the difficulty of striking a balance between the rights of criminals, victims and the general public. Victims, some who distrusted police, are often reluctant to talk with detectives.
Deputies from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office made a surprise visit to Sowell on Sept. 22 in an effort to make sure he lived where he reported to authorities. Sowell served 15 years in prison for rape and was classified as a sex offender, which required him to keep his address on file and check in with deputies quarterly.
Sowell was home when deputies arrived shortly before 9 a.m.
Reed wonders how deputies could have checked on Sowell but not smelled the decomposing bodies.
"Did they physically go to the house or walk up and say, 'Looks good?' " Reed asked.
Deputies previously said Sowell opened the door but, as is standard for spot checks, they did not enter the house.
Later that evening, Sowell struck up a conversation with a woman and he offered to split his malt liquor with her, according to a police report. She entered Sowell's home and went to the second floor.
The woman told police that after drinking for a while, Sowell became upset, punched her in the face and began choking her with an extension cord. He raped her and then she passed out, the woman said.
She got out of the home by promising Sowell she would bring him $50 and would not go to the police. Then she called police and told them she had been attacked.
Detectives were assigned the case the next day and left messages with the woman. They called her and then visited her home. The woman's mother told police her daughter was hard to reach.
A week passed, and she agreed to meet with detectives on Oct. 11. The woman did not show up for the interview and they later scheduled another interview.
The woman met with detectives Tuesday, Oct. 27. They obtained a search and arrest warrant the next day, records show.
Police discovered the bodies Thursday and Friday.
They had been to the house nine days earlier, but again nothing came of the case after the victim did not want to talk to police.
Trucks from the Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service were sent to Sowell's home on Oct. 20 after neighbors called 9-1-1 and said they saw a naked woman fall or jump from a second-floor window.
EMS crews found the woman with cuts and scrapes. Sowell came out of the home and told rescue workers they had been using cocaine and marijuana all day and the woman fell out of the window, Police Chief Michael McGrath said.
EMS took the woman to MetroHealth Medical Center and asked police to send a car to the home to investigate. Police got there a few minutes later but no one was at the home, so the officer went to Metro.
That's where the woman told police her fall out of the window was an accident and she wasn't talking, McGrath said.

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So far 11 bodies found at Anthony Sowell home



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I just can't imagine the smell? John Gacy's house reeked. Did the women coming to visit him mention a smell I wonder? I sure hope they do not find any more remains.

Everytime I check back on this thread another body has been found.

An accused serial killer was not granted bond during a court arraignment Wednesday morning.
Anthony Sowell, 50, is charged with five counts of aggravated murder as well as rape, felonious assault and kidnapping.
The public defender asked for bond in the case but the judge said Sowell is a danger to society. NewsChannel5 learned in the court appearance that Sowell has been on unemployment for about two years after being laid off from a job. He also has a pacemaker.
The case will be given to the grand jury.
Meanwhile, firefighters are expected to check walls, floors and ceilings for more evidence.

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Police said there would be a briefing at noon at which time they would discuss what's next in the investigation. Police have a warrant to thoroughly search the house where 10 bodies and a skull have been found.

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The total is now 10, up from six the other day. And they located a skull, but nobody's certain if it belongs to one of the bodies that has already been discovered.

LE I hope will explain how a convicted sex offender was not monitored and killed maybe 11 women. Right now they are looking pretty bad in my eyes. I do don't like lazy cops.

lindamarie wrote:LE I hope will explain how a convicted sex offender was not monitored and killed maybe 11 women. Right now they are looking pretty bad in my eyes. I do don't like lazy cops.

It appears that cops were in fact doing what they are supposed to do when it comes to monitoring. He served his time, completed his sentence, and the only thing required was that he reports his whereabouts and he was doing that. What brought them back to the house was the new crime he had been accused of. Otherwise, they had no knowledge that he was doing anything else illegal. Keep in mind the neighborhood. They are probably mostly anti-cop there. It seems to be one in which there is much gang, drug, and other illegal activity going on and, in these types of neighborhoods, cops are not welcome. This is probably the reason why most of the disappearances were probably never reported to them---no missing person reports maybe, and so the cops were not notified to the extent that they would have been investigating. JMO.

terryrose did you read this?

Metro - cleveland.com
Breaking local news for Cleveland and Northeast OhioAnthony Sowell »
Time gap in investigation of rape complaint against Anthony Sowell questioned
By Mark Puente, The Plain Dealer
November 03, 2009, 10:05PM
Gus Chan, The Plain DealerCleveland police chief Michael McGrath talks about the four additional bodies and a skull found at Anthony Sowell's house Tuesday. Police searched vacant homes in the neighborhood where residents complained of a "dead body smell." The 37-day time gap from when a woman told police Anthony Sowell choked and raped her to when police went to his house to arrest him has raised some eyebrows.
Thirty-seven days passed between the time a woman told police Anthony Sowell choked and raped her in his house and when police went to Imperial Avenue to arrest him.

That time gap has raised the question -- among the crowds of neighbors gathered outside Sowell's home, victims' advocates and at least one city councilman -- if more could have been done to track Sowell, whom police charged Tuesday with five counts of aggravated murder for some of the people found dead at his home.

"I'm not going to point fingers but at the end of the day, someone clearly dropped the ball," Councilman Zack Reed said Tuesday.

Reed wants to hold hearings about how so many warning signs about Sowell -- from the foul odor coming from his house to calls to police about him -- weren't acted upon fast enough.

Police said they did all they could to bring Sowell to justice for the Sept. 22 attack, but were hampered by a victim who was difficult to track down and hesitant to meet with detectives.

Mayor Frank Jackson defended the work of the police.

"He believes the police did their job properly," said Andrea Taylor, Jackson's spokeswoman.

Sowell's interactions with police and other safety forces underscore the difficulty of striking a balance between the rights of criminals, victims and the general public. Victims, some who distrusted police, are often reluctant to talk with detectives.

Deputies from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office made a surprise visit to Sowell on Sept. 22 in an effort to make sure he lived where he reported to authorities. Sowell served 15 years in prison for rape and was classified as a sex offender, which required him to keep his address on file and check in with deputies quarterly.

Sowell was home when deputies arrived shortly before 9 a.m.

Reed wonders how deputies could have checked on Sowell but not smelled the decomposing bodies.

"Did they physically go to the house or walk up and say, 'Looks good?' " Reed asked.

Deputies previously said Sowell opened the door but, as is standard for spot checks, they did not enter the house.
Later that evening, Sowell struck up a conversation with a woman and he offered to split his malt liquor with her, according to a police report. She entered Sowell's home and went to the second floor.

The woman told police that after drinking for a while, Sowell became upset, punched her in the face and began choking her with an extension cord. He raped her and then she passed out, the woman said.

She got out of the home by promising Sowell she would bring him $50 and would not go to the police. Then she called police and told them she had been attacked.

Detectives were assigned the case the next day and left messages with the woman. They called her and then visited her home. The woman's mother told police her daughter was hard to reach.

A week passed, and she agreed to meet with detectives on Oct. 11. The woman did not show up for the interview and they later scheduled another interview.

The woman met with detectives Tuesday, Oct. 27. They obtained a search and arrest warrant the next day, records show.

Police discovered the bodies Thursday and Friday.

They had been to the house nine days earlier, but again nothing came of the case after the victim did not want to talk to police.
Trucks from the Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service were sent to Sowell's home on Oct. 20 after neighbors called 9-1-1 and said they saw a naked woman fall or jump from a second-floor window.

EMS crews found the woman with cuts and scrapes. Sowell came out of the home and told rescue workers they had been using cocaine and marijuana all day and the woman fell out of the window, Police Chief Michael McGrath said.
EMS took the woman to MetroHealth Medical Center and asked police to send a car to the home to investigate. Police got there a few minutes later but no one was at the home, so the officer went to Metro.

That's where the woman told police her fall out of the window was an accident and she wasn't talking, McGrath said.

Now I understand there were some circumstances that were a bit unusual as you said terryrose. But they had reports and not just from the last women he raped but from EMT's etc. For them to wait 30 some days is beyond reasonable. If you do a search on this sick man you will find that LE should have done more than knock on his darn door. The smell had to be awful. LE officers know what that smell of decomposition is even if the neighbors who complained a lot about the smell did not know what it was they were smelling.

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Metro - cleveland.com
Breaking local news for Cleveland and Northeast OhioAnthony Sowell, Breaking News, Crime, Death, Real Time News »
Anthony Sowell's neighbors wonder how stench of rotting bodies went unidentified for years
By Mark Puente, The Plain Dealer
November 03, 2009, 3:50AM
nChuck Crow, The Plain DealerThe crime scene around Anthony Sowell's home is still blocked off at the intersection of East 123rd Street and Imperial Avenue. People in the neighborhood believe the strong odor in the area came from a sausage shop on the corner.
Read more: Six bodies on Cleveland's East Side draw attention from around the globe
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The stench in the air near East 123rd Street and Imperial Avenue left residents baffled for years.

Drain pipes were flushed. A sewer line was replaced. But the smell still lingered.

Some residents believed the overpowering odor came from a 57-year-old sausage shop on the corner. Others were still convinced it was the sewers.

Last week, police discovered the source of the odor -- it was beyond residents’ worst fears. At least six decomposing bodies lie in and around the house at 12205 Imperial Ave. The corpses could have been accumulating there for years, authorities said.

a lady at the pork mfg place behind his house said the smell would get so bad that she could not eat lunch in her office. They had the city come out and clean all of the water drains thinking that was the cause of the smell!

Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Frank Miller will hold a news conference this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. to update the investigation into the bodies found at a home on Imperial Avenue.

Dr. Miller has already determined that five of the six initial victims were strangled and all were African-American women.

Tuesday, police recovered remains suspected to be that of four additional bodies as well as a skull found wrapped in a bag in a bucket in the basement.

You can watch the coroner's news conference on wkyc.com (link below)

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Investigators in Cleveland are preparing to begin tearing apart walls inside a convicted rapist's house where 10 bodies have been found.

Authorities say they're going to go "bit by bit, piece by piece" as they look for more evidence or bodies in the case of Anthony Sowell .

Sowell appeared in court today under tight security. He was ordered held without bond.

A prosecutor called Sowell "an incredibly dangerous threat to the public" and said he could face the death penalty if convicted of the charges: five aggravated murder counts. In addition, he faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping for an alleged attack on a woman at his home.

A public defender told the judge that Sowell has medical problems, including a heart pacemaker and cardiac medication.

The case now goes before a grand jury.

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A 53-year-old Warrensville Heights woman has been identified as the first victim found in Anthony Sowell's home, a relative says.
Donnita Carmichael says Cleveland police notified her family this afternoon that her mother, Tonia, was found in the house. Police did not divulge the cause of death.
"We expected the worst when these bodies starting popping up," she said, sobbing. "We knew she could be one of them. We feared this."
Tonia Carmichael disappeared about Nov. 10, and a family member found the car she was driving about one mile from Sowell's Imperial Avenue home, according to a missing person's report filed with Warrensville Heights police. Her family reported her missing after several attempts at reaching her.
Her family became concerned after not hearing from Tonia and learning that she failed to pick up two paychecks at a work-placement center on East 55th Street, according to a missing persons report. She often hung out on East 118th Street and Oakfield Street, about a mile from Sowell’s home on Imperial.
The family recovered the vehicle used by Tonia Carmichael neat East 118th and Kinsman Road.
Detectives also interviewed a man who repaired the car Tonia Carmichael’s drove in November 2008. He said Carmichael told him that she had to run a few errands and then planned on having "some fun."
Over a span of months, Warrensville Heights detectives checked several homes near Oakfield and East 118th Street, as well as motels and taverns in East Cleveland but found no indication of Carmichael, records show.

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If I am remembering right Sowell was released from prision in 2005. So this could have went on for 4 long years? When local women turn up missing shouldn't LE start with the registered sex offenders in the area? When LE investigates missing woman and sex offenders in the area maybe it requires a little more than knocking on the door?

lindamarie wrote:If I am remembering right Sowell was released from prision in 2005. So this could have went on for 4 long years? When local women turn up missing shouldn't LE start with the registered sex offenders in the area? When LE investigates missing woman and sex offenders in the area maybe it requires a little more than knocking on the door?

In today's 5:00 pm news, the chief of police mentioned that some of the bodies may have been there for 4 years. They had to show cause to get a warrant to enter and search his premises, the odor having been known for years was not probably viewed as probable cause since neighbors had previously taken steps to fix it, thinking it was other things. It took the latest crime to provoke some action. A previous victim that escaped him refused to cooperate with police on her case. And like I wrote before, the identified victim missing from nearby Warrensville Hts. had been reported missing and her car found nearby to Sowell's house, but that was all the cops had to go on which is not much, and the others?----police are now begging families to come forward to try to identify them. If they had been in contact with LE right along about a missing relative, the cops wouldn't have to ask family to contact them, now would they? I can only tell you this much and I am sorry to have to say this, but we that live on the outskirts of Cleveland would never feel safe enough to travel through that area even with windows rolled up and car doors locked.

lindamarie wrote:If I am remembering right Sowell was released from prision in 2005. So this could have went on for 4 long years? When local women turn up missing shouldn't LE start with the registered sex offenders in the area? When LE investigates missing woman and sex offenders in the area maybe it requires a little more than knocking on the door?

good point! and if LE has checked up on him i'm sure they smelled the place.. they couldn't figure it out? isn't the smell of decomp one of a kind? i mean it got so bad that that lady couldn't eat lunch in her office!!

woah!

I thought the area looked like it was not a good side of town. LE really should have done more investigating after a neighbor saw a naked woman jump out of a window. Not to mention the ET reports on the woman that jumped. They did not need the victim to proceed with a obtaining a search warrant. Of course many victims are afraid to come forward. That is nothing new. I understand and respect how you feel terryrose but I am with the victims family that are speaking out about their Mom rotting away in that house for a year. LE could have and should have done more investigating than just knocking on his door. Many of the neighbors and business in that area feel LE dropped the ball on this and I agree.

In that district of the city, they have 10 or more missing persons every week and 90% of them show up within 3 days of time. This woman who was identified from Warrensville Hts. was loved and missed and she looks like the type of person we would all like to have known in those photos on Nancy Grace. She had a past however that included leaving her family for about 3 days at a time and going on a "bender" (for lack of a better word). She was a drug addict at some point in her life, she had a criminal record and served time for theft and drug-related crimes. Sowel told one of the victims that got away that she was just a drug addict and nobody would miss her. So you see he got away with these crimes for so long because his victims were women who indulged in these behaviors and probably would not be missed immediately, and by the time their families would have thought it unusual that they were gone so long, the trail would be cold.

I fear, however, that there were totally innocent women among his victims. The local LE is putting his DNA into the national database. He has spent time in N. Carolina and California, and was a Marine. They suspect at least one rape in CA could have been his crime all the way back to the 1970s. I fear that he may be responsible for some unsolved cases going back more than 30 years in different locales. These women (or girls) may have been just snatched in some manner, not lured by drinking, drugs, and sex, but rather kidnapped and murdered. I am glad they caught this monster!

The city of Cleveland has financial difficulties, most of the former industries that made it flourish have been reduced or shut down. It was a year or two ago when they reduced the safety forces because of money troubles, just at a time when crime is more rampant than ever in the city. I won't criticize the cops that remain in that city doing their job any more than I would the teachers who remain in the city's schools. Very few want to be cops or teachers in Cleveland, the job being so hard and dangerous. I am glad for those who stick it out. The man who said the cops dropped the ball was the councilman of the area. Now everyone is accusing LE of this. It is a more complicated issue than that in my opinion. Do not get me wrong, I feel very badly for the victims and their families and I also think that nobody deserves to end up like these victims did, I am just trying to point out how difficult it would be for the police in the area to have done any more than what they have done.

terryrose thanks for the insight I did not have. We love you here at VH and please keep us informed. Of course on NG last night we did not hear the whole story on the victim that was identified, your right that no one deserved what happened to her.

good point.. this might be a lil off topic. but it's stupid how lil LE can do. I was an apt manager in Anaheim for a year. we had a tenant that we rarely saw and some of our other tenants told me that they could hear weird things coming out of that apt ant they also saw a naked woman tied to the wall in that apt.. i called LE a few times and all they would do is knock on the door! now that i think about it i should've done more.. i was younger, with a newborn and a disabled husband..
anyhow! it's just sad that stuff like this will keep happening.

lindamarie wrote:terryrose thanks for the insight I did not have. We love you here at VH and please keep us informed. Of course on NG last night we did not hear the whole story on the victim that was identified, your right that no one deserved what happened to her.

I second that emotion. This sick ba$tard.

adelacruz wrote:good point.. this might be a lil off topic. but it's stupid how lil LE can do. I was an apt manager in Anaheim for a year. we had a tenant that we rarely saw and some of our other tenants told me that they could hear weird things coming out of that apt ant they also saw a naked woman tied to the wall in that apt.. i called LE a few times and all they would do is knock on the door! now that i think about it i should've done more.. i was younger, with a newborn and a disabled husband..
anyhow! it's just sad that stuff like this will keep happening.

Don't you think it is high time to take our cities back? Too long have they degenerated into cesspools of all manner of crime that local police cannot control because it is too overwhelming and a way of life for the people who live within them. Many good people have fled these cities in fear. You know firsthand what little can be done.

#2 ID has been made of a 31 year old female who was a drug addict who it is said was trying to overcome her addiction. She had told a relative who she would occasionally stay with of being taken to Sowell's house by another man in the past. She knew Sowell. She had been missing since June.

PS to Lindamarie: Thanks! You have made me feel appreciated today!

3rd. victim identified: lived down the street from the Sowell house. She has been missing for about 1 year but her family did not file a missing person's report because they just assumed she was living with her boyfriend in Akron which is the next major city, I would guess it to be only 30 miles or so away.

TerryRose wrote:3rd. victim identified: lived down the street from the Sowell house. She has been missing for about 1 year but her family did not file a missing person's report because they just assumed she was living with her boyfriend in Akron which is the next major city, I would guess it to be only 30 miles or so away.

What kind of family just "assumes she was living w/her boyfriend in Akron?" On NG, it was said a citizen wrote to the mayor about the smell of death at that house and nothing was done.

4th. victim identified is Nancy Cobbs. She had been missing since April but the family had not submitted a missing persons report until now.

The mayor of Cleveland has a niece who had been a drug addict and she has come forward to say that she had a relationship with Sowell and lived with him for 2 years following his release from prison, but claims to have no knowledge of any murders during that time.

WTH? Why not report your loved one missing?

And the Cleveland Mayor has just NOW come forward about the niece?? This is unreal!

East Cleveland police look at three cases for links to Anthony Sowell
By Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer
November 06, 2009, 4:37PM

Police find more bodies in Anthony Sowell's home.View full sizeJohn Kuntz, The Plain DealerCrime-scene tape borders the home Anthony Sowell.
Read all of The Plain Dealer's coverage of the Anthony Sowell case

Watch Plain Dealer videos on the Sowell case

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EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — East Cleveland detectives are looking into the three unsolved murders from 20 years ago to see if they might be linked to suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell, who lived in the city at the time.

As Cleveland police wrapped up the search of Sowell's Imperial Avenue home where they found 11 dead women detectives in the neighboring city began poring over files from 1988 and 1989.

They identified three homicides that had some similarities to the women found decomposing in Sowell's home, Detective Sgt. Ken Bolton said.

He said they would also review more recent homicides and any rape cases to look for additional patterns or similarities.

At least eight of the 11 women found at Sowell's home were strangled. Two of the three women killed in East Cleveland were strangled.

The third woman lived on the same street as Sowell, who was around 30 at the time. He had several drinking and drug arrests in the city before being arrested in late 1989 and charged with raping and choking a pregnant woman.

He pleaded guilty to attempted rape and served 15 years in prison. He moved to Imperial Avenue shortly after getting out of prison in 2005.

Nursing assistant Carmella Karen Prater lived on Page Avenue, down the street from Sowell, when she was killed in 1989.

Prater, 27, was found beaten and frozen in an abandoned home on First Avenue. The coroner's office could not pinpoint the exact injury that caused her death.

Prater's daughter, Christin, was seven years old when her mother was killed.

Now living in Maryland, she said she often wonders about her mother's death.

"I've always had questions about it," said Christin Prater, now 28. "I asked my family but nobody seemed to know what had really happened."

One month after Prater's body was discovered Mary Thomas was found strangled and severely beaten amid debris near an abandoned building on the same street, First Avenue. Thomas, 27, who was pregnant, still had a red ribbon that was used to strangle her around her neck according, to the coroner's report.

In both cases, there was evidence the women had been using drugs, but police at the time stopped short of calling the murders drug-related, according to media reports at the time.

All of the women identified so far from Sowell's Imperial Avenue home have battled with drug addiction, according to relatives and court records.

Thomas' mother said she believed her daughter was attacked after she left a friend's house. She called on East Cleveland to raze a row of abandoned buildings on First Avenue at the time.

One year before those women were killed, Rosalind Garner was strangled in her home on Hayden Avenue. Garner, 36, lived alone and worked as a financial analyst.

At the time, her family members told police they thought she might know her killer because she was very cautious about whom she let into her home.

East Cleveland police did not publicly link Garner's death to the other two women at the time.

Garner was found by her sister, who went to the house after being unable to reach her sister. An anonymous caller alerted police to Prater's body. A gas company worker found Thomas' body.

"We did the autopsies," Powell Caesar, spokesman for Cuyahoga County Frank Miller said. "We will continue working with East Cleveland police, but we don't want to rush to judgment on this."

It would take a court order to exhume any of the bodies to look for additional evidence, Caesar said. Prater said her mother was cremated.It is unclear what other evidence remains in the cases.

"Whatever needs to be done will be done in due time," he said.

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I would not be a bit surprised by news of other women murdered outside of his house at all.

Putrid stench blamed on sausage shop was rapist’s rotting victims

By HANNAH BARR

Published: 06 Nov 2009
FOR years locals had complained about the rotten stench on their street corner.

Authorities blamed it on nearby food producer Ray's Sausage and the business's bosses even replaced their sewer pipes and grease traps.

But that was not the source of the smell. It came from decaying corpses in the home of a convicted rapist now fast becoming one of America's most notorious serial killers.

When cops raided the home of Anthony Sowell, 50, on Thursday last week, they found a ghastly cache of corpses.

Two were in the living room. Two more were crammed together and crudely hidden. Another was in a shallow grave in the basement.

Five were buried in the back yard - and a skull was found in a bucket in the basement.

Sowell was arrested nearby two days later. He had been released from prison in 2005 after serving 15 years for the brutal attempted rape of a victim he also tried to choke.

The woman, who said she thought she would be killed, only escaped by climbing out of a window on to a roof and shouting to neighbours.

On hearing news of the police's grisly find, heartbroken relatives of missing local women gathered outside Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue, Cleveland, US - now dubbed the Ohio House Of Horrors.

Police had called to arrest Sowell on another rape charge, committed in September but only just reported.

They believe he continued to live at the house as 11 corpses decomposed around him.

In yet another bizarre twist, weeks after Sowell's release, he signed up to a sex fetish website seeking "a submission".

Not since Fred West - who with wife Rosemary murdered at least 12 young women at his home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester - has there been a serial killer so sinister as Sowell.

On Tuesday local Police Chief Michael Grath said: "It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite."

Sowell, a jobless ex-marine who abused drugs and alcohol for years, moved into the building in the crime-ridden district of East Cleveland after his release from prison in 2005.

On benefits after being laid off from his factory job two years ago, Sowell used to sit for hours on the concrete steps at the front of the house, which was his former family home.

Neighbours thought him strange as he was also often spotted using a shopping trolley to collect cans and scrap to sell at a junk yard or begging for money.

Although the rundown neighbourhood is no stranger to crime, revelations about Anthony Sowell shocked locals.

For months unsuspecting neighbours passing his house had been stopping to chat to Sowell as he sat drinking beer.

Horrified neighbour Antoinnete Dudley, 29, said she had noticed the terrible smell of rotting flesh all summer. Other locals likened it to the smell of death, and said it seemed to follow Sowell around.

Kenneth Broader, the postman who delivers to Imperial Avenue said: "It was smelling so bad, horrible, putrid."

Local shopkeeper Eli Tayeh recalls how Sowell's clothing smelt so foul that being near him made his eyes water.

He said: "He came into my store last week and reeked so bad I had to open the front and back doors.

"I asked why he stank. He shrugged, bought his beer and walked out."

Police made their horrific find when they went to his house to arrest him after a woman reported Sowell had raped her and tried to choke her with an electrical cord there.

He wasn't at home - he feared his rape victim had gone to police - but a pungent smell led officers to two badly decomposing bodies on the living room floor.

Over the following days investigators unearthed the rest of the remains.

Sadistic Sowell was arrested on a street a mile from his home last Saturday. He at first denied he was the man authorities were looking for but admitted his identity as officers began fingerprinting him.

Later, as specially-trained dogs scoured the property, heavy digging equipment unearthed the bodies which had been buried in the garden. A human skull was also found in the basement. The bodies are all of African American women.

Only one victim has been identified, crack addict Tonia Carmichael.

A coroner's spokesman said the bodies: "Could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years."

Appearing before Judge Ronald Adrine in Cleveland Municipal Court on Wednesday morning, Sowell wore a blue paper jumpsuit typically worn by suicide-risk inmates.

His wrists and ankles were manacled and he staggered slightly as he walked into court.

Showing no emotion, he looked straight at the judge as he was charged with five aggravated murders, for the victims so far whose cause of death has been ruled as strangulation.

In addition, he faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping for the September attack on the woman at his home. Other charges will follow.

Asked if he could afford a lawyer, he replied quietly: "No, Sir." Bail was refused after prosecutor Brian Murphy described him as an "incredibly dangerous threat to the public".

If found guilty of the charges Sowell faces death by lethal injection.

Officers have been tearing apart the walls and ceilings of the house to check for MORE bodies. They have also spread their search to vacant buildings within half a mile of Sowell's house.

Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said: "We're going to go bit by bit, piece by piece."

Staggeringly, police had been called to Sowell's house several times since his release from prison. Only two weeks ago a naked woman fell out of his first floor window, suffering cuts. She declined to press charges.

Residents are concerned that the justice authorities who had been monitoring Sowell had missed vital clues. As a registered sex offender he was required to check in regularly at the sheriff's office.

Officers did not have the right to enter his house but they would stop by to make sure he was there.

Their most recent visit was on September 22, just hours before Sowell's latest victim reported being raped.

The sickening story unfolding on Imperial Avenue looks likely to haunt the area for some time to come.

"It's a hard pill to swallow," said Wanda Thomas, who said she has lived in the neighbourhood for decades.

"People used to look out for each other. Now people are scared."

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How sick to imagine the smell of death lingering on his clothing so strong that others smelled it.

What I just don't get is WHY no one called LE? No way in hell I would live next door to a smell like that. Just no way! :evil:

yet another bit of trivia surrounding this case: A man who works and/or owns a food store across the street from Sowell was interviewed today on local news. He said that Sowell had frequently walked across the street to put something in his store's dumpster. When the employees became curious about what he was dumping, they found a package wrapped with duct tape that really stunk. They reported to the authorities that Sowell was dumping things in their dumpster, according to the interview.

(Hearing this, one can only wonder just how many murders he had committed and successfully disposed of their bodies in this city and in other cities and states in the past 30 plus years. It is just surprising that there are any women left in that section of Cleveland, OH.)

Bond for Anthony Sowell was set at $5 million today, according to Cuyahoga County Court records.
The 49-year-old suspected serial killer is in jail, facing rape and murder charges.
Sowell first appeared in court Wednesday, when he was arraigned on the rape and murder charges. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine ordered him held without bond.
Authorities found the bodies of 11 women buried in and around the Imperial Avenue home of the former U.S. Marine. Investigators are still trying to determine how long they had been dead.
Sowell has been charged in connection with five of those deaths. Police suspect he is responsible for the other six as well, but will continue investigating before filing additional chargers.
Sowell is registered as a Tier III Sex Offender. He was convicted of attempted rape in 1989. He served 15 years of prison before his release in June 2005.

In 1985, Anthony Sowell left the Marine Corps as a corporal after a seven-year career as an electrician that took him to Marine bases across the world.

Four years later, he sexually assaulted a pregnant woman in his apartment in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the first known violent act in what is now the suspected work of a serial killer.

Marine officials said Sowell arrived for boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., on Jan. 24, 1978, and remained there until April 24, 1978. Afterward, he was first stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., and Camp Butler, on Okinawa.

He concluded his service with a three-day stint at Camp Pendleton, Calif., from Jan. 15 to Jan. 18, 1985.

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Sowell was considered low-risk
Published: Nov. 6, 2009 at 9:20 PM

CLEVELAND, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell, accused in Cleveland of being a serial killer, fell into a low-risk category for offending again, a report indicates.

Sowell had served 15 years in prison for attempted rape. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer said Friday the report stated only six of 100 offenders with criminal histories similar to Sowell's would commit another sex crime within five years of being released.

The report, prepared for Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in 2005, said Sowell, 50, revealed he went to strip clubs, looked at pornographic magazines and watched pornographic videos. He estimated he had sex with more than 50 women.

Born into a working-class family, Sowell had friends but was teased and bullied as a child, the report said. He didn't graduate from high school and went into the Marines, where he achieved the rank of sergeant, though he once went absent without leave.

The court report says he fathered a child, married and divorced.

Back in civilian life in 1985, he was drinking at least six drinks most days, he said, at times blacking out.

"He acknowledged having family problems and increased aggressiveness when drinking," the report said.

Sowell was convicted of domestic violence in 1988 and before long pleaded guilty to attempting to rape a pregnant woman he had bound and gagged.

While behind bars, Sowell worked at prison jobs, got his GED and went through alcohol treatment, anger management, drug awareness and personality-improvement programs.

He applied to a treatment program for sex offenders in 1993, but wasn't accepted because he denied he had committed a sex crime.

Sowell was released from prison in June 2005.

He now is back in jail, suspected of killing 11 women whose bodies were found at his home.

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By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 5:25 PM on 07th November 2009

Residents living near rapist and suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell fear a catalogue of errors meant vital clues were missed by police and the authorities.

Police in Cleveland have been attacked by locals for failing to notice the danger that the registered sex offender posed.

The bodies of 10 women were found in his home this week along with a skull wrapped in paper. The stench was of decomposing corpses was so strong that it clung to his clothes and wafted down the street.

Residents claim vital clues were missed after the stench of decomposing bodies at Sowell's house (white building) was wrongly attributed to the neighbouring sausage shop

Police had been called to Sowell's house several times since his release from prison.

Only two weeks ago a naked woman fell out of his first floor window, suffering cuts. She declined to press charges.

Residents are concerned that the justice authorities who had been monitoring Sowell had missed vital clues.

Residents said that in retrospect the smell alone should have raised questions. It wafted down the street, sometimes forcing employees at the neighbouring sausage shop to abandon the store on hot summer days.

Neighbours said it smelled like a dead dog, sewage or rotting meat.

Horrified neighbour Antoinnete Dudley, 29, said she had noticed the terrible smell of rotting flesh all summer. Other locals likened it to the smell of death, and said it seemed to follow Sowell around.

'It was smelling so bad, horrible, putrid,' said Kenneth Broader, a postman in the area.

But authorities blamed it on nearby food producer Ray's Sausage and the business's bosses even replaced their sewer pipes and grease traps.

City utility officials even came to investigate, on more than one occasion.

He was only arrested when police went to his house to arrest him after a woman reported Sowell had raped her and tried to choke her with an electrical cord there.

He wasn't at home - he feared his rape victim had gone to police - but a pungent smell led officers to two badly decomposing bodies on the living room floor.

Over the following days investigators unearthed the rest of the remains.

Now families of victims and missing women in the area are now questionning if the police should have acted sooner.

Neighbours claim they are a high number of missing women in the area, but said many were prostitutes or drug users.

'Cleveland police don't take missing-persons cases seriously if they involve people clinging to the lower rungs of society', said Judy Martin, a leading local anti-crime advocate.

Rev Rodney Maiden, of Providence Baptist Church, said people were asking if the police just didn't look for the missing women because they were from the city. Or because they were black.

'There's this fear that the neighborhood has been forgotten,' he said.

Local councillor, Zach Reed, is demanding an investigation into how crime reports in the neighborhood have been handled.

As a registered sex offender, Sowell was required to check in regularly at the sheriff's office.

Officers didn't have the right to enter his house, but they would stop by to make sure he was there.

Their most recent visit was on September 22, just hours before Sowell's latest victim reported being raped.

Sowell could face the death penalty if convicted of five aggravated murder counts.

He also faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping after a Sept. 22 attack on a woman at his home.

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Warp, though Zach Reed, Councilman, is quick to blame police for not doing enough, it should be known that he is himself part of the lifestyle of this neighborhood in that, even though busted for drunken driving, he continues to drink heavily and drive, all the while womanizing constantly and hanging out at the bars. A local news did an undercover investigation of him a while back. I will put the link here:
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PS----Reminds you of Satsuma, doesn't it?

It certainly does, TR!! If Cleveland had a bad reputation before, they surely do now!

My question: If Councilman Reed is known for driving drunk and hanging out at local bars, WHY is he still holding his seat?"

Maybe they cannot find a better replacement who lives in that ward?????? :lol!: The people of that ward vote him in and must think he represents them, afterall.

I must tell you that not all sections of the city of Cleveland are like that one is. Mostly, it is much of the East side that many are afraid to even travel through. The outer west side has remained more normal an environment. This is my impression, having not lived there for over a half-century. As a child, I lived on the East side and my mother wanted to move for safety reasons even then, besides wanting to breathe cleaner air which was highly polluted by industry at the time. Therefore, I have relatives buried in the East side cemeteries and would love to visit their graves and say a prayer or two, but nobody feels safe visiting those cemeteries. It is very sad because Cleveland was once populated by hard-working, law-abiding, family-centered people and many parts of it now are so crime-ridden. It was said just recently that, in a year in which the city totals under 100 murders, it is considered a good year.

Cleveland reminds me of Chicago in some ways. Need I spell them out?

By JOHN SEEWER and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writers John Seewer And Andrew Welsh-huggins, Associated Press Writers – Sat Nov 7, 9:16 pm ET

CLEVELAND – Authorities say Anthony Sowell lured women into his home in a busy neighborhood, killed them — most by strangulation — and scattered their remains throughout the inside and buried some in the backyard.

Such brazenness defies logic, but experts identify a narrow subcategory of serial killers, including the 1893 Chicago Fair killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who hunt from home.

"These types are so rare that you can't make a summary estimation as to why or what went wrong or anything," said Robert Keppel, a national serial-killer expert who investigated serial killer Ted Bundy in Washington state in the 1970s.

"There's just not a whole lot of these folks running around the world," he said.

Sowell had the perfect lair.

His home and backyard — a burial site for five victims — were shielded by an empty home to the left and the windowless brick wall of a sausage company on the right.

Anytime the stench of decaying bodies blew over the street, neighbors blamed the meat processing next door.

His house stood out only because it was one of the nicest on a block dotted by homes with peeling paint and broken windows, some of them vacant.

It looked safe.

Sowell often sat on the front steps, sipping beer out of a bottle and greeting residents passing by on their way to the corner store that was just steps away for alcohol, snacks and cigarettes.

Neighbors say he'd offer a few the chance to get high.

Sowell's alleged approach reflects an obvious point, said forensic psychologist N.G. Berrill: the potential role of mental illness in such unusual behavior.

"The fact that they would dirty their own nest, as it were, is peculiar to me and suggests a level of mental illness or sickness," said Berrill, director of the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science.

Tanja Doss told The Associated Press that when she went up to Sowell's third-floor bedroom for a drink last April, he attacked her. "I'm sitting on the corner of the bed and he just leaped up and came over and started choking me," she said.

She said she escaped the next morning when he left for the store.

When people think of serial killers, they imagine predators like Bundy, who stalked women and killed women in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Colorado and finally Florida.

Or Gary Ridgway, dubbed the Green River killer, who pleaded guilty to the deaths of 48 women, many of them found in or near Washington State's Green River.

But some of history's most notorious serial killers literally worked close to home.

Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, built a "World's Fair Hotel" he used to lure women to their death during the 1893 World's Fair, a series of crimes recounted in the 2004 best-seller, "Devil in the White City."

While Holmes confessed at one point to killing 27 people, the true number of victims is unknown; some authorities placed it as high as 200.

In Houston, Dean Corll, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks killed 27 boys and young men in a torture-murder ring in Houston from 1969 to 1971. Police found a plywood "torture board" in Corll's home used to torment many of his victims before they were killed.

In Illinois, John Wayne Gacy, a building contractor and amateur clown, was convicted of luring 33 young men and boys to his Chicago area home for sex and strangling them between 1972 and 1978. Most were buried in a crawl space under the home; four others were dumped in rivers. Gacy was executed in 1994.

In Milwaukee, Dahmer, a former candy factory worker, confessed to killing and dismembering 17 people since 1978, some of whom he mutilated and cannibalized. His victims included 11 males whose remains were found in his apartment.

Dahmer was serving a series of life sentences when he was killed by another inmate at a Wisconsin prison in 1994.

The crimes that Sowell is accused of put him in the same category as Gacy and Dahmer, said Jack Levin, a Northeastern University criminologist.

At the same time, the Cleveland murders resemble the more general portrait of a serial killer who doesn't stray far from his comfort zone.

"They never leave town. They never travel to another state. They stay close to home, where they're familiar with the victims and escape routes and dump sites," Levin said.

Hunting from home may have been easier because of the marginal lives led by Sowell's alleged victims. All four of the Cleveland women identified until now battled addiction in their lives.

It wasn't unusual for some of them to disappear for a week or two and then return.

Naticia Duncan, who lives a few houses away from Sowell, fears that her friend, Kimberly Sharp, may be one of the victims. Sharp would often stay at Duncan's house, do her laundry and then leave when she met a new man.

"I'd see her a month later, then she'd do it again," Duncan said. "Then I never saw her again."

Police remain at Sowell's house for now but investigators say they have no immediate plans to search for more remains.

Sowell, 50, remained in jail Saturday on a $5 million bond on charges of rape and aggravated murder.

Across the street Saturday, the number of fliers on a makeshift memorial wall with pictures of missing women continued to grow.

Police released the identities of three more victims Saturday, bringing the total to seven. Four others are still unknown. The latest are Amelda Hunter, 47, Crystal Dozier, 38 and Michelle Mason, 45, all of Cleveland.

Earlier in the day, Dale Hunter taped a piece of paper with two photographs of his sister on the missing person's board.

Hunter said she used to stay with friends in the area and knew that she drank beer with Sowell in his house. He said he was fearing the worst.

Like most of the victims, she battled drug and alcohol addictions, he said.

"She was real comfortable in this neighborhood," said Hunter. "I dropped her off here a few times."

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