Investigators unearthed four more bodies on Tuesday at the Ohio home of a convicted rapist, bringing the total number of corpses found in the grisly discovery to 10, local media reported.
As police dug into the night, Cleveland police chief Michael McGrath said Anthony Sowell had been charged with five counts of aggravated murder after women’s bodies were dug up at his home last week, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer newspaper said.
Sowell, 50, has also been charged with rape, assault and kidnapping, CNN television said, quoting police.
Police detained Sowell on Saturday, two days after discovering the decomposing bodies of five black American women inside his home and another woman’s body outside the house.
The Plain Dealer said a skull belonging to another person had also been found.
Sowell was set for arraignment yesterday. Calls to Cleveland police were not immediately returned.
McGrath said investigators were trying to determine the identities of the dead.
“We will not know until we identify the victims and how they lived in the community,” the daily quoted McGrath as saying.
“He had an insatiable appetite to fill,” he said, adding it was believed that Sowell often knew the women he attacked.
“I have to believe all these victims voluntarily went to the residence,” McGrath said.
Police have asked members of the community who may have loved ones missing to come forward with photographs of the relatives in a bid to help the identification process.
Released in 2005 after spending years in prison for a 1989 rape, Sowell was arrested in his Cleveland neighborhood after a local resident recognized him and notified police.
He had been walking down a street and did not resist arrest, police said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in