Nobody's Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer

by Steve Miller

On a Thursday evening in late October 2009, Cleveland Police detectives arrived at the home of Anthony Sowell—an ex-Marine and a registered sex offender—to arrest him on week-old rape charges. 

But this was no ordinary house, nor would it be a routine arrest.

For even though Sowell was not at home, officers knew immediately something was horribly wrong. After initially finding two rotting corpses inside the home, their investigation would lead them to discover the bodies of eleven women. This is the shocking true account of Sowell’s legacy of depravity and cold-blooded murder. His mannered and well-spoken veneer masked a monster who felt no mercy for those he butchered. His twisted existence spent among the decaying bodies of his victims. And how he picked his victims from the fringes of society—lost souls with criminal records or drug habits that would make them less likely to arouse alarm if they simply disappeared.

But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be avenged … 

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Serial Killer

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2012

About the author

Steve Miller is an investigative reporter with 19 years of experience in daily newspaper and magazine reporting. Miller has covered countless trials and murder cases, including serving time as a court and cops beat reporter at the Dallas Morning News and writing about numerous national crimes as a national reporter for the Washington Times, People magazine and U.S. News and World Report. Miller, the former vocalist in the Midwest punk rock outfit the Fix, is also a music journalist and has been a contributing editor at Your Flesh Magazine since 1991. Books: A Slaying in the Suburbs; The Tara Grant Murder (Penguin/Berkley, 2009) Touch and Go: The complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83 (Bazillion Points, 2010) by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson, edited by Steve Miller Girl, Wanted: The Search for Sarah Pender (Penguin/Berkley, 2011) Johnny Ramone Memoirs (Abrams, 2012) (co-editor) Nobody's Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer (Penguin/Berkley, 2012)
Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Five Decades of Rock 'n Roll in America's Loudest City (Da Capo, 2013

Reviews

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Crimes and victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer. A real sick puppy.

[Rachel Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live just outside of Cleveland, so this story was quite a shock to me. It is very well written and gives a lot more information than I got from the local news. It is truly amazing how the Cleveland police treated the family's of the women who went missing.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grim, disturbing, hideous story. You come away with only a faint sense of the personalities involved in most cases, but a clear sense of the violence and ugliness that ended these women's lives. And stark, gasping relief for the ones who got away.

[Joyce Ortis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boring at times

The author spent too much time on the histories of the slain women. This book was definitely not a "can't put down book".

[Daniela Valencia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The theme of the book Nobody’s Women written by Steven Miller is about this guy named Anthony Sowell, who is an ex-marine who has struggled all his live with a having criminal record or drug habits and being involved with rape charges. It all started at the age of seventeen when he first raped his half sister Teresa Garrison growing up Anthony had a hard life seeing his mother get beaten and raped on a daily, his father getting really involved with drugs and being in and out of foster care. I believe that other readers would enjoy this novel because it really makes you think about how someone you can be so close with that might be your friend, neighbor, boyfriend and son is actually hiding the biggest secret of their life. Which is to be a cold-blooded serial killer who killed 12 plus women and kept their bodies in the walls of his hallway, his basement, and in his backyard without anyone knowing. In my opinion I felt like the novel did feel complete it did not leave me missing an key elements about the novel. This novel does really engage your emotions it makes you think about how someone looks and acts so innocent could really be a serial killer and how the police is supposed protect you treats this case.

[Britt Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an amazing book. Ever since moving to Cleveland and hearing things about the Anthony Sowell case, I felt like I needed to know more, about him, but especially about his victims. In Nobody's Women by Steve Miller, I got a more in depth view into who Anthony Sowell was. But most importantly, Miller did a phenomenal job introducing us to the victim, the women. He explained how they did struggle with addiction, but they were real PEOPLE, who had families who loved them. They were so much more than their addictions or people that were the victims of a brutal sexual assault and murder. Miller also does a very good job about showing how, unfortunately, they were "nobody's women," because the Cleveland police did not take their disappearances seriously, mostly because the women were addicts, even though family members tried and tried to get them to do something. Amazing book, a must read in the true crime genre.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was very interesting and a fast read. I sat down and read it in 1 day. I thought it was very sad the way the police department treated this case. These were mother's, daughter's, sister's and aunt's regardless how they lived their lives they didn't deserve and their families didn't deserve to be disregarded by the way authorities.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read...

This is also about the 11 women found in a monsters house, just from a different perspective...I read this one pretty quickly bc it spoke in depth about the victims and the lives they lived and the lives they left behind. I highly recommend this book too. To me books like this give me great insight, I learn so much from true crime stories!

[Susan Shepherd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty gruesome tale .

i had never heard of this case and it was a very detailed account of the women who lost their lives. the author let us “know” the women as people not just statistics or drug users. I appreciate that fact because quite often the perpetrators are remembered but not the victims.

[Kellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the serial killer, Anthony Sowell. He killed 11 women whose bodies were found in his house and buried in his yard. He also raped about 6 women who lived to tell their story.
I love true crime books and found this book disturbingly fascinating. It was well written and I would recommend it.

[Queen Kong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read only because I usually read true crime , but that bastard deserves to rot in jail for the end of time. The women had hard lives and dabbled in many things they obviously shouldn’t have but they certainly didn’t deserve death. Truly sad

[Crystal Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a really interesting read.

[B*tchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent but very choppy.

I bought this book after reading complaints that it focused too much on the victims. That is EXACTLY what I was interested in. I'm quite interested in community and institutional apathy, and Cleveland seems to have it in abundance. The writing definitely was riveting in some parts, but the hurry and wait sting of events became muddled. I'm glad someone cares about the victims. They deserve dignity and peaceful rest after such a sordid life.

[Lissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lived in Ohio, only a few hours from Cleveland, when Anthony Sowell was arrested. Even though he was a serial killer (and an Ohioan at that), I don't remember him receiving much attention on the news. I remember one blurb about bodies being found in a Cleveland house, and then another about him being arrested, and that was it.

The author delves into why this was, in a way. Stating that because Sowell (much like the Green River killer, although Ridgway still got more press than Sowell, probably because of the time span of the killings) murdered "nobody's women," women who weren't valued by the system, he was able to stay under the radar for at least two years.

Many of the women weren't even reported missing by their families (most of whom had had unsavory dealings with the police department before and didn't trust them). Nearly all of Sowell's victims had long rap sheets, mostly involving drugs, prostitution, and robbery or receiving/selling stolen goods. Even when neighbors complained of a horrible stench arising from the area, it was blamed on a meat factory instead of being investigated. And when a woman accused Sowell of beating and raping her, she was dismissed as not credible (mostly due to her drug addiction), and Sowell was free to keep killing. In fact, the police were completely unaware that a serial killer was operating in the area, in spite of several missing women, until Sowell's house was searched on a rape charge. It was only then that the bodies were discovered.

It's a very sad case to read about

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nobody's Women was a detailed and a serious passion project for its author Steve Miller. I had only heard about the Anthony Sowell serial murder case in spurts over the years, but this book helped to educate me on a case I will never forget.

One of the true blessings of this book was Miller's humanizing of the women who were killed by Anthony Sowell. He gave back stories and even some pictures on some of the women who were killed by the serial killer. Most times, people could care less about down on their luck, drug addicted, or sex trade women from an impoverished city or area such as the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. That part of Cleveland served as the setting for this book, and this book gave those deceased women some sort of fame or dignity.

Within this book, Sowell's backstory was analyzed too, and that backstory revealed that he was raised by an evil and abusive mother and grandmother. He grew up in a household where it was common for those two women to beat him and his blood or adopted brothers and sisters. That abuse helped to store inside of him, many memories and demons and hatred for women. The women that came into his life on the mean streets of East Cleveland bore the brunt of that lifelong anger towards women, with many of those women losing their lives.

In closing, Nobody's Women is a necessary entry into the true crime genre. The book was educational, it was depressing to read at times (that was part of the author's plan), and it gave me further thought on thinking twice about ever visiting East Cleveland.

[Shari · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try and read a lot of true crime and this book was not put together very well. It went from person to person to person. It never let you get a clear picture of what was going on until the end when he was caught. I do have to say it was so sad how he slipped through the cracks so many times. I feel so bad for the victims and their family. This book just jumped around to much and was somewhat confusing.

[Rebecca Renea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to read this since I live in a suburb of Cleveland. Although it was decent and I read it in a few days, I don't think it is particularly well organized. The trial chapters had too much extra info about people involved that wasn't necessary to include in my opinion. However, it was good to read overall since it is a local story.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldnt finish it. I didnt even make it half way before I stopped. The author jumped around too much, you rarely knew who he was talking about - not that it mattered, you never knew who the majority of the people were anyhow.

[Karen Bullock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read something on Facebook about his house being haunted which was the whole reason for picking up this book--gruesome & twisted is usually the way a serial killer's mind works & Anthony Sowell definitely fit the bill--is the house haunted?! Still can't say for sure but it has good. Reason to be

[Gretchen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was a great book full of details.