Charges grow for suspect in 11 deaths

February 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The suspect in the slayings of 11 women whose remains were found in and around his home has been indicted on new charges involving an alleged choking attempt on a victim who survived, the prosecutor announced Thursday.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said a county grand jury returned an indictment charging Anthony Sowell, 50, with attempted murder, kidnapping and felonious assault in an attack on a 42-year-old Cleveland woman at Sowell’s home last April.

Sowell will be arraigned on the counts Tuesday, according to the court docket. He was indicted earlier on 85 counts in connection with attacks on women.

Mason said he thinks more victims will be found.

He said the cold-case squad in his office is investigating about 75 unsolved killings of women while Sowell lived in the Cleveland-East Cleveland area. The crimes will be reviewed for DNA links to Sowell, Mason said.

“We have absolutely no link to him to any one of those homicides today, but we’re going to do DNA testing and further review to see if there is a link,” Mason said in a phone interview.

He also expressed confidence that the attack survivors and the victims’ families would see justice, noting that his office has had a greater than 90 percent conviction rate over the last 11 years.

Authorities say Sowell lured women to his Cleveland home and attacked them. The remains of 10 women and a skull were found in the residence or buried in the yard.

Some of the victims had been missing for more than a year. Their bodies were discovered between Oct. 29 and Nov. 3.

Sowell’s attorneys could not be reached for immediate comment on the latest charges. Messages seeking comment were left at the offices of Rufus Sims and John P. Parker.

The indictment said the attack involved Tanja Doss, who went to the police after authorities began finding bodies. She said she didn’t tell police earlier because she felt her past conviction on a drug charge made it unlikely they would take her seriously.

Doss, now 43, said she went to visit Sowell and was drinking beer with him and watching a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game when the attack occurred.

“All of a sudden this jerk, he grabbed me by the throat, jumped me and then slapped me,” Doss told The Associated Press on Thursday after the indictment in the slayings was announced.

“First he grabbed me by the throat then he told me, ‘You could be another dead b----- in the street and would nobody care about you.’”

Sowell didn’t try to sexually assault her but prevented her from leaving, she said.

After a night that kept her in fear, Doss said Sowell acted like a different person. “The next morning I woke up and he acted like nothing happened,” Doss said.