Police in Cleveland search for more bodies

A police chief in a Cleveland suburb said he believes there could be one or two more victims in addition to three bodies found earlier yesterday.

Police Chief Ralph Spotts told volunteers checking vacant houses to be alert for smells of rotting and to look out for rubbish bags that might conceal a body.

He said there “may be one or two more victims” but declined to elaborate.

East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said authorities have a lot of reasons to suspect there are more, but he refused to say why.

Mayor Norton said that authorities have lots of reasons to suspect there are more victims, but he refused to say why.

A 35-year-old registered sex offender in custody is a suspect in the deaths, Norton said. The suspect, who was arrested on Friday after a police standoff, has indicated he might have been influenced by Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in 2011 of killing 11 women and sentenced to death, Norton said.

“He said some things that led us to believe that in some way, shape, or form, Sowell might be an influence,” Norton said.

The man hasn’t been charged.

The first body was found on Friday in a garage. Two others were found Saturday — one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house.

The bodies, believed to be female, were found about 100 to 200 metres apart, and authorities say the victims were killed in the last six to 10 days.

The bodies were each in the foetal position, wrapped in several layers of rubbish bags, Norton said.

He said detectives continue to interview the suspect, who used his mother’s address in Cleveland in registering as a sex offender, the mayor said.

“The person in custody, some of the things he said to investigators made us go back today,” the mayor said.

The police chief told volunteers, including community anti-crime activists, to watch for missing floor boards as they looked inside houses.

The police, FBI, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department went through yards and abandoned houses yesterday and used dogs trained to find cadavers. They planned to expand the search today.