Website selling soil from Anthony Sowell's Imperial Avenue yard

A website that specializes in selling items associated with serial killers has started selling soil alleged to be from the yard of convicted murderer Anthony Sowell’s home.

The website serialkillersink.net is selling 1-gram bags of soil for $25, which it says came from the front yard of Sowell’s Imperial Avenue home. The bodies of 11 women bodies were found in the backyard. The bags of dirt were posted on the website Sunday night.

The product description reads:

“Own an authentic piece of true crime history! 100% Authentic soil from the yard of Anthony Sowell's Imperial Avenue home on Cleveland's east side. We are offering a little over a gram of soil in a sealed baggie along with a print out of a story from CBS News titled "Anthony Sowell's House of Horrors, Who's Buried There?"

Eric Gein, the founder of serialkillerink.net, said that selling the dirt from the Imperial Avenue home is no different than the United States government auctioning off property that belonged to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

"My attitude has always been, if they can do it, why can't I?"

The website has a variety of crime oriented items, such as yearbooks with photos of young serial killers, handwritten letters written by Ted Kacynski and Henry Lee Lucas.

“This is what we do for a living,” Gein said. “We sell crime memorabilia.”

Sowell was convicted of murdering 11 women and was given a death sentence by Judge Dick Ambrose. The bodies were first discovered in his house in October, 2009.

This is not the first time the website has sold items related to Sowell. In January 2010, the site was selling letters from Sowell that were sent to employees of the company. The website quickly sold out of those letters, Gein said.

In Ohio, it is against the law for criminals to profit off crimes they committed, and Gein said they did not pay Sowell for the letters.

“The profits we make goes into our pockets,” Gein said. “We don’t fund inmates.

"We are capitalizing on notorious names. We run a legal business."