Cuyahoga Co. prosecutor looking to link alleged serial killer to 24 cold case murders

CLEVELAND - Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason has no doubt that Anthony Sowell is "a monster."  But Mason wants to know how big of a monster he really is.

Sowell is already charged with 85 counts, including murdering 11 women at his Imperial Avenue home, but Mason believes there are more victims.

"We don't have all of Sowell's victims yet," Mason said. "I think we got the ones at his house, but I sincerely believe there's more out there and we've just got to find them."

To find the "others," Mason asked his cold case unit to look in to every unsolved murder within a few miles of  Sowell's two houses, in East Cleveland and Cleveland.  After sifting through the files, the unit found 24 cases where biological evidence, such as blood or semen, was obtained.  That biological material likely contains DNA from the killer.

Mason said the Cuyahoga County coroner has agreed to gather the material and test the DNA against the Sowell's DNA profile.

"Whether any of these pan out to be a Sowell victim, we don't know," Mason said. "But this is a very big step in getting us to that conclusion."

The DNA analysis shoud take six to eight weeks.