COLUMBUS, Ohio – Anthony Sowell, sentenced to death for killing 11 women and hiding his remains in and around his home in a case of concern by authorities minimizing the plight of missing black women, has died in prison of a disease.
Sowell, 61, had received end-of-life care at Franklin Medical Center for a terminal illness when he died Monday, said JoEllen Smith, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The death was not related to COVID-19, he said.
Cleveland police were investigating a rape case in October 2009 when they searched Sowell’s home and discovered two bodies. Finally, they discovered the remains of 11 women.
Most of the victims had had addiction problems and had died of strangulation, prosecutors said. Some had been beheaded and the bodies of others were decomposed to such an extent that forensic scientists could not be sure how they died.
In interviews with police, Sowell said he addressed women who reminded him of his ex-girlfriend, who had been addicted to cocaine and left him shortly before the murders began.
Neighbors had blamed a stink of rotting bodies at an adjacent sausage factory, which spent $ 20,000 on new plumbing fixtures and sewer lines to try to get the smell out.
The case was a moment of calculation for Cleveland. Relatives of the murdered women, who were black and many black residents, said police did not take the disappearance of the victims seriously because of their race and troubled background, and complained about how officers handled the victims. reports of missing persons. Police said some of the victims were never missing.
In response, Cleveland police reviewed how they handled the investigation of missing persons’ sex crimes and based on the recommendations issued after finding the remains.
Cuyahoga County Attorney Michael O’Malley said his “thoughts and prayers” were with relatives and friends of Sowell’s victims, whom he called a monster.
“My hope is that law enforcement and the criminal justice system have learned from the mistakes that allowed this evil predator not to be detected for so long,” O’Malley said.
Joann Moore, whose sister Janice Webb was one of the victims, said Tuesday she was still trying to process a mixture of emotions.
“The ultimate goal was to see it all and see that he got justice,” he said. “That was something else we weren’t able to see. He breathed last.”
What happened more than a decade ago “was a tragic story for the city of Cleveland. It was a tragic story for us that this could continue, ”he said.
“I still miss my sister. I know he is watching over his son, his children and his siblings, ”Moore said.
Sowell “could have been arrested years earlier if we had done our job,” said Zack Reed, a former member of the Cleveland City Council, the East Side department included Sowell’s home. He said it was unfortunate that the sausage company was never compensated for the upgrades it made.
Cleveland police did not connect the dots and realized the missing women, many drug addicts and living on the fringes of society, had been killed by an individual, Reed said Tuesday.
“We didn’t thoroughly investigate the missing women,” she said. “We didn’t take their families and the community seriously.”
Sowell was sentenced in 2011 and sentenced to death for killing women. He was also convicted of raping two more women and attempting to rape another. Its execution was not planned.
Sowell was a former sailor who had a brutal childhood and struggled with his mental health, John Parker, one of his defense attorneys, said Tuesday.
“He wasn’t a monster nor was he a villain,” Parker said. “He was harmed by child abuse and serious mental health problems. May he rest in peace. ”
In 2014, the ground was broken into a memorial at the site of the remains of Sowell’s victims.
In 2019, Cleveland settled a lawsuit filed by two of Sowell’s survivors. The women claimed that a police detective abused the investigation into the allegations against Sowell, which allowed him to remain free and victimize more women.
Sowell had continued to appeal his case. Recently, in May, a three-judge tribunal of the District 8 Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Sowell did not present sufficient evidence to fail to receive a fair trial and that his trial attorneys represented him ineffectively during the trial. of grief.
The group also upheld a lower court ruling that dismissed Sowell’s request for post-conviction relief.
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Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo and Mark Gillispie in Cleveland contributed to this report.