More bodies unearthed as rapist charged with murder

The number of bodies found in and near a rapist’s home in the US rose to at least 10 when authorities unearthed four corpses from his back yard and found a skull in a bucket in the basement.

Cleveland, Ohio police called off their search for more victims last night and were set to resume efforts this morning.

They have extended their work to boarded-up homes in the neighbourhood where residents complained for years of a stench that one even said “smelled like a dead body”.

Some people in the community want an investigation into why it has taken so long to trace the source.

Anthony Sowell, 50, a registered sex offender who lives in the home, was charged yesterday with five counts of aggravated murder, as well as rape, felonious assault and kidnapping.

He was set to appear in court today.

Police Chief Michael McGrath said: “It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill.”

Police discovered the bodies of six women on Thursday and Friday after a woman reported being raped at Sowell’s home. All six were black, and five were strangled. Authorities did not provide the genders or races of the bodies found yesterday.

Police do not know whether the skull belongs to an 11th victim, and revealed that fire department crews are to search in the walls and ceiling of Sowell’s home.

Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner, said the bodies could have been there anywhere from weeks to years.

With efforts continuing to identify the remains, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said: “I can imagine how families feel who have reported a missing person, and anxiety that they are going through. We want to assure them as soon as we know something they will be the first to know.”

Police say an initial search of a quarter-mile swathe of abandoned homes near Sowell’s residence, which sits in a crowded inner-city neighbourhood, revealed nothing, but that investigators plan to scour another quarter-mile area today.

One local woman, Antoinnette Dudley, 29, said she could smell a terrible odour “like something was dead” all summer. She said she saw Sowell only a few times, mainly drinking beer while he sat on his porch.

Sowell, a registered sex offender, was required to check in regularly at the sheriff’s office, but officers didn’t have the right to enter his house. Their most recent visit was on September 22, just hours before the woman reported being raped.

For the past few years, Sowell’s neighbours thought the foul smell enveloping their street corner had been coming from a brick building where workers made sausage.

It got so bad that the owners of Ray’s Sausage replaced their sewer line and grease traps.

City Councilman Zack Reed, whose mother lives a block from the area, said he called the city health department on more than one occasion.

“What happened from there, we don’t know,” he said. “It was no secret that there was a foul odour. We don’t want to point fingers, but clearly something could have been done differently.”

Mr Reed said he and other community leaders want an investigation into whether police and health inspectors missed signs that could have tipped them off to the bodies.