Anthony Sowell, an accused serial killer facing death penalty, was arrested when bodies of eleven woman were found in and around his home last fall. Now, the police released exclusive photographs of the crime scene, taken inside his home.

Last November, Cleveland Police discovered the remains of nearly a dozen women inside Sowell’s house on Imperial Avenue. Bodies were found throughout the home and also in the yard. There were multiple shallow graves in the basement. Police say in addition to burying the decomposing bodies, Sowell hid them in various crawl spaces. In the living room, cops found two dead bodies out in the open, lying next to a shovel. More than 4,500 pictures were taken during the investigation by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office, and you can see 62 photos exclusively on Action News.

Anthony Sowell is facing an unprecedented 85 charges. The accused sex offender faces the death penalty if convicted. if you want to read more about this case, read the article Serial Killer Anthony Sowell Arrested. It is yet uncertain if he is involved in more disappearances that happened around Celeveland and police are looking into it.

-article from Action News rewritten and adapted by admin-

John B. Crutchley was convicted and sent to prison for kidnapping and raping a young hitchhiker in 1985. The girl managed to escape, and Crutchley plead guilty to rape. Now, he is a suspect in more than 30 homicides or missing women cases.

John Crutchley, with this terrifying crime earned the nickname of the “Vampire Rapist” – he kidnapped the girl and, while she was tied up, he inserted a hypodermic needle into her arm and attached it to a hose leading to his mouth. On several occasions, while she was bound and gagged in his Malabar home, Crutchley drank her blood. He even poured some into a large glass and gulped it all down. But, it was the crimes for which he never was convicted that caused his nefarious reputation to grow even more sinister.

Even though six driver’s licenses belonging to dead women were found in his desk at work, no murders could ever be linked to Crutchley. The remains investigators are now focusing on were found in Malabar in 1985, along with partial and full skeletal remains of a half-dozen other women. Young women went missing everywhere Crutchley lived, and the disappearances stopped every time he moved away, according to police.

There are dozen or so boxes of case files and evidence collected from Crutchley’s home. Among the items in the boxes are handcuffs he used on the rape victim, a handgun, ropes, homemade sex tapes of he and his wife, dozens of candid photographs of women in public places, a book titled “The Dracula Syndrome,” and an earring.

Crutchley was only a rape suspect initially and was released on bond after his arrest. Some believe he successfully destroyed evidence that would have linked him to the murders while he was free. “It’s not law enforcement’s fault that they only treated it like a rape,” said Crutchley’s former attorney, Joe Mitchell of Melbourne, “Apparently, he would drink their blood until they died. Supposedly he would dismember the bodies and scatter the parts all over the place.”

While Crutchley was working as an engineer in Fairfax County, Va., he was a suspect in the 1977 slaying of his girlfriend. The skeletal remains of 25-year-old Debbie Fitzjohn were found in the woods in 1978. Authorities believe he may have killed women in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Washington, D.C., before women started vanishing in Brevard County. He died in prison in 2002 at the age of 55 while practicing autoerotic asphyxiation — suffocating himself during sexual arousal.

-article by John A. Torres, rewritten and adapted by admin-

Authorities yesterday arrested Hamdi Ayri (27), the man responsible for three murders in three days in the Izmir province, and in his confession, the killer said he did it for money.

Police teams arrested Hamdi Ayri (27) in Mu?la’s Bodrum district in the early morning hours on Wednesday following an intensive effort that involved 350 police officers from Izmir as well as cooperation from law enforcement and judicial authorities in Mugla. Police tracked the suspect through victim Mustafa Has’ mobile phone, which H.A. allegedly sold to a shop in Mugla, said Izmir Gov. Cahit Kiraç. No witnesses have come forward in the killings, and security camera records have not yielded any clear footage. A sketch of the suspect was released by police Tuesday, but Izmir Police Chief Ercüment Yilmaz said the sketch, which bore no resemblance to the suspect, was released purposefully to allow him to move without concern that police were tracking him. Kiraç said H.A. did not have a criminal record.

Ayri was apprehended by police at around 5:30 a.m. yesterday and sent for legal processing. Along with Ayri, police seized the bags of the three victims and the remaining cell phones, Kiraç said. News reports yesterday said in addition Ayri had been in possession of a passport and 4,000 euros. The suspect also said he had stolen the gun he allegedly used in the murders from a restaurant in Bodrum. Ayri gave his initial testimony to authorities in Izmir yesterday and confessed to the murders. He said that he killed his victims for money.

Police Chief Yilmaz explained the working groups his department had set up to draw connections between the crime scene and the criminal — and to make the killer easier to catch. Explaining that officers gathered video evidence from security cameras in the areas near the murder, Yilmaz noted that Ayri had gone to a store to sell one of the victims’ cell phones, allowing police access to that footage as well. Police tracked the killer as he boarded a bus from Izmir to Bodrum.

You can read more about this case in a previous article A Fear of a Serial Killer in Izmir.

-article from Today’s Zaman, rewritten and adapted by admin-

Three murders in three days have led locals to believe a serial killer is on the loose in Balçova, Izmir province. The MO in all three killings is similar, but the authorities are no yet sure if they are a work of a serial killer.

The last victim, a 30-year-old transvestite, Mustafa As, was murdered on Monday night when he was shot in the head in the Konak district. They first thought he was asleep but realized he was dead after they opened the car door. On Monday, 22-year-old Ayse Selen Ayla, a student at the Izmir University of Economics, was killed while returning to her dorm after going shopping. The day before, 27-year-old Esra Yasar, an employee at a bank, was murdered in the same district while walking home.

The weapon used on Monday and in the murder of a university student in the same district on Sunday night, was the same, according to preliminary police research. Forensic reports reveal that 7.65 mm bullets were used in all three murders. The three victims also all had their handbags stolen. These similarities have strengthened the thesis that the incidents are connected. Police are continuing to investigate the events in order to prove that all three cases can be linked together.

Fears that a serial killer is on the prowl were voiced after the second murder, and police are taking extensive security measures in the district.

-article from Today’s Zaman, rewritten and adapted by admin-

Police believe a serial killer may be striking in East London’s West Bank industrial area after a severed head was found next to a factory on Tuesday. It was the eighth set of remains discovered in the area in the last year – six of them in the last six months.

The head of an unknown woman was found close to a footpath through dense bush near the Mercedes-Benz South Africa plant in Nuffield Road. Police were combing the whole area near the harbor, but could not locate the missing torso. The unknown woman was said to be the third murder this month alone near a footpath frequently used by pedestrians walking from the East London CBD, Duncan Village and Parkside to West Bank factories.

The grisly discovery comes days after the badly decomposed body of a woman was found by two teenagers hunting in the area on Saturday. The body was so badly decomposed that it could not be identified, said East London police spokesperson Lieutenant Mtati Tana. And 12 days earlier another woman’s body was found in the same area. She was half naked. It was suspected she could have been raped before being killed. An autopsy is still to determine the cause of her death.

Tana also told the Dispatch that more bodies had been found in the same spot in January this year, and in October, November and on two other unspecified dates last year. None of the victims had yet been identified.

Even though the circumstances were similar, police did not want to link the killings to the possible actions of a serial killer, but it is believed they were considering bringing in an expert investigator to look into the matter. “At this stage, we can’t say this is the work of a serial murderer as we are busy investigating,” Mills said. “If there is a need for us to call an expert we will do that but for now our local guys are busy with the matter.”

Police said no arrests had been made.

-article by Bongani Fuzile rewritten and adapted by admin-