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Going down in history as one of America's most notorious serial killers, the "Cleveland Strangler," Anthony Sowell, died of a terminal disease while on death row in 2021.
He was arrested in October 2009 for the murders of 11 women who mysteriously went missing from Cleveland. He reportedly lured these women to his Imperial Avenue home with drugs and alcohol. There he would r*pe them and strangle them to death. This continued for two years starting in 2007.
Sowell's crimes only surfaced when authorities raided his home following a survivor's official report. According to reports, authorities stepped into his property to discover the horrifying crime scene a few days before Halloween. They described it as a house of horrors, filled with a stench coming from the decomposing bodies lying in and around the house.
Read ahead to learn more about the crimes of convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell and what happened to him ahead of Living With a Serial Killer's upcoming episode, which will air on Saturday, August 27, 2022, at 9 pm ET on Oxygen.
Trigger warning: This article contains information about graphic violence.
How was Anthony Sowell arrested and brought to justice?
Authorities were directed to Anthony Sowell's Imperial Avenue home in September 2009 thanks to a survivor's official complaint, because of which they were able to obtain a warrant for the raid. Officers, who couldn't find Anthony in the house, first came across two bodies. They then discovered the remaining decomposing bodies in the days that followed. He was arrested on October 31.
Many of these women disappeared almost two years ago, and yet only four of them were ever officially reported missing. Court documents state that a good number of his alleged victims battled drug addiction at some point in their lives, and many of them resorted to stealing and prostitution.
Anthony Sowell was convicted in July 2011 by an Ohio jury for the kidnapping, aggravated murder, and abuse of the corpses of 11 women in the Cleveland community between 2007 and 2009. Sowell entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity to each of the 85 charges he was accused of.
Sowell was found guilty of 84 of them, including aggravated murder, crimes against a human corpse, destroying evidence, and aggravated assault, and received a death sentence.
Convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell died in prison
Convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell reportedly died on February 8, 2021 from a terminal illness. According to officials, he had been in the end-of-life care unit at Franklin Medical Center in Columbus since January 21, and his death was unrelated to COVID-19. The officials never disclosed the real cause of his death.
Sowell, dubbed the "Cleveland Strangler," was incarcerated at Ohio's Chillicothe Correctional Institute on death row after being found guilty in 2011 of killing 11 women in Cleveland. The city of Cleveland bulldozed Sowell's home in 2011, a year after some of his victims' relatives filed a lawsuit demanding that the house be removed.
Six of Sowell's victims' families filed a lawsuit against Cleveland. Their legal representatives asserted that the police "failed to follow up on the missing persons reports that were taken, accompanied by a failure to monitor detectives' work."
Former investigative reporter Rachel Dissell reportedly said,
"Many of the families went to the police, and the police wouldn’t even take a report."
The mother of one of his alleged victims added,
"They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up."
In a 2018 settlement, the city paid the families a total of $1 million to be split amongst them. The family of Crystal Dozier, who is alleged to have been Sowell's first victim, received a payment of $2,500. Eventually, in 2019, $300,000 was granted to the two still surviving victims.
Tune in to Living With a Serial Killer on Oxygen this Saturday, August 27, 2022, at 8 pm ET to learn more about the case of Anthony Sowell.
