Chief: 4 More Bodies, Skull Found At Home

CLEVELAND -- Cleveland police Chief Michael McGrath said four more bodies and a skull have been discovered at a Cleveland home on Tuesday, bringing the total number of bodies found to 10.

"It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill," McGrath said.

During a news conference, McGrath said the bodies were discovered in the home's back yard. The skull was found wrapped in a paper bag in a bucket in the basement.

"I would like to believe there is nothing else at the house, but we just won't know until we finish searching," McGrath said.

McGrath said the body count won't be confirmed until they are taken to the coroner's office.

Six other bodies were discovered last week inside the home of 50-year-old Anthony Sowell. He will be arraigned in court Wednesday on five counts of aggravated murder, rape, felonious assault and kidnapping.

A forensic team and detectives started digging Tuesday morning at the Imperial Avenue home after the street had been closed down.

Detectives from the homicide unit are working with crime scene detectives and Cuyahoga County Coroner's staff in searching the home for evidence. Detectives have been at the scene with cadaver dogs and digging equipment.

McGrath said firefighters will go into the home Wednesday to check walls, floors and ceilings for more evidence.

Investigators searched abandoned structures Tuesday that were within a 1/4 mile of Sowell's Imperial Avenue home. The search will be expanded another 1/4 mile on Wednesday.

Sowell was arrested Saturday after the badly decomposing bodies were found in his home.

The Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office said six of the victims were female and five of the six were strangled. The decomposition has made it difficult to determine how one victim died, spokesman Powell Caesar said.

None of the victims has been identified, but the coroner said the six bodies are all African-American.

McGrath said there was a dedicated team of investigators going over missing persons reports. Once the bodies are identified, families will be notified.

"I would not be surprised that there weren’t missing persons on some of these people," McGrath said.