Anthony Sowell Offered Free Barbecue To Neighbors, As Corpses Rotted in His Home

Photo: Anthony Sowell.

CLEVELAND (CBS/AP) Anthony Sowell, the registered sex-offender facing five counts of aggravated murder, would offer free barbecue to his neighbors, even as corpses were lying around his three-story Cleveland home, according to the Associated Press.

PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror

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

No one is sure how long Sowell had been living in the home with rotting bodies, but police have unearthed the remains of eleven victims in the living room, crawl spaces and backyard graves. There was even a skull in the basement.

Sowell's street, Imperial Avenue, is lined with occupied homes sandwiched between vacant, boarded-up houses and scattered small businesses with a steady stream of customers.

It smelled like a dead dog, neighbors say. Like sewage. Like rotting meat.

"It was smelling so bad, horrible, putrid," said Kenneth Broader, a postal carrier who delivers mail to the street where horrors have been unearthed body upon body since last weekend.

Before that, sewage lines were replaced. Equipment was scrubbed. On more than one occasion, city utility officials even came to investigate the smell.

But the stench lingered.

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PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror

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November 2, 2009 - Anthony Sowell House of Horrors: Who's Buried There?
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