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Local News

Thursday, November 05, 2009

11 bodies in Cleveland home found; 1 identified
Burns Electric - Tiffin
By VICKI SMITH

and MEGHAN BARR

Associated Press Writers

CLEVELAND -- The run-down Cleveland neighborhood where 50-year-old Anthony Sowell quietly carved out an existence is the type of place where women can disappear almost in plain sight.

Where crack users sneak into vacant houses to do drugs, have sex, then steal copper pipes and wiring to make a few bucks.

Where no one asks a lot of questions, even about the smell of rotting meat that came when the wind blew a certain way. Some likened it to the smell of death, and it seemed to follow Sowell around.

No one is sure how long Sowell, a registered sex offender who would offer free barbecue to the neighbors, had been living in his three-story house with corpses lying around, many of them black women who had been strangled. Police have now recovered 11 bodies from the home on Imperial Avenue, in the living room, crawl spaces and backyard graves. There was even a skull in the basement.

But if Sowell's street is seedy, it's far from abandoned. Occupied homes are sandwiched between vacant, boarded-up houses and scattered small businesses with a steady stream of customers.

"We're not talking about some desolate area, some abandoned barn," said Councilman Zach Reed, whose mother lives a block away. "How did somebody get away with this in a residential neighborhood?"

Even residents seemed unfazed by the disappearances: They say many of the women were known prostitutes or drug users. But relatives of presumed victims charge that police ignored their missing person reports.

"They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up," said Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs, whose 53-year-old mother Tonia, a drug addict, vanished Nov. 10, 2008. Police identified her Wednesday as one of the victims, saying her body was found buried in the backyard with marks indicating strangulation.

"It's hard to imagine," Carmichael-Jacobs said as she stood shivering on a street corner across from Sowell's home Wednesday, "but that's what they told us to our face: 'She'll turn up.'"

Some wonder whether police just didn't look for the women because they were from the city. Or because they were black.

"There's this fear that the neighborhood has been forgotten," said the Rev. Rodney Maiden of Providence Baptist Church.

Cleveland police don't take missing-persons cases seriously if they involve people clinging to the lower rungs of society, said Judy Martin, a leading local anti-crime advocate.

Reed, the councilman, is demanding an investigation into how crime reports in the neighborhood have been handled.

Mayor Frank Jackson refused to second-guess officers or their handling of missing-person reports, but said he expected the police chief would evaluate the situation.

Police Chief Michael McGrath said the city takes about 10 missing-person reports a day but typically clears at least 90 percent within 48 hours.

Chuck Cole, a landlord with rental homes in the area, said most of the women who disappeared went by nicknames, so he doesn't know who they really were. He said he sometimes saw them buying beer at the corner convenience store, or lounging on Sowell's front porch.

"He reeled them in like that with the money and, you know, promises," Cole said of Sowell.

After a while, though, the women stopped coming around.

Residents said that in retrospect the smell alone should have raised questions. It wafted down the street, sometimes forcing the sausage-shop employees who worked near to his home to abandon the store on hot summer days.

It smelled like a dead dog, they say. Like sewage. Like rotting meat.

"It was smelling so bad, horrible, putrid," said Kenneth Broader, a postal carrier who delivers mail to Imperial Avenue.

Sewage lines were replaced. Equipment was scrubbed. City utility officials even came to investigate, on more than one occasion. But the stench lingered.

Sowell was ordered held without bond after appearing in court under tight security Wednesday.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Brian Murphy called him "an incredibly dangerous threat to the public" and said he could face the death penalty if convicted of five aggravated murder counts. He also faces charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping after a Sept. 22 attack on a woman at his home.

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

The house is separated by no more than 15 feet on either side from narrow, dilapidated homes.


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adam wrote in article "Village patrols may be restored in future":
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11/20/2009 3:21:12 PM
adam wrote in article "Corn dust bothers elevator neighbor":
grain
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Kuebler Shoes -Tiffin, Ohio
News Briefs Work scheduled on Findlay streets
Findlay's Main Street, northbound, will be reduced at times to one lane between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. for waterline connection.

Main Street will not be accessible from East Lincoln Street. Lincoln Street will be closed to through traffic from South Main Street to South Blanchard Street from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for continued improvement work. Access to local businesses and residents only will be maintained.

Recount planned in trustee's race
OTTAWA -- After certifying election results on Wednesday, the Putnam County Board of Elections has announced a recount will be required for the Union Township trustee race, according to Deputy Director Shelly Burkhart.

The recount will be completed on Wednesday at the county elections board office, 336 E. Main Street, Ottawa.

Incumbent Daniel R. Ellerbrock has secured his position on the board, earning 685 votes. However the remaining trustee spot will require a recount as Gery P. Wurth earned 598 votes and Mark J. Kahle collected 601 votes, according to official results.

An automatic recount is necessary if the margin is within one-half of 1 percent of total votes cast, according to state law.

Road to be closed
Forest Lake Drive, between Marion Township 237 and Indian Lake Drive/Forest Lane, will be closed today for a pipe installation.

The road is expected to open by 5 p.m., weather permitting.

Motorists are advised to use Township 242.