The Cleveland Strangler

The Life and Crimes of Anthony Sowell

De: Mark Stokes

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Anthony Sowell—known to the public as The Cleveland Strangler—was a seemingly ordinary former Marine, the kind of neighbor who played chess and hosted barbecues in East Cleveland. Beneath that façade, however, lurked a calculated predator. Between May 2007 and September 2009, Sowell lured vulnerable women—many struggling with addiction—to his home with promises of drugs or companionship. Inside, he raped, tortured, and strangled them, hiding the remains of eleven women in and around his property—some in shallow graves in his backyard, others concealed in the basement or crawl spaces.

In The Cleveland Strangler, readers are taken through a meticulously reconstructed timeline of horrors: from initial disappearances and underwhelming police responses—often marred by bias and assumptions about the victims’ worth—to the shocking October 2009 SWAT raid that revealed Sowell’s “house of horrors.” Drawing from diverse sources, this narrative traces the unraveling of his façade and the complexities of prosecuting such a case. It also exposes what went wrong—and how so many voices were overlooked—before justice finally prevailed.

But this book doesn't stop at the crime. It is a powerful examination of systemic failure, empathy lost in assumptions about class and addiction, and the resilience of survivors and families who fought to be heard. Honouring the lives of these eleven women and the courage of those who refused to be forgotten, The Cleveland Strangler offers a sobering reflection on community responsibility, vigilance, and the thin line between invisibility and survival. Riveting, necessary, and unflinching, this is a story no reader can walk away from untouched.