Casey Anthony was read her verdict this week and sentenced. The question remains as to whether or not her child's demise was of her fault and intention or whether her only fault is providing inaccurate and false information to authorities who spent frantic, long days and weeks searching for her poor, missing, dead child.
The Casey Anthony Case has been a media circus. I would venture to say that if you are unfamiliar with the case, or have not even heard a word of it, you must be living under a big rock that doesn't even have dial-up. The country, and those paying attention to us elsewhere, have been gripped by this story. It is heart-wrenching and a testament the gut-twisting, disgustingly dark psyche that inhabits a seemingly increasing number of people.
There is a trial that has just gotten underway here in Cleveland, Ohio. I've searched some top news sites and the interweb in general to see what I could find, but sadly it was little compared to Casey. I don't watch a lot of news programming on the television. I don't watch too much television, in general. I somewhat faithfully tune into The Daily Show with John Stewart because I think he's funny but I also believe that what he reports on (on a note of dissent, many call him "mock" reporting... I'd more call it "humourously providing satirical yet overwhelmingly factual dispersal of current events" and "opinions") is a very good gauge of what the news world is rapt upon.
Have you seen this man before?
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| Photo via http://www.cleveland.com/anthony-sowell/ |
Chances are good that if you live outside of NorthEast Ohio, you have yet to be introduced to this monster. Meet Anthony Sowell, Cleveland's newest Serial Rapist & Killer, with eleven women under his belt that are currently known of and accounted for. There are at least 85 cold cases in two (and counting...) other jurisdictions that have been reopened and are being investigated due to similarities, unprocessed forensic evidence, and Sowell having been named.
Anthony Sowell, an ex-Marine and convicted rapist, had lived in Cleveland's East Side Mount Pleasant since 2005, after he was released from prison from his stint for Attempted Rape. He suffered a debilitating heart attack in 2007, due to which he lost his job, and at that point, his family reported a marked change in his demeanor. In 2008, women started going missing.
Sowell had a drug problem - bluntly, he was sort of a crackhead. He targeted women with similar drug abuse issues (read as crackheads). Mount Pleasant runs no shortage, especially with the Crack Wars that took a prominent stand in many East Side neighboorhoods from 2006-2008 (if you weren't there, you didn't hear too much about it...). From 2008 to 2009, Sowell enticed many women to enter his home under the pretenses of a night of partying - he would invite them over to have a beer, smoke some pot, dabble with some crack, and engage in coitus. Once the women were in, he beat them, tying them up, raping them, and for some, killing them. Some women escaped and filed police reports of the rape and claim to have seen the decomposing bodies of other women propped in chairs and lewdly positioned in the front room of his third-floor walk up. His home was walking distance from a sausage packer, providing a convincing excuse for the stench that permeated his home and eventually the neighborhood.
In 2009, police finally took heed to a report made by a woman raped by Sowell, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. On Halloween night 2009, Sowell was arrested, and police and the City of Cleveland bore first witness to the horrors hidden on Imperial Avenue.
Decapitated, decomposing, tied, and dismembered women were found strewn throughout the residence and buried in shallow graves in the barren backyard. Many of the women were decomposed beyond recognition and the Coroner's office made some identifications based on DNA. A woman was stuffed in a garbage bag in the basement; a human skull was found in a black bag in a bucket; a woman was found buried under dirt in a crawlspace, hidden behind dry wall that had been haphazardly placed. It was a scene out of a gruesome nightmare.
Months of investigation led to Sowell being charged with 80+ counts of Murder, Rape, Attempted Rape, Kidnapping, and more. Initially he pleaded Guilty by Reason of Insanity. His insanity argument has since been dropped. His trial is currently beginning the second week of litigation, with hundreds of witnesses being called, jurors being shown the House on Imperial Avenue firsthand, and new laws already being discussed to prevent another incident like this.
It's a very sad story and even more disheartening that the pleas from the families of these women to find their daughters, wives, mothers went unanswered. Admittedly, most, if not all, of these women had criminal records relating to drug abuse (crack, in specific) and it was not uncommon for them to go missing for days, weeks, months. Some of the women had not even been reported missing until bodies were unearthed and questioning family members wondered, "What if..." It's no excuse for these atrocities and does not justify the seemingly lackadaisical attitude of the police, but it does shed some light on just how this slipped through.
Here's the point of my sharing this: Casey Anthony killed her daughter and in an OJ-esque verdict, was released. The investigation surrounding her case and the trial have been widely covered in every media outlet known. How many of you have heard about Anthony Sowell? Eleven (and possibly counting) women are dead and numerous others raped over the span of at least two years, plus the years prior to his incarceration.
Where is the media coverage?
Where are the vigils for these women?
Who will show compassion for the forgotten?
It's not my intent to claim that either case, or any other, deserves precedence over another when it comes to public awareness - they all deserve to be shared and for citizens to be aware. Is is that these women were crackheads and not upstanding citizens? Their stories do not deserve to be heard? It's sad. There is truly a calling for advocacy here - out of respect for the victims and for the safety of this and many other forgotten neighborhoods.
I am so intrigued and morbidly curious about the Sowell story because I lived in that neighborhood while the events began to transpire, completely unbeknownst to me or any of my cohorts. I used to walk my dog just a block away from his house. I visited bars occasionally that he no doubt would have been familiar with. I stopped in at the corner stores he frequented. I lived only 7 blocks East and 4 blocks North. I drove by his house on Imperial Avenue last night, curious to see it in person and acutely aware that I am fortunate to never have been pulled into any of the sordid events. The neighborhood still smells faintly. Whether it is truly from the meat packer or it is an ephemeral reminder of the acts of horror that have taken place there is debatable.
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