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Thread: Anthony Edward Sowell - Ohio

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    August 8, 2010

    Lawyers try to exclude Sowell's statements

    Lawyers for Ohio serial-killer suspect Anthony Sowell say more than 10 hours of his statements to police should be withheld from his trial.

    The lawyers told a judge in Cleveland the statements included comments about hearing voices and blacking out. The attorneys also contend that the statements were not voluntarily made because he did not understand his legal rights, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Sunday.

    Sowell talked during the police interrogation about hearing voices "that told him not to enter the room with the bodies, blacking out and then coming to and not remembering what happened in the meantime," his attorneys Rufus Sims and John Parker said in a court motion.

    Prosecutors say the statements were not made under coercion and should be admitted in court.

    Sowell was arrested Oct. 31 -- two days after police arrived to arrest him on rape charges and found the bodies of two women on the third floor of his home, the Plain Dealer said.

    Sowell, 50, is accused of killing 11 women whose remains were found at his Cleveland house.

    His trial is scheduled Sept. 7. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

    http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/08/08/Lawyers-try-to-exclude-Sowells-statements/UPI-20441281280345/

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    August 13, 2010

    A judge granted a second trial delay on Thursday for a Cleveland man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home.

    Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose ruled in favor of the defense team, which has repeatedly requested more time to interview more than 150 witnesses, review forensic evidence and conduct a mental health evaluation of Anthony Sowell. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Sowell's trial, which was scheduled to begin Sept. 7, will now start sometime in 2011 before March 1.

    http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20100813/NEWS01/8130325/1002/rss01

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Outrageous: Accused Cleveland Strangler wants death penalty off the table

    Suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell is making an outrageous request in the Cleveland Strangler case. Sowell wants a judge to tell prosecutors that even if he is convicted of murdering eleven women, they can't seek the death penalty.

    Anthony Sowell is accused of murdering eleven women at his Imperial Avenue home and attacking several others.

    Sowell and his defense team argue that death sentences get carried out in different ways all over the country and other serial killers have plead guilty and received life in prison.

    Sowell is still trying to build his argument by asking how many other local death penalty cases have ended with life in prison pleas and how many death cases were later reversed.

    Cuyahoga County prosecutors say this issue has been addressed before and "we are moving forward to trial in February and will try it as a death penalty case."

    Sowell is already asking the courts for more and more money to build his defense and now wants the death penalty off the table. What's next? Asking if he can get out of jail?

    http://www.woio.com/Global/story.asp?S=13354851

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Cleveland's nightmare on Imperial Avenue: One year later

    CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Those who live near suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell's home no longer gawk or gather outside the infamous house -- now quiet, vacant, caged in a 14-foot-tall chain-linked fence, its doors boarded up like so many others in Cleveland's Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

    In fact, most won't walk directly in front of it either. They cross the street to pass, then cross back when 12205 Imperial Avenue is safely behind them.

    But it never really is.

    A year ago, what might be the most horrific crime scene in Cleveland's history had begun to unfold there.

    Police discovered the remains of two women decomposing in Sowell's home on Oct. 29, 2009. Within a week, investigators would tear apart the interior walls and excavate the backyard, searching for remains with the help of thermal imaging scanners and cadaver dogs.

    In all, they would unearth 10 bodies and one skull found in a bucket in the basement.

    Three days passed before Sowell was caught.

    By then a state of panic had settled upon the city, as the street became the site of candlelight vigils and memorials to the victims -- an ill-fated sorority of 11 women who lived on the margins of society, used drugs and were known to go missing for weeks on end without friends or family taking notice.

    But this time, all of Cleveland took notice, and a bulletin board crowded with faces of the missing drew the city's attention to other women just like them who had vanished.

    And yes, we had seen horrible scenes before, but never like this. Never had a crime stoked so much public outrage and become so emblematic of defects in the criminal justice system. Never had Clevelanders heard so many promises from their city officials.

    Should someone have noticed sooner?


    Sowell, 51, faces the death penalty. He is charged with the aggravated murder of the 11 women and attacks on three others. His trial, scheduled for Feb. 14, has set a record for the most expensive publicly-funded criminal defense in county history.

    Who to blame for failing to detect the collection of corpses in Sowell's home is still debated among community activists.

    Sheriff's deputies had been to the home on multiple occasions before that night and suspected nothing, despite the stench of decomposition that cast a pall over the neighborhood.

    Sowell had served 15 years in prison for an attempted rape in 1989 and was required to register his address with the sheriff every 90 days for life. He complied dutifully, and he even answered the door when deputies made a surprise visit to his house on Sept. 22 to verify that he lived where he reported to authorities.

    As is standard for spot checks, however, the deputies did not enter the house, and Sowell went about his business.

    But sheriff's deputies weren't the only law enforcement officials who had the suspected serial killer come to their attention.

    Six of the women found in Sowell's house were killed after Cleveland police failed to aggressively investigate accusations that he attacked others who escaped. In 2008, police questioned the credibility of a woman who claimed Sowell attacked her, and a city prosecutor said there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges. In another woman's case, police waited a month before searching Sowell's house for evidence.

    When they finally did, they found the bodies -- stuffed in crawl spaces, under stairwells, buried in shallow graves.

    As each body was identified, police distributed news releases documenting whether the victim's family had reported her missing. Many had not, police emphasized in news conferences. And they often noted the victims' transient lifestyles and known drug addictions.

    But some relatives said police told them not to bother reporting the disappearance of their loved ones. Others said police seemed to care so little about the missing that families posted fliers and offered rewards themselves.

    Mayor calls for action


    In December, in the midst of turbulence, Mayor Frank Jackson appointed a special commission -- comprised of a city official, the head of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and a former city lawyer -- to examine how police handle missing persons and sex crimes investigations.

    The panel held a series of public forums, during which they heard stories from women who went to police looking for justice and found apathy and skepticism instead. The commission listened to the community's concerns over the culture of policing in Cleveland and the lack of sensitivity among officers toward victims, marginalized populations and the drug-addicted.

    That perception, residents and victims said, had led to a deep-seated distrust of the police who are supposed to protect them.

    In March, just as the commission was concluding its investigation, another woman came forward with a story of how Sowell had raped and beaten her in September 2008. She sobbed as she recounted the events to a Cuyahoga County judge during a probation violation hearing. She said police laughed at her when she reported the attack and dismissed her claim as the musings of a crackhead.

    Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty returned the case to police, and Sowell eventually was indicted on charges related to that attack as well.

    Shortly afterward, the commission presented its 900-page report detailing more than two-dozen deficiencies in the city's response to missing persons and sexual assault cases.

    The public learned that detectives did not have the basic technology they needed to do their jobs -- cell phones, e-mail accounts or an electronic case management system to keep track of their work.

    And the physical environment of the Sex Crimes Unit was intimidating to victims who were expected to come to the police station for interviews with detectives, the report said.

    The mayor vowed to adopt all of the panel's recommendations, which included enhanced training, auditing the detectives' caseloads and further studying the public's negative perception of law enforcement.

    But what seemed to be a bright moment in a bleak era for the city was interrupted two weeks later, when two police officers called to investigate reports of a woman's naked body on the side of Interstate 90, misidentified her as a deer carcass and kept driving. The officers, who, records later showed, had spent a great deal of their evening parked in a cemetery, did not even stop their cruiser or slow down below 50 mph.

    Amid renewed public outrage, Police Chief Michael McGrath acted with impunity, suspending the officers for six months and strongly reminding the rest of the force of their responsibility to the community it serves.

    Since then, a committee appointed to track the city's promised changes reports that the city is making slow but steady progress, with retooled training curricula and protocol for handling missing persons and sex crimes investigations.

    But how the public will measure any of those improvements -- and whether they will be enough to earn back the community's trust -- is yet to be seen.

    Neighborhood seeks normalcy

    On Imperial Avenue, some of the faith is being restored little by little, said Eli Tayeh, who owns the Amira Imperial Beverage store, two doors down from Sowell's former home.

    Police cruisers are spotted patrolling the streets more frequently since the grim discovery last October, Tayeh said. And some residents who fled the neighborhood in a fearful mass exodus a year ago are beginning to trickle back.

    But the stench -- the putrid odor of decay -- still lingers, Tayeh said. It's resurrected every time it rains and hovers near the corner of Imperial and East 123rd Street every morning as Tayeh opens his shop. He burns incense all day to mask it.

    What happened in that house must be in the soil now, he says. Or maybe there's more to the story, still waiting to be unearthed.

    "Everybody here can't wait for the city to knock it down," Tayeh said. "So we don't have to look at it any more and can just try to move on with our lives... Is that ever going to happen?"

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

  5. #15
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    Cost of suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell's defense surpasses $185,000 mark

    CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The cost of suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell's legal defense, which already has set a record among expensive trials in Cuyahoga County, now has exceeded $185,000 with still three months to go before the trial.

    In the past month, Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose, granted additional funds for forensic consultants, paralegal assistance, a neuropsychologist and for a team of researchers to comb through more than 2,000 hours of surveillance video shot from the lot next door to Sowell's Imperial Avenue home.

    Sowell's attorneys, Rufus Sims and John Parker, submitted another funding request during a hearing Wednesday. But the motion was filed under seal and has not been made public.

    Sowell, 51, is accused of killing 11 women, whose remains were found in and around his home last fall in Cleveland's Mount Pleasant neighborhood. He faces the death penalty, charged with multiple counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping, abusing a human corpse and tampering with evidence. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 14, and he is due in court for another hearing on Nov. 23.

    The cost of Sowell's defense broke the $150,000 benchmark with the approval last month of expenses for a forensic expert and the continued services of a paralegal -- pushing the cost of the defense past the previous high for a publicly funded criminal case in the county.

    Sowell's defense team remains dangerously close to exceeding its $35,000 cap on paralegal services and its $25,000 cap for a mitigation specialist.

    Legal experts and guidelines designed by the American Bar Association suggest that court-ordered caps on such expenses are improper and could constitute grounds for an appeal.

    However, Ambrose has said in his rulings that he would not consider future requests without documentation justifying the expense. Parker and Sims said last month they were preparing the paperwork to request more money for mitigation.

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

  6. #16
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    Families of 5 of 11 victims found in Cleveland home sue city, detectives for wrongful death

    CLEVELAND (AP) — Families of five of the 11 women whose remains were found in a convicted sex offender's home are suing the city of Cleveland.

    A wrongful death lawsuit filed Wednesday also names several police officers and an assistant prosecutor.

    The families claim the women would not have died if authorities had not released 50-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl) after he was arrested and held for two days in December 2008.

    Sowell had been arrested when a woman told police he had beaten and tried to rape her.

    The mayor's office and the police department did not immediately return phone calls and e-mails from The Associated Press seeking comment on the lawsuit.

    Sowell was indicted in the killings in December 2009 and has pleaded not guilty. He is scheduled to go on trial in February.

    Source

  7. #17
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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

  8. #18
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    Accused killer's school records in chaos

    Lawyers for Anthony Sowell, accused of killing 11 women in Cleveland, may have to look through thousands of boxes to find his school records, officials said.

    At a hearing Tuesday, officials with the East Cleveland district told a judge the records are in chaos and that the district expects to spend 5 years getting them in digital format, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. Sowell's lawyers had asked a judge to order the district to give them the records because they are looking for information to be used to argue against the death penalty if their client is convicted.

    Officials said there are thousands of boxes, including 1 group found under a stage at a middle school. While Sowell, 50, attended school in East Cleveland through 1977, knowing the dates won't help, Rufus Sims, one of Sowell's lawyers, told the newspaper after the hearing.

    "We can't even say, 'These boxes are from the 60s, and those are from the 70s.' I'm certainly glad I didn't go to Shaw High School and needed my transcript to go to college," he added.

    Police began a homicide investigation in 2009 after a female friend reported Sowell raped her at his home. Officers who went there found 2 bodies and 9 more turned up in crawl spaces, under floors and buried in the yard.

    (source: United Press International)

  9. #19
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    Imperial Avenue victims' families criticize state rule barring them from collecting from compensation fund

    The families of four Imperial Avenue victims were denied payments from Ohio's Victim Compensation Fund this year because of a rule that prohibits families from receiving money if the crime victim or one of the surviving relatives has committed a felony.

    The payments from the fund are given to families of victims who died and help cover such expenses as burial costs, crime-scene cleanup and counseling.

    But in 1983, after people with ties to deceased mob members received money from the fund, state legislators changed the rules, prohibiting people from getting cash if they -- or the crime victims -- had committed certain crimes within the previous 10 years.

    The 1983 rule blocked relatives of Imperial Avenue victims Tonia Carmichael, Tishana Culver, Amelda Hunter and Kim Smith from getting any money, according to the Ohio attorney general's office.

    The four women were among 11 discovered dead at the Imperial Avenue home of Anthony Sowell last year. Sowell faces the death penalty when his murder trial begins in February.

    Some of the families are upset they were denied money. They said past crimes do not negate the pain or financial impact of losing relatives.

    Carmichael's daughter, Donnita, said her family was denied because her mother had a felony record for offenses like drug abuse and theft. Her last offense before she died was in 2005.

    "It wasn't like we expected a million bucks, but a little something could have helped when we buried her," Donnita Carmichael said. "It was very upsetting when we found out we were denied."

    Carmichael said the state should have looked past the records because of the nature in which her mother and other women were killed.

    "She had some ticky-tack offenses, but it wasn't like she hurt anyone," Carmichael said. "With this incident they should have made an exception toward the rule."

    The rules do not authorize exceptions. They prohibit people from receiving the money if they have been convicted of any felony, child endangering or domestic violence in the previous 10 years.

    People can appeal rejections. The state Court of Claims deals with around 125 appeals a year from people denied funding by the victims compensation fund. More than 60 percent of those appeals are resolved, often with some sort of payment, said Daniel Borchert, deputy clerk of the Court of Claims.

    Kim Kowalski, spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office, said the average payout by the fund is around $2,465. The maximum amount a person could receive is $50,000. The attorney general's office awarded more than $11.5 million from the fund in 2009, when it received more than 8,000 claims.

    The fund is financed through fines, assessments and court costs of people convicted of offenses throughout Ohio courts. The U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime pays Ohio back 60 percent of what the state spends in its own money to compensate victims' families.

    The 1983 provision stems from the days of Cleveland mobsters Danny Greene and John Nardi.

    Lawmakers created the restrictions after Nardi's wife received $50,000 from the victims' fund after her husband was killed in a car bombing in 1977.

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011...ms_famili.html

  10. #20
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    Accused serial killer's trial delayed

    The trial for alleged Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell has been rescheduled for a fourth time and now is expected to begin June 6, officials said.

    Sowell's lawyers said they needed additional time to examine thousands of records and hours of surveillance video footage taken from the property next door to Sowell's Imperial Avenue home where the remains of 11 women were discovered in 2009, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported Thursday.

    Sowell, 51, is charged with multiple counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping, abusing a human corpse and tampering with evidence.

    He could face the death penalty if convicted in a trial lawyers estimate could take as long as two months.

    http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/...#ixzz1BbvNAMqo

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