Family of Anthony Sowell Victim Tonia Carmichael: Police Said "Go Home"

By: Edecio Martinez
Topics: Daily Blotter

(National Center for Missing Adults)

Photo: Tonia Carmichael.

CLEVELAND (CBS/AP) As police say they have identified Cleveland mom Tonia Carmichael as the first of at least 11 bodies found in the home of Anthony Sowell, the woman's family is outraged that police didn't take their cries for help seriously a year ago.

PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror

"They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up," said Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs, whose 53-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.

The man who lives in the home, 50-year-old registered sex offender Anthony Sowell, was ordered held without bond Wednesday on five counts of aggravated murder.

"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."'

No one is sure how long Sowell had been living in his three-story house with corpses lying around, many of them black women who had been strangled. Police have recovered bodies in the living room, crawl spaces and backyard graves from the home on Imperial Avenue. There was even a skull in a bucket in the basement.

(Ohio Attorney General's Office)

Photo: Anthony Sowell.

PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror

"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. Councilman Zach Reed is demanding an investigation into how crime reports in the neighborhood have been handled.

Mayor Frank Jackson refused to second-guess officers but said he expected the police chief would evaluate the situation and make adjustments if necessary.

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.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brian Murphy called Sowell "an incredibly dangerous threat to the public" and said he could face the death penalty if convicted of five aggravated murder counts. Sowell also faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping after a Sept. 22 attack on a woman at his home. She survived.

PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror

MORE ON CRIMESIDER
November 4, 2009 - Harry Smith on Anthony Sowell and His Cleveland House of Horrors
November 4, 2009 - Skull in Bucket Found in Anthony Sowell's Home, Say Cleveland Cops
November 3, 2009 - Anthony Sowell Home "Smelled Like a Dead Body" for Years; How Did Cops Miss Victims?
November 2, 2009 - Anthony Sowell House of Horrors: Who's Buried There?
November 2, 2009 - Anthony Sowell Cruised Sex Fetish Site While Dead Bodies Rotted in His Cleveland Home
November 2, 2009 - Six Died Violently at Anthony Sowell's Cleveland Home, Say Police

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by stryker54 November 6, 2009 1:42 AM EST: Wait a minute everyone. While this lady had drug problems or whatever doesn't make any difference. Also you can't really blame the police, they might have had missing reports from before since she was a known drug additic to them. They did make a bad judgement. But the outrage should go to Sowell for him to carry alone. He was the perpetrator, it was his actions that caused the end result. It's unfortanate these woman choose their path because in that path things like this happen because of the reasons here, no one really misses them or the police think like they do. I'm sure some changes will be made, but everything will be the same as soon as it dies down. The problem is why wasn't this guy watched better. If your a sex offender or out of prison for other violent behavior they should lose all rights. Actually I would rather see violent criminals thrown on an island and left to fend for themselves. We have become a society that coddles the criminal and forgets the victims. Lock these perpetrators up for life if you don't want to believe in capital punishment. Personally I think they should hand this guy my his family jewels in town square till they fall off, then throw the guy in jail for life. Let him live with bubba the rump humper till he dies.; Reply to this comment


by CBerard November 5, 2009 10:07 PM EST: Prostitutes, drug addicts, drug dealers, acoholics and homeless ppl becomes a missing persons case everyday. If the police took each of these types of cases serious nothing would get done. Because it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. From my understanding its common for them to become missing for days, months are even years. So stop faulting the police!!!!!; Reply to this comment

by Cas2dy November 5, 2009 1:42 PM EST

People did so care. The women were reported missing. It's the police who did not care. Just because they were addicts/prostitutes does not mean that they were not important to someone and that they didn't effect someone in some way that made that person a better person. Also, you never know what may have made an addict become an addict in the first place. Down here, where people are viewed as statistics rather than people, they now how they are viewed and so it surely doesn't help when looking for help. Help is always minimal, designed to keep funding available for those who work in these crisis intervention centers. This keeps them and their clientele in the same area, exposed to the same non-caring crap as always. It also keeps them out of elite situations and positions which inspire growth and shedding much of the horror of where we are. That lady in the picture was a pretty lady. Somewhere in her lifetime, something happened to make her turn to drugs. It's too bad she could not find the resources which would have allowed herself to become free of addiction. Living in addiction is living in a dark and scary nightmare.

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by UrWelcome November 17, 2009 7:54 AM EST: Cas2dy , If she couldn?t find the resources that would have allowed her to become free of addiction, then she wasn?t looking.

The police care or they wouldn?t show up for work everyday. People trash cops until they need them.

Your ?helpless in the ghetto? view is old. Opportunities to succeed no matter what your background are out there; it merely takes initiative and the desire to work hard. It?s easy to cry foul, but the real challenge is taken by those who truly want to succeed.

No one should die because they make bad choices, but scum like Sowell look for vulnerable or weak people. Unfortunately, the victim?s lifestyles put them in danger.

Regardless, my heart goes out to the families who have lost someone they loved very dearly.