A serial killer in Ohio convicted of murdering 11 women in Cleveland died Monday in prison from a terminal illness.
Anthony Sowell, 61, was admitted to a medical treatment ward in Columbus Jail on Jan. 21 in a medical treatment ward, a Department of Corrections spokesman said. He was pronounced dead at 3:27 p.m. Monday after an illness unrelated to Covid-19, spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said.
Sowell, who served as a Marine, was sentenced to death in 2011 after a jury found him guilty of serious murder, rape, kidnapping, corpse abuse and witness tampering.
Prosecutors began luring victims to his home in 2007, and two years later, after a woman told police she was raped at his home, authorities found two bodies and a newly dug grave there.
They later found the remains of other women in garbage bags and plastic sheets dumped or buried around his home and property.
Sowell’s victims included Tonia Carmichael, Nancy Cobbs, Tishana Culver, Crystal Dozier, Telacia Fortson, Amelda Hunter, Leshanda Long, Michelle Mason, Kim Yvette Smith, Diane Turner and Janice Webb.
Sowell tried to prevent his conviction and death sentence, with a public defender arguing in an appeal that the death penalty was unconstitutional and that Sowell did not have enough investigators and expert witnesses to defend himself properly in the trial, Cleveland reported. .com.
A panel of three judges dismissed the appeal, according to the website, last year. The city of Cleveland has paid more than $ 1.3 million in legal fees to the victim’s families about how detectives handled the allegations before Sowell’s arrest, the website reported.