House of Horrors for Victims and Families in Cleveland Ohio

Deputies not allowed to enter sex offenders' home without cause By Mark Gillispie, CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cuyahoga County deputy sheriff who spoke with suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell on Sept. 22 did not have the authority to enter Sowell's home. The deputy went to the home that day as part of a random check that Sowell, a convicted sex offender, still lived at the Imperial Avenue address in Cleveland, said Sue DeChant of the Sheriff's Department's Sex Offender Registration Office. Without an arrest or search warrant, the deputy lacked probable cause to enter Sowell's home, DeChant said. "For four years, that man was compliant," DeChant said. "He came in when told to and he never varied. There was no reason to look at him for not complying with the sex offender law." Sowell is accused of raping and trying to strangle a woman inside the home hours after he answered his side door and spoke to the deputy on Sept. 22. Police discovered dead bodies in Sowell's home on Oct. 29 when they went there to serve arrest and search warrants in connection with the alleged rape. Had Sowell not been home the day a deputy visited him, the deputy would have shown neighbors a photograph of Sowell and asked if he still lived there, DeChant said. Sowell was reclassified last year as a Tier III sex offender, the most serious of three possible levels, because of a 1990 rape conviction for which he spent 15 years in prison. As a Tier III offender, Sowell was required to visit the county Sex Offenders Registration Office once very 90 days for the rest of his life to report his address. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell classified Sowell as a sexually oriented offender, the least restrictive of the three categories in effect at the time, after Sowell's release from prison in 2005. As a sexually oriented offender, he was required to report his address to the Sheriff's Department once a year for 10 years. That changed with the passage of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act, a set of federal laws mandating that states uniformly register sex offenders and place them into a national registry by 2009. DeChant said the Ohio Attorney General's Office reclassified Sowell as a Tier III offender last year. The Sheriff's Department was not required to notify anyone living within 1,000 feet of Sowell's home about his Tier III sex offender status because Sowell had not moved, DeChant said. "Once an offender moves, then there would be notification," DeChant said. http://www.clevland.com

Anthony Sowell was considered unlikely to attack again in 2005 evaluation By Gabriel Baird CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The chances of Anthony Sowell sexually assaulting another woman after serving 15 years in prison for attempted rape were supposed to be low. That was the conclusion of the report evaluating him three months after his June 2005 release from prisons. The report, reviewed by The Plain Dealer, appears to be horribly wrong. The bodies of 11 women have been unearthed at Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue on Cleveland's southeast side. He is in jail facing aggravated murder and rape charges. The report was done for Cuyahoga County Common Pleas court to evaluate whether Sowell was a sexual predator. It also provides the most detailed history of Sowell's life from his childhood in Cleveland through his time in prison for sexually assaulting a pregnant woman in East Cleveland in 1989. The evaluation is standard procedure for sex offenders just out of prison. It said that of 100 offenders with criminal histories like Sowell's, only six would commit another sex crime within five years of being released. But the report cautioned: "These estimates do not directly correspond to the recidivism of an individual offender but to the risk group in which they fall." This conclusion was reached after reviewing Sowell's history and interviewing him for 90 minutes on Sept. 1, 2005. Sowell arrived early for the interview. He was coherent, cooperative and polite, showing no signs of mental illness. "Initially, the defendant complained bitterly about the sexual predator evaluation and hearing process," the report says. "This dissipated after the defendant engaged in the interview." As the interview progressed Sowell painted a picture of his past. Sowell had friends, but other children teased and bullied him. He didn't participate in organized sports, but played with other neighborhood children, according to the report. He took shop classes at Shaw High but didn't have enough credits to graduate by the end of his senior year. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in January 1978. Nine months later, a local woman gave birth to Sowell's daughter. He spent time in North Carolina, California and Okinawa, Japan with the Marines. He took some GED classes and worked as an electrician. He married a fellow Marine in 1981. At one point, he went AWOL for two months. His discipline included being knocked down in rank. He was a sergeant in 1985 when he received an honorable discharge. That same year, he and his wife divorced. During the interview, Sowell was about his sexual habits. Sowell went to strip clubs, looked at pornographic magazines and watched pornographic videos. He said he lost his virginity at age 17 and estimated he had been with "more than 50" women since then. During the nearly five years between the military and prison, Sowell had at least six drinks nearly every day. Sometimes, he started drinking when he woke up. At times, he would lose control or black out. "He acknowledged having family problems and increased aggressiveness when drinking," the report said. Sowell was convicted of domestic violence when he was 28. Two years later, in 1989, he said police suspected him of aggravated burglary, but didn't have enough evidence to charge him. Sowell said he was drinking the night he committed the crime that would land him in prison. He went to a motel on Euclid Avenue and told woman he knew from around the neighborhood that her boyfriend wanted him to take her to his place. The woman, who was pregnant at the time, told police he bound, gagged and raped her. He was charged with kidnapping, attempted rape and rape. In the interview he said he pleaded guilty because he didn't have a "good defense" in the case. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1990. While inside, he worked as an assembler, cook, electrician, food cart attendant, porter and a yard crewman. He also got his GED. He also completed the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program along with programs for anger management, drug awareness, positive personality change. He applied to a sexual offender treatment program in 1993, but wasn't accepted because he denied he had committed a sex crime. http://www.cleveland.com

A missing black woman isn't worth much on the streets of Cleveland: By Phillip Morris Cleveland Columnist The life of a missing black woman isn't worth that much on the streets of Cleveland. If I've done my math right, a black woman is worth roughly a $1.50 plus tax. That nominal fee is the going rate for a 40-ounce bottle of King Cobra Malt Liquor, the reported beverage of choice of accused serial killer Anthony Sowell. Police say he routinely made his $1.50 investment at a Mount Pleasant carryout, then used it to lure desperate women into his Imperial Avenue home. Once he got them behind his closed door, police say, he sadistically raped and killed them before burying them in his basement and backyard. And as the unmistakable smell of rotting human flesh enveloped the neighborhood around Sowell's house, a community shut its eyes and held it's nose, while Sowell kept making his run to the beverage store. The registered sexual predator in their midst made little effort to conceal the horrors that police say he perpetrated on women, but a neighborhood -- and a city -- blithely ignored the parade of women walking into Sowell's home without ever walking out. It appears that a serial killer was able to kill with abandon and confidence in a congested neighborhood because he knew that no one would bother to come looking. The killer knew that on his streets, a black woman can simply disappear. No questions will be asked. He arrogantly told one of his victims, who managed to escape, that no one would come looking for her because she was a "crack bitch." A group of some of Cleveland's most influential black clergymen gathered Thursday at a church near the crime scene and prayed. The church is so beautifully reactive. So are police. So are politicians. So are the media. They prayed for the victims, for the families of the victims and for a neighborhood and a city that continues to reel from depravity. While they offered consolation to the grieving and support to law enforcement, Sheila Henderson of East Cleveland listened attentively. We should be listening to her. Her personal testimony offers us an answer to so many of our questions. "I've been clean eleven years. But those dead women are my sisters. For seven years of my life, crack-cocaine had control of me," Henderson told me. "I was in the streets. I was living from place to place, wherever I could find a room. I never sold my body, because I had too much respect for myself, but I panhandled to survive. To feed the habit." "I was able to eventually get it together because I had friends and family that would not give up on me. That's why I did not end up in a place like Anthony Sowell's basement." "If we're going to end this craziness, We have to stop throwing away our women. If someone in your family is hooked on drugs, don't turn your back on them. If they're stealing from you, hide your stuff and lock them in the basement if you have to. At least that way you will know that they're safe." She's right. It starts with family. It should end with family. An accused serial killer appears to have efficiently gone about his work because he knew that many families in this community are indifferent to their women, leaving them to suffocating isolation because of addictions or mental illnesses. We don't go looking when they come up missing. And when their corpses start to stink to high heaven, this community simply pinches its nose and walks away. Anthony Sowell is holding a mirror to our collective faces. He's not the only monster I see. http://www.cleveland.com

These are post from others on the topic of Anthony Sowell. 10 people don't disappear. They just get forgotten and ignored. "By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction." -William Osler Inappropriate comment? Alert us. Reply to this comment | Post a new comment Posted by ewonne888 November 06, 2009, 3:25AM I agree wholeheartedly. I have often observed that in the African American community in the US, as well as in some specific immigrant communities here as well, families tend to give up their family members to drug addiction and homelesness way too quickly. That isn't true everywhere where there are black people but it does seem to be the trend here in the US. In the American white community, however, family members with drug addictions are sent to rehab. Sometimes, even if it hurts. Likewise, I have seen some members of other immigrant groups go through extraordinary lengths to help family members recover. Inappropriate comment? Alert us. Reply to this comment | Post a new comment Posted by fvbiii November 06, 2009, 5:42AM Well these serial killers are usually white and many times they kill white prostitutes and who remembers them? The problem with the inner city Black community is there are no men involved in both boys and girls lives and girls need men in their lives just as much as boys do to give them guidance. It's a mess and to be honest I'm white and the African American community doesn't want me involved so let them them figure it out on their own! Frederick VanBuren III Inappropriate comment? Alert us. Reply to this comment | Post a new comment Posted by bluhog November 06, 2009, 6:49AM Good article Mr. Morris. FYI folks... I was recently informed at a violence in the workplace seminar that the typical serial killer is a white male between the ages of 25 and 55. Inappropriate comment? Alert us. Reply to this comment | Post a new comment Posted by butchatina November 06, 2009, 7:10AM This was a very good article. While statistics may show that a serial killer is usually a white male. We have got to stop thinking about race. I understand that it is a factor. A huge factor, but the thing that we must all focus on is that mostly ALL serial killers are MEN and their victims are WOMEN!. And to the police, it has been written that he use garbage bags. He bought a lot of them. He could have very well set bodies out with the weekly trash and nobody would have been the wiser. Check where the city dumps trash pick up from that street. You did do the all out manhunt,(a citizen found the killer) Can you please search to find all of the bodies? There are black cops on the streets that don't care about the people of there own race as well. I would bet the cops that people reported these women missing, where black. Oh, and by the way, I am an African American Woman. They caught this one, How many others are still out there? I take public transportation everyday. RTA, CPD,all of law enforcement need to really step up there game. WE ARE NOT SAFE! http://www.cleveland.com

A serial killer apparently works best in a silent city: Phillip Morris It only takes one serial killer to spoil a party. It only takes one determined psychopath to tamper with a neighborhood’s population count. I guess that is why I am suddenly so underwhelmed as I prepare to take part in one of the most ballyhooed local elections in Greater Cleveland’s history. Today Cleveland voters will elect a mayor. County voters will decide whether they want to rip up and replace their corrupt and under-performing county government. And state voters will decide whether Cleveland will be one of four Ohio cities to get a casino, with its spectacular, if inflated, promise of jobs and tourism riches. All of these issues are important and matter greatly. But all of the sudden, I’m mostly thinking about dead Cleveland women. I’m questioning what really matters most? As police investigators attempt to positively identify the remains of six murdered females found on the East Side property of a registered sex offender, I’m left wondering what is the point of government, neighborhoods and families, if we fail to sound alarms and investigate when people disappear? There are no alien abductions. People don’t just vanish into thin air. So when they go missing, how is it that they go unnoticed by an entire community? Or does it somehow depend on the community in question, The families who populate that community and the officers who police it? My question specifically concerns Anthony Sowell, who is in jail held on the suspicion that he raped and choked a woman in September, at the home where the bodies were later found. How is it that Sowell, who served 15 years for an extremely violent rape and was required to register with the sheriff’s office every 90 days, was not more closely watched? Did his Imperial Avenue neighbors know his violent past, even if they didn’t know that neighborhood women were going missing? Perhaps this is a good time for Ohio to revisit its sex offender registration laws and create the category of a super predator. Perhaps the law should require someone with a history like Sowell's to check in with authorities more than quarterly. It would make me feel a little better about such a felon’s freedom to roam the streets. Who shares in the blame for this community tragedy? Does an entire community bear some responsibility when a serial killer goes to work in a backdrop of dead silence? Of course, the killer’s at fault. He killed. The perpetrating psychopath should be identified, tried and punished. But is a silent neighborhood somehow also at fault? Is a silent family at fault? Is this city’s police department at fault? Was this newspaper somehow also a party to silence, ignorance, if not rank indifference? Perhaps the females, who are still being identified through DNA testing, put themselves at risk. Perhaps they had questionable lifestyles. Perhaps, some of the corpses will turn out to be young adolescents, people who were lured to their death by a cunning and experienced predator. But that doesn’t change that they were likely killed over time, and that no real alarms where raised when they vanished. That’s inexcusable. I can’t imagine the same pattern of disappearances happening in Lakewood, or Parma, or Rocky River, without serious alarms being sounded. But it did happen in Cleveland. And the truly terrifying thought is this: If it happened 6 times in a single East Side neighborhood, how do we know that it hasn’t happened 60 more times throughout the city? Just how many more shallow graves does this city of quiet people contain? http://www.cleveland.com

Tishana Culver identified as third victim from Anthony Sowell's house CLEVELAND, Ohio — Authorities have identified a third woman found dead at Anthony Sowell's home as Tishana Culver, 31, who lived down the street from Sowell on Imperial Avenue. Culver was never reported missing, police said. She lived a few houses down from the home where police found 11 dead women, most of them strangled. http://www.cleveland.com

Two more women found dead at Anthony Sowell's home are identified By Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Investigators on Thursday identified two more of the 11 women found dead at Anthony Sowell's house -- one who was never reported missing and another whose family last saw her in June. Tishana Culver lived a few houses down from Sowell on Imperial Avenue, and Telacia Fortson lived in East Cleveland. Both would be 31 if they had lived. Fortson's family had feared since last week, when police began uncovering bodies from Sowell's home, that she was among the dead. "She had a child's spirit," Inez "Brownie" Fortson said, not long after learning her daughter was among the victims taken from the Imperial Avenue home. Police, firefighters and coroner's workers continued their solemn inch-by-inch search Thursday at Sowell's home for other victims and evidence linking him to the killings. They stopped around 7 p.m. and had not found any more bodies. Officials encouraged family members of missing black women to provide DNA or dental records, guaranteeing the evidence will be used only for identifying victims and will not be turned over to any other agency. All 11 women found so far have been black. Inez Fortson, whose home is laden with angel figurines, said she has been unable to eat or sleep for days. The retired county worker adopted Telacia when she was 9 years old. She had already raised two boys, "but what I really wanted was a little girl." Fortson said that what she and her family do not want is for their daughter to be remembered for her battles with crack cocaine. "She had her struggles," Fortson said, as she turned away from Sowell's face flashing on the television news. "But she was more than an addiction," her mother said. "She was more than a lifestyle. All the families going through this could probably tell you the same thing." Telacia Fortson enjoyed poetry and flower arranging and liked to fix up fancy braid patterns and hairstyles for her friends and family. She also attended several churches. She was a mother to three children, though she lost custody of them because of her drug use. One lives with a relative and the two others live with their father. Sowell has a history of targeting women with drug problems. He is in City Jail after prosecutors charged him with aggravated murder, rape and other crimes. He spent 15 years in prison for rape. Police records show he often lured women into his home by offering them liquor. Metro - cleveland.com Breaking local news for Cleveland and Northeast OhioAnthony Sowell, Real Time News » Two more women found dead at Anthony Sowell's home are identified By Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer November 05, 2009, 8:42PM Joshua Gunter, The Plain DealerInez "Brownie" Fortson was told Thursday that her daughter Telacia was the second body taken from Anthony Sowell's Imperial Avenue home. She gathered dental records this week and told the Cuyahoga County coroner's office that her daughter was missing a tooth and had a disfigured finger. Fortson adopted Telacia when she was 9.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Investigators on Thursday identified two more of the 11 women found dead at Anthony Sowell's house -- one who was never reported missing and another whose family last saw her in June. Tishana Culver lived a few houses down from Sowell on Imperial Avenue, and Telacia Fortson lived in East Cleveland. Both would be 31 if they had lived. Fortson's family had feared since last week, when police began uncovering bodies from Sowell's home, that she was among the dead. "She had a child's spirit," Inez "Brownie" Fortson said, not long after learning her daughter was among the victims taken from the Imperial Avenue home. Police, firefighters and coroner's workers continued their solemn inch-by-inch search Thursday at Sowell's home for other victims and evidence linking him to the killings. They stopped around 7 p.m. and had not found any more bodies. Officials encouraged family members of missing black women to provide DNA or dental records, guaranteeing the evidence will be used only for identifying victims and will not be turned over to any other agency. All 11 women found so far have been black. Inez Fortson, whose home is laden with angel figurines, said she has been unable to eat or sleep for days. The retired county worker adopted Telacia when she was 9 years old. She had already raised two boys, "but what I really wanted was a little girl." Fortson said that what she and her family do not want is for their daughter to be remembered for her battles with crack cocaine. "She had her struggles," Fortson said, as she turned away from Sowell's face flashing on the television news. "But she was more than an addiction," her mother said. "She was more than a lifestyle. All the families going through this could probably tell you the same thing." Telacia Fortson enjoyed poetry and flower arranging and liked to fix up fancy braid patterns and hairstyles for her friends and family. She also attended several churches. She was a mother to three children, though she lost custody of them because of her drug use. One lives with a relative and the two others live with their father. Sowell has a history of targeting women with drug problems. He is in City Jail after prosecutors charged him with aggravated murder, rape and other crimes. He spent 15 years in prison for rape. Police records show he often lured women into his home by offering them liquor. Culver spent time in jail for a variety of drug convictions. Her family last saw her in June 2008 and said they thought she might be in prison or living with a boyfriend in Akron. She worked as a beautician and is survived by four children, said her mother, who has custody of them. "My daughter was a loving mom to her children," said Yvonne Williams, 49, of Maple Heights. The first victim identified was Tonia Carmichael, who was 52 when she was last seen in November 2008. She was reported missing three weeks later. Fortson said she last saw her daughter, who stayed with her on and off, in June. She said she called East Cleveland police in July after the father of her younger children called and said she hadn't been around to fix her children's hair. Fortson said police gave her phone numbers for the county morgue, area hospitals and police departments -- but none had information on her daughter. After seeing news reports of bodies being found at Sowell's house, a friend of Telacia's told the family he had taken her to that area before. Fortson said she called East Cleveland police back and they came to her home on Halloween to take a report. "I'm just glad we were on good terms when she left," Fortson said. "She came over and brought me some food. She was really trying to get her life together." http://www.cleveland.com

Despite criticism, police said they worked hard to bring Sowell to justice CLEVELAND, Ohio — 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 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. http://www.cleveland.com

Sowell's violent past offers glimpse of accused rapist suspected of mass murder By John Caniglia, The Plain Dealer CLEVELAND, Ohio — With a necktie wrapped around her wrists, the first woman to accuse Anthony Sowell of rape climbed through a third-floor window to a rooftop in East Cleveland to get away from him. The woman, three-months pregnant, yelled until neighbors spotted her on that July 1989 morning. Sowell was convicted a year later. The crime was so vicious that state parole officials refused to release Sowell early from of a 15-year prison sentence. The attack and his subsequent prison sentence give insight into Sowell, a former Marine who struggled with drugs and alcohol for years and is now accused of preying on women. "He choked me real hard because my body started tingling," the woman told police. "I thought I was going to die." Over the years, prison officials kept coming back to her words and injuries as they considered him for parole. Often, they gave the same reason for denial: "The serious nature of the offense." Despite the seriousness of the attack, Sowell did not get sexual-offender treatment while in prison, even though he made a request for it, according to parole records and interviews. Sowell is being held in City Jail on a rape warrant after a woman accused him of raping her and choking her with an extension cord in September. Detectives are also trying to determine if he killed six women whose bodies were found decomposing Thursday and Friday in and around his home. Police arrested him Saturday about a mile from his Imperial Avenue house. The victim in the latest case, who knew Sowell, said he offered to split four bottles of malt liquor with her. She entered Sowell's home and went to the second floor, which was empty except for a chair, a blanket and an extension cord, police said. The woman told police that after drinking for a while, Sowell became upset, punched her in the face and began choking her with the cord. He raped her as she passed out, the woman said. All the bodies have been identified as black females, and five died by strangulation, according to police. The last died of unknown causes. The coroner's office is trying to determine their identities. Detectives are focusing the investigation on missing persons in Sowell's neighborhood and will expand it to other unsolved homicides with similar causes of deaths. Sowell had shared the duplex with his stepmother since 2005, when he was released from prison after serving 15 years for raping a 21-year-old woman in East Cleveland. Parole records show that Sowell was seldom in trouble while behind bars between 1990 and 2005. In fact, Sowell did not have any major rule infractions while in prison, a spokeswoman said. He was given four verbal warnings for minor violations. Sowell also did not have a juvenile record in Cuyahoga County, a spokeswoman said. The East Cleveland rape that landed him in prison mirrored the latest attack, according to police and court records. It began at 6 a.m. on July 22, 1989, when police showed up at a motel on Euclid Avenue and Lee Road in East Cleveland. The woman was waiting for her boyfriend, and she feared officers were going to raid the motel. Sowell was there, as well, and lured the woman to his car and told her that her boyfriend would want her to stay with Sowell until after the officers left. Sowell drove her to his home -- a third-floor apartment on Page Road in East Cleveland. Once inside, Sowell threw her on his bed, choked her and repeatedly raped her. When she tried to leave, Sowell tied her hands with a necktie, wrapped a belt around her feet and stuffed a rag in her mouth. He threw her on the bed and began pacing up and down the stairs. He later came back into the room and fell asleep on the bed. The woman got her feet loose, spit out the rag and crawled out the window, onto the roof and screamed for help. She feared opening the squeaking door would wake Sowell. "He told me that he was going to kill me, and I believed him," the woman told police. Sowell pleaded guilty to attempted rape charges. The victim, along with county prosecutors, opposed early release of Sowell from prison each time it was considered. A parole official noted in 1993 that Sowell "stated he was denied sex-offender program participation." It also said the "inmate does wish to participate in sex-offender programming." A prison spokeswoman said Monday that "we have no record of participation or completion of sex offender treatment." Sowell took other courses aimed at controlling his violent temper, such as "Living without Violence," "Cage your Rage" and "Positive Personal Change." He also took the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, "Adult Children of Alcoholics" and "Drug Awareness Prevention." The records show Sowell drank heavily and used drugs before to his arrest. From 1978 to 1985, Sowell served in the Marines. He was honorably discharged, according to parole records. Repeated attempts to reach the victim of the 1989 attack were unsuccessful. A message left at Sowell's attorney in the case was not returned late Monday afternoon. http://www.cleveland.com

Stench still wafts from home of accused serial killer Anthony Sowell Even after 11 decomposing bodies have been removed, a stomach-churning stench wafts from Anthony Sowell’s house of horrors. For years the accused serial killer escaped detection only because he lived next door to a sausage factory. Neighbours and even city officials in the crime-ridden Cleveland ghetto blamed the smell of rotting meat on the family-owned factory. “They thought it was us,” said Renee Cash, the co-owner of Ray’s Sausage. “They told us what to do to fix it. We had new grease traps put in and new plumbing. And the smell was still there and we were wondering where it was coming from. We knew it was not us. “In the summertime it was just terrible. By the time you got to the corner it was horrendous. That is where he had two bodies under the front porch,” she said. Three years ago the Cash family spent $10,000 (£6,000) on the grease traps and almost as much again replacing the sewer lines at Ray’s Sausage. Still the smell persisted. One city inspector, following his nose, even peered over the fence into Mr Sowell’s back garden, where five bodies have been dug up in recent days from shallow graves. “He looked over that fence. He said it was a dead animal over there,” Ray Cash, Ms Cash’s brother and co-owner, said. Mr Sowell, 50, a former US Marine who served 15 years in prison for attempted rape, has been dubbed the “Cleveland Strangler”. He could face the death penalty if convicted of multiple counts of aggravated murder. The coroner said that seven of the 11 dead black women found in his house or buried in his back garden had cords around their necks. An eighth woman had apparently been strangled with the killer’s hands. Two other corpses are too decomposed to determine the precise cause of death. All that remains of the eleventh victim is a skull found wrapped in a paper bag in a bucket in the basement. The coroner said that it appeared to have fallen off a decaying corpse — which has not yet been found. The bodies had been dead as long as four-and-a-half years — but one may have died as recently as three weeks ago. The first victim identified was Tonia Carmichael, 52, a drug addict who vanished on November 10, 2008, after saying that she was going to the shop. Her car was found four blocks from Mr Sowell’s house. Police plan to start ripping apart walls, floors and ceilings at Mr Sowell’s rented three-storey house to search for more bodies. Investigators have also sought permission to submit his DNA to national databases to see if he matches any other crimes. A woman in California who saw Mr Sowell on TV, told police that she believed he raped her in Coronado in 1979 while he was serving in the military there. There is a growing chorus of questions about how Mr Sowell was apparently allowed to get away with it for so long. Zach Reed, a councilman, said at a meeting of local clergy yesterday: “This is not about finger-pointing. This is not about blame. In my opinion the system is broken.” Mr Sowell, who was required to register as a sex offender, rented his stepmother’s house at 12205 Imperial Avenue after being released from jail in 2005. He had been living on the dole since losing a factory job two years ago, and sometimes begged for money or collected scrap metal to sell. He often spent the day sitting on his porch and gave free barbecues on the pavement outside his house. Neighbours complained that he reeked of dead bodies. Eli Tayeh, a Palestinian refugee who owns the corner shop across the street, said that he had to ventilate the store every time Mr Sowell went in to buy malt liquor. “Every time he used to come over he smelled so bad,” Mr Tayeh said. “We had to open both doors — front and back — after he left. I used to hold my breath and light up incense. He smelt like he was carrying a dead body.” The last time he visited the shop about ten days ago, however, Mr Sowell seemed unusually anxious. He bought up the shop’s entire supply of heavy black rubbish bags — four boxes of 15 each. It was, perhaps, an ominous sign. “He was smelling very, very bad the last time he came over. The last time he was acting very nervous,” Mr Tayeh said. Mr Reed, the councilman, filed a complaint about a noxious smell in June 2007 after a neighbour contacted him to complain that it smelled like a dead body. Nobody discovered the carnage inside the house — not even police officers who stopped by on September 22 to check that the sex offender was living where he said he was. Neighbours say that Mr Sowell preyed on women hooked on alcohol and crack, luring them into his house to drink and take drugs. His rented three-storey wooden house sits near a junction notorious for drug-dealing. “This area right here is the biggest drug area on this street — any drugs, prostitution,” said Sheryl Stanton, a local woman. “I think he plotted it. He had 15 years in jail to plot how to do this. He knew what he was doing and he preyed on the women he could prey on.” Rodney Benson, who works in the corner shop, said that Mr Sowell would sometimes across the street to buy beers three or four times a day. “I guess it was for the girls,” he said. “Most of the girls that are missing were on drugs. I know some of the girls who are missing. Mostly, they were on crack cocaine.” Mr Benson went to one of Mr Sowell’s barbecues about two months ago to celebrate his birthday. “It’s crazy. The bodies are lying around and he is outside barbecuing and laughing and drinking,” he said. Police ignored not just the smell but also at least two dramatic incidents at the house. Gladys Wade said that he punched her in the face and dragged her into his house on December 8. She told WKYC-TV that Mr Sowell “kept twisting my neck, twisting it, twisting it. And I was gouging his face at the same time. I was trying to take his eyeballs out”. “It was like the devil, eyes glowing,” she said. “He was demonic or something. You could see the demons in him. I actually just saw it. That’s what made me fight more. Because I knew this man was trying to take my life. “I got away for a second and then he dived behind me and jumped on me and started strangling me. So I fell backwards down these stairs and fell straight through a window.” Police said that Ms Wade decided not to press charges, a claim she now denies. On September 22, only hours after police had made a routine check on Mr Sowell, another woman complained that he had choked her with an electrical cord and raped her as she passed out. On October 20, neighbours saw a naked woman fall from a window at Mr Sowell’s house and found him, also naked, beside his house choking her. Action19 News television has even broadcast a cell phone photo of the incident. Police were called but dismissed the tussle as an accident after the woman told them she had been drinking and fell as she tried to reach for her dropped keys. “She stated she was in the house. She was partying. They were doing coke, getting high. She fell off the roof,” Michael McGrath, the Cleveland police chief, told reporters. After a 37-day interval, police officers finally turned up to arrest Mr Sowell last week for the reported rape of September 22. He was not at home but the officers found the first two bodies lying in the living room. Mr Sowell was arrested walking down the street two days later. Robert Chaunce, a building worker who lives in the overwhelmingly black neighbourhood, blamed police for missing chances to arrest Mr Sowell. “I’ve lived in Cleveland my whole life. I’ve seen people robbed, shot and everything. The police still take a long time to come,” he said. “Not to be racial, but if it was not our race they would be there — if they were Caucasians, they would rush here,” he added. http://www.timesonline.co.uk

Police were searching for more bodies yesterday after finding the remains Police were searching for more bodies yesterday after finding the remains of at least eleven people at the home of a convicted rapist, including a skull in a bucket. As officers began to demolish the house brick by brick and widened the search to abandoned homes in a run-down area of Cleveland, Ohio, Anthony Sowell appeared in court charged with murder, rape and kidnap. A prosecutor described him as“incredibly dangerous”. Mr Sowell, who spent 15 years in prison for choking and raping a woman, was remanded in custody. The authorities unearthed the four latest bodies in the back garden this week. They found the skull wrapped in a paper bag in a bucket in the basement. After using DNA to try to identify the remains, police established that the skull belonged to an eleventh victim, only one of whom has been identified so far: Tonia Carmichael, a 53-year old drug addict who disappeared a year ago. “It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill,” Michael McGrath, the chief of the local police, said. Last night police said they had finished digging in the back garden and were about to start tearing down the walls. “We’re going to go bit by bit, piece by piece,” Ed Tomba, the deputy chief of Cleveland Police, said. Mr Sowell, a former US Marine who has struggled with drug and alcohol misuse for years, moved into the apartment in the crime-ridden district of East Cleveland after his release from jail in 2005. He had been convicted of the rape in 1989 of a woman who was three months pregnant. She had gone to Mr Sowell’s home voluntarily, she later told police. But when she tried to leave he bound her hands and feet with a tie and a belt and gagged her with a rag. The victim told police: “He choked me real hard because my body started tingling. I thought I was going to die.” Mr Sowell is said to have lived on unemployment benefits after being laid off from a factory job two years ago. He was often seen asking for money or collecting scrap metal from the area to sell. Neighbours had complained of the foul smell around his rented home. Zack Reed, a local councillor whose mother lives a block away, said that he called the city health department in 2007 after a resident complained of an odour that “smelt like a dead body”. He said: “We don’t want to point fingers but clearly, something could have been done differently.” Mr Sowell, as a registered sex offender, was required to report regularly to the sheriff’s department, but officers did not have the power to enter his house. They visited it on September 22, hours before a woman reported being raped and choked with an electrical extension cord. The woman, who knew Mr Sowell, said that he offered to share four bottles of cheap malt liquor with her at his home. She went upstairs to a room that contained only a chair, a blanket and the extension cord, she said. After drinking for some time Mr Sowell became angry, punched her in the face and began choking her with the cord. As she passed out, he raped her, she told police. Officers went to his home last Thursday night with an arrest warrant for the alleged rape. Mr Sowell was not there but the officers found two bodies on the living room floor. Two more bodies were found in a crawl space inside the house, another in a shallow grave in the basement and a sixth in a freshly dug grave in the back garden. All the women were black and at least five had been strangled. Some of the bodies were so decomposed that an expert from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History was called in to help to establish the time of death. http://www.timesonline.co.uk

Woman: I got away from serial killing suspect CLEVELAND - A Cleveland woman said Thursday that she was choked and threatened this year by the man now charged with murder after the remains of several people were found on his property — and that she is racked with guilt for not speaking up earlier. Tanja Doss told The Associated Press that if she had quickly gone to authorities, her best friend, Nancy Cobbs, might not be missing. She believes Cobbs might be among the 11 victims whose remains were found at Sowell's home. Police have recovered 10 bodies and a skull from the home and yard of 50-year-old Anthony Sowell, a registered sex offender who moved back to his family's house in 2005 after serving 15 years in prison for attempted rape. He is being held without bond on five counts of aggravated murder. Of the bodies found at Sowell's home, three victims have been identified so far — 52-year-old Tonia Carmichael of Warrensville Heights; 31-year-old Tishana Culver of Cleveland; and 31-year-old Telacia Fortson of Cleveland. Police said Culver's family was notified Thursday. Police Lt. Thomas Stacho said the Cleveland woman had not been reported as a missing person. Sowell served 15 years in prison for attempted rape and is being held without bond on five counts of aggravated murder. Authorities are asking for DNA samples. Pastors urged the families of missing people Thursday to provide DNA samples that could help the coroner's office identify the remains, claiming that nearly two dozen others are still missing in the community. The coroner's office, meanwhile, tried to calm concerns by promising DNA samples would not be shared with law enforcement. Doss, 43, said she met Sowell in 2005, right after he was released from prison. He didn't tell her why he had done time. In April this year, she said, he invited her over for a beer. They went to the third floor of his house and were talking. "And then he just clicked," Doss said. "I'm sitting on the corner of the bed and he just leaped up and came over and started choking me." Shocked, she said she lay back and tried not to struggle. "He said, 'If you want to live, knock three times on the floor.' And I knocked on the floor," she said. Still holding her throat, she said, he told her using profanities that she could be "dead in the street" and no one would care. ‘Why you gotta act like that?’ He made her strip off her clothes and lay on the bed but did not try to rape her, Doss said. She said she curled up in a ball and tried to talk him down, saying things like, "Why you gotta act like that?" Then she prayed. Sowell wouldn't let her leave, Doss said, so she fell asleep and awoke to him acting as if nothing had happened. "He said, 'Hi, how you doing? You want something from the store?'" Doss said. She picked up her cell phone and pretended to call her daughter. "I said, 'Oh, wow, my granddaughter is sick. She's got the flu,'" she said. "He asked if I wanted to go to the store with him, but I told him I had to go home. He went to the store, and I went in the other direction." Doss didn't immediately report the confrontation to police because she had done jail time on a drug charge and assumed they wouldn't take her seriously. Now, I feel bad about it, because my best friend might be one of the bodies," she said. Doss last saw Nancy Cobbs on April 20, when they celebrated Cobbs' 44th birthday with a cake. The women grew up together, and Cobbs lived in the same neighborhood as Sowell. When Cobbs vanished, Doss and Cobbs' daughters searched abandoned buildings. They posted fliers in stores and taverns, hoping someone had seen her, and filed a missing-person report April 24. ‘It goes through my mind all the time’ At the time, Doss said, she didn't think about what had happened with Sowell. She assumed he had just lost his mind for a few minutes. And Cobbs, she said, didn't know Sowell. Now, it's all she can think about. "It goes through my mind all the time," she said. "Every time I think about it, I start shaking. I can't get it out of my mind." Doss said she finally reported the attack to police on Monday, three days after news surfaced of the discovery of bodies. ‘It was like the devil’ Another woman, who said Sowell attacked her on the street and dragged her into the home in December, told a Cleveland television station she would never forget the look in his eyes. "It was like the devil, eyes glowing," Gladys Wade said in an interview on WKYC-TV. "He was demonic or something. You could see the demons in him." Wade said she fought back as Sowell "kept twisting my neck, twisting it, twisting it. And I was gouging his face at the same time. I was trying to take his eyeballs out." Police did not return calls seeking to confirm Doss' and Wades' reports, and a working telephone number could not immediately be found for Wade. ‘Where are the other victims?’ About two dozen clergy members rallied Thursday at Providence Baptist Church, declaring the justice system broken and saying 22 other missing people, men and women, have yet to be found. "There have been 11 bodies found on Imperial Avenue, but where are the other victims?" said the Rev. Eugene Ward. City Councilman Zach Reed also said he wants people to stop stereotyping the victims. "I want us to stop this conversation that they were crackheads, they were this and that," he said. "They were people." After the rally, Police Chief Michael McGrath said police searched their missing-persons database a few days ago and found 14 missing black women between ages 25 and 60 in that neighborhood. nvestigators are cross-referencing those missing women with the remains at coroner's office, he said. Some of the cases date back several years. The police chief said he had no idea whether investigators would find more bodies. Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brian Murphy has said Sowell could face the death penalty if convicted of the aggravated murder counts. Sowell also faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping after a Sept. 22 attack on a woman at his home. A message left with the county public defender's office was not returned Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Nightmare hid in city block short on dreams No one is sure how long sex offender had been living in house with corpses CLEVELAND - The run-down Cleveland neighborhood where 50-year-old Anthony Sowell quietly carved out an existence is the type of place where women can disappear almost in plain sight. Crack users sneak into vacant houses to do drugs, have sex, steal copper pipes and wiring to make a few bucks. No one asks a lot of questions, even about the smell of rotting meat that came when the wind blew a certain way. Some likened it to the smell of death, and it seemed to follow Sowell around. No one is sure how long Sowell, a registered sex offender who would offer free barbecue to the neighbors, had been living in his three-story house with corpses lying around, many of them black women who had been strangled. Police have now recovered 11 bodies from the home on Imperial Avenue, in the living room, crawl spaces and backyard graves. There was even a skull in the basement. But if Sowell's street is seedy, it's far from abandoned. Occupied homes are sandwiched between vacant, boarded-up houses and scattered small businesses with a steady stream of customers. "We're not talking about some desolate area, some abandoned barn," said Councilman Zach Reed, whose mother lives a block away. "How did somebody get away with this in a residential neighborhood?" ‘They told us to go home’ Even residents seemed unfazed by the disappearances: They say many of the women were known prostitutes or drug users. But relatives of presumed victims charge that police ignored their missing person reports. "They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up," said Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs, whose 52-year-old mother Tonia, a drug addict, vanished Nov. 10, 2008. Police identified her Wednesday as one of the victims, saying her body was found buried in the backyard with marks indicating strangulation. "It's hard to imagine," Carmichael-Jacobs said as she stood shivering on a street corner across from Sowell's home Wednesday, "but that's what they told us to our face: 'She'll turn up.'" Some wonder whether police just didn't look for the women because they were from the city. Or because they were black. "There's this fear that the neighborhood has been forgotten," said the Rev. Rodney Maiden of Providence Baptist Church. 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. Reed, the councilman, is demanding an investigation into how crime reports in the neighborhood have been handled. ‘A lot of unanswered questions’ Mayor Frank Jackson refused to second-guess officers or their handling of missing-person reports, but said he expected the police chief would evaluate the situation and make adjustments if necessary. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done and a lot of unanswered questions that need to be addressed," Jackson said. "Until the family of the victims get the closure they seek and ultimately the justice they deserve, this case will continue to be our focus." Police Chief Michael McGrath said the city takes about 10 missing-person reports a day but typically clears at least 90 percent within 48 hours. Chuck Cole, a landlord with rental homes in the area, said most of the women who disappeared went by nicknames, so he doesn't know who they really were. He said he sometimes saw them buying beer at the corner convenience store, or lounging on Sowell's front porch. "He reeled them in like that with the money and, you know, promises," Cole said of Sowell. After a while, though, the women stopped coming around. Residents said that in retrospect the smell alone should have raised questions. It wafted down the street, sometimes forcing the sausage-shop employees who worked near to his home to abandon the store on hot summer days. It smelled like a dead dog, they say. Like sewage. Like rotting meat. "It was smelling so bad, horrible, putrid," said Kenneth Broader, a postal carrier who delivers mail to Imperial Avenue. The stench lingered. Sewage lines were replaced. Equipment was scrubbed. City utility officials even came to investigate, on more than one occasion. But the stench lingered. Sowell was ordered held without bond after appearing in court under tight security Wednesday, wearing a blue paper jumpsuit that typically identifies inmates at risk of suicide. Although authorities initially described Sowell as a convicted rapist, they said Wednesday the conviction was only for attempted rape. Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brian Murphy called him "an incredibly dangerous threat to the public" and said he 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. After Sowell's court appearance, Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said investigators have finished digging through the backyard and would begin tearing apart walls inside the house in search of more evidence or bodies. The house is separated by no more than 15 feet on either side from narrow, dilapidated homes, all near small but busy local shops. Bess Fawcett, a owner of Bess Chicken & Pizza across the street from Sowell's house, said no one in the neighborhood could imagine the crimes Sowell might have been committing behind his walls. He was respectful and polite, always sitting on his front steps and visiting, once holding a driveway cookout and offering free food to the neighbors. He walked the streets with different women all the time, Fawcett said, but none appeared to be with him against their will. That changed about three weeks ago, when Fawcett spotted Sowell, naked and on top of a woman in the bushes next to his house. "He was laying over her and I said, 'Tony, what are you doing?' He said, 'It's cool, Mr. Bess. It's cool.'" Bess says he reported it. By the time an ambulance arrived, Sowell had gotten the woman back in his house, and he ultimately left with her in the ambulance. Police, Bess said, didn't show up until hours later. When they returned the next morning, Sowell was gone. http://www.APNews.com

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