Speaker 1: Between two thousand seven and two thousand nine, women began
Speaker 1: disappearing from Cleveland's Mount Pleasant neighborhood. They were mothers, daughters,
Speaker 1: and friends, and they were also people living in the
Speaker 1: marchants of society, people whose absences unfortunately rarely made headlines. Then,
Speaker 1: in October of two thousand nine, a single escape led
Speaker 1: police to a house where a search quickly turned into
Speaker 1: a nightmare, with gruesome secrets hidden throughout the home, revealing
Speaker 1: years of violence that had unfolded behind an ordinary front door.
Speaker 1: The man responsible, Anthony Sewell, had committed the most prolific
Speaker 1: serial murder case in Cleveland's history, and soon he would
Speaker 1: be known only as a deadly moniker. This is the
Speaker 1: story of the Cleveland Strangler.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and.
Speaker 1: Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 2: Warning.
Speaker 1: The following podcast material intended more mature audience. Listener discretion
Speaker 1: is advised. If you've listened to our show for a
Speaker 1: little while, you know we're hockey fans and we've been
Speaker 1: following the Olympics. So I want to first of all
Speaker 1: congratulate everyone for the performance in the Olympics so far
Speaker 1: this year. But I primarily want to just say a
Speaker 1: big shout out and congratulations to the Canadian women's hockey
Speaker 1: team who got silver in the Olympics, and of course
Speaker 1: the American team who got gold. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on the women's Canadian team to get that gold,
Speaker 1: so they looked a little disappointed on the.
Speaker 2: Ice, but you should never be disappointed by getting a
Speaker 2: silver and the frickin' Olympic exactly, I get it, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, they went all that way to lose the
Speaker 1: last round, so that is disappointing of course for them,
Speaker 1: I understand, but they still achieved an incredible thing. So congratulations.
Speaker 1: As a Canadian, I'm proud of their performance. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: did amazing.
Speaker 2: And congratulations to the US, yes, who won the gold.
Speaker 2: Better not be like that for the men's though, I'm
Speaker 2: just kidding, just kidding.
Speaker 1: Regardless, we're having fun watching hockey and actually we're recording
Speaker 1: this right now as Canada. The men's team is playing Finland.
Speaker 1: Finland is currently up to zero, so hopefully we make
Speaker 1: it to the gold medal. If not, Finland will then
Speaker 1: be going to the gold medal round. But either way,
Speaker 1: we're on the edge of our seats. With this whole
Speaker 1: Olympic thing. And I'm not sure if you guys are too,
Speaker 1: but you should definitely get into hockey. That's I recommendation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is cool. I mean yeah, just watching it.
Speaker 2: No matter how while your country does right, it's still
Speaker 2: pretty neat and it's cool that they made it.
Speaker 1: There supporting your athletes. Like we've been watching curling and stuff.
Speaker 1: I've watched a little bit of figure skating, a little
Speaker 1: bit of bob sled. I've been wanting to watch luge,
Speaker 1: but I haven't got to that. Biathlon's another one I
Speaker 1: saw a little bit of, but not a whole lot.
Speaker 1: But still it's so cool to see.
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, and the dog that was, oh, probably my
Speaker 2: favorite part of the Olympics so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there's the two highlights of the Olympics as
Speaker 1: far as the Internet is concerned. That's the Canadian men's
Speaker 1: team on curling poking the rock and second, the dog
Speaker 1: crossing a finish line over a ski race.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The dog's name was Nasgul reportedly by the way, and.
Speaker 2: It just looked like it was living its best life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that was freaking amazing.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. But I think we should get on with
Speaker 1: this case. But Canada did just score against Finland, so
Speaker 1: what's two to one right now? But anyways, I digress.
Speaker 1: Let's get onto this.
Speaker 2: Story, shall we, Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So. Late October has a certain rhythm to it. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are spooky things like pumpkins, candy, and maybe even
Speaker 1: a scary movie or two. But the days also feel
Speaker 1: shorter without anyone really noticing at first, Jackets begin to
Speaker 1: come out of the closets, you know, breath hangs in
Speaker 1: the air for a second longer than they did in
Speaker 1: the mornings, and people move a little faster with their
Speaker 1: hands tucked in their pockets for warmth. Most days even
Speaker 1: pass quietly, work errands, small conversations that don't last very long.
Speaker 1: Whatever it may be, one thing is certain. Life moves
Speaker 1: forward in ordinary pieces, each moment small enough to forget
Speaker 1: by the end of the day, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: your entire surroundings have changed. You know, something like a
Speaker 1: tree that was once full of leaves, and in a
Speaker 1: blink of an eye you know it now is standing
Speaker 1: there bare No one knows which day will matter Like this,
Speaker 1: life simply moves on now. In this case, it was
Speaker 1: just another week another stretch of hours where people are
Speaker 1: focused on their own lives, trying to stay warm, but
Speaker 1: trying to get by, and you know, not thinking too
Speaker 1: far ahead. Somewhere nearby in the autumn air in this story,
Speaker 1: a phone rang, someone was making a call for help,
Speaker 1: and suddenly, just like that, an ordinary day isn't ordinary anymore.
Speaker 1: All those small details, well, they seemed significant, and everything
Speaker 1: seemed like it changed. It was in East Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 1: in October twentieth of two thousand and nine. Someone had
Speaker 1: dialed nine to one pint one and reported that a
Speaker 1: woman outside a house on Imperial Avenue was laying on
Speaker 1: the ground. She was injured, confused, and struggling to stay conscious.
Speaker 1: They said she'd fallen or even possibly jumped, from a
Speaker 1: second story window of the home. Police and paramedics were
Speaker 1: quickly dispatched to the scene, and when they arrived, with
Speaker 1: their flashing lights splashing across the surrounding homes, that neighborhood
Speaker 1: quickly turned into a serious crime scene. The woman was
Speaker 1: badly hurt, she could barely speak, and with her body
Speaker 1: shaking from pain and shock, she tried to explain what
Speaker 1: had just happened inside the house behind her officers moved quickly,
Speaker 1: first focusing on her injuries, trying to understand whether this
Speaker 1: was an accident, an assault, or something else entirely. But
Speaker 1: the woman told them that she'd been inside the home
Speaker 1: with a man and at some point things turned violent,
Speaker 1: so she jumped from the window. She said it was
Speaker 1: the only way she thought she could escape. Now, the
Speaker 1: house in question behind her looked ordinary enough, white siding,
Speaker 1: There's a narrow porch and a kind of aging three
Speaker 1: story home that just blended in with the older buildings
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. Others were boarded up, some lived in.
Speaker 1: You know, they're all packed tightly close together. Now, officers
Speaker 1: had been called to this area before. Drug activity wasn't uncommon, arguments, assaults,
Speaker 1: people coming and going at odd hours. It was all
Speaker 1: the kind of place where things happened, and most people
Speaker 1: kept moving, minding their own business. At the time, it
Speaker 1: looked just like another disturbing call in a city that
Speaker 1: saw way too many of these disturbing incidents. But what
Speaker 1: police didn't know was that the house at one two
Speaker 1: two h five Imperial Avenue had already been holding secrets
Speaker 1: for years. But before we dive down that rabbit hole,
Speaker 1: we first need to take a step back and talk
Speaker 1: about a man named Anthony Edward Sewell. Now. Anthony was
Speaker 1: born on August nineteenth, nineteen fifty nine, and he grew
Speaker 1: up in East Cleveland, Ohio, and he came from a
Speaker 1: large family. The household he grew up in was crowded, chaotic, and,
Speaker 1: according to later accounts from some relatives, was deeply troubled too.
Speaker 1: Stories from family members described an environment filled with violence
Speaker 1: and abuse. As a teenager, Anthony eventually left that home
Speaker 1: behind and he joined the United States Marine Corps. He
Speaker 1: enlisted in January of nineteen seventy eight at eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: and over the next seven years he served as an electrician,
Speaker 1: completing training at Paris Island and Camp I'm going to
Speaker 1: get this wrong, but I'm going to try Camp led
Speaker 1: you in before being stationed at multiple bases, including assignments
Speaker 1: in Japan and Okinawa too. Now, his service records showed
Speaker 1: there was steady performance, There were commendments, there were deployment ribbons,
Speaker 1: and a discharge in January of nineteen eighty five. After
Speaker 1: leaving the military, Anthony returned to Ohio. He worked jobs
Speaker 1: from here and kept a low profile blending into the
Speaker 1: neighborhood that he lived in. But in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: the normal life that he seemed to be living, well,
Speaker 1: it all changed. That year, a young pregnant woman went
Speaker 1: to Anthony's home. Now, according to court records, what began
Speaker 1: as a normal visit quickly turned violent when she tried
Speaker 1: to leave because Anthony, well, he refused to let her leave.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors later said that he restrained her, tying her hands
Speaker 1: and feet, gagging her so she couldn't call for help.
Speaker 1: And now, during this assault, he choked her with enough
Speaker 1: force that she later told police the feeling of her
Speaker 1: body going numb, and she believed she was going to
Speaker 1: die right then and there.
Speaker 2: And this is a pregnant woman, correct, Holy frick? Why
Speaker 2: the hell was she there? Were they friends?
Speaker 1: We'll get into kind of some of the why people
Speaker 1: visit his home.
Speaker 2: Okay, but gosh, I couldn't imagine just harming a pregnant
Speaker 2: woman like that. That's next level.
Speaker 1: He's a serious predator, to say the least. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: people do. I'll tell you a little bit now, but
Speaker 1: we'll go into deeper detail. People do visit his home.
Speaker 1: He kind of lures people in with a friendly facade
Speaker 1: and also drugs, alcohol, that sort of thing. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a hangout place with perks.
Speaker 2: O okay, I see now.
Speaker 1: Thankfully though she survived this attack, but it did lead
Speaker 1: to some charges of kidnapping, rape, and attempted rape on
Speaker 1: this woman.
Speaker 2: Like he raped her. Correct, Holy frig yeah.
Speaker 1: As I said, he's a serious predator. Okay, he's a monster.
Speaker 1: Yeah now. In nineteen ninety, Anthony pled guilty to attempted
Speaker 1: rape and was sentenced to prison. As a result, he
Speaker 1: would spend the next fifteen years behind bars, and when
Speaker 1: he was released in two thousand and five, he returned
Speaker 1: to Cleveland as a Tier three registered sex offender, the
Speaker 1: highest tier which requires regular check ins with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So as a result, officers conducted periodic like knock and
Speaker 1: talk visits to make sure that everything was good and
Speaker 1: to confirm he was living where he claimed to live
Speaker 1: so they can kind of keep track of him. But
Speaker 1: because he wasn't on parole or probation, they didn't have
Speaker 1: authority to enter his home without a warrant, so it
Speaker 1: was basically just talk to the front door check ins
Speaker 1: at the front door. They couldn't go beyond that.
Speaker 2: Threshold, which is really nothing like anyone could just stand
Speaker 2: at their front door and hide shit that's going on
Speaker 2: in their house.
Speaker 1: For sure, But the very least they know where he is.
Speaker 1: That's the key detail. Because if he's like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: living at this address, and all of a sudden they realize,
Speaker 1: you know, he's living beside a woman's shelter over by
Speaker 1: an elementary school with a sex offender, that's a no no. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they need to make sure they're at least keeping
Speaker 1: track of him. Yeah scenario.
Speaker 2: This case is probably going to just piss me off
Speaker 2: because I'm just sitting here and being like, well, this
Speaker 2: shouldn't even be an issue because we're having to like
Speaker 2: monitor who's every freaking move or whatever. Just leave him
Speaker 2: in jail if he's this much of like a concern
Speaker 2: to society. But anyway, I digress, keep going.
Speaker 1: I feel you there, don't worry now. Anthony had moved
Speaker 1: into a shared apartment house. It was a three story
Speaker 1: house at one two two oh five Imperial Avenue. He
Speaker 1: lived in the top couple floors. It was a property
Speaker 1: that was owned by his stepmother. Neighbors later described him
Speaker 1: as polite, outgoing and even helpful. He talked to people
Speaker 1: on his front porch. Sometimes he hosted barques and blended
Speaker 1: in with everyone in the neighborhood. He worked factory jobs
Speaker 1: for a while before collecting unemployment and making money selling
Speaker 1: scrap metal. To most people around him, he was just
Speaker 1: another man trying to get by. But while the neighborhood
Speaker 1: saw someone friendly and familiar, the history behind him, the
Speaker 1: violent sex offender, the prison sentence, the assault, the all
Speaker 1: of it. That's what was the truth. It was a
Speaker 1: facade hiding the truth. Now. The Mount Pleasant neighborhood, where
Speaker 1: he lived in Cleveland's East Side, wasn't a place where
Speaker 1: people stopped to ask too many questions, which have kind
Speaker 1: of already alluded to. By the late two thousands, the
Speaker 1: area was struggling pretty hard. Many homes were aging or abandoned,
Speaker 1: jobs were scarce, and drug activity was considered part of
Speaker 1: the daily life here. Crack cocaine, or crack as it's
Speaker 1: typically called, move through neighborhoods openly. People drifted in and out,
Speaker 1: and friends, acquaintances, strangers were all looking for places to
Speaker 1: stay or away to get high. It was a kind
Speaker 1: of environment. Routines were per weren't exactly predictable, and disappearances
Speaker 1: didn't always trigger immediate alarms. It's a place with people
Speaker 1: living on the margins of society, and often they unfortunately
Speaker 1: don't get the immediate attention for their disappearances that they should. Now,
Speaker 1: some women would go missing for days or weeks and
Speaker 1: later return, you know, back to normal. Others bounced between
Speaker 1: family members, homes, shelters, or the streets. Addictions made lives unstable,
Speaker 1: and families often found themselves searching on their own when
Speaker 1: someone stopped answering calls, so police would often assume that
Speaker 1: this would be the case for everyone. Now, this made
Speaker 1: police and residents not always trust each other. Families later
Speaker 1: said that they struggled to get missing persons reports taken seriously,
Speaker 1: especially when their loved ones were known to use drugs
Speaker 1: or had criminal records. In many cases, officers assumed people
Speaker 1: would come back when they were ready. That was a situation.
Speaker 1: Oh they're not missing, they'll just come back.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We do hear that a lot, and it is
Speaker 2: sad for sure.
Speaker 1: And that atmosphere created a lot of gaps, gaps where
Speaker 1: people could disappear quietly. And it's a story that we've
Speaker 1: discussed many times on this show. You know, that unfortunate situation,
Speaker 1: and it is a problem, unfortunately, that we still struggle
Speaker 1: with today in many societies in North America.
Speaker 2: Well, something you know sometimes is seriously wrong and then
Speaker 2: it's just not getting the attention that it needs exactly
Speaker 2: and then it gets worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, I did say in North America, and I
Speaker 1: do think this is actually a global problem. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I digress. Now, Anthony fit comfortably into the neighborhood's rhythm.
Speaker 1: He was known simply as Tone, you know, Anthony and
Speaker 1: Tony Tone.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: Neighbors remembered him as kind, but inside the house things
Speaker 1: were different. The property was cluttered, it was dirty, filled
Speaker 1: with trash, old furniture, and it was, to say the least,
Speaker 1: it was far from clean. There was also a heavy
Speaker 1: odor that drifted from the home to something neighbors actually
Speaker 1: complained about repeatedly, but they never knew the source. They
Speaker 1: never knew it was coming from his home. Now, for
Speaker 1: the women struggling with addiction, Anthony's house offered something immediate.
Speaker 1: There was alcohol, there was drugs, there was a place
Speaker 1: to stay, maybe someone who even seemed friendly enough to trust,
Speaker 1: and for some of them, that was all. It took
Speaker 1: the conditions around him, you know, poverty, addiction, unstable housing,
Speaker 1: and the community used to chaos. It created the perfect
Speaker 1: cover for him. People came and went constantly, no one
Speaker 1: kept track of who was last seen where, And it
Speaker 1: was in May of two thousand and seven that this
Speaker 1: setting allowed for a woman named Crystal Dozier to disappear.
Speaker 1: Crystal was thirty eight years old and she was a
Speaker 1: mother of seven. Yes, that's right, she had seven kids.
Speaker 1: She was known around the neighborhood as someone who looked
Speaker 1: out for others. She was described as responsible and caring,
Speaker 1: the kind of person who tried to keep everyone together.
Speaker 1: But like many people in Mount Pleasant, her life had
Speaker 1: become very complicated by a dick, especially after she had
Speaker 1: endured some personal loss and a routine wasn't always predictable.
Speaker 1: When she stopped showing up, her family noticed and they
Speaker 1: reported her missing and started searching on their own, putting
Speaker 1: up flyers, calling hospitals, trying to track down anyone who
Speaker 1: might have seen her. Now, Crystal had gone missing before
Speaker 1: and eventually resurfaced, which made it harder to convince others
Speaker 1: that something was seriously wrong this time. Now there was
Speaker 1: no reason to connect this to Anthony. He lived quietly
Speaker 1: on Imperial Avenue, socializing with neighbors, keeping a low profile,
Speaker 1: maybe even throwing a barbecue. Women came and went from
Speaker 1: his house regularly, sure, often for drugs or alcohol, but
Speaker 1: that didn't stand out in the neighborhood. Investigators would later learn, though,
Speaker 1: that this was how he approached many of his victims.
Speaker 1: He offered a drink, a place to relax, drugs, sometimes
Speaker 1: even just a conversation. The encounters started casually, with little
Speaker 1: reason for anyone to feel any sort of immediate danger.
Speaker 1: But what happened after they entered that house, well that
Speaker 1: was another story. Now. Crystal's disappearance didn't spark a major
Speaker 1: investigation at the time. There were no obvious signs of violence,
Speaker 1: no witnesses stepping forward, no immediate evidence pointing to a
Speaker 1: crime scene, without a body, without clear leads, the case
Speaker 1: faded into just another missing person's report in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: where people often slipped through those cracks. But inside the
Speaker 1: house on Imperial Avenue, though Anthony had discovered he could
Speaker 1: kill without ever being noticed. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: women in the area began vanishing one after another, each disappearance,
Speaker 1: again slipping into the background noise of a struggling neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Tashana Culver disappeared next. She was a mother who spent
Speaker 1: years trying to rebuild stability in her life. She was
Speaker 1: described as generous, someone who shared food with people who
Speaker 1: had less than she did. But like many others, she
Speaker 1: struggled with drugs and sometimes drifted away from family for
Speaker 1: stretches of time. So when she stopped coming around, people worried,
Speaker 1: but there was no immediate sign of foul play. A
Speaker 1: few months later, Lashonda Long vanished. She was only twenty five,
Speaker 1: the youngest of the eventual victims. She was strong willed
Speaker 1: and outspoken, and she was known for her attitude and energy.
Speaker 1: Her disappearance was the same like the others, didn't immediately
Speaker 1: raise any red flags beyond those closest to her.
Speaker 2: But also, there's three now in a fairly short period of.
Speaker 1: Time, exactly. But the thing is, you have authority saying, well,
Speaker 1: they'll just come back.
Speaker 2: Well that's the hope, I guess that's the hope.
Speaker 1: But they have a history of leaving for weeks on
Speaker 1: end and coming back. They have a history of drugs,
Speaker 1: criminal behavior, so as far as the police are concerned,
Speaker 1: they'll just come back.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe one or two I get, but when
Speaker 2: there is three, it's like, no, we got to look
Speaker 2: into this.
Speaker 1: In my thought, oh no, I'm with you hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to paint the picture for the authorities here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: trust me, you're right, there's a pattern. Police need to
Speaker 1: fucking do something. But to them, it's just another person
Speaker 1: who will be back within days. It's another person who
Speaker 1: is just off doing drugs. They'll be back. It's not
Speaker 1: worth tying up our time.
Speaker 2: Basically they're off on a bender or something. And they exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1: We know, because in hindsight, there are three people who
Speaker 1: are missing right now. Maybe at the time, this is
Speaker 1: just my speculation. Maybe at the time there's another three
Speaker 1: people who did return in a few days who are
Speaker 1: also missing, who were just on venders.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and they might not have, like you know,
Speaker 2: tied them together to see the pattern either.
Speaker 1: So, and you also have to consider the fact of
Speaker 1: were they actually reported to police. You have families who
Speaker 1: might be concerned, but maybe the families thought they'd be
Speaker 1: back to Maybe the families couldn't trust the police because
Speaker 1: of this history so there's more than just well, there's
Speaker 1: three people missing. You to look into it. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, you're right, but there's a little more
Speaker 1: to it than that.
Speaker 2: Well, and it probably will very much. It comes out
Speaker 2: clear later, you know, Like at the time it's like,
Speaker 2: maybe not super alarming, but really after the fact, yes,
Speaker 2: it was exactly.
Speaker 1: And now these disappearances too, they're over the course of
Speaker 1: the next two years, so they are being spread out
Speaker 1: a bit as well. Next came Michelle Mason. She had
Speaker 1: spent time away from Cleveland, living in New York and
Speaker 1: New Jersey before returning home. Her family did file a
Speaker 1: missing person's report when she stopped hearing when they stopped
Speaker 1: hearing from her, but progress on that was unfortunately slow.
Speaker 1: Friends said that she had been trying to turn her
Speaker 1: life around despite struggling with her addiction. By late two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Tanya Carmichael also disappeared. She had once
Speaker 1: worked as a medical secretary and bartender, earning a professional
Speaker 1: license and raising children, but addiction eventually pulled her off course.
Speaker 1: But people knew her still, and they described her as
Speaker 1: someone who loved life and cared deeply about her family.
Speaker 1: But the months just continued to pass, and so did
Speaker 1: the disappearances. Kim Yvette Smith went missing in early two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, just before her forty fourth birthday. She
Speaker 1: was known as artistic and caring, especially towards her disabled father,
Speaker 1: whom she helped support. Nancy Cobbs vanished that spring, after
Speaker 1: her family had spent months searching for them herselves, posting
Speaker 1: flyers and checking abandoned buildings. Amelda or Amy Hunter disappeared
Speaker 1: soon after her. She was a beautician, a mother, and
Speaker 1: someone relatives described as a fighter than Janis Webb, remembered
Speaker 1: as a family jokester. She stopped coming around, and not
Speaker 1: long after that, Talasia Forston vanished, just as people close
Speaker 1: to her believed she was trying to get her life
Speaker 1: back together.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, this is a lot of people.
Speaker 1: The numbers piled up, and each woman had their own story,
Speaker 1: their own family, their own history, But investigators eventually would
Speaker 1: later see the similarities in these disappearances. Most of them
Speaker 1: were struggling with addiction. Many moved through the same streets
Speaker 1: and social circles. They were women who might accept an
Speaker 1: invitation for a drink or drugs, or even a place
Speaker 1: to stay for a while, and they were all vulnerable
Speaker 1: in ways that Anthony seemed to understand. Investigators later determined
Speaker 1: that Anthony luring them in and gaining their trust that's
Speaker 1: when he struck and he never allowed them to leave
Speaker 1: his home after. So, yes, you are one hundred percent right,
Speaker 1: Like investigators need to be more on top of these
Speaker 1: missing persons reports, but unfortunately they're screening methods, if you will,
Speaker 1: are flawed and imperfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah well, yeah, I mean we've already said after the fact,
Speaker 2: it's much easier to figure the stuff out. But this
Speaker 2: guy was literally in jail for fifteen years being rehabilitated.
Speaker 2: Heym hm, this shit's happening, yep. Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, most of these women who were going disappearing or
Speaker 1: disappearing or whatever, they were at the hand of Anthony.
Speaker 1: I want to make that clear. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: hide the storyline right now. These women were victims of Anthony.
Speaker 1: Most of these women were sexually assaulted too, and they
Speaker 1: were killed by strangulation.
Speaker 2: Jeez.
Speaker 1: The attacks happened behind closed doors. They were hidden from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. The neighborhood that remember had no idea was
Speaker 1: taking place inside this home. To them, Anthony was just
Speaker 1: a friendly face, someone to chat to on the front porch,
Speaker 1: someone who was carrying throwing the neighborhood barbecues.
Speaker 2: Jeez, yeah, he's really able to just like have these
Speaker 2: two personalities per se exactly. And so the only thing
Speaker 2: really that people maybe are noticing right now, or the
Speaker 2: smell that his house stinks.
Speaker 1: They don't even notice its house. It's his house yet.
Speaker 1: Trust me, I'll get into the smell too. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: okay now. As the killings continued, the way he had
Speaker 1: bodies changed. Some victims were concealed inside the home in
Speaker 1: rooms or in crawl spaces or behind walls. Others were
Speaker 1: buried in the basement or the backyard, and as space
Speaker 1: ran out, the methods became more desperate, as the house
Speaker 1: itself slowly turned into a graveyard, but outside life carried
Speaker 1: on with no one knowing the truth. The problem was
Speaker 1: that no signs on their own looked like proof of
Speaker 1: anything sinister. They existed as separate incidents, complaints, rumors, strange smells,
Speaker 1: just scattered pieces that never quite formed a complete picture
Speaker 1: until it was too late, And that most persistent warning
Speaker 1: was the odor. Neighbors had complained for years about a
Speaker 1: powerful rotting smell drifting through the block. Some described it
Speaker 1: as sickening, others that it reminded them of something dead.
Speaker 1: The smell seemed strongest near Anthony's house, but in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood filled with old buildings, vacant lots, struggling businesses, people
Speaker 1: searched for more ordinary explanations. Now just next time door
Speaker 1: set Raise Sausage Shop, a local meat processing business, which
Speaker 1: quickly became the assumed source of the smell. City inspectors
Speaker 1: were called multiple times, and the owners spent large amounts
Speaker 1: of money trying to correct what they believe was the problem.
Speaker 1: They were, you know, replacing ventilation systems, adjusting grease traps,
Speaker 1: even making sewer improvements, but nothing worked. The smell still lingered,
Speaker 1: and eventually people stopped asking questions. It simply became part
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Well, this poor ray guy here, he's probably just like
Speaker 2: what the fuck Like, I'm I'm not doing anything to
Speaker 2: create these smells. Yeah, and just people, you know, it
Speaker 2: stinks like going hard on him.
Speaker 1: It's probably affecting his business.
Speaker 2: Probably did. Yeah, I was just thinking that too. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: not selling as many sausages.
Speaker 1: Not only that, the money he's spending on these corrections too,
Speaker 1: so he's making less money and spending more dah, So
Speaker 1: he in a certain sense is a victim of the
Speaker 1: story as well.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because no one with that kind of smell,
Speaker 2: no one's going to go in there and want to
Speaker 2: like buy his product promly, right. Sure so.
Speaker 1: Now Anthony himself, though, he did smell bad too, which
Speaker 1: is something friends and neighbors occasionally mentioned. But again there
Speaker 1: were explanations that felt easier to accept. He just had
Speaker 1: poor hygiene or garbage, drugs, the general condition of his house.
Speaker 1: The list goes on, right, just making up excuses. At
Speaker 1: the same time, there were warning signs involving law enforcement that,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, seemed impossible to ignore. Now. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: because Anthony was a registered sex offender, officers regularly checked
Speaker 1: in with him. He was required to report to authorities
Speaker 1: every few months, and deputies sometime conducted unannounced visits to
Speaker 1: confirm where he was living as well at his Imperial
Speaker 1: Avenue address. However, this was limited. Officers had no legal
Speaker 1: authority to enter his home, so the interactions were limited
Speaker 1: to just the doorway, you know, brief conversations, routine paperwork,
Speaker 1: nothing that would reveal what he was hiding inside. Again,
Speaker 1: the smell, oh well that's coming from next door. No one,
Speaker 1: they're working on the ventilation or the drainage or the
Speaker 1: sewer or something like that. So again, even though they're
Speaker 1: standing at his front door with the smell, it's easily
Speaker 1: explained away.
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, they should honestly be able to have authority
Speaker 2: to go inside.
Speaker 1: Hey, but he needed to be on parole or something
Speaker 1: and he wasn't.
Speaker 2: I know, Like, I get that they weren't, but gosh,
Speaker 2: this it would make this case, for example, a lot
Speaker 2: easier if they were able to just you know, wander
Speaker 2: through every so often as well.
Speaker 1: I agree if if they should be able to enter
Speaker 1: the home of a fucking sex offender, Yeah, they should
Speaker 1: be able to check in. Let's see in there, you know,
Speaker 1: because who knows, maybe you can go to another fucking
Speaker 1: town and collect a person, steal someone, and you're hiding
Speaker 1: them in there. How many stories have we heard where
Speaker 1: people with a sex offend or history are hiding people
Speaker 1: for years in their basement?
Speaker 2: For you, Yeah, like, I mean, I get they want
Speaker 2: to know where they are and stuff, but really, what
Speaker 2: how much are you gaining from just going to their
Speaker 2: front door. I don't feel like it's much at all.
Speaker 1: The checks definitely need to be deeper. You should have
Speaker 1: the authority to enter their home. Opinion. Now, while these
Speaker 1: checks did continue, women in the area were reporting violence.
Speaker 1: Now during the time when women were disappearing. In September
Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight, a woman later identified as
Speaker 1: Vanessa Gay told police she had been attacked after going
Speaker 1: to a house on Imperial Avenue for drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: She described being attacked and sexually assaulted for hours, and
Speaker 1: she said she barely escaped, but when she was told
Speaker 1: she needed to come to the station to file those charges,
Speaker 1: while fear and distrust of the authorities kept her from
Speaker 1: following through, and so the case while it stalled before
Speaker 1: it ever really began.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming the plan there was for her not to
Speaker 2: have ever escaped, though.
Speaker 1: It likely was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now. Only a few months later, in December of two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, another woman, Gladys Wade, flagged down police
Speaker 1: officers and said a man had tried to rape and
Speaker 1: kill her. Officers as a result arrested Anthony, but he
Speaker 1: claimed she had attempted to rob him. Now, both of
Speaker 1: the individuals had injuries on them, and with conflicting accounts
Speaker 1: and little physical evidence tying the story together, police released
Speaker 1: both of them and no long term investigation followed up either. Again,
Speaker 1: this is bullshit. You have someone with a history of
Speaker 1: sexual violence and she is saying that he tried to
Speaker 1: rape me. Something else needs to be fucking done here.
Speaker 1: Should that alone should be grounds for entering his house
Speaker 1: if you need a reason. Absolutely, But nothing happened of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, Yeah, this isn't good at all.
Speaker 1: There were other survivors in this story too, women who
Speaker 1: escaped or left the house alive but never reported what happened.
Speaker 1: Some feared retaliation, others were struggling with addiction or homelessness
Speaker 1: and didn't believe they would be taken seriously. And many
Speaker 1: of these crimes simply went unreported or unresolved. Each incident
Speaker 1: viewed alone seems small, but together they formed a pattern.
Speaker 1: Because nothing was getting to police. It was just going unnoticed.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to downplay each incident by saying
Speaker 1: each incident seems small. What I'm trying to say is
Speaker 1: each incident is one on its own one. You can
Speaker 1: maybe explain away how police already had done you know what,
Speaker 1: two different accounts of these individuals. Maybe it's just a
Speaker 1: domestic dispute that's that, you know what, can't really get
Speaker 1: too involved.
Speaker 2: But when you look at it as a whole, it's
Speaker 2: a frickin' problem exactly.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and nine, the house on Imperial Avenue
Speaker 1: had developed a reputation. Some people avoided it, others still
Speaker 1: stop by, drawn in by the drugs alcohol in the
Speaker 1: social atmosphere, Anthony projected to many, he still remained that
Speaker 1: friendly neighbor, someone who sat in his steps, talked to
Speaker 1: passers by, and blended into daily life. But the investigation
Speaker 1: that would finally expose what was happening would not come
Speaker 1: from a routine check or a long running police theory.
Speaker 1: It would come from another survivor and the incident that
Speaker 1: finally forced authorities to look inside the house for the
Speaker 1: first time. One evening in the fall of two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, a woman named Latundra Billips went to Anthony's house.
Speaker 1: She knew him casually, and she later said that they
Speaker 1: spent time drinking and smoking crack together, and at one point,
Speaker 1: according to her account, while they were doing so, his
Speaker 1: demeanor changed quickly without warning. He suddenly became violent, hitting
Speaker 1: her and sexually assaulting her. She said that he strangled
Speaker 1: her with an extension court until she lost consciousness and
Speaker 1: she was convinced that she was going to die, But
Speaker 1: when she woke up hours later, she realized she had
Speaker 1: somehow survived and that she was still alive now. The
Speaker 1: assault had left her badly injured, though she did make
Speaker 1: it out, and she went to the hospital the following morning,
Speaker 1: where a sexual assault nurse examiner performed a rape kit
Speaker 1: and she spoke with police. She expected investigators to follow
Speaker 1: up quickly, but days passed, then weeks. According to later reportings,
Speaker 1: officers said they struggled to locate her, and because of
Speaker 1: her unstable lifestyle and addiction, it was difficult to communicate
Speaker 1: and attempts to meet up with her were missed. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until October twenty seventh, more than a month after
Speaker 1: the attack, that her official report was finally taken and
Speaker 1: detectives moved forward with it. It took some time, but
Speaker 1: they were taking it seriously. Two days later, police obtained
Speaker 1: an arrest warrant for Anthony Sowell, but just before police
Speaker 1: officers got that warrant, someone else found themselves in Anthony's path.
Speaker 1: On October twentieth, a woman named Sean Morris went to
Speaker 1: Anthony's home. She later said the evening started casually with
Speaker 1: drinks and conversation, and the next morning, when she tried
Speaker 1: to leave well, Anthony attacked her. He viciously beat and
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted her, then began locking the doors and the
Speaker 1: windows all throughout the house. In that moment, she realized
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to be allowed to leave, so in
Speaker 1: a desperate attempt to survive, she saw an opening and
Speaker 1: she jumped from a window on the upper floor of
Speaker 1: the house, falling roughly thirty feet to the ground below.
Speaker 2: Good for her, Like, you have to be pretty dang
Speaker 2: scared and desperate to jump out of a window right
Speaker 2: to get away from the situation that you're in pure survival, Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: because that's gonna that's probably most likely going to injure you,
Speaker 2: but like it's going to save your freaking life too.
Speaker 1: So yep.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Witnesses passing by called nine one one after seeing her
Speaker 1: injured on the ground. She had suffered multiple broken bones
Speaker 1: and serious trauma, and when paramedics arrived, Anthony was also there,
Speaker 1: who was naked by the way for I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but he reportedly tried to convince them that she was
Speaker 1: his wife and that she had fallen accidentally while they
Speaker 1: were having sex.
Speaker 2: Okay, this game is over, buddy, Like you need to
Speaker 2: just shut the fuck up, and like you're caught.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sean was terrified and severely injured, and she initially
Speaker 1: told police a version of events that kind of protected Anthony,
Speaker 1: but later she told them that she did this because
Speaker 1: even with police there, she still feared that Anthony would
Speaker 1: kill her even if she told the truth. Now, Anthony
Speaker 1: wasn't arrested because of this incident, but it certainly helped
Speaker 1: put the focus on him for investigators. When Letundra Billips
Speaker 1: was assaulted, that that's when the focus was on him.
Speaker 1: So they were already looking at him when this incident happened,
Speaker 1: and the plan was straightforward to execute the search warrant,
Speaker 1: arrest Anthony, and search the home for evidence related to
Speaker 1: the assault, including the cl clothing an extension cord Latundra
Speaker 1: described being used to choker so on the evening of
Speaker 1: October twenty ninth, two thousand and nine, two days after
Speaker 1: Latundra's assault incident, and nine days after Sean Morris's assault incident,
Speaker 1: police officers arrived at one two to two five Imperial
Speaker 1: Avenue expecting to make a straightforward arrest. The plan was
Speaker 1: for a SWAT team to enter first, secure the house,
Speaker 1: and arrest Anthony if he was inside. Detectives would follow
Speaker 1: behind and search for evidence connected to the assault, and
Speaker 1: just before seven pm officers moved in. The house was
Speaker 1: a three story structure divided by two apartments, Anthony living
Speaker 1: in the upstairs unit, which occupied the second and third floors.
Speaker 1: As officers entered, bags were piled through the rooms, Dirty
Speaker 1: clothes covered the floors, Buckets were used as makeshift toilets
Speaker 1: that sat in the corner, despite a functioning bathroom being
Speaker 1: present in the house, and there was a smell that
Speaker 1: went all throughout. Several officers later described it as overwhelming,
Speaker 1: a heavy, rotting odor that grew stronger the higher they
Speaker 1: climbed in the home. Even seasoned officers struggled to work
Speaker 1: through it. They continued clearing rooms methodically, moving floor by floor,
Speaker 1: room by room, calling out as they went, but Anthony
Speaker 1: wasn't there. When officers reached the top floor, they found
Speaker 1: a small room sitting with its windows covered in black
Speaker 1: plastic blocking most of the light come from coming inside,
Speaker 1: and the door it was locked. Believing Anthony might be
Speaker 1: hiding inside this room, officers forced it open and entered
Speaker 1: with weapons drawn, and at first they only saw shadows,
Speaker 1: but as their eyes adjusted to the dark light and
Speaker 1: flashlights swept the room, the shapes on the floor came
Speaker 1: into focus. There were two bodies laying side by side,
Speaker 1: partially covered in plastic and surrounded by beer cans and
Speaker 1: cigarette butts. Both were badly decomposed. Officers immediately backed out
Speaker 1: of the room, realizing they were no longer dealing with
Speaker 1: a simple sexual assault investigation, that this house was now
Speaker 1: a homicide scene. As teams began securing the area, another
Speaker 1: group searched the basement and they radioed upstairs. Beneath a
Speaker 1: set of stairs they had found what looked like a
Speaker 1: freshly disturbed patch of dirt and a black plastic protruding
Speaker 1: from it. It was clear they were going to be
Speaker 1: finding multiple bodies here. Homicide detectives and crime scene technicians
Speaker 1: were soon called into the home, and they arrived shortly
Speaker 1: after eight pm. The house was sealed off with crime
Speaker 1: scene tape as investigators began documenting every inch. The county
Speaker 1: coroner's office was also called in, but the condition of
Speaker 1: the bodies made immediate identification impossible. Side neighbors gathered behind
Speaker 1: police lines, watching as stretchers were carried out with body bags,
Speaker 1: and rumors spread quickly, and many assumed that one of
Speaker 1: the dead was Anthony himself, but the reality, of course,
Speaker 1: was he was still missing and these were his victims.
Speaker 1: Inside the basement, investigators carefully removed layers of dirt beneath
Speaker 1: the stairs. They uncovered another body, wrapped bound and partially buried.
Speaker 1: The next morning, investigators returned with additional resources, including FBI
Speaker 1: kadaver dogs. The dogs immediately alerted investigators to areas that
Speaker 1: hadn't yet been fully examined. On the third floor, officers
Speaker 1: discovered a crawl space behind patched drywall. Outside. The dogs
Speaker 1: led investigators into the backyard and another body was found
Speaker 1: buried in dirt and additional remains stuffed into garbage bags.
Speaker 1: Freshly disturbed soil near the steps also caught their attention,
Speaker 1: and one body was found, then another. Over the following
Speaker 1: hours and days, investigators continued uncover remains buried in those
Speaker 1: shallow graves inside the house. They also discovered a skull
Speaker 1: wrapped in paper and placed inside a bucket. What had
Speaker 1: started as a search for evidence in a sexual assault
Speaker 1: case had now turned into something almost unimaginable. By the
Speaker 1: time investigators finished searching the property, eleven women had been
Speaker 1: found dead in and around the home.
Speaker 2: Oh this is just nasty, right, I A can't even
Speaker 2: believe someone could like live in this type of situation,
Speaker 2: and grant you have friends wanting to come over into
Speaker 2: this to get new victims, and just like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: just the audacity that he thinks that I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: he got I was going to say the audacity that
Speaker 2: he got away with all this, but he did for
Speaker 2: so long he did.
Speaker 1: But as far as like inviting people over and thinking,
Speaker 1: how would anyone want to come in, Well, you have
Speaker 1: to imagine, like these victims, the type of the stage
Speaker 1: in their life they're in, how desperate they are to
Speaker 1: get their next books, to get someone to listen to them,
Speaker 1: to get a place to stay, basic human necessities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you just need your like your survival needs
Speaker 2: met almost in a way. Yeah, and he's probably offering
Speaker 2: like the drugs maybe for free or something. So that's
Speaker 2: like quite a.
Speaker 1: Incentive, definitely. Now, the scale of the crime shocked the city.
Speaker 1: Police quickly realized that Anthony had likely fled before they
Speaker 1: could arrive with his arrest warrant. This had already become
Speaker 1: one of the largest homicide scenes Cleveland had ever seen,
Speaker 1: and now it was turning into an active manhunt officers.
Speaker 1: They quickly released a description to the public in late
Speaker 1: October twenty ninth in search of him. Anthony, at the
Speaker 1: time was fifty years old, about six feet tall, thin,
Speaker 1: usually wearing glasses, and known throughout Mount Pleasant neighborhoods as tone.
Speaker 1: Police warned residents not to approach him and offered a
Speaker 1: reward for any information leading to his arrest. Officers also
Speaker 1: checked abandoned buildings, alleyways, scrap yards, and homes of relatives.
Speaker 1: Patrol cars flooded the neighborhood while investigators worked around the
Speaker 1: clock at this house, continuing to recover bodies and evidence
Speaker 1: from inside and its property. Now, as the search was
Speaker 1: going on, a woman who knew Anthony casually from the
Speaker 1: neighborhood reportedly spotted him at his sister's home not far
Speaker 1: from Imperial Avenue. She told him that police were swarming
Speaker 1: his house and that bodies had been found inside, and
Speaker 1: according to later reports, Anthony appeared agitated and said words
Speaker 1: to the effect of quote, it's all going to come
Speaker 1: out now, end quote. He briefly agreed to return with her,
Speaker 1: but changed his mind before just before reaching the house,
Speaker 1: and he insisted to be taken back now. When police
Speaker 1: learned that he had been seen alive, though, the search intensified.
Speaker 1: On October thirty one, two thousand and nine, two days
Speaker 1: after the first bodies were discovered, officers found Anthony walking
Speaker 1: along a street roughly a mile from his home, and
Speaker 1: they quickly took him into custody without incident.
Speaker 2: So he really didn't go far at all.
Speaker 1: He didn't. It's almost like he wasn't even trying to hide. Honestly.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean at that point, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: you're probably done.
Speaker 1: I think he just didn't care. He didn't care about
Speaker 1: other people, he didn't care about being arrested. He just
Speaker 1: didn't care. I just did what he wanted. He had
Speaker 1: an air of complete arrogance and ignorance about him.
Speaker 2: To me, just a nasty human being.
Speaker 1: There you go, that's a good way of putting it. Now.
Speaker 1: At the station, investigators began questioning Anthony. I mean, by then,
Speaker 1: detectives already knew what they were dealing with, a serial killer,
Speaker 1: so the questions were more along the lines of how
Speaker 1: many victims were there, or how long the murders had
Speaker 1: been happening, and whether Anthony was about to talk now.
Speaker 1: Early in the interviews, Anthony appeared calm, almost conversational. I
Speaker 1: mean investigators wanted it that way. They started rather light,
Speaker 1: you know, easy going, trying to make him feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: He answered basic questions about his background, his military service,
Speaker 1: and his family. At times he even seemed relaxed and
Speaker 1: detached from reality. But when the questioning turned towards the
Speaker 1: bodies and things started to heat up, his responses became
Speaker 1: vague and inconsistent. He denied clear intent, He offered suggestions
Speaker 1: about confusion and claiming he didn't remember details. At other moments,
Speaker 1: he admitted to choking women and then refused to explain
Speaker 1: why now. Detectives then pressed him about the number of victims,
Speaker 1: and he reportedly gave uncertain answers, at one point suggesting
Speaker 1: there might be ten and then changing his response again.
Speaker 1: Throughout all this, investigators quickly realized they could not rely
Speaker 1: on him for a complete or accurate account of events,
Speaker 1: so instead they began reconstructing the timeline through physical evidence
Speaker 1: and missing persons reports.
Speaker 2: I just have to say really quickly and know, you're
Speaker 2: fucked up up if you can't remember how many people you've.
Speaker 1: Murdered, Well, it's not asy. Maybe it's not that he
Speaker 1: can't remember or he's not wanting to talk about it.
Speaker 1: There's which one.
Speaker 2: Isn't I guess, because well, yeah, when you think about it,
Speaker 2: serial killers lots of times they do really recall most
Speaker 2: of their victims because it's like living out a fantasy
Speaker 2: or whatever the hell they're doing.
Speaker 1: I don't think for him it's really living out of
Speaker 1: fantasy though, as I mentioned, like, I think it's he
Speaker 1: just doesn't fucking care well, an air of arrogance about him.
Speaker 2: It could be more the sexual assault for him too,
Speaker 2: and then he just like kills them to.
Speaker 1: Cover up a dispatch like they're nothing. Yeah, right, But
Speaker 1: either way, whether it's he does remember and is lying
Speaker 1: or he doesn't remember, either way they're not going to get.
Speaker 2: A clear story from him, and either way he's fucked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, during the questioning too, Anthony did what many
Speaker 1: murderers do. He sometimes tried to shift blame or minimalize
Speaker 1: his responsibility. He spoke about anger and arguments about the
Speaker 1: women who use drugs, but he never provided a Kohi
Speaker 1: explanation for any of the killings. For detectives, though the
Speaker 1: interviews served a different purpose than Anthony would have expected.
Speaker 1: They weren't looking for a dramatic confession. The evidence side
Speaker 1: the house already spoke for itself. Their goal was to
Speaker 1: understand the sequence of events when the murder started, how
Speaker 1: many bodies there were, how they ended up in different
Speaker 1: parts of the house, whether there were more victims beyond
Speaker 1: the eleven already discovered. But police had also answered had
Speaker 1: to find the answer for who these victims were. Because
Speaker 1: of the conditions of many of the remains, identification was
Speaker 1: almost impossible off the bat and very slow and difficult afterwards.
Speaker 1: They relied heavily on DNA testing, dental records, and personal
Speaker 1: items recovered at the scene. At the same time, Cleveland
Speaker 1: police established a command center and asked family with missing
Speaker 1: loved ones to come forward. For many families, that request
Speaker 1: confirmed their worst fears. Relatives arrived carrying photographs, clothing, personal
Speaker 1: items that might help with identification. Some had been searching
Speaker 1: for you years. Others had filed missing persons reports, only
Speaker 1: to feel dismissed or ignored. One by one, the names
Speaker 1: began to emerge. The first identified was Tanya Carmichael, a
Speaker 1: fifty year old fifty three year old mother who had
Speaker 1: disappeared in late two thousand and eight. Soon after, came
Speaker 1: to Nasha Culver, a thirty three year old mother remembered
Speaker 1: for her kindness and generosity, and then Talaka Forston, a
Speaker 1: thirty one year old mother of three who had been
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild her life before she vanished. Investigators then
Speaker 1: later identified Crystal Dozier, a thirty eight year old mother
Speaker 1: of seven and one of the earliest victims missing since
Speaker 1: May of two thousand and seven. Michelle Mason, forty five,
Speaker 1: was next. She had spent time away from Cleveland trying
Speaker 1: to turn her life around and begun rebuilding stability before
Speaker 1: disappearing in two thousand and eight. As DNA testing continued,
Speaker 1: more and more names were connected and confirmed. Kim Yvette Smith,
Speaker 1: forty four, who was a kind caregiver for her disabled father.
Speaker 1: Nancy Cobbs forty five, a grandmother who tried to reconnect
Speaker 1: with family after struggling with addiction. Amelda or Amy Hunter
Speaker 1: forty seven was a beautician and an avid reader, remembered
Speaker 1: as a fighter. Denise Webb forty eight described by relatives
Speaker 1: as a family jokester who kept everyone laughing despite her struggles.
Speaker 1: One of the most difficult identifications involved Leshon de Long,
Speaker 1: only twenty five years old, the youngest victim. Authorities recovered
Speaker 1: only her skull, which had been placed in a bucket
Speaker 1: in the basement for her family. There would be no
Speaker 1: complete body to bury. The final victim identified was Diane Turner,
Speaker 1: a mother of six who had been battling addiction for
Speaker 1: years and had recently been trying to stay sober. Her
Speaker 1: remains were among the last confirmed, partially because of fractured
Speaker 1: family connections and complications with identification process, but by the
Speaker 1: time they were all identified, there were eleven women in
Speaker 1: total who were named, and a clearer picture of the
Speaker 1: case emerged. All of the victims were black women, most
Speaker 1: were mothers. Many struggled with addictions or unstable housing. Several
Speaker 1: had criminal records tied to survival crimes like drug possession
Speaker 1: or sex work. Some had been reported missing, but others
Speaker 1: had not either because families assumed they would return or
Speaker 1: because relationships become strained over time. For investigators, identifying the
Speaker 1: victims also meant revisiting old missing persons reports and seeing
Speaker 1: the pattern that had been missing. Families spoke about their
Speaker 1: frustrations openly. Some said they'd been going to police and
Speaker 1: had only been told that their loved ones would just
Speaker 1: come back whenever they're ready. Others said that they felt
Speaker 1: that their cases never received serious attention because of the
Speaker 1: addiction or lifestyle, which is a harsh reality still felt
Speaker 1: by many in society today. Now, after months of investigation,
Speaker 1: evidence processing, and victim identification, prosecutors began preparing for one
Speaker 1: of the largest murder cases in Cleveland's history. Anthony Sewell
Speaker 1: faced an overwhelming list of charges. Prosecutors filed eleven counts
Speaker 1: of aggravated murder, along with dozens of additional charges including rape, kidnapping,
Speaker 1: abuses of corpse, and tampering with evidence. The sheer volume
Speaker 1: of evidence, forensic reports, photographs, DNA results, witness testimony, and
Speaker 1: surveillance footage even meant that the case would take a
Speaker 1: long time to reach trial. Originally scheduled to begin in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, the trial was delayed multiple times as both
Speaker 1: sides prepared, and when the trial finally began in June
Speaker 1: of twenty eleven, the focus was clear, proving that the
Speaker 1: deaths of the eleven women were deliberate acts of murder
Speaker 1: carried out by Anthony. The man who lived at one
Speaker 1: two two five Imperial Avenue now Anthony himself initially entered
Speaker 1: a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but
Speaker 1: later withdrew that claim, changing his plea to simply not guilty.
Speaker 1: Jurors were shown photographs from inside the home and heard
Speaker 1: testimony from investigators who described what they had had encountered
Speaker 1: when they entered the home as well. In October of
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, survivors who had escaped Anthony's attacks
Speaker 1: also testified, explaining how he lured women inside with offers
Speaker 1: of drugs or alcohol or you know, places to stay,
Speaker 1: before then becoming violent. One of the most powerful moments
Speaker 1: of the trial came when jurors were taken on a
Speaker 1: walk through of the house itself.
Speaker 2: Oh, that seems abnormal.
Speaker 1: Though it was cleaned up, the crime scene was cleaned
Speaker 1: by men, it was at least given to show the
Speaker 1: space in which this all occurred Okay. Medical examiners testified
Speaker 1: that most of the victims had been killed by strangulation.
Speaker 1: They showed signs of ligatures or restraints, but because of
Speaker 1: the decomposition, exact causes of death could not always be determined,
Speaker 1: but the pattern across the victims was clear. Prosecutors argued
Speaker 1: that the evidence left little room for doubt, and on
Speaker 1: July twenty second, twenty eleven, after deliberation, the jury returned
Speaker 1: with its verdict. Anthony Sowell was found guilty and was
Speaker 1: convicted on eighty two of eighty three laid charges, including
Speaker 1: all eleven counts of aggravated murder. On August twelfth, twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: the judge formerly sentenced Anthony to death, placing him on
Speaker 1: Ohio's death row. The verdict closed the legal side of
Speaker 1: the case, but it didn't end the question surrounding what
Speaker 1: had happened on Imperial Avenue. In the months and the
Speaker 1: years that followed, attention turned towards the broader failures that
Speaker 1: allowed the murders to continue for so long. Families of
Speaker 1: the victims, community members, journalists, and advocates began asking how
Speaker 1: eleven different women could disappear from the same neighborhood without
Speaker 1: authorities connecting the pattern sooner. Many relatives had said that
Speaker 1: they tried to report their loved ones missing and felt dismissed.
Speaker 1: Some were told the women would come back when they
Speaker 1: were ready, and others said that their cases never gained
Speaker 1: traction because addiction and instability made disappearances seem less. Urgent
Speaker 1: investigative reporting highlighted repeated warning signs that in hindsight, appeared
Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. Neighbors had complained for months, even years,
Speaker 1: about a foul odour near the house. Survivors had reported assaults.
Speaker 1: Anthony himself was a registered sex offender Tier three, the
Speaker 1: highest level, who was checked in regular with authorities. The
Speaker 1: case became a painful example of how vulnerable communities can
Speaker 1: fall through cracks. Now after the trial, city leaders decided
Speaker 1: that the building where this all took place should not
Speaker 1: remain standing, so in December of twenty eleven, demolition crews
Speaker 1: tore down one two two five Imperial Avenue. The structure
Speaker 1: that had once hidden so much horror was reduced to rubble.
Speaker 1: Plans were soon developed for a memorial on the site,
Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty one, the Garden of eleven Angels,
Speaker 1: as it's called, was created to honor the victims. The
Speaker 1: space was designed as a place of reflection, not for
Speaker 1: the killer, but for the women of those lives who
Speaker 1: had been taken. Meanwhile, Anthony's legal appeals began, but courts
Speaker 1: repeatedly rejected any of them. He was housed on death
Speaker 1: row in Chilikoth Correction Institution before being transferred to Franklin
Speaker 1: Medical Center as his health declined. Then, on February eighth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Anthony Swell died in prison from a
Speaker 1: terminal illness at the age of sixty one. His execution
Speaker 1: would never be carried out, and his story ends there.
Speaker 1: But the story that really matters, well, it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: lives in the voices of survivors who escaped, in the
Speaker 1: families who refused to stop searching, in the memories of
Speaker 1: the victims, and in the woman who made the desperate,
Speaker 1: difficult choice to jump from a window rather than stay
Speaker 1: inside one more second. That moment, one person fighting to survive,
Speaker 1: helped stop the killings, and it forced the world to
Speaker 1: fire only look at what been hidden in plain sight
Speaker 1: the entire time. And that's the story of the Cleveland Strangler.
Speaker 2: Shit, gosh that one. Okay, it reminds me a lot
Speaker 2: of the pict in one in a sense that we've covered.
Speaker 1: Right, how he targets those who are living in like
Speaker 1: the margins of society, or sex workers or people who
Speaker 1: are having substance issues things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because to find yourself in that kind of situation
Speaker 2: right as a human is like, it's really it would
Speaker 2: like I don't I can't say for sure, but from
Speaker 2: my like witnessing and stuff, it's very hard to get
Speaker 2: out of that. And then you maybe have someone that
Speaker 2: you think is nice and I mean, he wasn't going
Speaker 2: about trying to help them because he was offering them
Speaker 2: these substances and stuff. But I don't know, like you
Speaker 2: go about maybe trying to trust someone and then it
Speaker 2: just like completely backfires, and then people don't even really
Speaker 2: pay attention to you missing because oh, like she's on
Speaker 2: a bender or whatever and she'll be back. Like it's
Speaker 2: just it, It just fucking tugs at your heart.
Speaker 1: Strings, it does. And then not to mention, you know what,
Speaker 1: the difficulty trusting police and the police saying oh yeah,
Speaker 1: she'll like you say, just be back. Yeah, So it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this person is actually missing, and they never go and
Speaker 1: look for these people anyways because of these excuses. So
Speaker 1: how can you trust them going forward with reporting your family?
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything anyways. You might as well take
Speaker 1: it into your own hands. Not only are you taking
Speaker 1: it into your own hands and not creating a history
Speaker 1: of looking for this person, but now you're putting yourself
Speaker 1: in potential danger too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So's it's one of those situations where, yeah, like you say,
Speaker 1: it tugs at your heartstrings because it should not play
Speaker 1: out this way, but it does well.
Speaker 2: And I for few of them, you said, you know,
Speaker 2: like their families said that they were kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: going along the path of potentially being good.
Speaker 1: One day, right on their life thread and stuff.
Speaker 2: And they make one mistake here and they're just gone.
Speaker 2: Someone takes advantage of that and they're gone.
Speaker 1: Well, and that one mistake could be trusting this individual, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So maybe they didn't even enter the house under the
Speaker 1: pretense of intoxication, drugs, alcohol, that sort of thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: they just needed a place to stay to get away
Speaker 1: from it all. Maybe they just needed someone who is
Speaker 1: going to talk and be nice to them. Anthony was
Speaker 1: known for that in the neighborhood. Maybe while they're staying there,
Speaker 1: maybe that's when he reintroduced the drugs to them, and
Speaker 1: then that's when he started taking advantage of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is, as I said earlier, one hell of a
Speaker 1: fucking predator and a monster who.
Speaker 2: Should never have been back out. No, And the thing
Speaker 2: that really got me to was the one family they
Speaker 2: just had the skull to bury. Oh I know, I
Speaker 2: don't know. That one hit me hard because I couldn't
Speaker 2: even imagine that kind of pain just you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: you have a piece of them to bury, which I
Speaker 2: guess is good, but you're like, where the fuck's the
Speaker 2: rest of their body and stuff like, I don't know
Speaker 2: that just knowing me, that would just I even have
Speaker 2: tears in my eyes right now. That would destroy me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it would destroy me.
Speaker 1: Now. I do understand there's logistical issues on the authorities side,
Speaker 1: trust me, I get it, but they still need to
Speaker 1: do more. The simple fact alone that he was a
Speaker 1: Tier three registered sex offender and they could not go
Speaker 1: into his premise while he's already having these documented accounts
Speaker 1: of potential abuse and rape and all this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff that is absurd to me. Yeah, missing persons reports,
Speaker 1: whether you whether the authorities take them seriously or not.
Speaker 1: If someone reports a person missing, that's a fucking missing
Speaker 1: person's report. If you say, okay, you know what, maybe
Speaker 1: they'll be back in a day or two. Maybe they'll
Speaker 1: be back in a week or two. Look at their history.
Speaker 1: How long have they been gone before? Maybe if their
Speaker 1: history is being gone for three or four days, document
Speaker 1: that missing person's report, check in with the family every
Speaker 1: other fucking day, and if they're still gone after a
Speaker 1: couple of days, maybe then start in best mitigating it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we really have flawed systems, and we do.
Speaker 2: You know, it's hopeful that cases like this do help
Speaker 2: that those systems and make them better eventually, and I
Speaker 2: think they do, but I mean it always it takes
Speaker 2: bad shit to happen for systems to get better, which
Speaker 2: is unfortunate, but that is kind of the way it is.
Speaker 1: Hindsight's twenty twenty, And I've said this on the show before.
Speaker 1: I have a history in my career of occupational health
Speaker 1: and safety, and something we learned in that career path
Speaker 1: is regulations are written in blood because it takes someone
Speaker 1: to get injured or killed for you to look back
Speaker 1: and change it. Yeah, and it's so sad that that's
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, but anyways, thank you guys for being here.
Speaker 1: Hopefully enjoyed this episode. You want to check out things
Speaker 1: in our description, we have things like our website, We've
Speaker 1: got merch. We've got some exclusive merch actually going to
Speaker 1: be coming out here pretty quick with our five year
Speaker 1: anniversary approaching, so make sure you keep an eye on that.
Speaker 1: We've got our social media's and everything, and as I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the very beginning of this, it should be
Speaker 1: checking out the Olympics. While we were recording this episode,
Speaker 1: Canada did win over Finland to to one, So good
Speaker 1: luck to Finland in the bronze medal game and good
Speaker 1: luck to Canada in the gold medal game. Both teams
Speaker 1: played extremely well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so good luck to them both. It was Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard watching people lose though sometimes right, just like
Speaker 2: the complete defeat on their face, I know, because they're
Speaker 2: just given it, they're all but I mean them still
Speaker 2: going to be able to win bronze is a big deal.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Still proud of the Finland team too, Proud
Speaker 1: of Canada, Proud of Finland, proud of everyone competing in
Speaker 1: the in the Olympics. There we go. I'm judging you
Speaker 1: while I'm on my couch eating chips, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But anyways, thank you guys for being here. We hope
Speaker 1: to see you next time, and until then, stay wicked.