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    6 bodies found at home; Ohioan arrested

    Coroner: 6 bodies found at home; Ohioan arrested
    By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 31, 9:02 pm ET


    CLEVELAND – A convicted rapist who fled before police arrived to arrest him on new rape charges was arrested Saturday in his inner-city neighborhood after police found six decomposing bodies at his home.

    Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said Anthony Sowell was walking down the street on the east side of Cleveland when authorities spotted him and took him into custody.

    Sowell initially denied he was the man authorities were looking for but admitted his identity as officers began fingerprinting him, Stacho said. Charges against him are pending.

    Officers initially identified three bodies at Sowell's home, Stacho said. Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner's office, said additional remains were found and confirmed Saturday as three more bodies, for a total of six.

    As of Saturday, autopsies had been performed on all six bodies but no cause of death or names were announced. Two autopsies were done Friday.

    The first two bodies were found Thursday night when police went to Sowell's home to arrest him on charges of felonious assault and rape. Police say he had spent 15 years in prison for a 1989 rape.

    Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller identified two bodies as black females and said one had died of a violent death ruled a homicide. No race or gender was determined for the others.

    Police established a command post in the neighborhood to take missing-person reports and additional information on outstanding missing persons in the neighborhood.

    Teresa Hicks, 48, was among the neighbors who said they were relieved about the arrest but left with a heightened fear of crime. She said she has known Sowell since high school.

    "He was crazy," she said from her porch Saturday. "Sometimes he would just go off if he didn't have his way."

    Darren Dunlap, 38, frequently visits the neighborhood to see his brother or friends. He said Sowell was known for borrowing money and looking for scrap metal to sell.

    Hicks said she didn't think Sowell had a job but understood from conversations with him that he lived on a monthly check. She said she didn't know its source.

    Police were checking crime reports to find matches for similarities to the 1989 rape or the most recent allegation against Sowell.

    Minutes before the arrest was made, police Chief Michael McGrath tried to reassure parents that it was safe for their children to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood if they followed standard precautions like avoiding strangers and staying in a group.

    Hicks said her daughter would not be trick-or-treating.

    Detectives with a search warrant found two bodies Thursday on the third floor of a duplex and began checking a fresh grave dug in the basement. The bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting they'd been in the home a long time.

    Police were checking missing-person reports back to June 2005, when Sowell was released from prison.

    As a convicted sex offender, Sowell was required to report regularly to the sheriff's office, which said he had complied.



    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_rapist_s_home_bodies
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    Ohio coroner: 6 bodies found were homicide victims
    By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press Writer
    1 hr 31 mins ago


    CLEVELAND – Six badly decomposed bodies found at the home of a convicted rapist facing a new rape allegation were females and all were homicide victims, the coroner's office said Sunday.

    Powell Caesar, a spokesman for Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller, said at least five of the victims apparently had been strangled. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how the sixth victim died, he said.

    None of the victims has been identified, Caesar said. Two victims were black, but race hadn't yet been determined in the other four bodies, he said.

    Police found the first two bodies Thursday night when they went to the home of 50-year-old Anthony Sowell to arrest him on charges of rape and felonious assault, but he wasn't there. He was arrested Saturday when officers spotted him walking down the street of his east-side neighborhood.

    On Friday, police found a third body and remains that were later confirmed to be three additional bodies. It wasn't determined how long the bodies were at the house, but "they could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years," Caesar said.

    People who knew Sowell didn't think he had a job and said he often walked around his neighborhood looking for scrap metal to sell and asking for money. He spent 15 years in prison for choking and raping a 21-year-old woman who was lured to his bedroom in 1989, police said.

    Online court records do not show an attorney for Sowell, and the jail staff said no information was available.

    Sowell's three-story house with neat white siding sits in a crowded inner-city neighborhood of mostly older homes, some boarded up, and small corner stores.

    Ida Garrett, 72, walked to church services Sunday just one block from Sowell's home. She said the neighborhood was relieved by the arrest but worried about those missing, including one of her friends who disappeared six months ago, just after Garrett wished her a happy 43rd birthday.

    The friend, Nancy Cobbs, lived one street away from the Sowell home. She was reported missing in April, and her family told police they fear she is among the victims.

    "She seemed to be a very nice, quiet girl. I've known her since she was a teenager," Garrett said, adding: "I think one of them is her."

    Clovice Ramsey, minister at All Nations Deliverance Ministries in nearby Maple Heights, held a "PEACE" sign on a corner within sight of the Sowell home and said the discovery of the bodies had damaged people's trust in law enforcement.

    "They don't see the system working for them," Ramsey said. Sowell "is not being rehabilitated. They are not keeping a watch on him. I just feel that when the systems fails, the people give up. They give up on the system, and they give up on the God they can't see."

    As a convicted sex offender, Sowell was required to report regularly to the sheriff's office, which said he had complied.

    The most recent visit to his home by deputies to confirm where he lived came Sept. 22, but deputies didn't have a warrant and didn't walk inside. Hours later, a woman told police she had been raped at the house by Sowell, whom she knew. That allegation led to Thursday's search and the discovery of the bodies.

    The home was still cordoned off with police tape Sunday and officers monitored it from two patrol cars.

    The windows of the third floor, where the first two bodies were found, were wide open Sunday as a slight breeze blew through the neighborhood. Some neighbors said a bad smell came from the house several months ago, but they thought then that it might be natural gas.

    Sowell returned to the family home in 2005 after his release from prison. The home was owned by two of Sowell's relatives, including a woman — described by neighbors as either Sowell's stepmother or aunt — who kept up the house.

    Neighbors said the woman moved into a nursing home after Sowell was released from prison. Teresa Hicks, a neighbor, said people feared that she might be dead. Police were looking into her status.

    Police were checking unsolved crime reports for similarities to the 1989 rape or the recent allegation against Sowell.

    On Sunday, police urged the public for help in identifying missing people who may have been victims.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...9jb3JvbmVyNg--
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    Officers had visited Ohio home where bodies found
    By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press Writer
    48 mins ago


    CLEVELAND – As a registered sex offender, Anthony Sowell checked in regularly with 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 discovered 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 homicide.

    Officers had last visited Sowell at home as part of his sex-offender monitoring on Sept. 22, just hours before the woman reported being raped there.

    The three-story house with neat white siding is in a crowded inner-city neighborhood of mostly older houses, some boarded up, and small corner stores. The windows on the third floor, where the first two bodies were found, were wide open Sunday as a slight breeze blew. Some neighbors said a bad smell came from the house several months ago, but they thought then that it might be natural gas.

    At least five of the women apparently had been strangled, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how the sixth died, he said.

    The bodies "could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years," Caesar said.

    None of the victims has been identified. Two were black, but the race of the others hadn't been determined, Caesar said.

    Sowell, 50, previously spent 15 years in prison for choking and raping a 21-year-old woman who was lured to his bedroom in 1989, police said. He was arrested Saturday when officers spotted him walking down the street in his neighborhood.

    The first bodies were found Thursday night when police went to arrest Sowell on new charges of rape and felonious assault, but he wasn't home. The woman in that alleged attack said she knew Sowell, and he raped her at the house.

    Court records and jail officials had no information about whether Sowell had an attorney. No charges have been filed regarding the bodies.

    The gruesome discovery left some in the community concerned about women who hadn't been seen in a long time. Ida Garrett, 72, who walked to church Sunday just one block from Sowell's house, said she was worried that a friend who went missing six months ago might be among the dead.

    The friend, 43-year-old Nancy Cobbs, lived one street away from Sowell. She was reported missing in April, and her family told police they fear she is among the victims. "She seemed to be a very nice, quiet girl," Garrett said. "I've known her since she was a teenager."

    Clovice Ramsey, minister at All Nations Deliverance Ministries in nearby Maple Heights, held a "PEACE" sign on a corner within sight of the Sowell house and said the discovery of the bodies had damaged people's trust in law enforcement. "They don't see the system working for them," Ramsey said. "They are not keeping a watch on him."

    Sowell often walked around his neighborhood asking for money and looking for scrap metal to sell, neighbors said. He returned to the family home in 2005 after his release from prison. The house was owned by two of Sowell's relatives, including a woman — described by neighbors as either Sowell's stepmother or aunt — who maintained it.

    Neighbors said the woman moved into a nursing home after Sowell was released from prison. Teresa Hicks, a neighbor, said people feared that she might be dead. Police were looking into her status.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091102/..._s_home_bodies
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    Inquiry of 6 bodies in Ohio focuses on 8-9 women
    By THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press Writer
    10 mins ago

    CLEVELAND – Investigators trying to identify the bodies of six women found in the home of a convicted rapist are focusing the inquiry on eight or nine missing women, the coroner said Monday.

    It could take days or weeks to identify the bodies using dental records or DNA mouth-swab samples from relatives. Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller said his office has begun the "arduous" process of collecting materials from dentists and relatives.

    The six women were black and five of them had been strangled, authorities said. The cause of death of the sixth hadn't been determined.

    The investigation will pay close attention to missing women who were living alone, were homeless or had drug or alcohol problems, Miller said.

    The bodies were discovered last week after a woman reported being raped at the east-side home of 50-year-old Anthony Sowell.

    Armed with search and arrest warrants, police went to the home Thursday to arrest Sowell on a rape and felonious assault warrant. He wasn't there, but police found two bodies. Police found the other remains on Friday and arrested Sowell on Saturday.

    Sowell hasn't been charged in the rape investigation or in connection with the bodies. Court records and jail officials had no information about whether he had an attorney. Police typically have 72 hours — in this case it would be until Tuesday — to charge or release a suspect.

    Detectives will seek a warrant to take a DNA sample from Sowell in connection with the homicide investigation, police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said Monday. Investigators also will track his residence history back four years to the time of his release from serving a sentence for rape.

    Police will look at unsolved homicides with similarities to see if there are connections to the case, Stacho said.

    Police don't believe the Sowell property has more bodies, but Stacho said investigators would send a cadaver dog to the house.

    Sowell served 15 years in prison for choking and raping a 21-year-old woman in 1989.

    He was a registered sex offender and, after his release from prison, was required to check in regularly at the sheriff's office, which said he complied. Officers also visited his home, most recently on Sept. 22, just hours before the woman reported being raped there.

    The three-story house sits in a crowded inner-city neighborhood of mostly older homes, some of them boarded up. Some neighbors said a bad smell came from the house several months ago, but they thought it might just be natural gas.

    Sowell often asked for money and scoured the neighborhood for scrap metal to sell, neighbors said.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091102/..._s_home_bodies
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    Neighbors griped about odor at Ohio home for years

    CLEVELAND – For the past few years, 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. Now they know the odor was coming from a three-story house next door where the decomposing bodies of six women were found.

    A city councilman on Tuesday 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 where convicted rapist Anthony Sowell lived.

    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."

    Police discovered the bodies Thursday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell's home. The 50-year-old Sowell is being held in jail on an arrest warrant, but he hasn't been charged in the rape investigation or in connection with the bodies. Cleveland police Chief Michael McGrath planned to give an update on the investigation Tuesday evening.

    He 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.

    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.

    All the victims were women and five were strangled.

    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 homes 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 anymore," 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 had it replaced. Health inspectors thought the meat processing was to blame, she said.


    2 more bodies removed from Ohio rapist's home
    By John Seewer And Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press Writers
    3 mins ago


    CLEVELAND – A Cleveland television station reports that two more bodies have been removed from a convicted rapist's home where police last week recovered the bodies of six women.

    WKYC-TV says the bodies were removed Tuesday after investigators excavated the yard of the home where 50-year-old Anthony Sowell lives. Two coroner's vans arrived shortly before the remains were removed.

    Cleveland police Lt. Tom Stacho would not confirm that additional bodies had been recovered. He said more details would be provided at a 6 p.m. news conference.

    A coroner's spokesman also could not confirm the report.

    Sowell is in jail but hasn't been charged.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

    CLEVELAND (AP) — For the past few years, 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. Now they know the odor was coming from a three-story house next door where the decomposing bodies of six women were found.

    A city councilman on Tuesday 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 where convicted rapist Anthony Sowell lived.

    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."

    Police discovered the bodies Thursday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell's home. The 50-year-old Sowell is being held in jail on an arrest warrant, but he hasn't been charged in the rape investigation or in connection with the bodies. Cleveland police Chief Michael McGrath planned to give an update on the investigation Tuesday evening.

    He 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.

    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.

    All the victims were women and five were strangled.

    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 homes 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 anymore," 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 had it replaced. Health inspectors thought the meat processing was to blame, she said.


    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/..._s_home_bodies
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Nightmare hid in Cleveland block short on dreams
    Vicki Smith And Meghan Barr, Associated Press Writers
    Wed Nov 4, 6:56 pm ET


    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.

    Where crack users sneak into vacant houses to do drugs, have sex, then steal copper pipes and wiring to make a few bucks.

    Where 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?"

    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 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.

    "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.

    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.

    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://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/...d_bodies_found

    ... 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..."
    Sadly, this is common. They are looking for a new serial killer here - connected by at least eight deaths over the last five or more years. This is NOT the same Serial case they were working on when they caught Derrik Todd Lee and Sean Vincent Gillis. So this makes four or more Serial Killers in this area ... chilling. Current line of thought is that DTL started on those "disposable people" befroe moving to more "high end targets" which is what lead to the investigations which netted both DTL & SVG.
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    Alleged Ohio serial killer rare among mass killers
    By John Seewer And Andrew Welsh-huggins, Associated Press Writers
    2 hrs 53 mins ago


    CLEVELAND – Authorities say Anthony Sowell lured women into his home in a busy neighborhood, killed them — most by strangulation — and scattered their remains throughout the inside and buried some in the backyard.

    Such brazenness defies logic, but experts identify a narrow subcategory of serial killers, including the 1893 Chicago Fair killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who hunt from home. "These types are so rare that you can't make a summary estimation as to why or what went wrong or anything," said Robert Keppel, a national serial-killer expert who investigated serial killer Ted Bundy in Washington state in the 1970s. "There's just not a whole lot of these folks running around the world," he said.

    Sowell had the perfect lair.

    His home and backyard — a burial site for five victims — were shielded by an empty home to the left and the windowless brick wall of a sausage company on the right.

    Anytime the stench of decaying bodies blew over the street, neighbors blamed the meat processing next door.

    His house stood out only because it was one of the nicest on a block dotted by homes with peeling paint and broken windows, some of them vacant.

    It looked safe.

    Sowell often sat on the front steps, sipping beer out of a bottle and greeting residents passing by on their way to the corner store that was just steps away for alcohol, snacks and cigarettes.

    Neighbors say he'd offer a few the chance to get high.

    Sowell's alleged approach reflects an obvious point, said forensic psychologist N.G. Berrill: the potential role of mental illness in such unusual behavior. "The fact that they would dirty their own nest, as it were, is peculiar to me and suggests a level of mental illness or sickness," said Berrill, director of the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science.

    Tanja Doss told The Associated Press that when she went up to Sowell's third-floor bedroom for a drink last April, he attacked her. "I'm sitting on the corner of the bed and he just leaped up and came over and started choking me," she said. She said she escaped the next morning when he left for the store.

    When people think of serial killers, they imagine predators like Bundy, who stalked women and killed women in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Colorado and finally Florida.

    Or Gary Ridgway, dubbed the Green River killer, who pleaded guilty to the deaths of 48 women, many of them found in or near Washington State's Green River.

    But some of history's most notorious serial killers literally worked close to home.

    Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, built a "World's Fair Hotel" he used to lure women to their death during the 1893 World's Fair, a series of crimes recounted in the 2004 best-seller, "Devil in the White City."

    While Holmes confessed at one point to killing 27 people, the true number of victims is unknown; some authorities placed it as high as 200.

    In Houston, Dean Corll, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks killed 27 boys and young men in a torture-murder ring in Houston from 1969 to 1971. Police found a plywood "torture board" in Corll's home used to torment many of his victims before they were killed.

    In Illinois, John Wayne Gacy, a building contractor and amateur clown, was convicted of luring 33 young men and boys to his Chicago area home for sex and strangling them between 1972 and 1978. Most were buried in a crawl space under the home; four others were dumped in rivers. Gacy was executed in 1994.

    In Milwaukee, Dahmer, a former candy factory worker, confessed to killing and dismembering 17 people since 1978, some of whom he mutilated and cannibalized. His victims included 11 males whose remains were found in his apartment.

    Dahmer was serving a series of life sentences when he was killed by another inmate at a Wisconsin prison in 1994.

    The crimes that Sowell is accused of put him in the same category as Gacy and Dahmer, said Jack Levin, a Northeastern University criminologist.

    At the same time, the Cleveland murders resemble the more general portrait of a serial killer who doesn't stray far from his comfort zone. "They never leave town. They never travel to another state. They stay close to home, where they're familiar with the victims and escape routes and dump sites," Levin said.

    Hunting from home may have been easier because of the marginal lives led by Sowell's alleged victims. All four of the Cleveland women identified until now battled addiction in their lives. It wasn't unusual for some of them to disappear for a week or two and then return.

    Naticia Duncan, who lives a few houses away from Sowell, fears that her friend, Kimberly Sharp, may be one of the victims. Sharp would often stay at Duncan's house, do her laundry and then leave when she met a new man. "I'd see her a month later, then she'd do it again," Duncan said. "Then I never saw her again."

    Police remain at Sowell's house for now but investigators say they have no immediate plans to search for more remains.

    Sowell, 50, remained in jail Saturday on a $5 million bond on charges of rape and aggravated murder.

    Across the street Saturday, the number of fliers on a makeshift memorial wall with pictures of missing women continued to grow.

    Police released the identities of three more victims Saturday, bringing the total to seven. Four others are still unknown. The latest are Amelda Hunter, 47, Crystal Dozier, 38 and Michelle Mason, 45, all of Cleveland.

    Earlier in the day, Dale Hunter taped a piece of paper with two photographs of his sister on the missing person's board.

    Hunter said she used to stay with friends in the area and knew that she drank beer with Sowell in his house. He said he was fearing the worst.

    Like most of the victims, she battled drug and alcohol addictions, he said. "She was real comfortable in this neighborhood," said Hunter. "I dropped her off here a few times."

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cleveland_bodies_found
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    Case against Ohio bodies suspect expands overseas
    By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press Writer
    34 mins ago


    CLEVELAND – Authorities are investigating whether a man whose home and yard harbored the remains of at least 11 people is connected to any killings in places he lived while in the military, including Japan, California and the Carolinas.

    The FBI told Cleveland police that the agency will investigate any leads in the case against Anthony Sowell, 50, who served in the Marines from 1978 to 1985, said Scott Wilson, an FBI spokesman in Cleveland.

    FBI behavioral specialists visited the Sowell property during the weekend and will try to develop a profile of the killings that could help determine whether investigations need to be opened or reopened elsewhere, Wilson said.

    Sowell was stationed at various times at Parris Island, S.C.; Cherry Point, N.C.; Okinawa, Japan; and Camp Pendleton, Calif.

    The city of East Cleveland is also reviewing three unsolved slayings in 1988 and 1989, after Sowell returned there from service in the Marines and before he went to prison for attempted rape, said Sgt. Ken Bolton, a detective for the police department in the Cleveland suburb.

    Sowell has been charged in Cleveland with five counts of aggravated murder in connection with the bodies found at the home.

    The FBI will review its national database of unsolved crimes for any clues to possible connections to Sowell, particularly at his military service locations, Wilson said. The first step is to get a detailed timeline of his service, Wilson said.

    Police in Coronado, Calif., near Camp Pendleton, said a woman told them that she saw Sowell's mug shot on TV and was sure he had raped her in 1979.

    Officers talked with the woman but were unable to confirm her story because rape investigation records from 30 years ago have been thrown out, said Jesus Ochoa, Coronado police commander.

    "She seemed credible," he said.

    Near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown and his deputies are sifting through paper records to check for any unsolved killings or disappearances during the time Sowell was at the Marine base from May 20, 1978, to July 12, 1978.

    Brown said he has already run Sowell's name through computerized court files and hasn't found that Sowell got so much as a traffic ticket while in the area. But the paper search is slow going.

    "The computer technology then is not what it is now," Brown said.

    The unsolved East Cleveland slayings of Rosalind Garner on May 27, 1988, Carmella Prater on Feb. 27, 1989, and Mary Thomas on March 28, 1989, will be checked against the autopsies of the bodies found at Sowell's home to check for similarities, Bolton said.

    "It's for the family's closure," he said. "They are unsolved and they happened around the time that he was not in jail."

    No connections had been made by Monday, he said.

    Seven of the victims found at the Sowell home, all black women, have been identified. The Cuyahoga County coroner's office said Monday that it was working to identify the other four.

    Police discovered the first two bodies and a freshly dug grave Oct. 29 at the house on the city's east side. The number grew to 11 by Tuesday.

    Investigators returned Monday to the house, which has been cordoned off as a crime scene under 24-hour guard, but there was no immediate word on their activities inside.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/...es_found/print
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    Remains of 10th person ID'd from Cleveland house
    Thu Nov 12, 6:16 am ET


    CLEVELAND – Authorities in Cleveland have identified a 10th woman whose remains were discovered at the home of an accused serial killer.

    Police Lt. Thomas Stacho (STAH'-koh) says 25-year-old Leshanda Long had not been seen since August 2008 but was not reported as a missing person. She had been reported missing twice when she was in her teens.

    Stacho says the coroner's office identified Long through DNA. He says the task was complicated by the fact that only her skull was found at Anthony Sowell's house.

    Remains of 11 people turned up there. Only one is still unidentified.

    Sowell has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder.

    Police on Wednesday took the search for more bodies to the house next door to Sowell's and carried out bags of evidence.


    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/...odies_found_18
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    Ohio suspect may have eaten evidence
    1 hr 58 mins ago


    STREETSBORO, Ohio – Police say a bank robbery suspect in Ohio may have eaten evidence when he gobbled a piece of paper while handcuffed and lying across the hood of a police cruiser.

    A police video camera captured the 35-year-old John Ford of Cleveland grabbing the paper with his mouth as police emptied his pockets.

    Ford was arrested following a report of a bank robbery in Streetsboro just south of Cleveland on Thursday.

    Police say a man walked into the bank and handed a teller a note that demanded money.

    Police say they found money in a bag in Ford's car, which fit the description of the bank robber's vehicle, along with a bank die pack that had exploded.

    Ford was being held in the Portage County Jail on Saturday where his file did not indicate he had a lawyer.

    ___

    Information from: Akron Beacon Journal, http://www.ohio.com

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/...xpY2VvaGlvc3U-
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    Cleveland bodies case hard on nearby sausage shop
    Sat Nov 28, 4:55 pm ET


    CLEVELAND – The owners of a sausage shop once blamed for a rotten neighborhood stench said they are trying to regroup now that police have determined the odor was coming from the home of an alleged serial killer.

    The remains of 11 women were found this month in the home of Anthony Sowell, who strangled the women and left their bodies in his house or buried in the backyard, authorities said.

    Neighbors had blamed the odor on a broken sewer or the nearby Ray's Sausage Inc.

    All the talk was hard on morale, said Leslie Cash, chief financial officer of the family owned business, which had spent $20,000 on new plumbing fixtures, sewer lines and grease traps, thinking that might get rid of the odor.

    Now that Sowell is behind bars and the stench is gone, Cash said the family feels vindicated but also grieves for the victims.

    Three weeks ago, when police and FBI agents searched Sowell's home, the Cash family feared the sausage business would suffer amid all the negative publicity. "I thought it was going to be the end and I was going to have to find something else to do," said Raymond Cash Jr., who owns the company with his sister, Renee Cash. Their father started the business in 1952.

    Family members said they are eager to put the Sowell episode behind them and move on. Sales, they said, haven't slipped.

    Larry Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky., said companies disrupted by turmoil like the Sowell case often pay dearly.

    Ray's Sausage should be fine because it makes a good product and has a great reputation, said Kevin Patton, a salesman for Hillandale Farms in Akron, which distributes Ray's souse to Wal-Mart and independent grocery stores.

    Sowell, 50, a registered sex offender, has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder and, separately, with rape, kidnapping and attempted murder in an alleged Sept. 22 attack that prompted police to search his home Oct. 29.

    The ten victims identified were black and many were homeless or living alone and had drug or alcohol addictions.


    Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com


    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091128/...bodies_found_2
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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