Minorities At Risk For Drowning
Obama Honors Fallen Troops
What authorities in Cleveland knew was bad enough.
The remains of 11 women were discovered at the home of Anthony Sowell, 51, who was charged with the serial killings two years ago.
But investigators wanted to make sure there weren't other victims, so the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors office formed a cold case squad to look at old murder cases in the poor Cleveland community.
What they found rocked the entire Northeast Ohio region.
It appears that a second killer was preying on women in the mostly black and poor eastside of Cleveland.
Joseph Harwell, 50, (pictured at the top) was indicted this week on multiple counts of aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping in the deaths of Mary Thomas, 27, (Mary Ann Prater holds a picture of daughter Thomas above) and Tondilear Harge, 33, (sister-in-law Yolanda Cook-Gillis holds a photo of Harge below).
Harwell is currently serving 15 years to life in prison for killing Teresa Vinson in Columbus in 1997.
Though Harwell had been eligible for parole next year (is that scary or what?), he can likely forget ever seeing the streets again.
The prosecutor's office is now seeking the death penalty for Harwell, as it is for Sowell.
Having worked as a national writer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer for nearly a decade, I know the streets where authorities say Sowell and Harwell hunted human game.
What stands out about them most is how interchangeable they are to the streets in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Chicago or Los Angeles, where black folks struggle to make ends meet.
This sad story makes me wonder how many murderers we would find if we dedicated the resources for cold case investigation units the way Sowell's killings forced Cuyahoga County authorities to do.
When poor black women go missing, especially those women known to run the streets, few ask probing questions. It's as if a trap door sprung open underneath them and they were swallowed up by the earth.
Based on the information found in Cleveland, wouldn't it make sense to develop similar cold case units in Los Angeles, where Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr. is accused for murdering 10 people, nine of them women?
While looking for cold case killers will not bring their victims back, it will take the sick and dangerous perpetrators off the streets, where they use the public's lack of concern for poor black people as a shield for their crimes.
Comments: (32)
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By: William L.Robinson on 3/11/2011 3:17PM
every murderer the prosecutor`s office lets back on the street, the city should pay for the deaths,with law suites, or class action suite or just a suite, civil suite.
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By: K Mac on 3/15/2011 4:22PM
You don't think people can be rehabilitated?
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By: William Robinson on 3/11/2011 3:27PM
CIVIL SUIT, LAW SUIT, CLASS ACTION SUIT, all kinds of suits, for letting murderers go.
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By: john on 3/12/2011 6:41AM
you have to remember our two separate and unequal legal systems here in the United States: one for females which is more forgiving, more excuse riddened, and less punishing compared to the one for males that is the complete opposite. Why target just the males in your actions? You don't mention it, however, your intentions are obvious.Those two men must have been harmed psychological, mentally, or physically by females in their lives as children or young adults; they snapped because of the abuse they had suffered at the hands of females. Does this sound familiar to you? Like when females harm men, and the excuses start to fly in from outer space, etc.?
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By: Ms. Ruby on 3/13/2011 4:10PM
To responder, John....your comments do have some merit, but there comes a time when we must be held accountable for our deviant behavior. No matter what we may have experienced in our formative years, we still have the ability to reason rationally, and make a choice. If we choose to go against God's and society's laws, then we must expect to eventually suffer the consequences.
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By: johnny on 3/14/2011 8:56AM
Ruby, I agree with you. I just know did GOD's law is completely opposite of our American laws. God's law hold all equally responsible for their actions and deeds. That is not so in this country. Women have socially created syndromes being manufactured also yearly to excuse away any harm they do to men and children. There are no battered children's or battered men's syndrome on record that would grant them the same forgiveness and automatic victimhood to those afforded to women. How can women be held accountable if our society continually finds an excuse syndrome to protect them from punishment? I can understand how some serial killers continue to kill. They know they control the life and death of others in their hands-It is a powerful aphrodiac. Women in this country have the same power over the lives of men and children with the excuse syndromes shielding their deeds.One killer without shields and another with sheilds. Karma as most serial killers kill women. It must be a nature thing to correct imbalance.
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By: Gichaya on 3/12/2011 4:19PM
Paul, why didn't you just say, "Another black serial killer found in Cleveland?" It's ok to say that, as we all know that this is not the norm. It is however frightening because serial killers (Jeffrey Dumer was an exception)normally kill people of their own race. If blacks start emulating whites by picking up this nasty habit we as black people will have more killing to contend with. Frightening!
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By: Gary on 3/17/2011 8:14PM
What do you mean "we as black will have more violent to deal with, we already do, it already frightening, black on black crime has been on the rise for some time now, some of the violent crimes that are committed are for ridicules reasons.
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By: Duane on 3/12/2011 7:54AM
There seems to be a misconception in society that black serial killers are extremely rare...but that is just not true. Here's just a partial list of identified black serial killers:
Howard Arthur Allen. Indianapolis. 3 or more victims.
Jake Bird. Tacoma, Washington. He offed two in the Tacoma area in the 1940s and a total of 44 nationwide.
Terry A. Blair. Kansas City area. 8 victims. 2003-4.
Arthur Bomar. Philadelphia and Nevada. 4 or 5 victims.
Daniel Andrew Bowler. Richmond, Virginia. 3 victims.
Eugene Britt. Gary, Indiana. 10 or more victims.
Maurice Byrd. St. Louis area. 20 victims.
Reginald and Jonathan Carr. Wichita, Kansas. 5 victims.
Jarvis Catoe. New York City. 13 victims. 1941-42.
Leonard Christopher. Philadelpha. 7 victims. 1980s.
Alton Coleman. Midwestern USA. 8 victims.
Andre Crawford. Southside Chicago. 10 victims.
Paul Durousseau. Jacksonvile, Florida; Georgia. 6 victims, two of which were pregnant women.
Lorenzo Fayne. East St. Louis, Illinois. 5 victims, all children.
Kendall Francois. Poughkeepsie, New York and environs. 8 victims, all women.
Carlton Gary. Columbus, Georgia. 3 victims.
Lorenzo J. Gilyard. Kansas City, Missouri. 12 victims, all women.(May be Missouri's worst serial killer ever, according to the Kansas City Star.)
Mark Goudeau. Valley of the Sun, Arizona. "Baseline Killer." 9 kills, along with 15 sexual assaults and 11 kidnappings during his year-long spree.
Harrison Graham. North Philadelphia city. 7 victims, possibly more.
Vaughn Greenwood. Louisiana. 11 victims.
Kevin and Reginald Haley. Los Angeles. 8 victims. 1979-84.
Ralph Harris. Southside Chicago. 6 victims, along with 13 armed robberies and 6 sexual assaults. The first four murders in 1992 and the final two in 1995 sandwiched a prison stint for armed robbery.
Clarence Hill. Bucks County, PA. "Duck Island Killer." 6 victims, three pairs of "lovers lane" couples. 1939-42.
Ivan Hill. Los Angeles. "60 Freeway Slayer." 6 women. 1993-4.
Elton M. Jackson. Norfolk, Virginia area. 12 victims.
Calvin Jackson. New York State. 9 victims, possibly more.
Edward James. Las Vegas. 3 victims.(He and Troy Sampson [see below] were both "thrill" serial killers, who brutally murdered random, innocent white people -- EPH)
Richard "Babyface" Jameswhite. New York State; Georgia. 15 victims.
Milton Johnson. Joliet, IL. 4 victims.
Devine Jones. St. Louis area. 3 victims, possibly more.
Henry Lee Jones. Southern Florida; Bartlett, Tennessee. 4 victims, possibly more.
Arhon Kee. Harlem, New York City, New York. 3 girls. Late 1990s.
Gregory Klepper. Southside Chicago. 8 victims.
Derrick Todd Lee. Southern Louisiana. 5 victims.
Matthew Macon. Central Michigan. 7 victims.
Hulon Mitchell, a.k.a. Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Florida. 20 victims, possibly more.
John Allan Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo. Washington, D.C. and suburbs in Maryland and Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Tacoma, Washington; Georgia; Tucson, Arizona. 13 to 19 victims, and probalby many many more.
Edward Lee Mosley. Southern Florida. 25 to 30 victims, all women.
Mohammed Alan Omar. Country of Yemen. 16 victims, all women.(Omar is Sudanese.)
Gerald Parker. "The Bedroom Basher." 6 white women, Southern CA.
Craig Price. Warwick, Rhode Island. 4 victims.
Cleophus Prince. San Diego, California. 6 victims.
Richmond Trio. Ricky Jovan Gray, Ashley Baskerville and Ray Joseph Dandridge. Richmond, VA. 8 victims among the three of them in several loosely related serial murder incidents.
Robert Rozier. Miami, Florida. 6 victims.
George Russell. Washington State. 3 victims, all women.
Troy Sampson.(See Edward James, above.)
Lemuel Smith. Upstate New York. 4 victims.
Timothy W. Spencer. Arlington, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia. 5 victims.
Maury Travis. St. Louis area; Atlanta area (?). 17 victims, possibly more.
Chester Dewayne Turner. Los Angeles. 12 victims, all women.
Unidentified. Indianapolis. 15 victims.
Michael Vernon. The Bronx, New York. 7 victims.(Five of his victims he killed in a shoe store because the store did not have shoes in his size. He later offed one pizza delivery man and one gypsy cab driver.)
Henry Louis Wallace. Charlotte, North Carolina. 9 victims.
Coral Eugene Watts. Texas; Michigan; Canada. He has confessed to 13 killings, but is suspected in as many as 80 killings.)
John Williams, Jr. Raleigh, North Carolina. 5 victims. 1990s.
Wayne Williams. Atlanta area. 33 victims.
Donald E. Younge, Jr. East St. Louis, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Utah. 4 victims.
Zebra Killers. Three convicted in San Francisco. 78 victims.
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By: James S on 3/12/2011 6:21PM
Duane I googled black serial killers and found your list. The list is without merit. The reason for the list was because a racist was trying to prove a point. The FBI list doesn't have 75% of the people listed here. In other words your list is not valid.
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