Ohio house comes down where remains of 11 found

A demo­li­tion crew dumps debris from ser­ial killer Anthony Sowell’s house into a truck Tues­day in Cleve­land. The city of Cleve­land is tear­ing down the home where Sow­ell dumped the remains of the 11 women he mur­dered. Sow­ell, 52, has been sen­tenced to death for the killings of11 women and is appeal­ing his con­vic­tion. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Tony Dejak)

Asso­ci­ated Press

CLEVELAND — The home where a ser­ial killer dumped the remains of the 11 women he mur­dered was torn apart Tues­day by a demo­li­tion crew, a move that neigh­bors and vic­tims’ rel­a­tives said would help bring clo­sure and stop gawk­ers from seek­ing out what some have dubbed a “house of horrors.”

Heavy equip­ment began claw­ing at the for­mer home of Anthony Sow­ell just before dawn, a day after fam­ily mem­bers of those who died were hand-delivered let­ters noti­fy­ing them of the demo­li­tion. Video from WEWS-TV showed that the work com­menced as sev­eral peo­ple stood across the street, chant­ing “Tear it down!” and “Hallelujah!”

By late morn­ing, the home was almost com­pletely lev­eled, and the crew was haul­ing away the rem­nants in a huge dump truck.

Raz­ing the house will help the fam­i­lies move for­ward, said Frances Webb-Speed, the sis­ter of vic­tim Jan­ice Webb.

“A lot of the fam­i­lies still live in the neigh­bor­hood and it will be good for it to be gone,” Webb-Speed told The Plain Dealer. “The place is an eye­sore and some peo­ple have tried to use things from the home for per­sonal gain.”

The city con­demned the three-story house in Sep­tem­ber because of numer­ous issues, includ­ing prob­lems with the roof, plumb­ing, heat­ing, elec­tric­ity and water sup­ply and roach, flea, ter­mite and rodent infestations.

Sow­ell, 52, has been sen­tenced to death for the killings and is appeal­ing his con­vic­tion. Pros­e­cu­tors said he lured women to his home by promis­ing them alco­hol or drugs.

The mur­dered women began van­ish­ing in 2007. Police dis­cov­ered 10 bod­ies and a skull at Sowell’s house in late 2009 after offi­cers went there on a woman’s report that she had been raped at the home.

Neigh­bors blamed a stench from the rot­ting bod­ies on an adja­cent sausage fac­tory, which spent $20,000 on new plumb­ing fix­tures and sewer lines to try to make the smell go away.

Many of the women who turned up dead had been miss­ing for weeks or months, and some had crim­i­nal records. Bod­ies were placed into trash bags and plas­tic sheets, then dumped in var­i­ous parts of the house and yard.

It’s unclear what’s next for the prop­erty. Some fam­ily mem­bers and city offi­cials have sug­gested that a mon­u­ment or com­mu­nity gar­den be installed on the site.

Posted by AP News on Dec 6 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.