OH- Anthony Sowell's neighbors wonder how stench of rotting bodies went unidentified for years

11-5-2009 Ohio:

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The stench in the air near East 123rd Street and Imperial Avenue left residents baffled for years.

Drain pipes were flushed. A sewer line was replaced. But the smell still lingered.

Some residents believed the overpowering odor came from a 57-year-old sausage shop on the corner. Others were still convinced it was the sewers.

Last week, police discovered the source of the odor -- it was beyond residents’ worst fears. At least six decomposing bodies lie in and around the house at 12205 Imperial Ave. The corpses could have been accumulating there for years, authorities said.

Anthony Sowell, 50, is being held in City Jail on a rape warrant as detectives try to determine if he killed the six women. All the bodies found inside the home Thursday and Friday have been identified as black females. Five died by strangulation, according to police. The last died of unknown causes.

The coroner’s office is trying to determine their identities. Officers entered the home Thursday night with an arrest warrant after a woman accused him of raping her and choking her with an extension cord, police said. Police arrested him Saturday about a mile from his house.

A man familiar with decomposing bodies said it takes someone familiar with rotting bodies to detect the odor. The smell is extremely pungent and hard to describe, said Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the Wayne County medical examiner in Detroit.

He compared the odor to a pile of rotting meat.

"Not many people know what a dead body smells like," he said. "It’s a very, very strong smell that is foul and indistinguishable. It’s the mixture of gas, flesh and blood. It’s rotting foul flesh. It’s the reason people are embalmed."

The foul odor eventually loses its edge until a body is disturbed, Samuels said. Still, he is amazed that people lived with the smell for years.

"Hindsight is 20-20," Samuels said, "but it should have alerted someone."

Cleveland Health Director Matt Carroll said the department has not had any recent complaints about foul smells in the neighborhood or at Sowell’s house.

Bystanders have milled around the intersection since Friday afternoon, wondering why nobody realized the root of the stench.

Ray’s Sausage sits next to Sowell’s house. The company makes and distributes pork products all over the region. Some residents in the neighborhood had accused the shop of emitting the overpowering odor.

"People used to think it was the sausage shop," said the owner of a pizza shop across the street. "We now realize what it was."

The owner of Ray’s Sausage always scoffed at the idea that her business stunk.

Renee Cash said the smell baffled her and other employees and that they always took extra steps to clean equipment because nobody knew the cause of the odor. State inspectors regularly visit the business and find no violations, she added.

"If we had any smells like that, we wouldn’t be in business for 57 years," Cash said. "That is wrong. This smell from here makes you want to eat."

Drains lines on the street have been cleaned and flushed in the last few years, but the odor still overpowered people in the second-floor offices of the sausage shop. Employees smelled the odor as soon as they walked up the steps, Cash said, and they kept the windows closed.

The windows sit six feet from Sowell’s house, and police removed a body from a shallow grave just below the windows. Cash never figured the smell to be rotting bodies. She believes the smell has lingered since at least 2006.

"We always thought it was the sewers," Cash said. "We’ve been smelling something for a long time."

Eli Tayeh manages a convenience store at the intersection and said Sowell frequented the business twice a day to buy King Cobra beer. He called Sowell a nice man but said he cringed when Sowell walked through the door.

"He smelled bad," Tayeh said. "I was always too embarrassed to ask him about it." ..Source.. by Mark Puente, The Plain Dealer