CLEVELAND, Nov. 3, 2009
Ohio Sex Offender Charged with 5 Murders
Six Bodies Were Found at Man's Home Last Week, But Total May be Higher; Two Bodies Seen Being Removed
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This undated photo released by the Cleveland Police Department shows Anthony E. Sowell. Police in Cleveland have arrested Sowell, a convicted sex offender after they found as many as six bodies at his house. (AP Photo/Cleveland Police)
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A Cuyahoga County coroner van leaves the home of Anthony Sowell (inset) on the east side of Cleveland, Oct. 30, 2009 carrying a victim discovered in the house. Police who went to a home looking for a rape suspect found decomposing bodies upstairs and what appeared to be a freshly dug grave in the basement. Police later arrested Sowell, a convicted rapist, and say as many as six bodies may be at his house. (AP/John Kuntz, Plain Dealer; CPD)
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Anthony Sowell, 50, was to be arraigned Wednesday on the charges, Cleveland Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said Tuesday.
Police recovered the bodies of six women from the home last week, and a television station reported Tuesday that two more bodies were removed from Sowell's home.
The bodies were removed after investigators excavated the yard of the home where Sowell lives, WKYC-TV of Cleveland reported on its Web site.
Two coroner's vans arrived shortly before the remains were removed, the report said, and the bodies were being taken to the Cuyahoga County coroner's office.
Crimesider: Home "Smelled Like a Dead Body" for Years
Crimesider: Identifying the Victims at Sowell's Home
PICTURES: Anthony Sowell's Home of Horror
Stacho could not confirm that additional bodies had been recovered. He said more details would be provided at an evening news conference with Police Chief Michael McGrath.
A coroner's spokesman also could not confirm the report.
Investigators have brought lights and heavy equipment to the home and are putting a tent around the yard, WKYC reported.
Police discovered the six bodies Thursday and Friday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell's home. The coroner is attempting to identify the bodies found last week through DNA and dental records. All six women were black, and five were strangled.
Sowell is a registered sex offender and 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 Sept. 22, just hours before the woman reported being raped.
For the past few years, Sowell's neighbors assumed the foul smell enveloping their street corner had been coming from a brick building where workers churned out sausage and head cheese.
It got so bad that the owners of Ray's Sausage replaced their sewer line and grease traps.
City Councilman Zack Reed, whose mother lives a block from the area, said he called the city health department on more than one occasion.
"What happened from there, we don't know," he said. "It was no secret that there was a foul odor. We don't want to point fingers, but clearly something could have been done differently."
Reed said he and other community leaders want an investigation into whether police and health inspectors missed any signs that could have tipped them off to the bodies inside the house.
Reed said he can't imagine how police officers and sheriff's deputies could have missed the smell. His office records show that he called the health department in 2007 after a resident told him about an odor that "smelled like a dead body," he said.
One of the bodies was found in a shallow grave in the backyard. The rest were inside the house - one in the basement, two in the third-floor living room and two in an upstairs crawl space, said police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho.
The bodies could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner.
On Tuesday, detectives brought in cadaver dogs and digging equipment to scour the home and backyard, looking for evidence to connect Sowell to the bodies, Stacho said.
Authorities also were searching vacant properties within a few miles of the home, which sat in a crowded inner-city neighborhood of mostly older houses. Police did not say Tuesday why they were searching the vacant homes or indicate whether they believe more bodies could be found.
Neighbors are bracing for what could be inside a boarded-up home across the street and a shuttered school a block away.
"We hope they don't find any more," said Renee Cash, whose family has operated the sausage company for 57 years.
About four years ago, she and other workers started noticing a smell that was so bad on some days that it forced them to leave their office.
"In the summertime, it was gross," Cash said. "You could always smell it. It smelled like something rotten."
They poured bleach down the sewer in the basement, and eventually the company had it replaced. Health inspectors thought the meat processing was to blame, she said.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Associated Press has withdrawn reports referring to Sowell as a "convicted rapist." The AP says that Sowell was only convicted of attempted rape, according to police.
© MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Add a Comment See all 14 Comments
- Anthony Sowell and the rest of the lowlife crime crazed bastards like him Should be shot in the head. Obviously the U.S. prison system has failed us. Maybe its time to take pointers from China! Look at their crime rate.
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- This issue showes that the Sex Offender Registry (SOR) does not work. The state has added so many names to the SOR that the police and the public do not know who is realy a danger. If the State would mandate that all known sex offenders pay for testing that showes who is more of a risk to re-offend. And then use that information to put on line only those at the greatest risk to re-offend. The police and the public could be more mindfull of who to keep an extra watch on.
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- I'm no expert on criminal behavior, but I'd guess that rehabilitation is not high on the list of achievable objectives.
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- There are women who will fall in love with man after he is sentenced to life in prison. In fact, some woman will marry the guy. What does this tell us about some people? We have seen it happen many times.
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- The strangest bunch of comments I've seen in a long time.
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- Another reason why it is so hard to argue against capital punishment, sometimes.
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- by sandy19731 November 3, 2009 7:40 PM EST
I don't blame career women for having fewer babies.
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I don't blame career women either. I blame socio-economic, egalitarian undercurrents in our culture that force career women to put off having children. Read it again Sandy. - Reply to this comment
- So, folks if there is a "that smells like a decaying body" smell in your neighborhood - be suspicious.
It's almost funny that they blamed the sausage factory. Almost. - Reply to this comment
- Margaret Sanger may have been right......................................
As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation....
On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5 - Reply to this comment
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- Margaret Sanger was right with her obervations.However as a society we will never allow the legal killing of the feeble minded and and mentally defective despite the fact that they are a burdern on our society and cost billions to care for these people.The only hope is sometime in the future when we are able through gene therapy to either repair these defects before birth but if this isnt possible then this embryo must by law be destroyed to spare that person the life long agony of a useless and unproductive life.
I fully expect to get slammed by my comments but I stand by my words.
- I don't blame career women for having fewer babies. We don't need more babies the earth can only support so many. Blame the wingnuts who don't advocate birth control(or even good sex education), or free legal abortion for the stupid women. Blaming the stupid men and women is useless. There I said it!
- Margaret Sanger was right with her obervations.However as a society we will never allow the legal killing of the feeble minded and and mentally defective despite the fact that they are a burdern on our society and cost billions to care for these people.The only hope is sometime in the future when we are able through gene therapy to either repair these defects before birth but if this isnt possible then this embryo must by law be destroyed to spare that person the life long agony of a useless and unproductive life.
- Guy needs to fry
- Reply to this comment
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