All Blog Posts from Crimesider

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - A duck walking her ducklings from pond to pond; it's one of nature's reminders of a mother's love for her young.

But Massachusetts resident Joshua Linhares probably doesn't watch much nature channel. Police say he deliberately drove at the animals, killing the mother duck and narrowly missing her 12 ducklings in a Dartmouth mall parking lot last June.

It took jurors in New Bedford District court all of 15 minutes to decide how they felt about it. They convicted Linhares of animal cruelty.

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NEW YORK - Point taken from Serena Williams -- and a record $82,500 fine, too – for the tennis superstar's foul-mouthed tirade against a line judge during this summer's U.S. Open semifinals.

Williams got smashed with the largest fine ever levied for bad behavior during a tennis Grand Slam, according to the Associated Press, plus probation that means she could be suspended from the U.S. Open if she has another "major offense" at any Grand Slam event in the next two years.

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CLEVELAND - 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.

"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.

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NEW YORK - There was a stench in the neighborhood in Cleveland that folks complained about for months. People said it's that little sausage factory.

But, it wasn’t of course.

The smell was of decomposing human flesh in and outside the house of Anthony Sowell. Authorities have counted ten bodies on the property so far and they’re looking for more.

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CLEVELAND - Cleveland police continue to find horrors in the home of Anthony Sowell. In addition to four more bodies found buried in his backyard, investigators found a skull wrapped in paper in a bucket in the basement.

Police are now expanding their search of Sowell's neighborhood and his neatly kept home where more bodies may yet be found.

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CLEVELAND - For the past few years, neighbors assumed the foul smell enveloping their street corner was coming from a brick building where workers churned out sausage and head cheese.

No such luck.

Now they know the odor was coming from the three-story house where convicted sex offender Anthony Sowell lived -- the house where the decomposing bodies of at least six women had been discovered, and where more digging was taking place, even as community leaders called for an investigation into the signs that may have been missed.

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CLEVELAND Who's buried at the home of Anthony Sowell?

It's the question Cleveland detectives -- and Sowell's neighbors -- are anxious to answer, after the remains of six female victims, at least five of them strangled, were discovered at Sowell's house by police late last week.

Police Chief Michael McGrath told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper the investigation will focus on missing people in Sowell's neighborhood, then expand to other areas of the city.

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NEW YORK - Crimesider has discovered that Anthony Sowell, the sex offender suspected of murdering six women, cruised a sex fetish Web site where he described himself as a "master" looking for a submissive person "to train."

Police say Sowell had six victims buried in his Cleveland home.

"If your [sic] submissive and like to please, then this master wants to talk to you," Sowell's profile on Alt.com reads. "So get you’re (expletive) on over here NOW!"

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CLEVELAND - As a registered sex offender, Anthony Sowell seemed to do everything right. He checked in regularly with U.S. law-enforcement authorities, who also monitored him by making home visits.

But since Sowell wasn't on parole or probation, they didn't have the right to enter — until Thursday when they had search and arrest warrants after a woman said he had raped her there. That's when they made a gruesome discovery - badly decomposed bodies in the house.

By Sunday, authorities had determined there were six bodies, all of them women, and each was the victim of a violent homocide.

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