Anthony Sowell

What the record shows

Anthony Sowell, called the Cleveland Strangler in news coverage, was convicted by a Cuyahoga County, Ohio jury on July 22, 2011 of 11 counts of aggravated murder for the killings of 11 women whose remains were found at his home at 12205 Imperial Avenue in Cleveland in late 2009. The Ohio Supreme Court's 2016 opinion in State v. Sowell puts the killings in the two and a half years before October 2009. He was sentenced to death on August 12, 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed on December 8, 2016, and he died in state custody on February 8, 2021 without being executed.

The Ohio Supreme Court identified the victims as Crystal Dozier, Tishana Culver, Leshanda Long, Michelle Mason, Tonia Carmichael, Kim Yvette Smith, Amelda Hunter, Nancy Cobbs, Telacia Fortson, Janice Webb and Diane Turner. Wikipedia, citing Cleveland press reports, lists Dozier, 38, as the first to disappear in May 2007 and Turner, 48, as the last in September 2009. The court recorded that seven women died of ligature strangulation, that Culver's injuries were consistent with manual strangulation, and that the cause of death for Long, Smith and Turner was undetermined homicidal violence. Five survivors testified to a pattern of being lured with drugs, then assaulted and choked.

In December 2008, Gladys Wade reported that Sowell dragged her into his house and strangled her until she lost consciousness; she escaped and flagged down a cruiser. Sowell was arrested but released because the officer mislabeled the offense on the report. Newsweek reported that families of six victims later sued the City of Cleveland and shared a $1 million settlement with no admission of wrongdoing.

The case broke after Latundra Billups told police in September 2009 that Sowell had choked and raped her at his home. According to the Ohio Supreme Court, officers executed a search warrant on October 29, 2009; Sowell was not home, and two decomposed bodies were found on the third floor. Over the following days searchers found eight more bodies inside the house and in the backyard, and a skull in a bucket in the basement was identified as Long's. In all, police recovered ten bodies and one skull. Sowell was arrested on October 31, 2009 after a member of the public recognized him from news broadcasts on Mount Auburn Avenue. In recorded interrogations he did not admit the killings and said he had no memory of them.

Sowell was indicted on 11 counts of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications plus dozens of counts of rape, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. He first pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, then not guilty. Trial began June 6, 2011 before Judge Dick Ambrose. The jury convicted him of all 11 murders and nearly every other count, acquitting him only of an aggravated robbery charge involving Wade; the court had earlier dismissed three counts relating to Long. The jury recommended death on August 10, and the judge imposed 11 death sentences on August 12, 2011.

The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed 5-2 in an opinion by Justice Terrence O'Donnell. It agreed the trial judge had closed a suppression hearing without the required findings, an issue on which the ACLU of Ohio filed an amicus brief, but held the error did not require a new hearing or trial. Justice William O'Neill dissented, joined in part by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor. Wikipedia reports the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in October 2017; News 5 Cleveland reported that in May 2020 the Eighth District Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of his post-conviction petition.

Sowell was moved to the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus on January 21, 2021 for end-of-life care and died there on February 8, 2021, aged 61; the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said the illness was not COVID-related. He was born August 19, 1959 in East Cleveland and served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1978 to 1985. According to the Ohio Supreme Court, he was convicted of attempted rape in 1990, served 15 years and was released in 2005.