An Ohio serial killer convicted of murdering 11 women in Cleveland died in prison on Monday of a terminal illness, officials said.
Anthony Sowell, 61, was admitted on January 21 to the end-of-life treatment facility at a medical treatment prison in Columbus, said a spokeswoman for the corrections department. He was pronounced dead at 3:27 pm on Monday after an illness unrelated to Covid-19, said spokeswoman JoEllen Smith.
Sowell, who served as a marine, was sentenced to death in 2011 after a jury convicted him of manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, corpse abuse and tampering with evidence.
He started attracting victims to his home in 2007, prosecutors said, and two years later, after a woman told police she had been raped at her home, authorities found two bodies and a freshly dug grave there.
Later, they found the remains of other women in garbage bags and plastic sheets thrown or buried around their 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 reverse his conviction and death penalty, with a public defender arguing in an appeal that the death penalty is unconstitutional and that Sowell did not have investigators and expert witnesses to adequately defend himself at the trial, Cleveland.com reported.
A panel of three judges dismissed the appeal last year, according to the website. The city of Cleveland paid court settlements totaling more than $ 1.3 million for the victim’s families about how detectives handled the charges before Sowell’s arrest, the website said.