EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Police are looking into cold case files to see whether there is a connection between serial murder suspect Anthony Sowell and several unsolved murders in the late 1980s.

Sowell has been charged with five counts of aggravated murder after authorities discovered 11 bodies in his Imperial Avenue home.

In East Cleveland, where Sowell was convicted of a violent sexual attack, police are now focused on three cold case murders that appear to match the victims of Imperial Avenue.

In a 10-month period in 1988 and 1989, a time where Sowell lived in a house on Page Avenue, the bodies of three women were found in abandoned buildings blocks from his home.

But it's the way the women were killed that has turned the cold cases hot again.

"The way the ladies were killed -- all were strangled, sexually assaulted, all were involved in drug-related activity. That seems to be the type of females he targeted," said East Cleveland Police Chief Ralph Spotts.

While Sowell was not a suspect 20 years ago, a cold case detective scouring the files spotted similarities in the East Cleveland cases and reports of his alleged victims at the Imperial Avenue home.

Now police said they will compare fingerprints and DNA from the crimes with that of Sowell to see if the suspected killer claimed more bodies 20 years ago in East Cleveland.

"Sadly to say, it took Imperial Avenue to take place that we may be able to close some of these cases if he's involved," said East Cleveland Police Commander James Ruth.