‘Crazy’ man arrested after cops find 6 bodies

CLEVELAND - Six badly decomposed bodies found at the home of a man facing a rape allegation were females and all were homicide victims, the coroner's office said Sunday.

Powell Caesar, a spokesman for Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller, said at least five of the victims apparently had been strangled. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how the sixth victim died, he said.

None of the victims has been identified, Caesar said. Two victims were black, but race hadn't yet been determined in the other four bodies, he said.

Police found the first two bodies Thursday night when they went to the home of 50-year-old Anthony Sowell to arrest him on charges of rape and felonious assault, but he wasn't there. He was arrested Saturday when officers spotted him walking down the street of his east-side neighborhood.

On Friday, police found a third body and remains that were later confirmed to be three additional bodies. It wasn't determined how long the bodies were at the house, but "they could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years," Caesar said.

Spent 15 years in prison
People who knew Sowell didn't think he had a job and said he often walked around his neighborhood looking for scrap metal to sell and asking for money. He spent 15 years in prison for the choking and attempted rape of a 21-year-old woman who was lured to his bedroom in 1989, police said.

Online court records do not show an attorney for Sowell, and the jail staff said no information was available.

Sowell's three-story house with neat white siding sits in a crowded inner-city neighborhood of mostly older homes, some boarded up, and small corner stores.

Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho told NBC News on Sunday that officers had found a "makeshift grave under the stairs in the basement" of the home.

Speaking to NBC's TODAY, Stacho alleged Sowell would "befriend ... women on the street, many times talked about drinking a beer with him, sometimes took them back to his home, sometimes forced them back to his home where he attacked them and we believe probably killed them."

Police established a command post in the neighborhood to take missing-person reports and additional information on outstanding missing persons in the neighborhood.

Teresa Hicks, 48, was among the neighbors who said they were relieved about the arrest but left with a heightened fear of crime. She said she has known Sowell since high school.

"He was crazy," she said from her porch. "Sometimes he would just go off if he didn't have his way."

Ida Garrett, 72, walked to church services Sunday just one block from Sowell's home. She said the neighborhood was relieved by the arrest but worried about those missing, including one of her friends who disappeared six months ago, just after Garrett wished her a happy 43rd birthday.

The friend, Nancy Cobbs, lived one street away from the Sowell home. She was reported missing in April, and her family told police they fear she is among the victims.

"She seemed to be a very nice, quiet girl. I've known her since she was a teenager," Garrett said, adding: "I think one of them is her."

Clovice Ramsey, minister at All Nations Deliverance Ministries in nearby Maple Heights, held a "PEACE" sign on a corner within sight of the Sowell home and said the discovery of the bodies had damaged people's trust in law enforcement.

"They don't see the system working for them," Ramsey said. Sowell "is not being rehabilitated. They are not keeping a watch on him. I just feel that when the systems fails, the people give up. They give up on the system, and they give up on the God they can't see."

As a convicted sex offender, Sowell was required to report regularly to the sheriff's office, which said he had complied.

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