Fucked up.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33572130/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
Quote'Crazy' rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies
Police say 'makeshift grave' was found under basement stairs at Ohio home
NBC News and news services
updated 5:03 p.m. ET Nov. 1, 2009
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.
Spent 15 years in prison
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.
Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho told NBC News on Sunday that officers had found a "makeshift grave under the stairs in the basement" of the home.
Speaking to NBC's TODAY, Stacho alleged Sowell would "befriend ... women on the street, many times talked about drinking a beer with him, sometimes took them back to his home, sometimes forced them back to his home where he attacked them and we believe probably killed them."
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. "Sometimes he would just go off if he didn't have his way."
'I think one of them was her'
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.
Rape allegation led to discovery
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.
The Associated Press and NBC News contributed to this report.
Hot
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2009, 06:56:43 PM
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.
:frusty: Why would someone like this EVER be released from prison? Like that Garrido feller, guys like that WILL offend again. Their brains are, like, broken.
Quote from: Caliga on November 01, 2009, 07:15:22 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2009, 06:56:43 PM
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.
:frusty: Why would someone like this EVER be released from prison? Like that Garrido feller, guys like that WILL offend again. Their brains are, like, broken.
The problem is Cal, is that there is no such guarantee.
If we could guarantee the people who would re-offend, they wouldn't get out. However in particular people who reach 40+years of age, the odds are they don't re-ofend, even if their brain is broken.
Quote from: Barrister on November 01, 2009, 07:56:15 PM
The problem is Cal, is that there is no such guarantee.
Yes there is, you mountie faggit. Sex offenders have a recidivism rate approaching more than 50% over a 25 year timeline. That's more than enough to keep them locked up forever.
They should be executed after the first offense anyway, so ideally recidivism would be a non-issue.
Languish once again shows its demographics is similar to that of the "Sun" readers.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 01, 2009, 08:01:41 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 01, 2009, 07:56:15 PM
The problem is Cal, is that there is no such guarantee.
Yes there is, you mountie faggit. Sex offenders have a recidivism rate approaching more than 50% over a 25 year timeline. That's more than enough to keep them locked up forever.
What about the other 50%? :unsure:
Quote from: Martinus on November 02, 2009, 04:17:19 AM
Languish once again shows its demographics is similar to that of the "Sun" readers.
:lol:
Quote from: Jaron on November 02, 2009, 04:20:45 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 01, 2009, 08:01:41 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 01, 2009, 07:56:15 PM
The problem is Cal, is that there is no such guarantee.
Yes there is, you mountie faggit. Sex offenders have a recidivism rate approaching more than 50% over a 25 year timeline. That's more than enough to keep them locked up forever.
What about the other 50%? :unsure:
Those aren't as good as the other half.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2009, 06:56:43 PM
Two victims were black, but race hadn't yet been determined in the other four bodies, he said.
This seems an odd fact to have so high up compared with the overall gravity of the story.
Quote from: Brazen on November 02, 2009, 06:33:38 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2009, 06:56:43 PM
Two victims were black, but race hadn't yet been determined in the other four bodies, he said.
This seems an odd fact to have so high up compared with the overall gravity of the story.
Seeds the populace for phone calls for more missing people in the area.
"Hey, hasn't Towanda been missing for a few months?"
"Yeah. I wonder..."
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 01, 2009, 08:08:57 PM
They should be executed after the first offense anyway, so ideally recidivism would be a non-issue.
If you execute them
before their first offense, you have an even more "ideal" situation.
Quote from: Caliga on November 01, 2009, 07:15:22 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2009, 06:56:43 PM
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.
:frusty: Why would someone like this EVER be released from prison? Like that Garrido feller, guys like that WILL offend again. Their brains are, like, broken.
It's a failure of the prison system that this guy wasn't murdered and raped behind bars.
Quote'Crazy' rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies
After you find six bodies, shouldn't this guy get moved from the "'crazy' rapist" into the "'crazy' serial killer" category?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 02, 2009, 06:35:51 AM
Seeds the populace for phone calls for more missing people in the area.
"Hey, hasn't Towanda been missing for a few months?"
"Yeah. I wonder..."
:lmfao:
Quote from: grumbler on November 02, 2009, 09:27:19 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 01, 2009, 08:08:57 PM
They should be executed after the first offense anyway, so ideally recidivism would be a non-issue.
If you execute them before their first offense, you have an even more "ideal" situation.
:yes:
Quote from: ulmont on November 02, 2009, 10:00:57 AM
Quote'Crazy' rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies
After you find six bodies, shouldn't this guy get moved from the "'crazy' rapist" into the "'crazy' serial killer" category?
He failed to invent a clever villain name for himself and write threatening letters to local papers, so sorry... no.
Well, I think maybe this guy's prior record wasn't severe enough to warrant a life in prison? Beating, choking and raping didn't get the perp put away for life - maybe it should have though. Seems in all these cases the criminal always has either a long record or at least one other conviction that I'd feel should have kept the guy/gal in prison for good.
Quote from: grumbler on November 02, 2009, 09:27:19 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 01, 2009, 08:08:57 PM
They should be executed after the first offense anyway, so ideally recidivism would be a non-issue.
If you execute them before their first offense, you have an even more "ideal" situation.
Everyone deserves at least one chance at law-abiding-ness.
Quote from: ulmont on November 02, 2009, 10:00:57 AM
Quote'Crazy' rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies
After you find six bodies, shouldn't this guy get moved from the "'crazy' rapist" into the "'crazy' serial killer" category?
He's innocent until proven guilty.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 02, 2009, 06:20:11 PM
Quote from: ulmont on November 02, 2009, 10:00:57 AM
Quote'Crazy' rapist arrested after cops find 6 bodies
After you find six bodies, shouldn't this guy get moved from the "'crazy' rapist" into the "'crazy' serial killer" category?
He's presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Fixed. Big difference.
FUCKING GRUMBLER AND HIS STRAWMEN
Quote from: grumbler on November 02, 2009, 09:27:19 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 01, 2009, 08:08:57 PM
They should be executed after the first offense anyway, so ideally recidivism would be a non-issue.
If you execute them before their first offense, you have an even more "ideal" situation.
Someone's been watching Minority Report.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 02, 2009, 09:39:15 PM
FUCKING GRUMBLER AND HIS STRAWMEN
Sounds like a garage band's name.
I really hate the "ad hom" term.
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2009, 10:59:36 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 03, 2009, 10:58:30 AM
I really hate the "ad hom" term.
Why?
It's pretentious. I'm no fan of the english language habit of using latin expression so often too.
"stop attacking me" works just fine.
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 03, 2009, 11:08:29 AM
It's pretentious. I'm no fan of the english language habit of using latin expression so often too.
"stop attacking me" works just fine.
But pretentiousness is what Languish does best! :(
Ok, maybe negativity is what we do best. :unsure:
4 more bodie have been found. :(
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/03/ohio.cleveland.bodies/
QuotePolice: 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.
Video: Tip led to suspect's arrest
RELATED TOPICS
Cleveland
Murder and Homicide
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.
I can see that some lucky Ohio starter home buyer will be getting a bargan in the reasonably near future.
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2009, 08:05:48 PM
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.
I hope they charge that POS with running an unlicensed cemetery.
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
QuoteCleveland 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.
Quote"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.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 04, 2009, 12:23:47 AM
Quote"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.
:lmfao: I literally laughed out loud.
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2009, 08:05:48 PM
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.
This is nuts, madness; what a monster this guy is. :mad:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 04, 2009, 12:23:47 AM
When the sausage factory next door says you have an odor problem, you've got an odor problem.
:lol:
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.
QuoteReports 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. :lol:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 04, 2009, 12:21:02 AM
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.
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 06:18:57 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2009, 08:05:48 PM
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. :D
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. :(
He shoulda just pitched it into the trash and not said anything. :ph34r:
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 10:04:43 AM
He shoulda just pitched it into the trash and not said anything. :ph34r:
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. ;)
This reminds me of one time when I was working at Harvard and my office was in an converted old house that was built in like 1652. Because it was so old, there wasn't central air and we had window units for the rare times when it actually got hot up there.
Anyway, one spring a bird decided to build a nest on the same ledge as my window AC, and had a bunch of baby birds in the nest. It was real cute and all that kinda thing.
Then a month or so later, there was a rare summer heatwave and (not sure if this was why) all the birds died, and quickly started to perfume my office with the foul stench of death. I wanted to just open the window, pull the AC out, and kick the nest down to the street, but one of my damn hippy workstudy students was all "AWW no that would be cruel and disrespectful!" so she made me call custodial services to have the birds "disposed of" respectfully.
Well, guess what? Apparently they had to refer all cases of dead birds on campus to some nerd Ornithologist, who insisted that the birds not be disposed of until he could come and examine them and then he would take them back to his lab to study if he felt like it. This guy had, unsurprisingly, no work ethic so it took him like another two weeks to feel like showing up. :bleeding: :x
When he finally showed he was like "yeah, they're just dead chickadees" or whatever they were and told us we were "cleared" to get them removed. So we had to call custodial services again and they agreed to remove the corpses, but never showed up to do it even though they called like three times.
So about a week later me and one of my staff assistants waited till the workstudy wacko left for the day, pulled the AC out, and pushed the nest onto the street. :ph34r:
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 10:21:44 AM
So about a week later me and one of my staff assistants waited till the workstudy wacko left for the day, pulled the AC out, and pushed the nest onto the street. :ph34r:
:lol:
After weeks of smelling that, I'd be tempted to push the wacko out after it.
Quote from: Malthus on November 04, 2009, 10:23:51 AM
After weeks of smelling that, I'd be tempted to push the wacko out after it.
She was Chinese and looked disturbingly like that girl who got strangled at Yale a few months back.
Poor Cal, got caught up being coerced into doing someone's version of the right thing, and it backfired, and smelled, terribly. Ewww....
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:25:23 PM
Poor Cal, got caught up being coerced into doing someone's version of the right thing, and it backfired, and smelled, terribly. Ewww....
The amusing thing is that the assistant who helped me dump the nest into the street actually predicted all this would happen after our first conversation with custodial services. :lol:
Another amazing stench is when you just pass by a dead skunk in the road. The darn thing might be on the other side of the road, and you have all your windows shut, but even still it smells like you have the skunk in your lap for the next few miles! :huh:
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:34:44 PM
Another amazing stench is when you just pass by a dead skunk in the road. The darn thing might be on the other side of the road, and you have all your windows shut, but even still it smells like you have the skunk in your lap for the next few miles! :huh:
You know, I almost never see or smell skunks down here. We probably have our coyote friends to thank for that. :menace:
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:34:44 PM
Another amazing stench is when you just pass by a dead skunk in the road. The darn thing might be on the other side of the road, and you have all your windows shut, but even still it smells like you have the skunk in your lap for the next few miles! :huh:
One of the most shocking things I ever heard in my life was when my elderly mom said of her friend's cooking "it was like eating the ass out of a dead skunk".
I nearly fell off my chair. :lol:
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 12:38:12 PM
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:34:44 PM
Another amazing stench is when you just pass by a dead skunk in the road. The darn thing might be on the other side of the road, and you have all your windows shut, but even still it smells like you have the skunk in your lap for the next few miles! :huh:
You know, I almost never see or smell skunks down here. We probably have our coyote friends to thank for that. :menace:
I see or smell a lot fewer, and I blame the coyotes. Used to have skunks spray outside in the summer all the time, had to run around shutting windows. That rarely happens now.
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 06:18:57 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2009, 08:05:48 PM
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.
Yep, it attracts unwanted attention from some people, and it lowers the property value of the neighboring houses... among other things.
As for the smell, very few people have smelled a decomposing corpse with full knowledge that it was a
human body. It's incredibly foul to the scent, yeah, but most people don't instinctively suspect it's that unless they see it, but rather tend to explain it as something else. Playing on that ignorance (or cognitive dissonance), serial killers easily find sensible excuses to explain away the foul odor. And, paraphrasing Jack Levin, are we to start presuming that every unexplained stench coming from a house, a flat, or a basement is because of decomposing bodies?
John Wayne Gacy's wife lived with him for years as he was killing boys and burying them in his cellar, and she never suspected a thing. She left Gacy not because he was a killer, but because he was abusive when drunk and she couldn't tolerate him cheating on her with guys anymore. Same with Dahmer's neighboring tenants, many of whom complained of the stench coming from his flat to his landlord. Every single time, Dahmer explained it away and the inquiring minds bought his stories.
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 12:38:12 PM
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:34:44 PM
Another amazing stench is when you just pass by a dead skunk in the road. The darn thing might be on the other side of the road, and you have all your windows shut, but even still it smells like you have the skunk in your lap for the next few miles! :huh:
You know, I almost never see or smell skunks down here. We probably have our coyote friends to thank for that. :menace:
Coyotes never catch anything. :rolleyes:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychologytoday.com%2Ffiles%2Fu107%2Fwile_e_coyote_2.gif&hash=9e39e009896c552efe57de34d40303922c402e3d)
Quote from: Drakken on November 04, 2009, 01:03:20 PM
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 06:18:57 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2009, 08:05:48 PM
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.
Yep, it attracts unwanted attention from some people, and it lowers the property value of the neighboring houses... among other things.
As for the smell, very few people have smelled a decomposing corpse with full knowledge that it was a human body. It's incredibly foul to the scent, yeah, but most people don't instinctively suspect it's that unless they see it, but rather tend to explain it as something else. Playing on that ignorance (or cognitive dissonance), serial killers easily find sensible excuses to explain away the foul odor. And, paraphrasing Jack Levin, are we to start presuming that every unexplained stench coming from a house, a flat, or a basement is because of decomposing bodies?
John Wayne Gacy's wife lived with him for years as he was killing boys and burying them in his cellar, and she never suspected a thing. She left Gacy not because he was a killer, but because he was abusive when drunk and she couldn't tolerate him cheating on her with guys anymore. Same with Dahmer's neighboring tenants, many of whom complained of the stench coming from his flat to his landlord. Every single time, Dahmer explained it away and the inquiring minds bought his stories.
Well, if a neighbour said a stench of rot wafting from his place was from a raccoon that died in a crawlspace or something, I'd certainly be inclined to believe them rather than immediately thinking "must be dead teens".
Not me. I assume all of my neighbors are crazy, evil, or both. Poor little naive Malthus :(
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 02:09:23 PM
Not me. I assume all of my neighbors are crazy, evil, or both. Poor little naive Malthus :(
But you are in
Kentucky. :D
I've smelled decomposing animal or bird corpses, and it's nasty; something easy to remember. If I ever smell that smell anywhere I look around to try and find it, assuming of course that a small animal or bird died, and I want to bury it to get rid of the stench. I imagine with a large animal or human the smell could get quite intense.
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 02:12:11 PM
I've smelled decomposing animal or bird corpses, and it's nasty; something easy to remember. If I ever smell that smell anywhere I look around to try and find it, assuming of course that a small animal or bird died, and I want to bury it to get rid of the stench. I imagine with a large animal or human the smell could get quite intense.
When I was a kid, my dad was playing a gig in a sugar shack as lead guitar. It was in end of the afternoon and me and another boy wandered around the place, both inside and outside. I was alone with my dad, so while he was playing he could not monitor me. I was thus free to wander around as I please.
Then, on the road we found the remains of a roadkill skunk, viscera out, squick and all. We then had the brillant idea of burying the corpse, which we did into a moat in the maple forest behind the shack. We used two big tree branches as stretcher, but we took the corpse with our naked hands and digged the earth with our fingers and smaller branches to carve a hole in the moat.
After playing a while, we decided to go back in the room where my father's band was playing, without washing our hands. My dad was furious. Imagine the smell of rotting skunk remains, viscera juice, earth, and skunk scent that was coming out of its glands ripped open. Needless to say, the show picked up as soon as we wee two entered the room. :lol:
I don't particularly remember smelling anything bad, though. Perhaps my olfactive glands got used to it fast, or I was away from the wind. Even now, skunk scent doesn't affect me very much even at close range, perhaps because of that particular exposure.
As long as they were dead hookers, the state got a little better.
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 10:21:44 AM
I wanted to just open the window, pull the AC out, and kick the nest down to the street, but one of my damn hippy workstudy students was all "AWW no that would be cruel and disrespectful!" so she made me call custodial services to have the birds "disposed of" respectfully.
The fact that you didn't ignore this retard casts doubt on your judgement. It's possible that you are, in fact, unemployable.
Quote from: Syt on November 04, 2009, 01:06:27 PM
Coyotes never catch anything. :rolleyes:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psychologytoday.com%2Ffiles%2Fu107%2Fwile_e_coyote_2.gif&hash=9e39e009896c552efe57de34d40303922c402e3d)
Tell that to Torontonian folk singers.
Quote from: Neil on November 04, 2009, 08:17:16 PM
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 10:21:44 AM
I wanted to just open the window, pull the AC out, and kick the nest down to the street, but one of my damn hippy workstudy students was all "AWW no that would be cruel and disrespectful!" so she made me call custodial services to have the birds "disposed of" respectfully.
The fact that you didn't ignore this retard casts doubt on your judgement. It's possible that you are, in fact, unemployable.
Cal can get a crazy check then.
Quote from: Neil on November 04, 2009, 08:17:16 PM
The fact that you didn't ignore this retard casts doubt on your judgement. It's possible that you are, in fact, unemployable.
Dude. I figured one call to the janitor would take care of it. I forgot about how absurd the bureaucracy there was. :Embarrass:
Quote from: Caliga on November 04, 2009, 12:28:02 PM
Quote from: KRonn on November 04, 2009, 12:25:23 PM
Poor Cal, got caught up being coerced into doing someone's version of the right thing, and it backfired, and smelled, terribly. Ewww....
The amusing thing is that the assistant who helped me dump the nest into the street actually predicted all this would happen after our first conversation with custodial services. :lol:
I'm surprised you didn't just do that right away, or at least after the orthinologist dude didn't show up within a day.
In those days I was a kindler, gentler Cal.
After finding all the skulls, CPD takes it on the chin.
QuoteAfter Gruesome Find, Anger at Cleveland Police
By IAN URBINA and CHRISTOPHER MAAG
CLEVELAND — After the third police station in a row refused to take a missing-person report about her niece two years ago, Sandy Drain took matters into her own hands.
She organized search parties to comb abandoned houses. She got neighborhood children to help post fliers on light poles. She recruited a national advocacy group for missing persons to host a rally. She even hired a psychic to look for clues in her niece's apartment.
"It was pretty obvious the police weren't going to help us," said Ms. Drain, 65, who added that the police began seriously investigating the case of her niece, Gloria Walker, only after Ms. Drain's initial efforts prompted the news media to begin asking questions.
"If you're from this neighborhood, you come to expect that," Ms. Drain said.
Her desperation and anger have grown here on Cleveland's gritty east side since the police last week arrested Anthony Sowell, a convicted sex offender who has been charged with multiple counts of murder after 11 decomposing bodies were discovered in his house and backyard.
Despite being accustomed to drugs and violence, residents said they were shocked by the case's gruesomeness and appalled that a man convicted of attempted rape had apparently been able to hide such heinous crimes, even as the authorities were regularly checking up on him.
Community activists added that in recent years they had received dozens of reports from residents in this largely poor and black neighborhood who told of encountering similar frustrations in getting the police to investigate cases of missing adults.
"They belittled it and made jokes," said Barbara Carmichael about her repeated and failed efforts to file a missing-person report about her daughter Tonia, whose body was the first of the 11 found in Mr. Sowell's house to be identified this week. "They told me to wait a while because she would return once all the drugs were gone."
Law enforcement officials insist, however, that they had done everything they could.
"We take these cases seriously," said Lt. Thomas Stacho, a spokesman for the Cleveland Police Department, who added that Ms. Carmichael's case had occurred out of Cleveland's jurisdiction.
In the case of Ms. Drain's niece, "certainly our records show that we spent a significant amount of time investigating the disappearance," Lieutenant Stacho said, including checking leads, looking up license plates and obtaining Ms. Walker's dental records.
Experts on crime also point out that unlike cases involving missing children, where the police typically react quickly, cases involving missing adults are more complicated. With adults, the police tend to investigate only when there is clear evidence of foul play, rather than just signs of a family feud or the disappearance of a drug addict who, perhaps, has chosen to remain out of touch while on a binge.
Many of the women from the neighborhood who were reported missing were known drug users, according to neighbors and the police.
But as a crowd gathered to stare at the cream-colored duplex where Mr. Sowell lived — one of the better-maintained homes in a neighborhood filled with abandoned houses — many people said it should not matter whether a person was a drug user for the police to investigate.
Many also wondered aloud whether they knew anyone among the dead.
"She has been missing since April," Fawcett Bess, owner of the pizza shop across the street from Mr. Sowell's house, said of a former girlfriend of Mr. Sowell. "But nobody really paid any attention because she was into the dope. It's crazy."
"I just feel sad," Mr. Bess added. "All these girls missing, and nobody did anything."
In 2005, Mr. Sowell moved back into this neighborhood of crumbling streets and vacant two-story walk-ups interspersed with a few tidy homes.
He had spent the previous 15 years in state prison for luring a 21-year-old woman into his home, then choking and raping her, according to the county prosecutor's office. Mr. Sowell pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted rape. (Earlier reports on the county court's Web site that he had been convicted of rape were incorrect.)
On the corner of Imperial Avenue and East 123rd Street, just feet from Mr. Sowell's house, many people said Thursday that the only thing they remembered about the place was the stench.
"People thought the stink was me," said Ray Cash, the owner of Ray's Sausage, a meat-processing plant next to Mr. Sowell's house.
To eliminate the smell, Mr. Cash said he had the plant's gutters cleaned, drain pipes flushed and sewage drain cleaned with bleach. It made no difference.
The smell was so bad, Mr. Cash said, that his workers preferred the pungent air inside the meat factory to the foul odor outside, so much so that they kept the windows shut, even in the summer heat.
Last Thursday, the police finally discovered the cause of the smell. While serving a search warrant on Mr. Sowell's house in response to an accusation of rape, the police found two bodies. By Wednesday, the count had risen to 11.
Councilman Zack Reed, who represents the neighborhood, said the smell should have been the first clue to the authorities that something was awry.
"Clearly, something could have been done differently," Mr. Reed said, adding that he did not understand why the police and sheriff's officers who had visited Mr. Sowell's home weeks ago did not investigate the smell further.
On Sept. 22, two county sheriff's deputies appeared at Mr. Sowell's door to make sure he was obeying the reporting requirements imposed on sex offenders.
Hours later, according to a police report, Mr. Sowell tried to drag a woman into his house to rape her.
Experts say that while local law enforcement is required to track sex offenders when they are released from prison, the authorities are usually given limited legal leeway or extra resources to do this.
"The system that we have to do monitoring and supervision follow-up once they return to the community is just overwhelmed," said Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Mary Mason rejected the notion that the police had done all they could to find her sister, Michelle Mason, after she disappeared on Oct. 8, 2008. Mr. Sowell was not caught sooner, she said, because the police ignored complaints from residents about missing persons, much as they ignored the stench from Mr. Sowell's house.
"The police are still in the mindset that some people don't matter," said Ms. Mason, adding that while her sister had a police record involving drug use, she had stopped using drugs 10 years ago. "Shouldn't the police have noticed that we had so many black women missing before this?"
Police logs show that officers worked virtually every day for months trying to find Michelle Mason, Lieutenant Stacho said. Similar steps were taken in other missing-persons cases, he said.
The reason it took 36 days from the time the police received a rape complaint against Mr. Sowell to the day they finally obtained a search warrant, Lieutenant Stacho added, was that the victim avoided repeated efforts by the police to interview her.
But Ms. Drain, who still does not know what happened to her niece, said she was tired of waiting for answers. "I'm looking at 10 bodies and a skull, and I'm hoping one of them is Gloria," Ms. Drain said, "because it would be closure for my family."
The smell was so bad, Mr. Cash said, that his workers preferred the pungent air inside the meat factory to the foul odor outside, so much so that they kept the windows shut, even in the summer heat.
Last Thursday, the police finally discovered the cause of the smell. While serving a search warrant on Mr. Sowell's house in response to an accusation of rape, the police found two bodies. By Wednesday, the count had risen to 11.
Councilman Zack Reed, who represents the neighborhood, said the smell should have been the first clue to the authorities that something was awry.
The stench was so bad that the sausage factory kept its windows shut, so apparently the smell wasn't so bad inside. Given that especially, does anyone else here think that someone would have a good notion that they were smelling something dead and rotting from elsewhere? Yeah, hindsight though, and most people aren't thinking about dead human bodies and a mass murderer next door, but still something was obvious very wrong and unusual with no one really getting other ideas.