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| Anthony Sowell, Cleveland's East Side Strangler How Many Bodies will eventually be found? Cleveland 1989, The Strawberry Girl Murders? Was Sowell the killer? Strange that the murders stopped when he was sentenced to prison for rape. |
AAlleged Ohio serial killer rare among mass killers
By JOHN SEEWER and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS (AP) – 2 days 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."
By JOHN SEEWER and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS (AP) – 2 days 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."
The man accused of being the “Cleveland Strangler” lived for years with the niece of the city’s
mayor in a stinking house where police have found 11 corpses.
The revelation raises questions about why police took so long to arrest the former US marine, a convicted
rapist whose home reeked of rotting bodies.
Lori Frazier, a niece of the Mayor, Frank Jackson, said that she still considered herself to be the girlfriend
of Anthony Sowell, who was released from a 15-year prison sentence in 2005. “He came out from the
penitentiary on June 23. Me and him hooked up on July 7, and I have been with him ever since,” she told
reporters in Cleveland, Ohio. “I want to know why, why would he do this,” she said. “He took care of me.”
Ms Frazier, a drug user, said that Mr Sowell explained away the pungent smell of decaying bodies in the
house by blaming his stepmother downstairs and, when she moved out, a sausage factory next door.
She said that the pair took drugs together until she moved out last year in an attempt to kick the habit. Ms
Frazier’s relationship with Mr Sowell will have left her uncle in a precarious position. Mr Jackson, who was
elected to a second term last week, has promised to examine the police response, but only after the
murder investigation has been completed.
Zach Reed, a councillor who filed a complaint about the odour two years ago, has called for a federal
investigation into the police response. Police insist that an officer who went to the house on September
22 to make a random check on the sex offender was not entitled to enter the house, despite the stench of
death.
When a naked woman fell from a window of the house hours later, and was found by neighbours being
choked by Mr Sowell, police reportedly arrived late, and again did not enter the building.
The coroner has identified seven of the victims. They are all black women, all mothers, aged between 31
and 52, with criminal records and a history of drug abuse.
A woman who escaped said that she had thought Mr Sowell was a “civilised person” when she first went
upstairs to have a beer with him in April. “I’m sitting on the corner of the bed and then he just leaped up
and came over and started choking me,” said Tanja Doss. “He said, ‘If you want to live, knock three times
on the floor’, and I knocked on the floor.”
She told police that, as he was attacking her, he said: “You just another crack [expletive] from the street;
no one will know if you missing.”
Mr Jackson said that Ms Frazier was lucky to escape the alleged serial killer: “My niece would probably fit
the same profile of many victims, so she is fortunate, very fortunate,” he told reporters.
Cleveland police have expanded their investigation to include three murders that took place near Mr
Sowell’s previous home before he was sent to prison for 15 years for a 1989 rape. When a local news
reporter visited one of Mr Sowell’s previous homes she found a bone in the narrow space underneath the
raised house.
A woman in California who saw Mr Sowell on television claims that he raped her while he was stationed in
the military there. Investigators are also looking again at any unsolved cases while he served with the
Marines in North Carolina and Okinawa, Japan.
| Cleveland's Mayor. His niece was living with Sowell among the decaying bodies. |
| Anthony Sowell and his court appointed attorney. |