Six more bodies found at rapist's home

Relevant offers

Americas

5.5 quake strikes northern California Obama's election-year budget to target rich Santorum takes aim at Romney The different states of America Pilot attacked on Brazilian airliner Uzbek admits plot to kill Obama Obama tries to defuse birth control fight TV host recovering from dog bite during broadcast 13.6 tons of pure methamphetamine seized US Marines posed with Nazi symbol

More remains were discovered Tuesday at the Cleveland home of a convicted rapist, raising to 10 the number of bodies that have been found there, authorities said.

Four more bodies and a skull were found at the home, where the remains of six women were removed last week, said police Chief Michael McGrath. Fifty-year-old Anthony Sowell, who lives in the home, is in jail and was charged Tuesday with five counts of aggravated murder.

"It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill," McGrath said.

He said the additional bodies were found buried in the backyard of the home. The skull was found in a bucket in the basement.

Authorities do not know whether the skull belongs to an 11th victim, said police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho.

The search was to continue Wednesday, with fire department crews planning to search in the walls of the home, McGrath said.

Last week, investigators said they found one body in a shallow grave in the backyard. The rest were inside the house - one in the basement, two in the third-floor living room and two in an upstairs crawl space.

Police discovered the first six bodies Thursday and Friday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell's home, and Sowell also was charged Tuesday with rape, felonious assault and kidnapping related to her complaint.

Sowell is to be arraigned Wednesday, Stacho said.

The Cuyahoga County coroner is attempting to identify those women through DNA and dental records. All six were black, and five were strangled.

The bodies could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the coroner.

On Tuesday, detectives brought in cadaver dogs and digging equipment to scour the home and backyard, looking for evidence to connect Sowell to the bodies, Stacho said.

Sowell is a registered sex offender and required to check in regularly at the sheriff's office. Officers didn't have the right to enter his house, but they would stop by to make sure he was there. Their most recent visit was Sept. 22, just hours before the woman reported being raped.

For the past few years, Sowell's neighbors thought the foul smell enveloping their street corner had been coming from a brick building where workers churned out sausage and head cheese.

It got so bad that the owners of Ray's Sausage replaced their sewer line and grease traps.

- AP