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Police Discover 11 Rotting Corpses In Serial Killer’s Home Next To A Mom and Pop Sausage Factory.

Police Discover 11 Rotting Corpses In Serial Killer’s Home Next To A Mom and Pop Sausage Factory.

Being the niece of Cleveland’s city mayor had put a lot of pressure on Lori Frazier, and she began making some terrible life choices. Frazier could have probably recovered, but the crack cocaine she smoked helped her cope, freeing her from her troubles — if only for a little while. Still, her body demanded it. She was a fiend, a slave to the dopamine rush, and she would do anything, or anyone, as long as she could be rewarded with her next ‘hit’.

Lori Frazier says Anthony Sowell “took good care” of her during the two years they lived together. Source.

Perhaps this is why she kept coming back to 12205 Imperial Avenue, the three-story home she once shared with her boyfriend, Anthony Sowell. There, she could get her fix.

She did find it somewhat odd that on each visit, Anthony had locked another door in the house that was once accessible to her, but now blocked entire sections in the home. Behind the door, an ever-growing stench, perhaps something rotting away, emanated through the house. Garbage, she figured — it’s typical for crack addicts to neglect their hygiene and health, so storing trash in spare bedrooms made sense to her.

Photo of Anthony Sowell. Source.

She tried to keep her addiction a secret from her family, who had begged her to get help. However, they eventually found out. Not because Frazier confessed to being an addict, but of what police found in the home she once shared with her boyfriend, Anthony Sowell.

In September 2009, police raided Sowell’s home and found the decomposing bodies of eleven women, crudely shoved in trash bags and strewn around the Imperial Avenue home.

A crowd from the East 123rd street and Imperial Avenue neighborhood gathered to watch as CuyahogaCounty coroners and Cleveland police searched for bodies at the home of Anthony Sowell on the eastside of Cleveland October 30, 2009. Source.

Abused

The reason why Anthony Sowell’s mother kept having children is anyone’s guess, but it wasn’t because she wanted to show any of them love. Born in Cleveland to working-class parents, Anthony and his several siblings were first dumped by their dead-beat father and then beaten by their abusive mother.

Accounts vary on the type and severity of abuse Anthony was exposed to, but family members have claimed that there was emotional and physical abuse carried out by the mother, Claudia, and grandmother, Irene Justice.

Anthony was forced at a young age to watch his sisters strip down and be tied to the stairwell banister and brutally beaten. The punishments became so severe that the children would often challenge each other, much like a child’s game; which of them could be beaten the worst without crying?

Experts aren’t absolutely positive that Anthony Sowell was sexually abused, but he recalled some troubling signs that indicate he was, such as smearing feces on a child’s doll when he was only three years old.

All seven of the Sowell children would eventually enter a mental institution and become heavily addicted to drugs or alcohol.


A Way Out

Anthony Sowell dropped out of Shaw High School, and at seventeen he impregnated his girlfriend Twyla Austin, whom gave birth to his daughter Julie.

To help support Twyla and his newborn, Sowell joined the Marine Corps on January 24, 1978, and was sent to Parris Island, South Carolina, for bootcamp. Sowell excelled during his Marine training, finishing as an honor graduate before being sent to his permanent duty stations.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

For the next eight years, Anthony would excel and climb up the Marine ranks in North Carolina, California, and even Okinawa, Japan. Along his journey, Sowell turned to alcohol and heavy drinking. His so-far stellar record was blemished with an AWOL (absent without leave) charge and some other minor related alcohol offenses.


Deviant Behavior

It was in Okinawa that a former Marine acquaintance claimed that Anthony Sowell developed and refined his sadistic nature.

This former colleague stated that Anthony, “had his war with these foreign women for the whole time he was in Okinawa. He tied the girls to chairs and put ropes around their necks. He liked to talk about how he choked and strangled them.”

Sowell’s saving grace was a fellow Marine, Kim Yvette Lawson, which he married while serving in Japan. She would later claim that she only married Anthony so “he wouldn’t drink himself to death” or receive a dishonorable discharge.

With the support of his new wife, Anthony straightened up enough to receive an honorable discharge on January 15, 1985. However, his life would continue to spiral downward.


Tipping Point

Anthony kept low for a few years after his discharge in 1985, but soon served serious prison time for a major accusation of raping a pregnant woman. The incident occurred when the woman’s car broke down on Euclid Avenue.

Source.

Sowell spotted the woman in distress, so he offered her a ride. Instead of taking the woman to her family's home, he drove to his residence and forced the victim inside. There, for several hours, Sowell held her captive and raped her again and again. Appearing remorseful, Sowell apologized, but then continued with his next sexual assault.

This wasn’t a one-time incident for Anthony, and on June 24, 1990, he was accused of another rape, in which he told the girl “she was his bitch, and she had better learn to like it.”

Anthony Sowell was given a sex offender status and sentenced to prison from 1990 to 2005. He was eventually released, but it was only a matter of time until he became the ‘Cleveland Strangler’, with police finding the remains of eleven women decomposing in his home.


Stable As A Crack Rock

Much like in his Marine boot camp, Anthony Sowell thrived in structured environments. It is only when he has no rules or guidelines to follow that his life becomes deranged.

He kept his residence tidy and well-kept, and got his first actual job working at the Cleveland baseball stadium in food services. Always the athlete, Anthony seemed to enjoy working in the stadium where the Cleveland Browns and Chiefs practiced.

Photo by Michael Wyatt on Unsplash

To neighbors, family, and friends, Sowell was on track to live a happy life, but then he met Lori Frazier, the Mayor’s niece, who at that time was struggling with a crack cocaine addiction. Still, Anthony doted on her and was a supportive friend and partner.

Since Anthony’s new job was paying well, he could provide to Frazier what she really needed most: her next hit of crack.

Picking up extra shifts, Anthony worked hard to support Frazier’s growing crack addiction, steering clear of using the drug himself. However, it was only a matter of time until he became just as addicted as her.

Crack cocaine is highly addictive, and like millions of others, Anthony couldn’t break from its iron grip.

As Anthony fell deeper into his crack addiction, Lori Frazier pushed further away. They both couldn’t be addicts, not if they were to have the job security to support their addiction.

As Frazier became more distant, Sowell became more withdrawn and stuck at home. Anthony filled his lonely nights with whichever woman wanted to smoke the drug with him for the exchange of sex. Once in his home, Sowell would rape, torture, and eventually strangle his victims to death.

Many women walked in and out of 12205 Imperial Avenue, eleven of which stayed for good, or at least until they were carried out in body bags.

Cuyahoga County coroners and Cleveland police bag a body. Source.

Sausage Factory

Many of the Imperial Avenue residents did not have air conditioning in the hot Cleveland summer months. And during these months, you could usually notice windows propped open, allowing a breeze to waft through the home. However, for several years, until Anthony Sowell’s arrest, homeowners kept their windows shut, lest they preferred the stench of rotting human flesh entering their homes.

The putrid smell was so poignant that city inspectors constantly paraded about the neighborhood, attempting to discern the origin of the smell.

These city officials settled on citing Ray’s Sausage Company, a mom and pops sausage factory, boasting fifty-seven years of service to its community, never with a complaint about the smell.

Ray’s Sausage Factory was next door to Anthony Sowell’s home. Source.

Citing Ray’s with unable to “adequately control odors and vapors”, the United States Department of Agriculture forced the business to replace its entire plumbing system at an estimated $20,000.

The disgusting stench still filled the streets, even after Ray’s plumbing upgrades. Little did anyone know, the origin of the awful smell actually originated from many the eleven bodies stashed in Anthony Sowell’s home.


On September 14, 2011, Anthony Sowell was placed on death row and imprisoned at Chillicothe Correctional Institution until his death from terminal illness in February 2021.

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