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Anthony Sowell Case: How Lazy Police Let a Serial Killer Run Free
Friday, Nov. 13 2009 @ 3:17PM

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Police found 11 decaying bodies in Anthony Sowell's indoor graveyard
​UPDATE: Anthony Sowell was arrested last year for choking and attempting to rape a woman. But police didn't believe the victim and set him free. See update after the jump...

Fawcett Bess owns Bess Chicken and Pizza, across the street from the home of Anthony Sowell. This is where police found the bodies of 11 women -- left in the attic, stuffed in crawl spaces, and buried in his backyard. This is also where Cleveland police were called to at least five times in the weeks and months leading up to the discovery. But they did almost no investigation.

Bess recalls an incident two weeks before police discovered the bodies. He found a naked Sowell standing in the bushes next to his house. On the ground was a naked woman bloodied and beaten. Bess called 911 and an ambulance took the woman away. But police didn't arrive until two hours later -- and never bothered to interview him...

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When Tonia Carmichael went missing, police told her daughter to just go home and wait for her to show up
​It may be a shocking case of investigative ineptitude to the rest of the country, but to the people of Cleveland it's absolutely routine. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Cleveland is the city that never works. This is a town that's barely functioned since presidential wannabe Dennis Kucinich ran it into bankruptcy during his brief term as mayor 30 years ago.

The FBI is currently in the midst of a massive corruption sweep that's netted everyone from judges to school board members, and promises to take down the county's Democratic boss, Jimmy Dimora. Public theft and corruption is so pervasive that, just this week, voters elected Jeffrey Johnson to the city council -- even though he was convicted as a state senator for extorting $17,000 from grocers.

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Sowell was reported to police no less than five times in the year before he was arrested, but they did nothing
​The police chief's job has long been a revolving patronage post, granted to whomever will do the mayor's bidding -- and never, ever investigate thieving Democratic officials. So if Cleveland's leaders don't care, you can image the approach rank-and-file officers take. Call the cops in this city, and it's a 50-50 proposition they'll even bother to show up.

A month before cops discovered all the bodies, Fawcett Bess says he was approached by another woman. She was bloody with bruises on her neck. She said she'd been attacked by Sowell, yet police showed little interest in investigating.

On October 20, yet another naked woman was seen by neighbors jumping from a second-floor window at Sowell's home. Sowell told firemen who arrived that they'd been doing coke and smoking pot all day, and that the woman had fallen out of the window. When police interviewed her at the hospital, she refused to talk.

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Corruption is so pervasive in Cleveland, voters elected Jeffrey Johnson this week, though he'd been convicted for extortion as a state senator
​Then there was the complaint last December, when still another woman filed a report saying Sowell stopped her in front of his house, forced her to the back, then punched and choked her while trying to rape her.

After four complaints, a normal police department might assume it has a problem with one Anthony Sowell, especially seeing how he already did 15 years in prison for -- you guessed it -- choking and raping a woman. He was also a registered sex offender.

But when police were called about yet another accusation on September 22, it took them more than a month to investigate. A woman claimed she'd been drinking with Sowell at his home when he punched her, choked her with an extension cord, then raped her as she passed out.

But despite this being the fifth claim against Sowell -- each involving a violent attack, followed by rape -- police took a month to execute a search warrant. They say the woman was difficult to locate. But as you can see from their previous record, they weren't trying too hard either. So after five complaints going back nearly a year, the bodies weren't found till last week. 

Mayor Frank Jackson is defending his department, as mayors are prone to do. Unfortunately, the department's record on responding to rape cases shows a stunning history of laziness long before a serial killer showed up.

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Corruption and incompetence are allowed to thrive because even the relatively honest politicians, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, prefer to turn their heads
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When Village Voice owned the Cleveland Scene, it devoted much of its resources to covering the comedy of errors and corruption that was city government. (Disclosure: I was the editor of that paper.) In 2006, Reporter Lisa Rab wrote a scathing indictment of the police's unwillingness to pursue rape cases with anything nearing vigor.

Her story, Screams in the Dark, showed a department with little interest in solving crimes against women, save for the work of a few dedicated officers.

And it wasn't just the sex crimes squad that was lazy. Last year, Gus Garcia-Roberts reported on how little police were interested in investigating auto thefts. His story, The Opening of Car-Theft Season in Cleveland's Trendiest Neighborhood, showed a department that couldn't be bothered to handle even the most basic aspects of its job.

Like most people, Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs understands what it's like to deal with Cleveland police. Her mom is one of two people identified among the 11 bodies found in Sowell's home.

52-year-old Tonia Carmichael, who had a history of drug problems, vanished a year ago. But when her daughter reported her missing to police, "They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up," Markiesha told the Associated Press. "It's hard to imagine, but that's what they told us to our face: 'She'll turn up.'"

In a twisted way, police were right: Tonia did show up this week, strangled and buried in a shallow grave behind Anthony Sowell's house.

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Tishana Culver is the latest victim identified. She lived down the street from Sowell, but was never reported missing.
​UPDATE: In the late 1980s, the impoverished suburb of East Cleveland saw four women strangled to death. But the killing suddenly stopped in 1990 when Anthony Sowell went to prison.

Sowell was living in East Cleveland until he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1990 for choking and raping a woman. Prior to that, the suburb fielded an unsolved string of slayings that seem strikingly similar to Sowell's current killing spree.

All four women had drug and alcohol problems. And all four were found strangled to death in the East Side ghetto. One was eight months pregnant. Police called them the Strawberry Murders.

"One of my friends was eight months pregnant when she was strangled in an abandoned building," resident Cynde Telford told WKYC. "And that's when they first started calling them the Strawberry Killings... I could have been one of them. It's terrible. They need to check into whether Sowell killed all them women. It doesn't matter what they did. They didn't deserve to die like that."

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Mayor Frank Jackson's own niece lived in Sowell's home for three years
​UPDATE II: Sandy Drain went to three different police precincts trying to get someone to take a missing person's report. But she couldn't find a cop willing to do it.

That was two years ago. So she decided to find her niece, Gloria Walker, on her own. She organized search parties to look through the many abandoned homes in the area and got neighbor kids to put up fliers. She also got a missing persons advocacy group to hold a rally.

"It was pretty obvious the police weren't going to help us," Drain, 65, told The New York Times. Only after the media took notice did police show any interest in her niece. "If you're from this neighborhood, you come to expect that."

Relatives of Tonia Carmichael, who's body was found in Sowell's home, have a similar story. "They belittled it and made jokes," said Barbara Carmichael. Police also refused to take a report on her missing daughter. "They told me to wait a while because she would return once all the drugs were gone."

And then there's the question of how police and firefighters didn't notice the smell of decaying flesh. It seems nearly everyone in the neighborhood noticed it, including workers at a sausage factory next door, who worked with the windows closed even in summer because the smell's so bad.

According to coroners, the stench of rotting flesh is distinct and overwhelming. But if you haven't smelled a degrading body before, you wouldn't know how to pinpoint it. That, presumably, wouldn't be the case with police and firefighters, however.

Cops were called to Sowell's home at least five times in the year before the bodies were discovered -- and three times in the last month. Firefighters were also called their in October.

It's probably safe to say that not every cop knows the smell of a decaying body. But out of all those calls, you'd think at least one of them would have noticed.

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Michelle Mason, who was bipolar, disappeared last year after she stopped taking her medicine. Hers was among the bodies found at Sowell's house.
​UPDATE III: Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's niece actually lived with Sowell for three years during the times of the murders.

Lori Frazier, a drug addict and the mayor's niece, moved in with Sowell shortly after he was released from prison in 2005 and moved out last year. She said she did dope with Sowell, but had no idea he was a serial killer.

Unlike the other women, Sowell took good care of her, she says. But she too believed when he said the stench came from his stepmother downstairs and the sausage factory next door.

UPDATE IV: The FBI is now looking across the globe to see if Anthony Sowell was raping and killing women while in the Marines.

At least one woman in Coronado, California believes so. After seeing Sowell's picture in the news, she called police to say that she was certain he's the man who raped her back in 1979. Police think her story is credible. Unfortunately, rape files from that long ago have been thrown away. Coronado isn't far from Camp Pendleton, where Sowell once served.

Sowell was in the Marines from 1978 to 1985. Police in suburban East Cleveland suspect he may have been responsible for at least three murders that occurred there after he got out. Those killings, dubbed the Strawberry Murders, have never been solved. But they mysteriously stopped when Sowell was sent to prison for another rape in 1990.

Now the FBI is reviewing records from the time Sowell served as a Marine in Parris Island, South Carolina; Cherry Point, North Carolina; Okinawa, Japan; and Camp Pendleton, California.

"Our experts tell us it's likely he's done this before," Frank Figliuzzi, special agent in charge of the FBI's Cleveland office, told CNN. "He's probably done it elsewhere, and so we need to determine whether or not he's responsible for other unsolved murders and rapes around the country."

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Telacia Fortson has been identified as one of Sowell's victims
​UPDATE V: As police search an abandoned house next door, the smell of death has returned as strong as ever to Anthony Sowell's Cleveland killing grounds.

The stench resurfaced yesterday as police searched next door. They were seen carrying out bags of evidence, but so far no more bodies have been found. The FBI plans to use thermal imaging to detect whether any soil has been disturbed.

The east side ghetto where Sowell lived is ideal for concealing bodies. Years before the foreclosure crisis hit the rest of America, Cleveland, routinely ranked among the nation's poorest cities, was hit with thousands of abandoned homes. Cuyahoga County, where the city is located, has witnessed 10,000-15,000 foreclosures a year for much of the decade.

That means Sowell had thousand of possible burial sites within walking distance of his home. Though there's still no surety that more bodies will be discovered, serial killer experts are certain Sowell was raping and murdering women long before this latest discovery.

"It's like it got worse," neighbor Terrance Johnson told the Associated Press. "It smells bad in the air, like death."

UPDATE VI: Cleveland police could have stopped the serial killer last year, but they didn't believe a woman who said Sowell choked and tried to rape her.

According to the December 2008 police report, the woman bought some beer at a corner store and then walked down Imperial Avenue, where Sowell lived. He asked her if she wanted to drink beer with him.

The woman refused, so Sowell punched her in the face, dragged her behind his house, and began choking her. She felt she was losing consciousness as he pulled her into the house and ordered her to take her clothes off.

But the woman grabbed Sowell's balls and managed to escape to a nearby restaurant. This being Cleveland, restaurant workers gave her with a towel, but asked her to leave because she was bleeding on the floor.

When she went outside, there was Sowell, who shoved her coat and sweater at her. The bleeding woman ran before flagging down a squad car, and she was taken to the hospital.

When detectives went to Sowell's house that night, there was evidence everywhere that she was telling the truth. A bloody tissue in the driveway. Footprints in the snow indicative of a struggle. Blood on the steps and wall inside. Sowell was arrested.

But two days later, he was released. Police say the woman wouldn't cooperate, has become their mantra in all of these incidents. And even if this was true, good cops know how to work around it. .

But according to the notes of Cleveland Prosecutor Victor Perez, the case was dropped in part because "detective did not believe the victim was credible."

Let's review, shall we? A woman runs bleeding in the street. Police find blood and evidence of a struggle, just like she said they would. And the registered sex offender in question has already done 15 years in prison for the exact same crime. And you don't believe her? Not even a little?

Nine months later, the exact same thing would happen. This time, police would wait a month before bothering to investigate.

In September, a 36-year-old woman says she was at Sowell's home when she mentioned that another woman was telling people that he'd raped her. Sowell began to choke the woman with an extension cord and repeatedly raped her.

For some reason her let her live after she promised to come back the next day. When she was interviewed by police at the hospital, she described Sowell's home and provided details of her clothes, which were likely still in the house.

But despite a brutal crime, a description of both the rapist and the home, and the possibility of evidence just waiting to be collected, police records indicate they never even bothered to go to Sowell's house that day. Given the details, they easily had reason for a probably cause search. Especially since the guy already did 15 years for the exact same crime.

But by Cleveland police custom, they instead put the blame on the victim for being hard to contact. The wouldn't show up with a warrant for another month -- allowing more assaults to happen in the meantime.

Also see How Anthony Sowell Got Away With Being a Serial Killer and Bodies, Fresh Grave Found in Home of Sex Offender Anthony Sowell.