Anthony Sowell

Anthony Edward Sowell (born August 19, 1959 in East Cleveland , Ohio ) is a sentenced to death American serial killer . From 2007 to 2009, he raped and killed at least 11 women in his Cleveland , Ohio home.

Anthony Sowell dropped out of high school and entered the United States Marine Corps in 1978 , where he rose to the rank of corporal . He was stationed on Okinawa , among others , and received several awards. Until his honorable discharge in 1985, he had also married and had one child.

In 1990 he was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for violent sexual assault on a pregnant woman. He was released from prison in 2005 and then moved into a three-story white house on Imperial Avenue that belonged to his late father. Until 2007 he lived with the niece of the Mayor of Cleveland and worked in a factory.

After the series of murders was uncovered, allegations were raised that the police could have prevented some of the acts. Because as early as December 2008 and again in April 2009 women reported to the police who testified that they had been raped by Sowell. The officers only took action when a third woman went to the police in September 2009. In the course of the investigation, they entered Sowell's house on October 29, 2009 and discovered two decayed women's bodies in it. Sowell himself was not present, but was arrested two days later following information from the population. Upon closer inspection of his property, the investigators found nine other women's bodies in the crawl space , living room and backyard.

Sowell's victims were exclusively socially disadvantaged black women whom he lured into his home between May 2007 and September 2009 with the prospect of alcohol or other drugs, in order to subsequently rape and kill them. Often no one noticed their disappearance immediately.

On July 22, 2011, he was found guilty on 82 charges, including the murder of 11 women. On August 10, the jury called for the death penalty , which was confirmed on August 12 by Judge Dick Ambrose. Sowell had shown regret during the trial, but according to Ambrose and the jury, this seemed implausible and was therefore not taken into account to mitigate the penalty.

literature

• Nobody's Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer by Steve Miller

Web links

• Cleveland killer receives the death penalty despite remorse, welt.de
• Anthony Sowell: The Cleveland Strangler, trutv.com ( Memento from October 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive )