Real Horror On Halloween Cleveland Cops Arrest Rapist 6 Corpses Found in His Home

Serial-Killer Suspect's Trial Pushed Back

By Associated Press
Published: May 07, 2010

CLEVELAND -- The trial of a Cleveland man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home has been pushed back to Sept. 7.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose approved the three-month delay Thursday. He rejected a defense request to delay the trial until January.

The defense team for 50-year-old Anthony Sowell says it needs more time to interview witnesses and hire outside experts. Prosecutors wanted to start the trial as scheduled June 2.

The defense says it's preparing a renewed effort to move the trial out of Cleveland to make sure there's an unbiased jury.

http://www2.nbc4i.com/mgmedia/image/294/0/6884/police_id_other_cleveland_death_house_victims/

Sons of Imperial Avenue victims in Cleveland vow to end cycle of neglect

By Plain Dealer staff
May 23, 2010, 8:00AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Anthony Dozier knows how drugs can destroy families. Crack cocaine ripped through his, bringing a gruesome end to his addicted and abused mother's life. Her body was found at the Imperial Avenue home of Anthony Sowell last year.

Dozier couldn't save his mom, Crystal Dozier. But at age 25, the clean-cut ex-Marine is determined to become a cop and protect his community, especially his 3-year-old daughter.

Dozier grew up neglected by his mom. He barely knew his dad. He has promised himself that his daughter's life will be different.

"If I go out there . . . and take criminals off the street and try to make it a safer place, maybe it will be a little easier for her generation," said Dozier, who has completed police training and is waiting to land a job with the Cleveland force.

He is one of four men, all sons of Imperial Avenue victims, who voiced nearly the same feelings and experiences during interviews with The Plain Dealer. They spoke of learning to cope with fragmented families, including addicted mothers who careened in and out of their lives. They grew up often fending for themselves.

All four say the cycle of neglect will stop with them.

"That's why I work so hard, spending time with my daughter. I never want her to feel the neglect I did," Dozier said.

Local social workers say the neglect the men faced in childhood is a familiar tale threading through Cleveland's poor areas. Their families' stories made headlines when investigators discovered the remains of 11 women last fall at the house where Sowell lived.

The 50-year-old Cleveland man is scheduled to go on trial in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in September. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Investigators say Sowell sometimes used drugs to lure women to his house, then strangled them.

Stories of drugs destroying lives and ravaging families are common in Cleveland and other urban areas. Many social-service agencies tailor programs to help addicts get clean, learn to be good parents and rebuild their families. Still, the impact on the children -- a generational unraveling of society's fabric -- will be hard to repair.

Children who grow up in these types of environments often are on a search to find out who they are, said E. Ethelbert Miller, who directs the African American Resource Center at Howard University in Washington, D.C. That quest can lead to depression -- a plight not often addressed in urban communities.

"Our community suffers because we don't engage ourselves as citizens," Miller said. "Here you have a serial killer, but then you have drug deals, domestic violence and other abuses right down the street. Everyone has a story. After a while, the community becomes numb to death and dying, and the only way you can live is by blocking it out."

"It takes a tremendous amount of courage" to break free of patterns set by one's parents -- a big reason why addiction, domestic violence and fatherlessness have taken root in poor areas, said Judy Smith, a Texas-based crisis counselor who has studied the influence of family on personal behavior.

It is role models like these four men -- joined by grisly crimes -- who hold a key to reversing the fatherless trend in poor communities, said Steve Killpack, coordinator of the Healthy Fathering Collaborative, which offers parenting classes, job training and legal help to Cleveland-area fathers.

Killpack complimented the men for making a conscious decision not to pass their childhood pain on to their children.

That's the mindset it's going to take to move forward, experts say.

"Out of this horrible mess and madness, these men are saying, 'We want to take what we've learned and put it to use so that our children will not have to experience anything like this,' " said David Miller, associate professor at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

They will need a lot of help to shelter their children from poverty, drugs and crime, added Miller, who believes Cleveland's leaders, especially policymakers and pastors, should work harder to regenerate families.

All four of the fathers spotlighted in this article are unmarried -- not surprising, considering that 73 percent of children born in Cleveland are born to unmarried mothers, 2008 census figures show.

"Marriage and childbirth have just become disconnected," Killpack said. "I've worked with lots and lots of young men and women who say, 'We're not ready to get married. You need to have a job, we need to be able to provide for each other.' They have traditional values about what marriage means, and they're not close to it."

Killpack encourages unmarried parents to bond around the needs of their children. "It's just the norm," he said. "We've got to meet these folks where they are."

He has met and worked with many unmarried Cleveland fathers who, like these four, grew up abandoned. "They don't know how to parent on their own," he said. "It wasn't done for them."

Anthony Dozier: Motivated to fight crime to make the world a safer place for his daughter

With a sheepish smile, Anthony Dozier acknowledges he sometimes overfeeds his 3-year-old, Aniya.

"If she doesn't get up and walk away from the table, I just keep slapping it on her plate," he said. "I know that's a problem."

Unshakeable memories drive him to do it.

"I never, ever want her to be hungry," he said, "because, as a kid, sometimes there just wasn't nothing to eat."

Aniya lives with her mother, who says Dozier's only shortcoming as a father is that he spoils the girl.

Dozier pointedly calls his mother "Crystal," not "Mom." He said he spent years resenting the woman who gave birth to him when she was 13. He lived with a variety of relatives in his early years, because his young mother was strung out on drugs.

As a preteen, he dialed the county's 696-KIDS (696-5437) line nearly every day to report that drugs were being sold from the crowded public-housing apartment where he lived with an aunt.

It took months before a social worker finally took action.

He and his six younger siblings ended up scattered to different foster homes. Dozier feels lucky to have been paired with foster dad Doren Palmer, a firm but affectionate father figure.

Dozier knows little about his biological dad.

"I know who he is, and I met him when I was 12," Dozier said. "I didn't really keep up with him -- and he didn't keep up with me."

With Palmer guiding him, Dozier joined the ROTC program at Collinwood High School. Still craving structure in his life, he did a stint with the Marines, then returned to Cleveland, where he completed police academy training at Cuyahoga Community College.

Now 25, he waits for the Cleveland Police Department to make good on a conditional offer of employment. Crime fighting is his passion, because of his little girl.

He's also motivated by memories of his mom. Dozier reported her missing in 2007 and sometimes drove through the Mount Pleasant neighborhood searching for her.

"One of my biggest regrets is I spent so long mad at Crystal, we never did make up," he said.

He feels her death means his mother is finally at peace, after a life scarred by drugs and abusive men.

"I don't have to worry about her no more. She's in God's hands."

Bobbie Dancy: Wants to give toddler son steadier upbringing than his mother gave him

Bobbie Dancy, 23, still lives with his father in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood home where he and his younger brother grew up.

The two siblings, both sons of victim Amelda "Amy" Hunter, have taken different paths. Dancy's brother is in prison, while he is a United Parcel Service employee, determined that his 2-year-old son will have a steadier upbringing than he did.

Their mom tried hard to shake a decades-long crack addiction but never made it a year without relapsing, Bobbie Dancy said.

"I'm really sure she wanted to quit. She told me lots of times. She went to church, she got baptized. Still, it kind of crept back up," Dancy said.

When his mom was clean, she was nurturing and affectionate, quick to say "I love you." But when she would disappear, Dancy grew to feel he couldn't depend on anyone.

"Most children, they always have their mother around," he said. Dancy never had that security.

As a young child, he didn't understand her absences. As he grew older, she opened up to him when she would return to the house, sometimes admitting, "I slipped up." He realizes her shame at being an inadequate parent probably added fuel to her addiction.

Dancy's parents had a volatile relationship, fed by his mom's drug problem and his dad's drinking. His one criminal conviction stems from the day he defended his mom when she was arguing with his father and Dancy ended up fighting his dad.

"I didn't have no stable influences," he reflected, fully aware that the dysfunction he witnessed affects him. "Sometimes I feel like I kind of get cold on people. It's not that I want to do it. That's how I protect myself."

His relationships have suffered, especially with women. But he is determined to be a loving dad to his toddler son, little Bobbie, even though he and Bobbie's mother have broken up.

"I just really want to be with him through thick and thin," said Dancy, who calls his son "my legacy and inspiration."

He tries to see him at least four times a week.

"I'm pretty motivated because I never had nothing. I think that's why I want so much for my son."

Shannon Liccardo: Father-to-be believes every child should have a mother and a father

Shannon Liccardo, the youngest of victim Michelle Mason's two sons, is a 21-year-old dad-to-be who knows almost nothing about his own father.

He knows his name and has a picture of him, but "I don't know if he may be dead or alive."

Now that Liccardo and his girlfriend are expecting a child -- a girl due in September -- he is insistent that every child deserves two parents.

"A father and mother are supposed to raise a kid. I believe in that," he said. "They need that male perspective and then they need that mom perspective."

Liccardo didn't have a nuclear family himself, but he had a closely knit one. His maternal grandmother, Adlean Atterberry of Garfield Heights, took him in right after his birth because of his mother's addiction.

Liccardo, a landscaper who still lives with his grandmother, bears no bitterness toward his mother, whom he calls "the coolest mom in the world." He loved her quick sense of humor and that she didn't behave like a traditional mom. "She was more than that. More like a best friend, a companion. Somebody I could be with, tell anything to," he said.

Michelle became a more stable presence in his life about 10 years ago, after she kicked heroin and crack habits. Her family rejoiced that after years in the streets, a string of drug arrests and violent attacks that left her near death, Michelle seemed to have turned her life around.

"She fought hard for her sobriety," said her sister, Mary Mason, recalling one winter when Michelle caught the bus regularly to her rehab program at Marymount Hospital, even walking two miles through snow when the bus didn't come.

Mary, 50, lives around the corner from her mother and raised Michelle's oldest son, Franklin, now 23. Mary and Atterberry said they tried to provide loving homes and didn't keep Michelle's addiction a secret. Their large family supplied the two boys with male role models, including a grandfather and uncles.

It's too soon to know what type of dad Liccardo will be. But one thing is clear. He is eager for the chance to build the family he never had. Unlike his friends who go out drinking and clubbing instead of taking care of their kids, he vows he's going to be a real dad.

He wants his daughter to know she has his attention and support.

"When she's coming up, I want to make sure she respects herself," he said.

Liccardo and his girlfriend have agreed on the baby's name.

Michelle.

In memory of his mom.

This baby, he said, is "an opportunity to start my new era."

Jonathan Carmichael: Father of 3 vows to be there, from Little League to graduation

Jonathan Carmichael wants his three young children to know they have a father -- and a daddy -- as he raises them.

"A father is a person who just births a kid," he said. "A daddy is the person there 24/7/365, making sure that your kids have what they need."

The 25-year-old is the son of Tonia Carmichael, the first of 11 victims identified in the home on Imperial Avenue.

Carmichael, a United Parcel Service dock worker, said he doesn't want to miss out as his kids, ages 2 through 8, grow up. He said he will be there for the scrapes and bruises as well as the Little League games and graduations.

"I grew up without my father, and I don't want that for my kids," Carmichael said.

Though he is close to his immediate family, Carmichael said he wants his children to be in a complete family with him and his fianc e, Andraya. His oldest child is from a previous relationship.

"I want to make sure my kids have morals and values instilled in them so after they leave my home to go to college, they will be prepared," he said.

Carmichael, the youngest of three children, lived with his mother until he was 12. He moved in with his grandmother after his mom became addicted to drugs.

His sisters, Donnita and Markeisha, had as much as a 12-year age difference with him. They were out of the house by the time his mother began to use.

He gives his mother credit for the lessons she taught him about hard work and the value of a dollar but wishes he could have been around for the mother his sisters knew.

"They saw a side of her I didn't get to see, and sometimes that bothers me," Carmichael said. "I still love my mother, but I do feel cheated."

Not long ago, the Navy veteran was helping move furniture at his sister Donnita's house in Garfield Heights. Two of his children were with him.

He strode into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of pizza. His youngest son, Michai, 5, already with pizza sauce on his mouth and fingertips, walked in and asked for another slice.

His dad smiled and began to cut it with a knife.

"This is the daddy stuff," Carmichael said. "Hopefully when they get older they can see I was a man who loves them, values them and a person who would never let harm come their way."

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/05/sons_of_imperial_avenue_victim.html

It looks like there's still a lot of work to be done with the sex offender laws.

Suspect in serial deaths gets lesser sex offender rank

MEGHAN BARR
Associated Press
June 5, 2010

CLEVELAND -- A man accused of killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home is among 26,000 sex offenders who will be reclassified and subject to less strict monitoring following a state Supreme Court ruling.

Anthony Sowell no longer will be classified as a Tier III offender, which meant that he had to report to law enforcement every 90 days and that neighbors would have been notified if he had moved, Cuyahoga County sheriff's office spokesman John O'Brien said Friday.

Instead, Sowell will revert to his original classification of sexually oriented criminal, under which offenders must report to authorities once a year for 10 years, O'Brien said. Neighbors are not notified of the whereabouts of sexually oriented criminals, O'Brien said.

Sowell, 50, was deemed a sex offender in 2005, when he was released from prison after serving 15 years for a 1989 attempted rape. Authorities found the decomposing bodies of 11 women in and around Sowell's Cleveland home last year. He has pleaded not guilty to killing the women and is being held without bond as he awaits a September trial.

In 2008, Ohio was the first state to put substantially in place a new sex offender registration and notification system required by the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. The 2006 law is named for a 6-year-old Florida boy who was abducted and killed in 1981 and whose father, John Walsh, is the host of TV's "America's Most Wanted," which publicizes crimes and helps authorities catch criminals.

The law, signed by former President George W. Bush, sought to get states to better coordinate and expand their sex offender registries.

The Ohio attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday on how the ruling affects Sowell.

County prosecutor's office spokesman Ryan Miday said the ruling is the least of Sowell's concerns.

"He faces the death penalty for the murder of 11 women," Miday said in an e-mailed statement. "The court's ruling is being reviewed as it pertains to reporting requirements."

Records of the 1989 assault show Sowell took a 21-year-old woman to his home, pushed her down on a bed and started to choke her. When she tried to scream, he said: "You can scream all you want. Nobody is home."

He sexually assaulted the woman twice, gagged her, threatened to kill her and tied her up with a necktie, the records said.

Because of the viciousness of the crime, a parole board repeatedly denied him early release. In a parole hearing, he owned up to an alcohol problem and said he'd been drinking the day of the assault.

Thursday's court ruling means that sex offenders convicted before the law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008, would revert to the classifications they received under the old Megan's Law -- and potentially be subject to less stringent registration and notification requirements. The ruling leaves in place the new, tougher requirements for those convicted since.

In its 5-1 decision, the high court said that Ohio's implementation violated the separation of powers among branches of government because the Legislature was forcing the executive branch to revisit decisions made by judges.

Under Ohio's new Adam Walsh Law, old Megan's Law classifications such as "sexually oriented criminal" or "sexual predator" were replaced with a tiered classification system. Offenders were moved into the new tiers based solely on the offenses they had committed, whereas Megan's Law had allowed judges to hold hearings and use some discretion in assigning offenders categories.

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20106050319

Defense seeks trial delay in 11 dead bodies case

By MEGHAN BARR
Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2010

CLEVELAND Attorneys for a man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home are asking a judge to delay the trial until January 2011.

In a motion filed Tuesday with the Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Court, the defense team for 50-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl) says it needs more time to interview more than 150 witnesses and review evidence.

The trial already has been delayed once and is scheduled to begin Sept. 7.

The defense also is requesting an inventory of all evidence submitted to the FBI or other federal agencies for review or testing.

Earlier this month, Judge Dick Ambrose rejected the defense's request to move the trial out of Cleveland.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/06/29/1504258/defense-seeks-trial-delay-in-11.html

Judge OKs funding in Anthony Sowell case

By Meghan Barr
Associated Press

POSTED: 03:42 p.m. EDT, Jul 14, 2010

CLEVELAND: Court documents obtained by The Associated Press show a judge has approved an additional $55,000 in state-funded costs for the defense of a man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home.

In a ruling filed Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Judge Dick Ambrose approved up to $25,000 to prepare for the mitigation phase of trial and $30,000 to hire a forensic scientist who has examined the Cleveland home where the bodies were found.

The state has already spent more than $100,000 on Anthony Sowell's defense, which includes payments to his attorneys, a mental health expert, a paralegal and a forensic consultant.

Defense attorneys for Sowell had originally requested an additional $110,000. Fifty-year-old Sowell has pleaded not guilty to killing the women. His trial is scheduled for September.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/98443349.html

Interrogations OK in Anthony Sowell case

Updated: 9/21/2010 3:45:04 PM

CLEVELAND -- A judge has ruled that prosecutors can present in court the recorded police interrogations of a Cleveland man charged with killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his home.

The Tuesday ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose denies a motion by 50-year-old Anthony Sowell that sought to keep statements he made to police out of court.

Read more: http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=149678

It's unbelievable that taxpayers have to pay $150,000 do defend a serial killer with so much evidence against him. $24,985 of it is for an expert to try to humanize the monster, so the jury will have sympathy for him and not sentence him to death. Aren't there schools or roads in Ohio where this money would be better spent?

Judge reins in spending on Anthony Sowell's defense; experts warn order could prompt appeal

Updated: Monday, October 11, 2010, 8:36 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- With four months to go before his aggravated murder trial, the price tag on serial-killing suspect Anthony Sowell's defense is a shade under $150,000. Soon it will become the most expensive publicly funded criminal defense in Cuyahoga County history.

Among the highest expenditures is $24,985 for a mitigation expert -- a social researcher whose job is to humanize Sowell, evoke jurors' sympathy and ultimately save him from the death penalty.

Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose alerted Sowell's attorneys last month that they were within $15 of their mitigation allowance. He said he would not consider future requests without documentation justifying the expense. Although Ambrose's cost-conscious stance seems valid in an era of tight budgets, legal experts warn that denying a defendant adequate counsel -- especially in death penalty cases -- could be grounds for an appeal. And what constitutes an adequate defense is debatable.

The American Bar Association, whose guidelines for defense counsel and mitigation experts have been embraced in U.S. Supreme Court decisions as the standard, has called it improper for judges to set spending caps on mitigation services.

In Cuyahoga County, however, the court caps initial mitigation costs at $3,000 -- a sum that many defense attorneys say is unreasonably low for the work the job requires.

Read more: http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/10/judge_reins_in_spending_on_ant.html

'Sowell' shouldn't mean serial killer

Posted: 9:17 AM
Last Updated: 5 hours and 32 minutes ago
By Cristin Severance, ONN



CLEVELAND - One year ago, 11 women were found in Anthony Sowell's East Cleveland home and and prosecutors say his name became synonymous with the phrase "serial killer."

Now, distant relatives say their last name is a constant source of gossip and even discrimination.

Carolyn Sowell said that she might have met accused serial killer Anthony Sowell one time at a family reunion 30 years ago.

She said that her great-grandfather and his great-grandfather were cousins.

"He is in our family tree," Carolyn Sowell said.

But even though she is a distant relative, she said that every time she says her name, she gets the third degree, ONN's Cristin Severance reported on Monday.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/sowell-has-become-synonymous-with-serial-killer

Bombshell: Cleveland Strangler's case won't include an insanity defense

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) - 19 Action News is breaking a bombshell in the case of the Cleveland Strangler.

According to a lawyer, suspected Cleveland Strangler Anthony Sowell's case will not include an insanity defense.

Read more: http://www.woio.com/Global/story.asp?S=14016905

Jury selection begins for alleged Cleveland serial killer trial

Kim Palmer Reuters
3:48 p.m. PDT, June 3, 2011

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Jury selection began on Friday in the trial of a Cleveland man accused of killing 11 women.

If convicted, Anthony Sowell, 51, could be sentenced to death.

A pool of more than 300 prospective jurors requested for the trial reported to an Ohio courthouse Friday. Of this pool, 200 potential candidates were given jury questionnaires to fill out and will return Monday for the first day of orientation, according to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Administrator Gregory Popovich.

Read more: http://www.fox40.com/news/capitolpulse/sns-rt-us-crime-sowelltre7527eb-20110603,0,1611890.story

Defense rests in trial of accused Ohio serial killer

By the CNN Wire Staff
July 19, 2011 11:33 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The defense rested Tuesday in the case of alleged Ohio serial killer Anthony Sowell, who is accused of sexually assaulting, killing and dismembering 11 Cleveland-area women between 2007 and 2009.

The defense called no witnesses and presented no evidence during the trial, according to CNN affiliate WOIO. Prosecutors rested their case against Sowell on Monday.

Read more:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/19/ohio.anthony.sowell.trial/index.html

Sowell Guilty of 11 Murders

7/23/11

A jury has found an accused serial killer guilty of 84 of 85 counts against him, including 11 counts of first-degree murder. The same jury will next hear evidence in the penalty phase of the trial before deciding whether or not to recommend death for Anthony Sowell in the "House of Horrors" case.
Sowell had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but presented no witnesses or evidence during the trial.

He was found guilty of kidnapping and murder charges in connection with the 11 women whose bodies were found in and around his Cleveland home. He was also found guilty of felonious assault, attempted rape and attempted murder in several cases.

Jurors will return to the court on Aug. 1 to begin the death penalty phase of the trial.

Read more:
http://crime.about.com/b/2011/07/23/sowell-guilty-of-11-murders.htm

Now that's a jury that was sequestered and didn't cower! They didn't care about their summer being wasted by a murder trial. May they have the guts to sentence him to death.

Serial killer Anthony Sowell breaks down at sentencing
By Casey Glynn

(CBS/WOIO/AP) CLEVELAND, Ohio - There were tears from Ohio serial killer Anthony Sowell at his sentencing hearing Monday as a psychiatrist described his dysfunctional childhood.

Defense attorneys are trying to get the life of 51- year-old Anthony Sowell spared. They say the ex-Marine doesn't deserve capital punishment because he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses. Sowell was found guilty last month of murdering eleven women and burying their bodies in and around his Cleveland home.

The first witness on the stand was Dr. Dale Watson, a neuropsychologist. He requested to not be filmed, despite being paid by taxpayers. Watson said Sowell has left and right brain dysfunction. He then described Sowell's dysfunctional childhood, at which point Sowell became emotional. The serial killer was seen wiping tears from his face when the doctor said Sowell did not have "one friend" as a youngster. During one session, Watson said Sowell told him that the voice he heard in his head had a name. He called it "Marty."

Watson also testified that Sowell's IQ, mental-processing speed and handling of spelling, puzzle and drawing tests rank him low compared to other people. He says the dysfunction may have been caused by a heart attack which can affect processing speed by reducing oxygen to the brain.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20086416-504083.html?tag=re1.channel

Well, I guess they should sentence "Marty" to death then. This man is a viscious killer, he stalked his prey and they died horrible deaths - the number of women he raped and murdered is unbelievable.

Judge sentences Ohio killer of 11 to death

Updated: Aug 13, 2011 2:06 AM EDT

By THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) - A serial killer was sentenced to death Friday for murdering 11 troubled women and scattering their remains around his property, horrors that shook the city over police handling of crime in poor neighborhoods.

Anthony Sowell, 51, his eyes closed at times, sat impassively as Judge Dick Ambrose - accepting the recommendation of jurors who convicted Sowell of aggravated murder - announced 11 death sentences.

Jurors, some wiping tears, returned to court to watch. The judge had the option of reducing the sentence to life in prison without chance of parole.

Read more: http://www.kotanow.com/story/15255292/ohio-killer-of-11-facing-death-or-life-in-prison

Thank God a jury got one right.

Cleveland condemns house where 11 bodies found

Sep 10, 2011

CLEVELAND -- The city has condemned the killing ground dubbed the "House of Horrors," a home where 11 women were murdered by a man who dumped their remains around his house and property.

The owner has until Oct. 2 to make repairs or face having the house demolished, mayoral press secretary Andrea Taylor said Friday in an email to The Associated Press.

Read more: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20110910/NEWS01/109100306/Cleveland-condemns-house-where-11-bodies-found

Judge drops remaining cases against Ohio killer

September 13, 2011

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A serial killer already sentenced to death for killing 11 women and dumping their remains around his house and property laughed and said the state had no case as a judge dismissed remaining rape and kidnapping charges against him on Monday.

The cases were dismissed at the prosecutor's request to save additional trial costs and spare two women who testified at Anthony Sowell's murder trial from having to testify again. Jurors said the grueling testimony of survivors was important in convicting Sowell, 52.

Read more: http://www.lincolndailynews.com/News/news091311_ae.shtml

Ohio house comes down where remains of 11 found

Demolition in Cleveland for home where serial killer dumped remains of 11 women

By The Associated Press
12/06/11

CLEVELAND (AP) ' The home where a serial killer dumped the remains of the 11 women he murdered was torn apart Tuesday by a demolition crew, a move that neighbors and victims' relatives said would help bring closure and stop gawkers from seeking out what some have dubbed a "house of horrors."

Heavy equipment began clawing at the former home of Anthony Sowell just before dawn, a day after family members of those who died were hand-delivered letters notifying them of the demolition. Video from WEWS-TV showed that the work commenced as several people stood across the street, chanting "Tear it down!" and "Hallelujah!"

Read more: http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/article/Ohio-house-comes-down-where-remains-of-11-found-1791494

Maybe they should dig up the ground now, in case he somehow buried more victims under the house.