Autopsies: Women found in Ohio home were strangled

[April 20, 2010]  CLEVELAND (AP) -- The women who vanished into Cleveland's house of death were strangled by commonplace objects that were never intended for killing.

A green belt with a metal buckle. The strap of a shoulder bag. An electrical charger for a cell phone or camera. A knotted piece of cloth.

Yet these are what silenced most of the 11 women unearthed last fall at the home of Anthony Sowell, a registered sex offender who has pleaded not guilty to an 85-count indictment in their deaths. Many still had the ligatures wrapped around their necks.

Autopsy reports obtained Thursday by The Associated Press revealed that eight of the women were strangled, most with household objects. Nine had traces of cocaine or depressants in their systems.

The reports offer the first comprehensive look at the horrors the women may have endured.

One woman's body, found in the basement under a mound of dirt, was nude and gagged at the mouth with her shirt tied behind her head. Most were bound at the wrists or ankles with shoelaces, cable wire and rope. Many were barely clothed. Four were nude from the waist down.

They were disposed of in garbage bags and plastic sheets, then dumped in various parts of the house and yard. Five were buried in the backyard. Four ended up on the third floor, one of them draped in a cloth comforter and plastic, still wearing a medallion in the shape of a cross around her neck.

Another was buried in the backyard in clear plastic, alongside three small paper bags and a manila envelope containing mud and items identified as possible human bones.

Two of the bodies were so badly decomposed that the county coroner could not determine exactly how they died, listing the cause of death as homicidal violence.

The autopsy on the 11th victim hasn't been completed because only her skull remained. Some of the victims may have been strangled by hand, said Dr. Frank Miller, the Cuyahoga County coroner.

Sowell has pleaded not guilty to killing the women and hiding their remains in and around his home in an impoverished neighborhood filled with abandoned homes. For months, a terrible smell of death wafted down the street where Sowell lived, but it was blamed on a sausage factory next door to his house.

Since the bodies were found in November, he has been charged with attacking five other women who survived.

Prosecutors say Sowell, 50, lured vulnerable women to his home with the promise of alcohol or drugs. Police discovered the first two bodies and a freshly dug grave after officers went to investigate a woman's report that she had been raped there.

The coroner said severe decomposition meant there was no scientific evidence of rapes.

Asked for comment about the autopsies, prosecutor's spokesman Ryan Miday said: "We look forward to holding Sowell accountable for all his heinous crimes."

Earlier Thursday, a county grand jury returned a 10-count indictment against Sowell, accusing him of attacking a woman at his home in September 2008, more than a year before the bodies were found. The woman told authorities Sowell beat her, raped her and held her against her will.

Defense attorneys for Sowell did not respond to requests for comment.

Last week, Sowell's lawyers told the judge they couldn't be ready for the scheduled June 2 trial in part because they hadn't received the final autopsy reports, preventing them from hiring experts to challenge that evidence.

Prosecutors said in response that they were pressing the coroner to get the reports completed.

Sowell's attorneys want the case moved out of Cleveland because of pretrial publicity, but the judge has refused.

Many of the women found in Sowell's home had been missing for weeks or months, and some had criminal records. Some victims' families said they believe police didn't take their disappearances seriously.

Crystal Dozier, 38, was buried in the backyard in plastic sheets, nude from the waist down. She was strangled with a knotted cloth. Her hands were bound at the wrist above her head, and her ankles were tied with cable wire. Dozier was last seen in October 2007. She lived a few miles away from Sowell's house.

Tishanna Culver, a 29-year-old beautician, lived a few houses away from Sowell. She was strangled, then wrapped in black plastic bags and stowed in a third-floor crawl space. Part of her neck was fractured. Her wrists were bound with knotted rope.

Culver, a mother of four, was seen for the last time in June 2008.

[Associated Press; By MEGHAN BARR and THOMAS J. SHEERAN]

Associated Press writers Matt Leingang in Columbus and John Seewer in Toledo contributed to this report.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.