Convicted rapist Anthony Sowell of Cleveland, Ohio was 46-years-old when he was released from prison in 2005, this after serving a 15-year sentence for the 1989 violent rape of a local Cleveland woman. When he left prison he did what was natural for him; he went home to Cleveland and moved into the third floor of his stepmother’s home. Family members apparently never went to the part of the house used by Sowell, a place now called “a house of horrors.”

As a registered sex offender, Sowell was required to verify his residence with the county sheriff’s office and he did so, as recently as September 2 when deputies verified he was at his listed home. Because Sowell was not on parole, the investigators did not have the right to search his home, and, after all, he was not suspected of any crime. How these same investigators missed what neighbors would later describe as the overwhelming stench of death coming from the house is part of this ongoing mystery surrounding a suspected serial killer who apparently kept the ultimate trophies of his suspected murders, the bodies of the victims, near by him.

It was just eight hours after deputies completed their spot check on Sowell that he is accused of punching out a woman, choking her with an extension cord and raping her in his home. This victim was able to escape death by convincing him no one would care about what he had done to her..., and then called police, who over one month later began their search for the suspected kidnapper and rapist. When they went to search Sowell’s home, they failed to find him or his stepmother, and her whereabouts are still questionable, i.e., could she be among the dead? What they initally found were the bodies of six women, five of whom were apparently killed by strangulation, just like the victim who managed to escape from Sowell on September 2, with the body of a sixth victim so decomposed as to defy the determination of her cause of death. One of the bodies was in the basement of the home, one was in a grave just outside, two were concealed in a crawl space, and two were found laid out on the living room floor of the aging inner city residence (with four more to be found buried in his yard and another skull in the basement of his house.) Trash was piled everywhere, dust covered everything, and food lay spoiled and rotting in the refrigerator, something like the six bodies found in the home. A pile of woman’s clothing was also found, possible from his yet to be identified victims.

Sowell was quickly apprehended when a citizen called police to say he was seen walking on a nearby street. Sowell’s MO was simple: he invited a woman to come into his home to have a drink where he would attack them, punching them in the face if they resisted his attempt to rape them. Some got away while some were not so lucky. Then there was the problem of disposing of his victim’s bodies, something he apparently tried to do, but may have given up or been overwhelmed by the task and just left them laying on the floor, throwaways from a suspected serial killer. While the two bodies in Sowell’s living room may be recent kills, they could also provide evidence of a rapidly decreasing mental capacity on the part of this geographically specific, opportunistic and disorganized serial killer.

Many in the local community await the identification of the initial six (now eleven) known victims found in and around the residence, as since Sowell didn’t drive or have access to a car, the victims were likely from the local area. Police have set up a command post where friends and family members of missing women can bring DNA samples, dental records, photographs, and complete personal information sheets so they can be compared to the deceased. In a city facing severe crime and economic challenge, Cleveland residents sometimes struggle just to care for themselves, perhaps accounting for the reason why those living nearby Sowell never called police, even when faced with the smell of death that came from his home and drifted from his clothing when he was seen on the street or in a store. Nobody appeared to care about the man who smelled so bad everyone tried to ignore and avoid him, and they, in their own way, may have somehow allowed the killings to continue.

Sowell allegedly kidnapped and raped a woman in December 2008 by means of his usual "MO" (invite a woman into his house, then beat and rape her). She fought Sowell off and notified police, but the case against him was ultimately dropped, due, in part says the victim, because she had a pending assault case against her at that time. But shouldn't that reported crime have provided the basis for a search of Sowell's residence, his own personal "body farm?" In defense of police and local residents, some of the victims were probably killed months, even years ago. But some were recent homicides and there is the distinct possibility that other victims, at that location and other places, still await discovery.

There are over 18,000 registered sex offenders in Ohio, and about 2,500 within walking or driving distance from Sowell’s house of horrors. While few are suspected serial killers, the challenge of keeping track of these offenders can prove overwhelming to law enforcement, especially in states like Florida where the investigation continues concerning 7-year-old Somer Thompson who was murdered two weeks ago. There were a reported 161 registered sex offenders within a three-mile radius of her home and over 50 thousand similar offenders in Florida, many who are out of compliance, i.e., missing from where they should be.

As is the case with many sexual offenders, control, power, and dominance over his victims may have played a roll in these terrible crimes, with murder being the result of the struggles of the victims or simply the killer's way to insure there would be no victim to testify against him as was the case in his 1989 conviction. Sowell’s ultimate legal defense will probably involve some type of mental illness and decreased mental capacity. While he knew enough to hide the bodies of some of his victims, he appears to have sunken even lower into a dark mental abyss that was missed or simply disregarded by those around him, a sad commentary on our ability to manage such offenders and to be our neighbor’s keeper. Law enforcement and neighbors also missed Philip Garrido, the man now held for kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard some 18 years ago, allegedly raping her and fathering two children with his child victim. In Garrido’s case, neighbors failed to simply look over the fence around his back yard and see his three victims as they lived openly in tents in his yard. Law enforcement officials charged with keeping track of him also missed the same obvious signs that allowed Jaycee and her daughters to be victims for so many years.

As a nation we need somehow to discern between potentially violent serial sexual offenders and child predators and those who have made a mistake and who can be “trusted” to never again offend in a similar matter. The prediction of future human behavior is beyond most of us, and while we have statistical data to refer to, victims of suspected sociopaths and psychopaths like Anthony Sowell might never get the chance to challenge these statistics that now count them as among the victims.

UPDATE: As investigators continue their archeological-like search of suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell's backyard, they have unearthed another four bodies plus they've found an additional skull in the basement, bringing the total to eleven assumed murder victims that are likely attributable to the same sadistic serial killer. Sowell, who was released from prison in June 1989 after service a 15-year sentence for a violent rape, appears to have quickly jumped back into his old ways when just one month after his release he used Internet skills he must have learned in prison to list himself on an alternative sex fetish web site in a manner designed to lure women into his deadly web. On this site Sowell described himself as a "master" looking for a submissive person "to train." He then demanded his readers to "get you're[sic] (expletive) on over here Now!" He stated his ideal partner would be submissive and willing to "please… anytime, anyplace and anywhere" while describing himself as a "performer," someone who "loves to be around people." (Apparently he should have said dead people..) As Sowell has apparently been actively seeking potential partners/victims for the past four years, investigators will need to establish a time line for him and his location over these past years and compare this to a similar time line for missing women and murder victims in an attempt to determine what other crimes he could be a suspect in.

Of interest is that some have suggested that Sowell (age 50) is a little old to be a serial rapist. FBI profilers have learned over the years that when a criminal is imprisoned for a lengthy period of time, he may, upon release, begin to commit crimes more typical of someone of the age when he was imprisoned. In the U.S., the "average" age of a rapist at the time of his arrest is 31. Sowell was released from prison in 2005, making him 46 at the time, minus his 15 years in prison = 31.

Sowell was previously convicted of a violent sexual assault. Should he be responsible for these ten or more murders, he will be just one more horrible example as to why America needs a national one-strike law for violent sexual offenders and predators. It appears that the only thing Sowell might have learned from his lengthy prison stay is how to use the Internet to find new victims and that dead victims tell no tales. Somehow we need to learn that such violent offenders are only marking time in prison until they can get out and begin to prey on society again. A human predator is just that, someone who only knows how to victimize others with no thought for the pain that he inflicts. Such offenders need to spend the rest of their lives in jail, this as the price for society to release them back onto our streets is just too much to pay in terms of human suffering.

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