‘Crazy’ rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies

[jimmy olsen]

4 more bodie have been found. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/03/ohio.cleveland.bodies/

Police: 4 more bodies found at rapist's Ohio home; total now 10

(CNN) -- Investigators discovered four more bodies Tuesday at the Cleveland, Ohio, home of a convicted rapist -- making a total of 10 since last week, Police Chief Michael McGrath said Tuesday.

Authorities on Tuesday charged Anthony Sowell with five counts of aggravated murder after unearthing the bodies of women at his home last week, police said.

Sowell, 50, also was charged with rape, felonious assault and kidnapping, police said. His arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Police arrested Sowell on Saturday, two days after discovering the decomposing bodies of five females inside his home and another woman's body outside the house.

Earlier Tuesday, a source close to the investigation had told CNN that a seventh body had been found in the home. The source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, did not reveal the gender of the seventh body found at Sowell's home. The source did not say exactly where the body was found at the residence.

Authorities found the first two bodies last week while trying to serve an arrest and search warrant on Sowell related to a sexual assault investigation, and an intensive search began. Sowell was not home at the time; officers found him after a tipster told them of his whereabouts.

The decomposing bodies of the first six women, all of whom were African-American, could have been lying where they were found for "weeks, if not months or years," Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller III told CNN on Saturday.

All six deaths were ruled homicides, Lt. Thomas Stacho of the Cleveland Police Department said Monday, with five of the deaths due to strangulation.

About a month ago, a woman accused Sowell of rape and felonious assault, Stacho noted last week. Investigators obtained the warrants that set off the search after the "cooperation of the victim," he said.



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Officers serving the warrants Thursday discovered the badly decomposed remains of two bodies on the third floor of the house, he added. A subsequent search revealed what appeared to be a freshly dug grave under the stairs in the basement. On Friday, investigators returned to the house, dug up the grave and found a third body, Stacho said.

A further search of the house and property found two more bodies in a crawl space and a sixth body in a shallow grave outside the home.

Five different burial methods were used on the victims, and the bodies were in varying states of decomposition, said Miller, which made it difficult to determine the ages of the victims.

Stacho said Sowell makes his living as a "scrapper."

"He walks around and picks up scrap metal and takes it to junk yards to make a few pennies," he said.

Sowell was convicted of a 1989 rape and was imprisoned from 1990 to 2005, Stacho said.

[Malthus]

I can see that some lucky Ohio starter home buyer will be getting a bargan in the reasonably near future.

[stjaba]

I can see that some lucky Ohio starter home buyer will be getting a bargan in the reasonably near future.

I think Cleveland has a large supply of cheap housing already. The median house price in the 2nd quarter of 2009 was $20,000.

[DGuller]

I hope they charge that POS with running an unlicensed cemetery.

[jimmy olsen]

Didn't seem like he was burying them D'Guller. 

How the hell is stuff like this missed?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/bodies-home-convicted-rapist-anthony-sowell/Story?id=8987583&page=1

Cleveland House of Horrors: Skull Found in a Bucket, More Bodies Found

Cleveland police found another four bodies in the backyard of convicted rapist and now suspected murderer Anthony Sowell, and found a skull in a bucket in his basement.

Cleveland Police Department Lt. Thomas Stacho said this evening that while the coroner's office could only confirm that six bodies had been recovered from Sowell's property, since this morning the number of dead is likely to rise to 10.

Stacho confirmed that the skull was found "wrapped in paper or plastic" in a bucket in Sowell's basement.

Earlier today, Sowell, 50, was charged with five counts of aggravated murder, and he is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. at the Cleveland Justice Center.

Authorities were seen removing more body bags today, according to ABC News' Cleveland affiliate WEWS-TV. It's not clear whether additional bodies may be found in or around Sowell's property.

Five of the bodies found earlier this week were believed to have died from strangulation, Stacho said. The cause of death for the sixth is still unknown.

Police have started searching abandoned and vacant homes in a six-mile radius of Sowell's home, WEWS reported.

Cadaver dogs will continue to search Powell's home.

Sowell was released in 2005 after serving 15 years in prison for choking and raping a 21-year-old woman in 1989.

Police discovered the bodies after a woman claiming she had been raped at Powell's three-story home reported the crime to police.

Able to enter the home with a search warrant, authorities discovered two bodies. Three more were found on Friday and Sowell was eventually arrested on Saturday.

Detectives also said they were also retracing Sowell's steps since his release from prison four years ago.

Reports by neighbors of a foul smell wafting from Sowell's home called into question why officers assigned to make house calls on the registered sex offender didn't suspect foul play.

But according to authorities, officers were unable to enter the home because they did not have a search warrant to do so. Instead, they would knock on his door to make sure he was home. Sowell was last visited by authorities on Sept. 22.

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, according to Stacho.

Stacho would not comment on whether they expected to find any more bodies in the home.

"We hope they don't find any more," Renee Cash, whose family operates a nearby sausage company for 57 years, told the Associated Press. "In the summertime, it was gross," Cash said. "You could always smell it. It smelled like something rotten." The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[CountDeMoney]

"We hope they don't find any more," Renee Cash, whose family operates a nearby sausage company for 57 years, told the Associated Press. "In the summertime, it was gross," Cash said. "You could always smell it. It smelled like something rotten."

When the sausage factory next door says you have an odor problem, you've got an odor problem.

[jimmy olsen]

"We hope they don't find any more," Renee Cash, whose family operates a nearby sausage company for 57 years, told the Associated Press. "In the summertime, it was gross," Cash said. "You could always smell it. It smelled like something rotten."

When the sausage factory next door says you have an odor problem, you've got an odor problem.

I literally laughed out loud.

[Caliga]

I can see that some lucky Ohio starter home buyer will be getting a bargan in the reasonably near future.

I think it's fairly common to tear down "houses of death" like this one.

[KRonn]

This is nuts, madness; what a monster this guy is.   

[Caliga]

When the sausage factory next door says you have an odor problem, you've got an odor problem.

When I was a little kid I used to stay with my grandparents for a week every summer.  One summer something crawled under their foundation and died (well... that's what they told me at least--guess gramps could have been killing hookers).  Anyway, the stench was so unbearable it ruined that summer's visit for me.  I can't think of anything to compare it to that I've smelled since.... it was that hideous.

[Malthus]

Reports by neighbors of a foul smell wafting from Sowell's home called into question why officers assigned to make house calls on the registered sex offender didn't suspect foul play.

Journalist should be shot for that. 

[Malthus]

Didn't seem like he was burying them D'Guller. 

How the hell is stuff like this missed?

I'm guessing that the guy was a "hoarder" and the place was filled to the rafters with garbage. As the cops sift through the trash, they find more bodies and body parts.

[Malthus]

I can see that some lucky Ohio starter home buyer will be getting a bargan in the reasonably near future.

I think it's fairly common to tear down "houses of death" like this one.

Heh, it would certainly be one hell of a motivated seller. 

The guy I feel for was some dude I read about who was renoing his own (old) house for resale here in Toronto, and came across the corpse of an infant stuffed into a wall space some time in the 1920s. That's gotta hurt resale value. 

[Caliga]

He shoulda just pitched it into the trash and not said anything.

[Malthus]

He shoulda just pitched it into the trash and not said anything.

Heh I thought the same - I think one reason he didn't was that he had some contractors with him at the time. I guess he coulda payed them off though - but until forensics had a look-see, they may have thought he had something to do with it.