​Fawcett Bess owns Bess Chicken and Pizza, across the street from the home of Anthony Sowell. This is where police found the bodies of 11 women -- left in the attic, stuffed in crawl spaces, and buried in his backyard. This is also where Cleveland police were called to at least five times in the weeks and months leading up to the discovery. But they did almost no investigation.
Bess recalls an incident two weeks before police discovered the bodies. He found a naked Sowell standing in the bushes next to his house. On the ground was a naked woman bloodied and beaten. Bess called 911 and an ambulance took the woman away. But police didn't arrive until two hours later -- and never bothered to interview him...
When Tonia Carmichael went missing, police told her daughter to just go home and wait for her to show up
​It may be a shocking case of investigative ineptitude to the rest of the country, but to the people of Cleveland it's absolutely routine. If New York is the city that never sleeps, Cleveland is the city that never works. This is a town that's barely functioned since presidential wannabe Dennis Kucinich ran it into bankruptcy during his brief term as mayor 30 years ago.
The FBI is currently in the midst of a massive corruption sweep that's netted everyone from judges to school board members, and promises to take down the county's Democratic boss, Jimmy Dimora. Public theft and corruption is so pervasive that, just this week, voters elected Jeffrey Johnson to the city council -- even though he was convicted as a state senator for extorting $17,000 from grocers.
Sowell was reported to police no less than five times in the year before he was arrested, but they did nothing
​The police chief's job has long been a revolving patronage post, granted to whomever will do the mayor's bidding -- and never, ever investigate thieving Democratic officials. So if Cleveland's leaders don't care, you can image the approach rank-and-file officers take. Call the cops in this city, and it's a 50-50 proposition they'll even bother to show up.
A month before cops discovered all the bodies, Fawcett Bess says he was approached by another woman. She was bloody with bruises on her neck. She said she'd been attacked by Sowell, yet police showed little interest in investigating.
On October 20, yet another naked woman was seen by neighbors jumping from a second-floor window at Sowell's home. Sowell told firemen who arrived that they'd been doing coke and smoking pot all day, and that the woman had fallen out of the window. When police interviewed her at the hospital, she refused to talk.
Corruption is so pervasive in Cleveland, voters elected Jeffrey Johnson this week, though he'd been convicted for extortion as a state senator
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Then there was the complaint last December, when still another woman filed a report saying Sowell stopped her in front of his house, forced her to the back, then punched and choked her while trying to rape her.
After four complaints, a normal police department might assume it has a problem with one Anthony Sowell, especially seeing how he already did 15 years in prison for -- you guessed it -- choking and raping a woman. He was also a registered sex offender.
But when police were called about yet another accusation on September 22, it took them more than a month to investigate. A woman claimed she'd been drinking with Sowell at his home when he punched her, choked her with an extension cord, then raped her as she passed out.
But despite this being the fifth claim against Sowell -- each involving a violent attack, followed by rape -- police took a month to execute a search warrant. They say the woman was difficult to locate. But as you can see from their previous record, they weren't trying too hard either. So after five complaints going back nearly a year, the bodies weren't found till last week.
Mayor Frank Jackson is defending his department, as mayors are prone to do. Unfortunately, the department's record on responding to rape cases shows a stunning history of laziness long before a serial killer showed up.
Corruption and incompetence are allowed to thrive because even the relatively honest politicians, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, prefer to turn their heads
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When Village Voice owned the Cleveland Scene, it devoted much of its resources to covering the comedy of errors and corruption that was city government. (Disclosure: I was the editor of that paper.) In 2006, Reporter Lisa Rab wrote a scathing indictment of the police's unwillingness to pursue rape cases with anything nearing vigor.
Her story, Screams in the Dark, showed a department with little interest in solving crimes against women, save for the work of a few dedicated officers.
And it wasn't just the sex crimes squad that was lazy. Last year, Gus Garcia-Roberts reported on how little police were interested in investigating auto thefts. His story, The Opening of Car-Theft Season in Cleveland's Trendiest Neighborhood, showed a department that couldn't be bothered to handle even the most basic aspects of its job.
Like most people, Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs understands what it's like to deal with Cleveland police. Her mom is one of two people identified among the 11 bodies found in Sowell's home.
52-year-old Tonia Carmichael, who had a history of drug problems, vanished a year ago. But when her daughter reported her missing to police, "They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she'll show up," Markiesha told the Associated Press. "It's hard to imagine, but that's what they told us to our face: 'She'll turn up.'"
In a twisted way, police were right: Tonia did show up this week, strangled and buried in a shallow grave behind Anthony Sowell's house.
