6 bodies found in Cleveland house; convicted rapist arrested

CLEVELAND — Police arrested a 50-year-old convicted rapist suspected in the killings of six people whose bodies were found this week in and around a house here.

"Anthony Sowell was arrested walking down the street near the 4th District Police headquarters at noon," Cleveland Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho told CNN. "A tipster told officers of his whereabouts and a zone car found him and arrested him without incident."

The case began unfolding a month ago, when a woman accused Sowell of rape and felonious assault, Stacho said in a CNN.com report.

"Once we were able to get the cooperation of the victim, we secured an arrest warrant for Mr. Sowell and subsequently a search warrant for his premises," Stacho said.

On Thursday, detectives from the department's sex crimes unit and members of its SWAT team went to Sowell's home to execute the warrant and make an arrest, but he was nowhere to be found, Stacho said.

What they did find were the badly decomposed remains of two bodies on the third floor of the house, which is owned by an elderly relative of Sowell who does not live there, Stacho said.

A subsequent search on Thursday revealed what appeared to be a freshly dug grave under the stairs in the basement, he said.

On Friday, investigators returned to the house, dug up the grave and found a third body, he said.

A further search of the house and property found two more bodies in a crawl space, and a sixth body was found in a shallow grave outside the home, Stacho said.

None of the bodies has been identified, and the genders of only two -- those found on the third floor -- have been determined, he said. Both were female, the Web site report states.

According to an Associated Press report, coroner’s spokesman Powell Caesar said autopsies have been done on all six bodies. No cause of death was announced.

"He apparently is a serial rapist," Stacho told CNN about Sowell. He said Sowell makes his living as a "scrapper."

"He walks around and picks up scrap metal and takes it to junk yards to make a few pennies," Stacho said.

Sowell was convicted of a 1989 rape for which he was imprisoned from 1990 to 2005, Stacho said.