Attack evidence OK’d in Cleveland serial-killer case

March 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Prosecutors can present trial evidence about women who say they survived attacks by a suspected serial killer charged in the deaths of 11 women, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold granted the motion by prosecutors, who expect to submit evidence involving three or four women who say they survived attacks by Anthony Sowell, 50.

The prosecution wants jurors to hear evidence from survivors to show a pattern, assistant prosecutor Richard Bombik said. “They were all very similar,” he said.

“The only difference between them and the 11 homicide victims is they escaped and lived to talk about it,” Bombik said. “It all shows a pattern on his part.”

The defense had asked the judge to rule out the survivor evidence.

Sowell, who sat handcuffed and watched impassively during the pretrial hearing, has pleaded innocent to charges including aggravated murder, rape, assault and corpse abuse.

He could get the death penalty if convicted of any of the killings.

Authorities have said he lured vulnerable women, typically homeless or living alone and with drug or alcohol addictions, to his home and attacked them. Their remains were found in and around his home last fall.