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  1. #1
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    Anthony Edward Sowell - Ohio







    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 four of the victims apparently had been strangled. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how two victims 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.

    Anthony Sowell, 50, of Cleveland, was arrested Saturday when officers spotted him walking down the street of his eastside neighborhood.

    Police found the first two bodies Thursday night when they went to Sowell's home to arrest him on a new rape charge. Police said Sowell spent 15 years in prison for a rape in 1989.

    On Friday, police found a third body and remains that were confirmed on Saturday to be three additional bodies.

    People who knew Sowell said he often walked around his neighborhood looking for scrap metal to sell and asking for money.

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

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGQmSQzOVfHOMgQ6cXJ1eqhsCS-QD9BMSQ880

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    November 3, 2009

    Convicted rapist could face death penalty

    CLEVELAND - A convicted rapist who lived in a home with 10 bodies was ordered held without bond Wednesday as a prosecutor called him "an incredibly dangerous threat" and said he could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Anthony Sowell appeared in court under tight security, wearing a blue paper jumpsuit typically used when an inmate might be a suicide risk. His wrists and ankles were manacled, and he walked into court with a stutter step.

    During the brief appearance, Sowell acknowledged his understanding of the charges - five aggravated murder counts for the first victims whose cause of death has been ruled strangling. In addition, he faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping for a Sept. 22 attack on a woman at his home.

    Sowell responded, "That's correct," when Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine asked him if he was unable to afford an attorney and needed one assigned by the court.

    Public defender Kathleen DeMetz told the judge that Sowell has medical problems, including a heart pacemaker and cardiac medication. He was laid off two years ago and receives unemployment compensation.

    The case now goes before the county grand jury.

    Police discovered the first six bodies Thursday and Friday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell's home. Investigators said they found one body 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.

    They found four more bodies Tuesday in Sowell's backyard, as well as a skull wrapped in paper inside a bucket in his basement.

    After Sowell's court appearance, deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said investigators have finished digging through the backyard and will begin tearing apart walls inside the house Wednesday in search of more evidence or bodies.

    "We're going to go bit by bit, piece by piece," he said. "It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill," McGrath said.

    The Cuyahoga County coroner hasn't identified any of the bodies but is trying to do so through DNA and dental records. The six found last week were black, and five of them were strangled.

    "What kind of man was this?" wondered Regina Woodland, who lives about two blocks away. "He couldn't have been human."

    A crowd of around 100 people milled about and chatted near the home Tuesday evening. A short while later, around 50 people joined hands and put their arms around each other in the middle of the street and prayed aloud.

    One of those in the crowd, Antoinnette Dudley, 29, lives a few houses away. She said she could smell a terrible odour like something was dead all summer. She said she saw Sowell only a few times, mainly drinking beer while he sat on his porch.

    "I didn't think he was that sick," she said.

    As a registered sex offender, Sowell was 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 neighbours thought 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.

    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/11/03/11624986-ap.html?cid=rssnewsworld

  3. #3
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    11th woman discovered in Cleveland death house

    CLEVELAND - The number of women found dead in the home of a convicted sex offender rose to 11 yesterday as police announced their first identification of one of the victims.

    The victim, Tonia Carmichael, was 52 when she disappeared last November, Cleveland police said. She lived in Warrensville Heights, a Cleveland suburb, but her car was found about a mile from the Imperial Avenue home of the sex offender, Anthony Sowell, police said.

    The victim's mother, Donnita Carmichael, told the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: "We expected the worst when these bodies started popping up. We knew she could be one of them."

    The remains were buried in Sowell's backyard, police said. It appeared that Ms. Carmichael had been strangled.

    Lt. Thomas Stacho, a police spokesman, said the coroner's office had determined that a skull found in a bucket in the basement of Sowell's home belonged to an 11th victim, not one of 10 other women whose bodies had been found.

    In his initial court appearance, Sowell was denied bond yesterday. He faces five murder charges and one charge of rape, with more charges likely, police said.

    "After 26 years on this bench, this is by far the most serious set of allegations I've ever faced," Ronald Adrine, a municipal court judge, said as he bound the case over to a county grand jury.

    Sowell, 50, is likely to be charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty, an assistant county prosecutor, Brian P. Murphy, said in court.

    Concerned that they might find more bodies, police officers and sheriff's deputies planned to search unsecured abandoned houses within a half-mile radius of Sowell's house, Deputy Police Chief Edward Tomba said.

    There have been foreclosures in the neighborhood and many homes are boarded up.

    The neighborhood is the type of place where women can disappear almost in plain sight. It is an area where crack users sneak into vacant houses to do drugs, have sex, or 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.

    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.

    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?"

    Relatives of presumed victims charge that police ignored their missing person reports.

    Mr. Reed is demanding an inquiry into how crime reports in the neighborhood were handled.

  4. #4
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    December 1, 2009

    Ohioan accused of living with bodies indicted

    CLEVELAND — A Cleveland man who police say was living with ten dead bodies and a skull has been indicted on 85 counts, including 11 counts of aggravated murder.

    Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Prosecutor Bill Mason was announcing the indictments Tuesday afternoon in the case against 50-year-old Anthony Sowell.

    The prosecutor expects to seek the death penalty.

    Sowell’s home was searched for three weeks after a woman said she had been attacked there by Sowell on Sept. 22. He has been charged with attempted murder and other charges in the alleged attack and has pleaded not guilty.

    http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091201/NEWS24/912019965

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    Anthony Sowell asks judge to move trial, throw out death penalty option

    CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland man accused of killing 11 women and keeping their remains at his house on Imperial Avenue asked a judge this morning to move his trial outside the area because the case has received so much publicity here.

    Anthony Sowell, 50, made the request at a pretrial hearing in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold's courtroom. Saffold denied the motion.

    Sowell's attorney, John Parker, said an impartial jury would be impossible to find in Cuyahoga County because of the tremendous amount of publicity in the case.

    Saffold said if a jury was found to hear the case against Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the jurisdiction where the crimes occurred, she was confident that Cuyahoga County could do the same.

    Actually, McVeigh asked for and received a change of venue. His trial was not held in Oklahoma City, but in U.S. District Court in Denver, Colo.

    Judge Saffold said the court would take a wait-and-see approach and might be willing to revisit the request if jury selection proves problematic.

    Sowell's lawyers also asked that the death penalty specifications charged in the case be dismissed. Parker noted that in handing up the indictment against Sowell, the grand jury did not hear any evidence or testimony against the death penalty.

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/01/anthony_sowell_asks_a_judge_to.html

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    Attorneys for Anthony Sowell ask for indictment to be thrown out

    CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The attorneys representing Anthony Sowell asked a judge this week to throw out the charges against him or ban law enforcement from speaking with him.

    The move came days after East Cleveland police spoke with Sowell without his lawyers present. He accused of killing 11 women at his house on Imperial Avenue.

    Sowell's attorneys, John Parker and Rufus Sims, said in two motionsfiled in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, (pdf) that Sowell was interrogated by two East Cleveland detectives without their knowledge on Feb. 12 about a string of crimes in 1989.

    The crimes involved the killing of several women found dead inside of abandoned buildings in the city or reported missing. The crimes were never solved.

    From the meeting, police were able to confirm that Sowell knew Mary Cox, one of the woman who went missing during the time period. He lived in East Cleveland from 1985 to 1990.

    Sowell was charged in December with multiple counts of aggravated murder after the remains of 11 women were found decomposing at his Imperial Avenue home. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Sowell, who is being held in the County Jail with bond set at $6 million.

    The motions Sowell's lawyers filed suggest that he was not read his Miranda rights prior to the interview with East Cleveland police.

    In response, his attorneys want a judge to restricted law enforcement officers from speaking with him without them being present.

    "We think what happened with police speaking with him without us when he has attorneys is outrageous conduct," Sims said. "It is shocking and violates Miranda."

    East Cleveland officials said officers did not violate Sowell's rights.

    City Prosecutor Willa Hemmons said the officers were able to speak with Sowell because he voluntarily spoke with them.

    "I'm sure when our officers spoke with him everything was done by law and procedure," Hemmons said. "It is the right of the person, not the attorney."

    Sowell is due in court this week for a hearing. It is not clear if Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold will rule on the motions

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/02/post_220.html

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    Attempted murder charge for suspect in 11 deaths

    CLEVELAND — The man suspected of killing 11 women whose bodies were found in and around his Cleveland home has been indicted on attempted murder, kidnapping and felonious assault charges.

    Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said Thursday that a grand jury returned the three-count indictment against 50-year-old Anthony Sowell. He’s already facing a possible death penalty in the 11 deaths.

    The latest charges involve an alleged attack on a 42-year-old Cleveland woman at Sowell’s home.

    The prosecutor says his office is still investigating unsolved homicides for the period when Sowell lived in Cleveland and the nearby community of East Cleveland.

    http://www.cantonrep.com/news/x593977426/Attempted-murder-charge-for-suspect-in-11-deaths

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    Cleveland law director responds to lawsuit filed by Imperial Avenue families

    In the wake of a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the families of five of the 11 women whose remains were found in the Imperial Avenue home of Anthony Sowell, Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi urged the city to remain focused on prosecuting the suspected serial killer.

    "At the appropriate time the City will respond to the legal action filed yesterday," Triozzi said in a written statement issued Thursday. "Right now the focus is where it should be, and that is on doing everything possible to hold the alleged perpetrator of these murders accountable for these horrific actions."

    In the suit against the city, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, lawyers for the families blasted police, blaming the women's death on the "deliberate indifference" of sex crimes detectives and the police practice of releasing suspects while waiting for evidence to trickle in.

    Sowell, 51, is charged with the aggravated murder of the 11 women and attacks on three others. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 14. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

    Six of the women found in Sowell's home -- Janice Webb, Amelda Hunter, Diane Turner, Telacia Fortson, Nancy Cobbs and Kim Yvette Smith -- were killed after police failed to aggressively investigate accusations that he had attacked other victims, who had escaped. Smith's family was not represented in the lawsuit.

    In the complaint, attorneys Jeffrey Friedman and Terry Gilbert asked the court not only for financial compensation for the families, but to order the city to review its investigative and prosecutorial policies.

    The city already is in the process of reviewing its policies and procedures, Triozzi said in his response, referring to a commission assembled by Mayor Frank Jackson to track promised changes to the way police conduct sex crimes investigations.

    Triozzi warned against litigation that leapfrogs the commission's work and the outcome of Sowell's trial.

    "Given the importance of this criminal prosecution to our community, it would be helpful if we commit ourselves to the facts and save legal conjecture and speculation to a more appropriate time," Triozzi said.

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010...r_respond.html

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    OH judge won't move or delay trial in 11 slayings

    A judge has rejected a renewed defense request to move or delay the June 6 Cleveland trial of a man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their bodies around his property.

    Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose ruled Tuesday after meeting with attorneys in the case against 51-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl).

    The defense says what it calls "inflammatory, saturating and prejudicial" news coverage make it impossible for Sowell to get a fair trial in Cleveland.

    The defense asked to delay the trial as an alternative to moving it.

    Assistant Prosecutor Richard Bombik says both sides must try to select an impartial jury before moving the trial is contemplated.

    Sowell, who has pleaded not guilty, could face the death penalty if convicted.

    http://www.westport-news.com/default...gs-1383392.php

  10. #10
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    Jury set for trial of Ohioan charged in 11 deaths

    A jury has been seated in the Cleveland trial of a man charged with killing 11 women and hiding their bodies in his home and backyard.

    Court administrator Greg Popovich says the jury and four alternates were sworn in Friday in the trial of 51-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl) in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Court. It took nearly three weeks to seat the jury from a pool of about 200 prospective jurors.

    Popovich says jurors were ordered to return after a lunch break for further instructions.

    On Wednesday, the prosecution asked the judge to declare a mistrial and start over, saying flawed jury selection procedures put any conviction at risk of being overturned on appeal. The judge refused.

    Sowell has pleaded not guilty. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

    http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/articl...APA/1106240827

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