Anthony Sowell…that name is already synonymous with infamous serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Gary Heidnik, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. It is frightening that such a rampant stream of killings went completely unnoticed for two years. It is even more frightening that there is a good possibility the same said Anthony Sowell might be responsible for an earlier rash of murders in East Cleveland back in the 80s called the Strawberry Murders. That murder spree ended, coincidentally, about the same time Anthony Sowell was sentenced to 15 years in prison for kidnap and rape.
I can’t begin to fathom what type of demons possess the Anthony Sowells of the world. Obviously, no one in their right mind would live in a house full of decaying corpses. What makes me cringe is the report of him being friendly to everyone and inviting the neighbors for barbeque…in shades of Dahmer, I have to wonder exactly what a man with no visible means of support was serving up to the neighborhood folk.
Unfortunately, most psychopaths have what seem to most of us to be normal charming behaviors and personalities. You can’t tell a book by its cover fits this scenario perfectly. Ted Bundy was a perfect example of this, handsome and charming.
Exactly when are we going to stop letting people fall through the cracks? We have national databases of donors, and medical record, insurance, credit cards…surely every single person reported missing with all the pertinent particulars should be entered into a national database. Programs should run regularly on that data looking for similarities in location, genders, body types, ages, races, whatever we can do to link cases together so the Anthony Sowells of this world can be stopped at a couple, rather than dozens.
Local law enforcement needs to check more closely on missing persons reports. It should not matter what the neighborhood is or if the person missing has a record of prostitution or drug complaints. These are human beings, not numbers. We are all created equal, we all put our pants on one leg at a time, eat, drink, cry and bleed. We all have parents, siblings, children. Every missing person case should be treated as what it is, a tragedy that needs to be addressed.
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Betsy, Betsy, Betsy...Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? All I gotta say is: I hope nobody starts digging in my (former) backyard, 'cause a missing moving man or two might be found. Good thing they look like Indian burial mounds; the state protects those.
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