Cleveland Strangler Pt. One Ft. How to Spot a Killer

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Riddle Me That is a true crimepodcast that deals with adult themes. Some
episodes explore disturbing topics such as murder, abuse, sexual violence, drug abuse,
suicide, and self harm. Pleaselisten at your own risk. Theories
disgusting episodes may not be the opinionof the host. Welcome back to the

(00:32):
show. I'm Juels and this hasRiddle Me That true crime. So today
I'm really excited. I have aguest with me, Lynnette from How to
Spot a Killer, who I thinkher podcast is amazing. Welcome to the
show, Lynette. Hi, Juels, Hi everyone, it's great to be
here today. So how many episodes? You're five episodes in? Right now?

(00:52):
Right? I am five episodes andit's crazy to think how quickly the
time's gone by. It's been soamazing, Juels. I'm hoping to let
my sixth episode next week. I'mnot sure when this episode comes out,
but the week of the seventh willbe my sixth episode. So do you
want to talk a little bit aboutyour background and what got you into true
crime podcasting? Absolutely so. Again, my name's Lynnette, and I am

(01:15):
the host of How to Spot aKiller, a true crime podcast. It's
still very new I just started recordingin December of twenty twenty one. And
the reason I got into it wasI used to be a criminal law attorney
and I was prosecuting. I wasn'tprosecuting for very long, but for those
people were familiar with the criminal justicesystem, it is very overwhelmed. There's

(01:38):
a lot of cases, and youknow, not enough people, and a
lot of attorneys are underpaid. Sotrue crime has always been my passion.
Working on cases, supporting victims hasalways been my passion, and so I
went to law school with that inmind. I'd always worked in government law,
and so this was such an incredibleexperience to be there for the victims,

(02:00):
to stand with them due to thefact that so many county district attorney's
offices are underpaid and overwhelmed. Imean I was day one as a prosecutor.
I was handed a stack of threehundred cases and just kind of,
you know, given some direction andtold to go ahead. It was such
a wonderful experience, but I wasexhausted. I was working late, I

(02:22):
was working weekends, and I wasn'table to pay my bills, and so
I knew that I had to takea step back and work in an area
of the law where I could stillforward my bills and I could still take
care of my dog and my cat. And so as I was feeling this
emptiness and I was kind of sittingin this depression of I lost my purpose.
You know, I'm not working oncontracts and HRR issues, and you

(02:44):
know different, even though the funcourt cases and Supreme Court cases, my
passion is being in the courtroom withthe victims. And for whatever reason,
one day it just struck me Ilistened to so many true crime cases,
like so many other people who listen, who feel empathy for the victims and
people who are injured, I knowthat there is another voice, there's another

(03:05):
side maybe that people wanted to hearfrom as well in the true crime area,
which could be the side of someonewho has met these defendants, who
have sat next to these defendants incourt and had to bring justice for a
victim. And so I thought,what about starting a podcast where I can
talk about escalating behavior, you know, where I can identify things that potentially
could save girls like me who livealone and you know naturally are naive.

(03:30):
You know, I grew up inI was telling you earlier. Jewels before
we start recording. I grew upin Southern Africa in a country called Zimbabwe,
and Zimbabwe is so lovely and peopleare so kind. Zimbabweans are so
peaceful and kind and wonderful welcoming people. But the problem is if you're a
very kind, welcoming person, sometimesyou open yourself up to people who will
take advantage of that. Right,So I wanted to create a podcast with

(03:53):
people like me who don't naturally followthe gut instinct, who don't naturally listen
to the red flags. You know, there's a lot of amazing women,
jewels. I feel like you're oneof them, Women who are able to
spot a creep immediately walk away fromthem, or who are comfortable saying back
off, guy, I'm not comfortablewith you know, get out of my
space. I have always put otherpeople's comfort before me and before my own

(04:15):
comfort. So this podcast is reallyfor myself and for victims, and for
me to feel like I'm there forpeople so that we don't keep seeing people
being victimized and taken advantage of anddying. So long story short, I
did this because I missed your crimeand I still want to advocate for victims
in some capacity. So that's whatI hope to do through my podcast.
And for those of you who areunfamiliar with Lynnette's podcast, How to Spot

(04:36):
a Killer. Throughout the episode,she'll often give some real world tips along
the way, which I feel isreally helpful, especially for women, because
we're often taught to people please andto be nice, like if somebody is
being creepy, oh just be polite, being nice, and that's not always
good advice. I think you canbe rude, you can just walk away,

(04:58):
You can do those things because it'simportant to listen to your gut.
And I think that these tips arereally great for those of us that have
kind of had that narrative pushed onus and have to fight against it and
learn as an adult that you don'thave to always be polite. One.
I love that you said it's sowall Jewels, because I think we have
to teach young women that you donot owe anyone anything. You don't owe

(05:23):
a guy a conversation, another girlanother conversation. What you owe is your
sense of security. You owe yourselfa sense of security and safety. And
so you know, a lot ofpeople will hear cases about someone who is
still kind you know, I wasjust on another podcast. I was telling
you jewels on Friday, and Iremember I was talking about for whatever reason,
this weekend, I've really been intowatching the Halloween movie, the Michael

(05:46):
Myers Halloween movie, and in thatHalloween movie, I was continually shocked by
you know, this character that's portrayedis just this completely disconnected psychopath who kills
me, members friends, people whohave taken care of him, people who
love him, you know, withouteven thinking about it. And this happens
in real life. We have neighbors, people in our community, ex.

(06:10):
Boyfriends, people who don't care howkind you are to them, who don't
care if you give them a glassof water, if you smile at them,
if you don't bully them, alongwith the other kids in the school,
whatever it is, and we haveto protect ourselves, so we come
first. I know that that's notwhat usually society pushes for, what religion
pushes for, but we have tocome first. Our safety has to come
first. So I agree with yourthousand percent. That's what I hope we

(06:31):
can achieve through all podcasts. Wellsaid, So I'm really interested to hear
what case you're going to be discussingwith me today. Do you want to
give just a brief synopsis. Yes, still, so, as we spoke
about and I loved in your Twittermessage when we were talking about clapping,
you wanted to highlight a case thathas forgotten or not given enough coverage.

(06:54):
And as you know, and Iknow what's important to you our minority cases
and cases about black women and vidualswho are marginalized, who are on the
cusp of society and overlooked. Sowe're talking about individuals for drug users,
who are sex workers, women ofcolor, Black women especially are overlooked by
society and in the media when theygo missing. And so the case I'm

(07:15):
going to be discussing with you,I think you're going to be very happy
with as someone who cares about thosetypes of cases. They'll be discussing Anthony
Sowell, also known as the ClevelandStrangler, and so we're going to discuss
in detail how he was able toget away with the crimes that he did.
And also in addition to that,we're going to get into a little
bit of a discussion too about howa sausage factory was involved in this case

(07:36):
as well. So I'm looking forwardto getting into these details with you,
all right, let's get into it, all right, Joel. So this
case we're going to head back tothe year is nineteen fifty nine, and
I'm taking you to Cleveland, Ohio, where we meet a man named Anthony
Edwards. So well, so thisguy was born to Thomas Sowell, Senior

(07:58):
and Claudia Garrison, as you'll hear, and it's a theme throughout this case.
This individual, Anthony was born toa father who was not interested in
really raising him and his siblings.And he was born to a mother who
had multiple children, but with otherindividuals. So she's a single mother.
And you know, she had siblingsof Anthony's in the house as well,

(08:20):
but not all of them share thesame father. And this is a reoccurring
theme. And I'll think we'll discussa little bit more about how this comes
into play into empathy. You know, how we empathize with victims and how
we view them when we talk aboutmothers who have been robbed of the alives.
So I'll get into that in alittle detail later. But Anthony had
a sister named Patricia. She wasborn when Claudia, his mother, was

(08:43):
fifteen, and when her father,not Anthony's father, was eighteen and so
like Anthony's father, he fled andClaudia, I mean, it's shocking to
think, but by the time shewas eighteen, she had five children and
she was raising those kids. Hermom was raising those kids along with her,
and no men was sticking around totake care of her. And this,
unfortunately, is a reoccurring issue thatwe see in communities where you know,

(09:07):
women are not given opportunities, sowhere people are deprived of opportunities financially
when they don't so I think tiesinto societal issues where we talk about black
people not having access to resources,not inheriting, you know, where you
have women who are taking advantage ofin certain communities because people don't see value
in them. Yeah, it's prettysad when you think about the fact that

(09:28):
she's got five children by the ageof eighteen. Do you know what age
she started having the children at.I do not know, but I do
know. I mean she had tohave started very young, right, I
mean, by eighteen with five andyou're talking about a nine month period for
each child, she had to havebeen extremely young. It's heartbreaking to think
that she was raising those kids.I hope with the support of her family

(09:50):
but was raising those kids on herown. I know what I was up
to when I was eighteen. Iwas not a responsible person enough to raise
even a child, just one child, and to be the age of say
she was twelve years old. Thenwho is taking advantage of a twelve year
old? Is it some kind ofsexual predator who's taking advantage? Like she's
not able to have consensual sex atthat point, and even if she's having

(10:11):
one child a year, it seemslike people are taking advantage of her when
she's literally a child still one hundredpercent, you hit the nail on the
head. And what I've seen aswell with some of these cases where you're
dealing with a single mother with multiplechildren, is that maybe a family member
is coming to take care of thekids and watch the kids, and maybe

(10:33):
the kids are home while mom isout working and trying to pay the bills,
And so you've got people who aretaking advantage. Or you have kids
who are exposed to adult activities ata very young age, and we're talking
about adult activities in this sense,like you highlighted, you've got a twelve
year old who's basically getting raped.You know this is kids do not understand
consent at the age of twelve.Someone was taking advantage of this child,

(10:54):
or maybe there were older boys whowere taking advantage of her loneliness or the
fact that she was alone and vulnerable. So it's scary to think that this
is happening, and it's a reoccurringissue that you'll see in this case.
In August of nineteen sixty nine,Patricia, Anthony's sister dies at the age
of twenty seven. So you've gother kids. I will add that she

(11:15):
had chronic bronchitis toe to asthma.So you've got her kids, You've got
Anthony and his siblings. You've gotAnthony's grandmother, Claudia, and you've got
the mom in the house as welland Anthony. I mean, in total,
we're looking at seven nieces and nephews, his half sisters trust out,
all sleeping too to a room.This was a packed house. And one

(11:37):
of the worst parts that I wasreading about this case, and I think
it plays a part into what we'regoing to hear as far as the details
of Anthony Sowell is that his motherand his grandmother were beating all of these
children mercilessly. The great grandmother andI'm sorry, I said, Claudia was
the grandmother. That was Claudia asin Anthony's mother and Irene Claudia's mother.
We're all living in that house.And so these kids were exposed it to

(12:00):
young age, to being used asfar as feeling like they were just an
opportunity or adored a welfare check.Anthony's nieces and nephew's fault, like they
were only kept in the house sothat Claudia could get a bigger paycheck.
They didn't feel loved, they wereabused, they were taken advantage of,
and worst of all, they werestripped naked in front of the other kids.
Two of the girls specifically, andwere beaten by Anthony's mother as a

(12:22):
part of this sadistic punishment for beingwomen. I think this is just horrific.
You've got this cycle of violence thatseems to be multigenerational, and these
children who aren't being valued as individualsand who are being horrifically abused, and
then there becomes like a sexual elementof this type of abuse when the children

(12:43):
reach a certain age, when theystart to hit puberty, especially when I'm
sure, as you're going to say, there's young male eyes watching one people
forget or maybe they are aware,but kids are sponges. I am not
a mother myself, but I knowthat we become the product of our upbringing.

(13:05):
Right. So you have these twogirls who are being tied, physically
tied to a banister by their grandma, and they've got the young uncles who
are around the same age watching thembeing whipped with electrical cords until they bled,
you know, and you've got theseyoung boys eyes watching. And you
know, I've heard, just fromtalking with other men around my age,

(13:28):
that by the time you're even eightor nine, you're already feeling sexual feelings.
You know, you're you're starting tobe aware of your body and the
changes. And you know a lotof young men are already masturbating by that
age. So Anthony Sowell at thisage, you know, he's thirteen in
nineteen seventy two, he's watching hisniece's naked, He's watching them developing,

(13:48):
He's looking at them as they've beingbeaten, and I think he starts to
associate the changes in his body withwhat he's seeing, what he's being raised
around. And that is such adangerous combination that you've not got a young
boy an impressionable child who's learning toassociate pain and suffering and the humiliation of
young women with his own sexual pleasureand fantasies. We see this so often

(14:11):
in the case of serial killers,where this merging of sex and violence happens
at a young age, whether they'relooking at bondage magazines of their father or
they're watching their father abuse somebody andit happens that then their sexual development is
marred with this violence and they becomesadistic. They need to wratch it up
their own experiences later in adulthood,because they wouldn't derive the same pleasure as

(14:37):
a typical human wood who wasn't exposedto that during those formative adolescent years when
their sexuality is developing. So itis a very very dangerous combination having this
boy watch and then as he's goingthrough puberty or when he's quite young,
he's feeling these sexual feelings, andhe's watching his nieces develop breasts and become

(15:00):
women, and then watching them bebeaten. So it is an incredibly dangerous
situation. I would think that wouldbe even worse than looking at a bondage
magazine, because this is something sovisceral. It's in person one. And
the worst part is not only arewe seeing this background from the serial Killers,
but with Anthony Sowell and his nieces. You mentioned he's watching them developing.

(15:24):
But these girls were traumatized as well. You know, and as you
know, Anthony's favorite niece is thirteenat the time that obviously he's trying to
see all of this. She's actuallytwelve by apologist, so she's one year
younger than him, and he startsraping her at this time, so she's
I can't even imagine. Not onlyis she being traumatized and abused by her

(15:46):
grandmother, she's being traumatized and abusedby her de facto sibling. And so
what ends up happening to this poorgirl and her sister is that they keep
running away. One of them specifically, was placed into a temporary shelter,
and Anthony's favorite niece, the onehe was raping, followed her sister.
You know that kind of trauma thatleads you to try and enter a system

(16:07):
to feel safe, to hide inthe facility for two months so that you
are no longer exposed to abuse.You can only imagine the trauma that she
was going through at that page avenueaddress that Anthony and his mom and his
grandmother were all living at. Itseems like the trauma and the torture that
these girls were exposed to, Imean, there seems to be some mental
health difficulties within this family in orderto be subjecting young women to this type

(16:30):
of torture, the trauma being beatenwith the electrical chords by Claudia, I
mean, I can't even imagine whatthose girls were going through. And to
have this done well, your strippednaked, and that's just I'm sure the
tipethy iceberg with regards to the abusethat they faced. And so to have
that be your every day to justexpect that that's going to happen, is

(16:52):
going to have a considerable cumulative effecton the psyche of a developing child.
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, Jules. And you know the worst
part is you you recognize that becausethis poor girl winds up in a children's
psychiatric hospital, we can't even besurprised by that based on what she was

(17:14):
exposed to in the trauma that shewas experiencing on a day to day basis.
One thing that you said too thatstuck with me is that the one
was Anthony's favorite niece, and sohe started to rape her. And it's
like, that is how you showyour affection for your favorite family members you
begin to then rape her. Thatis how broken this value system within this
family is, and the way inwhich they show love to each other is

(17:37):
just so atypical. Yes, thegirls are exposed to violence, the men
are exposed to violence. How isa mother supposed to treat the children?
How a grandmother supposed to treat hergrandchildren? What these kids are realizing is
the only type of feeling that I'mexposed to is hurt, is pain,
and that's what each of them areraised in. You wonder, then,

(18:00):
as adults, why we're seeing acycle and a generational abuse, right,
because this is all they were taught. A lot of people say you should
strive to be like your mom oryour dad, or try to marry the
person who's like your dad. Butwhat if your mom or dad mistreated you?
But that's all you knew, Youwere never exposed to anything outside of
that. Well, of course you'regoing to pass this on as a generational
curse. And so that's what wesee with these poor kids. I guess

(18:22):
you know, one saving situation inthis is that Anthony's favorite niece did end
up getting out of the Page Avenuehouse because she was returned after she'd been
hiding there with her sister. Butshe lits some clothes on fire, drols.
She literally lits some clothes on fire, closed a door knowing it would
bring authorities to that house, andit did bring authorities to that house,
and that's when they took her tothe children's psychiatric hospital. She was finally

(18:45):
able to open up about the abuseand try and get help. But unfortunately,
as we can expect, she wasyou know, her life was flowed
suicide attempts, blackouts, psychotic episodes, mental illness, and we cannot blame
this poor girl. Like you said, every single person was supposed to protect
her and loved her did not dothat. What she was instead exposed to

(19:06):
with sexual assault, abuse, beatingsand trauma from a very early age after
the loss of her mother. It'sjust so sad. It's a heartbreaking thing
where the system has literally failed her. And finally it takes her trying to
set the house on fire in orderto get the attention where she's saying,
I need help, Somebody help me, Like you said everybody close to her

(19:26):
hasn't neglected to protect her. Andthen the legacy of that treatment and that
trauma is a life that's filled withall the things that you mentioned, mental
health issues and psychotic episodes and whetheror not she had I mean, you
can't really we really never know withnature or nurture, if there was she's

(19:47):
having psychotic episodes, say if shehad bipolar water, bipolar two or somewhere
on the bipolar spectrum. We don'tknow if there's a family history because it's
likely undiagnosed. But then if somebody'sgot the genetic propensity towards that, scientists
say it's like turning on a lightswitch, So being in this environment would
be flicking on every light switch withevery mental health condition if you have a

(20:07):
propensity for that. This reminds meand I guess as an aside, when
back in twenty fourteen, I tooka trip back home to Zimbabwe and I
was a part of a group ofindividuals who are building a safe house for
girls who are victims of sexual abuse. So there's a place called Cholocho and
Zimbabwe, and there were some individuals, some men in that village who believed

(20:30):
that the only way to get ridof AIDS. They were told by these
witch doctors and quotes I know thesong so in saying yeah, they were
told that the only way to getrid of AIDS is to sleep with the
virgin. So you had grandfathers,uncle sleeping with the nisus sleeping with your
grandchildren. And why am I usingthe word sleeping? Raping these young children
right in order to get rid ofthis AIDS. And so I remember I

(20:52):
met this beautiful young girl. Shewas eight years old, and there was
this I will never forget. Ithaunts me to this day, completely gone
jols. Her eyes were kind ofglazed over. She wasn't there, you
know, her body was there.She's there, supposed to be a kid,
but she she lost her childhood andshe had been continually abused by her
grandfather. And what she ended updoing was she was running to the woods

(21:15):
to escape abuse. And so whenI met her, she had just been
picked up. She had been hidingin the woods for three days. And
what people in that community were sayingis the reason she's doing this is because
she's demonically possessed. Instead of recognizingthat, like you said, there are
certain things that trigger things in achild, that trigger things in anyone.
You know, you talk to adultswho've been victims of sexual abuse, you're

(21:37):
not the same person. You becomea shell of who you are until you
get help and until you're surrounded bypeople who love you and protect you.
And so this poor girl, myheart broke for her. Even in providing
a shelter and building a shelter forthese girls, they're no longer who they
should have been. You know,they grow up so quickly, and that's
when we do see kids running topartners and boys who show them affection,

(22:00):
ending up having young children at avery young age as well, because obviously
they exposed to sex and things.They're looking for love in all the wrong
places. And that's another aspect.Another ramification that comes with this is you've
got kids we've never been loved,who are looking for love in the wrong
places, who are raising kids whothey don't know how to love. It's
really scary and it's heartbreaking that happensin so many communities across the world.

(22:22):
That's amazing that you have the opportunityto go and help those girls, but
it is also just so sad thatthey've had to experience such sexual abuse by
people who they should trust, theyshould be able to have protecting them,
not taking advantage of them, andbasically just using them as a means to
an end because some witch doctor toldthem that was the cure. It's so

(22:45):
heartbreaking. I just I'm at aloss for words, I know. And
this is just a reoccurring issue inthis story. We're talking about a real
life event that took place in thisfamily. And as you'll see, Anthony
grow up and he's not making rightdecisions right, So he's coming out of
this abusive situation. He's been abuseralready himself by the time he's thirteen,

(23:07):
and you know, we can onlyassume that he was also exposed to other
sexual advances from other people, becauseweird kids learn how to rape someone else,
right, he had we assumed,though he didn't discuss it himself previously,
that he had been exposed to thatabuse himself. Well, by nineteen
seventy one, Anthony's in high schooland then he drops out. You know,
there's too much stuff going on inhis life for him to continue and
focus on his education. And soas a high school dropout, he has

(23:30):
a couple of misdemeanors. We're talkingabout shoplifting, domestic violence, drunk and
disorderly conduct, breaking and entering.He's got minor results. I mean,
this kid, at this point inhigh school is facing either a life of
poverty or a life of crime.And so what he decides to do,
which is an interesting change in hislife, as he decides to enlist in

(23:52):
the US Marine Corps and so hismom signs the papers and allows him to
go into the service. I mean, you can think of it at this
point in this story. We knowit doesn't go well, but we can
think of it at this point inthe story and go, well, you
know what, he's taking that rage, He's going to channel it into doing
something for his country. But wealso know what marines are really good at,
and they learn how to do handto hand combat, and they're also

(24:15):
good at killing in close proximity tosomebody. Yes, ma'am, we equipped
this guy, who was already amonster with the tools he needed to do
the most damage. He begins learninghow to use chokeholds, punches, weapons,
jewels. I watched a lot ofmovies, and I can tell you
that even in watching these movies,I could never really physically learn how to
punch. But if someone shows mehow to do it and gives me the

(24:37):
power to actually harm another human being, I wouldn't hurt other people in society.
But as we know, Anthony alreadyhad a very twisted way about thinking
about the world, about women,about showing affection, about taking rejection,
and so being in the Marine Corpswas not something that allowed him to be
a better person. Unfortunately, asmuch as we would hope, he was
still being plagued by his past whenhe joins the marine. And so Anthony

(25:02):
marries at some point, and onething that I like to highlight for people
is during time that he's married tothis woman who he meets in the service.
They meet in nineteen eighty one,he falls in love. I mean,
it's a genuine love. By thetime he'd already enlisted, he had
a child with another woman, agirl he met during his high school years,
but he was obviously no longer withthem because he was stationed in Japan.

(25:23):
What ends up happening is that hethis wonderful and credible woman who brings
out the best in him. Bothof them have trauma, both of them
are healing together. Unfortunately, becauseof the jobs that they're doing, the
stationing and the moving around. Themarriage only lasts for two years. But
I will state to your listeners,Jewels, that it is not woman's responsibility

(25:45):
to fix broken people. I'm certainthat Anthony's urges to harm people were still
present, and who knows, itis very possible that they were still prevalent
in that marriage. And so thougha guy is changing and feeling better and
becoming reliant on a war, itis not a woman's job to fix some
mother's problems, or to fix theson's problems, or to fix the ramifications

(26:06):
of a grandmother. Anthony's job wasto heal himself, and him meeting the
perfect woman would not have changed thecourse that we're bought to see in this
case. And what I find interestinghere is we're going off of what Anthony
says about this relationship. Right,we don't have the testament of his wife
because she's now deceased. Correct,Yes, she died later in an industrial

(26:29):
accident in California, So not atthe hands of Anthony. So one percent,
we're taking the word of someone who, as you're going to hear,
I don't know it is necessarily agreat source for information. Yeah, no,
I don't know if he's a reliablenarrator and if he's saying it's great,
we're working on our trauma together.Working on our trauma may have meant
that she withstood a lot of abusefrom him. We just will never truly

(26:52):
know. As we know, Jules, the abuser or abusers, and I
think it's really important, especially foryoung women listening to your podcast. These
guys don't always reveal themselves free quickly. It can take two years for you
to really see that side. Buta lot of these guys don't have the
same view of a relationship as theperson who's being abused. So while you're

(27:14):
seeing someone a guy who's saying Igave her flowers, I stopped by to
see her at work every day,I loved on her, I had sex
or throw Meanwhile, the abuser couldhave a totally different point of view in
that they were stocked. You know, they were getting unwanted attention after they
told someone they no longer wanted tosee them. They were being raped,
as we know, rapes that happenin marriages. So again, like you
said, we have an unreliable narratorwho's giving us his perspective before all,

(27:38):
we know that could have been avery unhealthy, abusive relationship as well.
Yeah, I think you nailed it, and I think it was really important
point that you pointed out that itis never a woman's responsibility to fix somebody.
But who knows. I mean,maybe there is some elements of truth
and maybe he was willing to workon those issues, but at the end
of the day, he needs towork on those issues for him. Relying

(28:00):
on somebody to motivate you to dothose things, you need to find that
motivation in yourself. Exactly. Ohmy gosh, click clicks, I'm cheering
it right now. That was perfect, Yes, Juels. That person has
to do it themselves, no oneelse can force them to. Well,
surprise, surprise, Anthony. He'sin the Marine Corps for seven years.
During that time, he's actually,i mean he comes out of it pretty

(28:22):
successful, Joels. He's got aGood Conduct medal with one star. He's
got a Meritorious Mass Certificate, aC Service Deployment ribbon, a certificate of
commendation, and two letters of appreciation. So he comes out relatively successful.
But as we see with individuals whodo try and escape communities that are written
with crime, drug use, communitiesthat are not well funded, that are

(28:45):
not cured for enough by the restof us in society. He comes back
to Cleveland in nineteen eighty five whenit's plagued by crime and drug use,
and so unfortunately for Anthony, assuccessful as he might have been, perhaps
if he was going to area thatcould have given him a chance. He
comes back as a twenty five yearold to his seven year old daughter.
He moves into the attic at PageAvenue, that abusive home where he'd seen

(29:08):
his nieces beaten, and I'm assumingthis had to have been depressing for him.
He came from being kind of ahero to the streets where every other
person was smoking crack and so forthose who don't know, that's the smokable
form of cocaine. There's so manyresearch out here about the crack epidemic,
you know, and the drug epidemicand how it affects and cripples communities of

(29:32):
color and white communities frankly, andso many different diverse populations. But this
was depressing for him. So hecomes from feeling like a hero, he's
now drinking every day and as weknow, no good decisions come from alcoholism,
and so very soon he's also snortingcocaine and picks up another domestic violence
charge and he spends a little timein jail. So this guy comes out

(29:52):
of the Marine Corps and he's nowsounding crack. He's arrested possession and then
he's facing again Numero. His chargeswere almost back to our teenage years,
and as z Robalti here, Jules, this unravels into what is about to
become the culmination of who we rememberAnthony Sowell, what we remember him for.
This just sounds like a recipe fordisaster. He comes back, he's

(30:15):
obviously endured a great amount of traumaas a child, what he's been exposed
to. Then he's been a predatorpreying on his niece and lord knows who
else, and then he goes intothe Marine Corps. And it's not to
say that just because he's a sexualpredator or a deviant, it doesn't mean
that he then can't himself experience traumawhilst in the Marine Corps. So we

(30:38):
don't know what he did, whathe saw, and how it affected him.
So then you've got a lot ofpeople coming back from active duty and
they're looking for especially during the explosionof the crack epidemic, and they're looking
for a way to deal with thatpain and that trauma, and picking up
a bottle or picking up a pipeis a fairly rational response to what seems

(31:00):
like irrational violent actions. People justwant to escape the pain. And although
of course it's a poor choice,it's all that people feel as though is
offered to them at that point intime. So I can completely understand how
entire communities became gripped by this insidiousdrug exactly, Joels. You're surrounded by
poverty, You're surrounded by lack ofopportunities. You've got young women, twelve

(31:22):
year olds who are having children andyou know, not being given opportunities to
go to school and to pursue theirdreams and their goals. All they know
is raising their kids, and allthey know is poverty and drug use and
trauma and abuse. So what dopeople end up doing well again, escapism,
Right, what can I do toescape my reality? Or drugs are
right there for me, and Ihave access to them, and I'm going

(31:44):
to do whatever I can to getaccess to them. So at no point
can anyone blame these individuals for thesituations that they ended up in life led
them to that moment. Their upbringingled them to that moment. It was
unavoidable for so many of them,and so it was a recipe for disaster.
The situation was a recipe for disaster. And we're so grateful for individuals

(32:05):
who come out of those situations andour survivors and keep moving on, But
for a lot of individuals who endup in situations like the one we're bought
to see, there are monsters outthere who take advantage of individuals in these
communities who are vulnerable and who aretrying to escape the realities. So on
the evening of July twenty one,nineteen eighty nine, there is a beautiful

(32:25):
girl named Malvette Sockwall. Now thisis the first I loved what you said
earlier, Joels, when you saidthe niece was one potentially of many victims.
But this is the first criminal recordthat we have now of what Anthony's
is doing outside of his interactions withhis niece, because we know he didn't
face criminal ramifications for that abuse.One thing that's important that we point out

(32:46):
that I think all the listeners areaware of, is that sexual assaults they're
incredibly underreported, and so you canunderstand, especially at the time when we've
got police departments that aren't trained onhow to deal with victims of actual assault.
Some may be in major metropolitan areas, but I mean, if you've
got an underfunded police department dealing withthe way in which to handle sexual assault

(33:09):
victims in a sensitive way, itjust wasn't a thing back then. It
wasn't. And you know, theworst partoogials is you're dealing with underfunded police
officers. You're dealing with black individuals. Remember, and when right now we're
talking about post George Floyd, whatwe're talking about right now on this day
in ages post George Floyd. Butwe've had people in those communities, even

(33:30):
after Rodney King, who are nottrusting of police. You've also got a
shame that's associated with being a victimof sexual assault, which is so painful
for me to discuss with people,because when you are a victim of assault,
there's nothing you should be ashamed of. No amount of crack, no
amount of alcohol you could consume thatcauses you or should result in you being

(33:51):
a victim of sexual assault or beinga victim of murder, just because you're
living in such a horrible situation,it doesn't mean you deserve to be treated
anything less than a human being whodeserves respect and love. And so,
just as we tell little girls andwe tell young women, where whatever the
f you want, because no onehas a right to abuse you. We
know that people have been wearing sweatpantsand baggy clothing when they've been raped,

(34:15):
when they've been sexually assaulted. Weknow that the people who've been sober who've
been sexually assaulted. So there isabsolutely nothing that these women could have done
to avoid this situation. We cannotblame them for the situation that they were
in, because unfortunately, we livein a society where there are some men
and some women who feel that they'reentiled to other people's bodies and will strip
the innocence away from people who theyhave no business touching. And this is

(34:38):
what we see in this situation,a continual cycle of people taking advantage of
underrepresented and unprotected people. Yeah,it's a really, really sad situation where
you've got minority communities are oftentimes they'regoing to be under police and they're often
going to be not taken as seriouslyby the police when they go in,

(34:59):
and especially when you're dealing with blackwomen, it's just unfortunate that their experience
is often not bad of compassion bypolice when it comes to sexual assault reporting.
I mean, it isn't with whitewomen with men as well, but
I think it is probably worse forminority women. Those women who are listening,
Black women like me, there's alwaysit's always like I think someone once

(35:21):
told me that the most hated groupin America is the black woman, And
you know, sometimes you do seethat in boardrooms, you see that when
you're walking down the street, Likethis case is such a representation of that,
and it's heartbreaking. But I hopethat those who are listening, and
those who are in positions of powerwho do listen to this podcast or who
hear about this case, will rememberthat we need to prioritize young voices,

(35:45):
black voices, underrepresented voices, becausenot a lot of people do pay attention
to those cries for help. SoI'm so excited to be a part of
this opportunity, to be a partof this discussion with you, because I
think it's a very important case anda very important reminder that we need people
to expose these stories and to bringthem to light. So, Jules,
as you remember, I'm talking aboutthis twenty one year old named Malvette Sockwell,

(36:07):
it's in nineteen eighty nine. Sheis driving her boyfriend's Cadillac Eldorado.
She's pregnant at the time, she'sgot her third child. And again heartbreaking
because we know she's young when she'salready pregnant with her third child. So
on the night of July twenty first, this young girl doesn't have her boyfriend
with her. He's all taking careof business, and so he says,

(36:27):
go ahead, girl, use mycar. I know you don't have a
driver's license, but I'm going totrust you. So she hops into his
little car and she meets up withsome girlfriends at some local clubs. She's
having a great time, and bythe morning it's time to drop her car
off at her boyfriend's motel. Soaround six am, it's now July twenty
second, she arrives. She's pullingup to the motel and she notices some

(36:50):
police and in the parking lot shenotices some suspicious vehicles, which she assumes
our police. And as you saidearlier, there's not a lot of trust
for police in these communities, butmore so from all Vetsckwall on July twenty
second, because she's dating a drugdealer, and if these police recognize that
vehicle, she does not want tobe in it without a driver's license.
So, yeah, girls pregnant andher boyfriend's a known drug dealer. She

(37:13):
doesn't know what could potentially be inthis car. I totally get it.
Why she's like, Okay, I'mgonna close the door, walk away.
Yeah, I'm gonna get out ofthis exactly. So she jumps out of
this car and she's like, I'mjust gonna I'm just gonna leave this car
over here. She closes the doorand she walks by to a nearby payphone.
What we were assuming is she's tryingto call a friend, maybe a

(37:35):
family member to come and pick herup. At this time, mister Anthony
Sowell approaches her, and you know, they just start chatting as one would,
you know, with any other personin the community. She's seeing this
thirty year old. He's in goodshape, he's speaking kindly to her.
Obviously, her heart's racing because she'saware of this police vehicle, and so

(37:55):
she feels safe around this guy becausehe's calming her down. Now Anthony,
it's around ten am by the timeyou know, they've finished their conversation.
He says to her, I havea car. My house is just to
block over on Page Avenue. Helpout. I take you home with me.
I'm going to drive you home.I'll take care of you. Don't
worry. And so you know,what options does Malvette have at this point,

(38:16):
you know, we don't know.And so she walks with Anthony.
She's feeling safe, and oh mygoodness, she walks into this house and
her safety is again confirmed because thisfreshly baked corn in the oven, these
children playing. Anthony has a sisterwho's sleeping on the couch, and so
by appearances, this dude is normal. Joels, I know you're probably gonna

(38:37):
have some comments about that that sometimesthe devil doesn't always look like the devil,
right, You'll appear in any form, which is scary for us,
because there's normal people with normal familiesand normal homes that we don't know are
going to be dangerous to us.You've got to just peel back the layers,
right. It just reminds me ofFred and Rose West too. Sometimes

(38:59):
people on the surface, they canlook just at a first glance. Once
you start to dig deeper, yousee the cracks start to show. And
I think that was probably the casewith Anthony Sowell's family. Had she seen
it in the light of day andnot kind of under the moonlight with this
nice filter and the smell of corn, I mean, it might have been

(39:20):
different. She may have felt someapprehension, but she was, like you
said, in a position not tobe turning down any help. So I
can understand why she was like,Okay, this guy seems legit, he
looks clean, he's fit, he'soffering me help. He doesn't seem pushy
and mean, So I can understandwhy she chose to trust him at this
point exactly. And we have toknow that some of these guys are manipulators.

(39:44):
I would rather be rude than dead, And that's what I'm starting to
live by, is I would muchrather be rude, considered rude, than
dead, because there are going tobe situations where you're stranded, you're alone,
maybe your uber canceld. You're outon a night out with your girls
and one's left you on the sidewalkand you don't know where to go.
Trust your instincts it's better to bewith someone that you know than with the

(40:08):
devil that you don't know. Andso while I understand why she went out
there and we cannot victim Blaine again, we recognize here in this story Anthony
is a good example of why youknow people not always what they seem.
And what you're going to see inthis case is that she walks into this
house, she's feeling safe, she'sfeeling comfortable, she's not thinking about sex.

(40:29):
What I'm assuming is that Anthony said, hey, let's just quickly go
upstairs, real quick. I wantto grab something before I take you home.
And so she walks upstairs with himto the third floor, and all
of a sudden, Anthony slams thedoor shut. He drags a massive suitcase
in front of it so she canescape. And as this poor girl,
Malvette is standing there, I betyou the world was moving in slow motion

(40:51):
when Anthony pulled out the largest knifeshe'd ever seen in her life. Terrifying,
absolutely terrifying. This poor woman.She's pregnant, for one, and
then she's in this place where shefelt completely disarmed. The smell of corn
kids playing everything seems really wholesome,like a Norman Rockwell painting. And then

(41:13):
she goes into this guy's room who'sbeen so kind in helping her, and
he brandishes this giant knife. Ican't even imagine how poor mulebatt was feeling.
Oh my gosh. And the worstpart, Joels is not only was
it just a momentary fear. Fortwelve hours, Anthony rapes and beats her.
So he beats her, he tiesher hands. Let's think about remember

(41:34):
what he was exposed to as achild and what he saw. So he
takes her clothes off, he tiesher hands behind her back with a belt,
He stuffs a towel in her mouth, and he rapes her over and
over and over and over for twelvehours. And after that, I mean
that type of physical force, thatdeprivation of her peace, her femininity,

(41:55):
her you know, the kindness,the trustingness. He's dripped all of that
off of her, and then hetakes a nap. Disgusting. It's for
twelve hours, this guy took anysort of control or sovereignty that she had
over her own body and just coastedout the window and violated that. And
this prolonged type of attack isn't justlike a Okay, I'm going to attack

(42:20):
you for an hour and then fallasleep for twelve hours. What she must
have endured. I really hope thatshe was able to disassociate at that moment
and kind of go to a placethat was far, far away from Anthony
Sowell's bedroom exactly. And you know, one of the things we think about
is a lot happens in twelve hours. I know, in a workday,
there's a lot that I do.But this woman we're assuming is not eating,

(42:45):
she's defecating herself. Potentially she's urinatingon herself because where can she go?
The doors blocked, and this guyhas a knife. The inhumane nature
in which she was treated beyond justthe rape, He dehumanized her and wanted
to humiliate her. And we continueto see this after he wakes up from
the nap, because when he doeswake up, he puts his hands around

(43:06):
her neck and he chokes her untilshe begins to black out. And so
she's losing oxygen, she's tingling,and as she felt like she's about to
leave her body, she's losing consciousness. Her eyes are feeling like they're going
to burst out of her body.This poor girl starts praying. She doesn't
know what else to do, butshe just starts saying the blood of Jesus,
the Blood of Jesus, the Bloodof Jesus, over and over again

(43:27):
while this guy is taking the lifeout of her. And as she's saying
this to herself, Anthony just allof a sudden starts to tire from the
assault. We know he wanted tokill her, what other reasons. This
is not during an actual sexual assault. He's just choking her. He wanted
to kill her, but he getstired and he says, you know what,
you might as well say your prayers, because I'm going to kill you.

(43:50):
I'm going to beat you and thenI'm going to kill you. But
I'm only going to do that afterI sleep first, because I'm too tired
to kill you right now. Justimagine Jules. Imagine that a sick,
sick person who does that, Ineed a nap first. It's like you,
you can't even just have your nap. You just want to instill as
much fear and terror in your victim. He obviously gets off on inflicting pain

(44:15):
and fear on his victim like atrue sexual sadist. That's the word.
He's a sadist, and so hegot something out of it. He got
something out of just completely humiliating her. This was not all poor Anthony,
the poor kid who was abused andhe was hurt by his mom and you
know all of this stuff. No, this guy made a decision, and
the decision was to hurt and inflictas much chaos and trauma on this roll

(44:38):
as he could before he would takeher life, you know, before he
would take her body, her soul, everything. And so fortunately, you
know, when we're talking about Marvettpotentially disassociating whatever she needed to do to
survive, she's aware of her surroundings. And we need this as a point
of discussion in this podcast episode becauseI think if you do, unfortunately find

(44:59):
yourself in this position, you haveto be aware your goal should be to
get out of there, whether it'sthrough talking to someone, it's through negotiating
with them, whatever it is thatyou feel your gut is telling you to
do. This girl listened to hergut. She was looking around. She
sees a small window it's tilted openin Anthony's bedroom, and she realizes that

(45:20):
that's the only way that she's goingto live. This guy was serious he'd
beaten her with his fists. Heactually cut her with that knife, and
so she knew this guy was goingto kill her. So she rolls off
the bed. Some can you imagine, Joel's this guy is sleeping. You're
trying to escape, and you rolloff the bed and you hit it with
a thumb. She's scared, butfortunately he was still sleeping. He's a

(45:42):
deep steeper and she's still praying toherself. She's like blood of Jesus,
Blood of Jesus. As she runsto the window and she gets on the
ledge and she boosts herself up,and even though her hands are tied behind
her back, she lifts this paneof glass with her head. This ninety
five pound woman lifted this pane ofglass, jumped out of the window and
gets the attention of two women whoare across the street. She turns around,

(46:05):
she shows them her hands that aretied, and then they finally call
the police. But again a reminderthat no matter what type of a situation
you're in, man or woman who'slistening to this podcast right now, do
whatever you can to survive. Noone has the right to take your life.
Fight fight, fight, and getout of there. Oh, exactly,

(46:25):
say what you have to do,even if it's a lie, even
if it's telling your attacker that surewe can date, sure this was consensual.
Whatever you have to do, Butjust at least she had that reprieve
from the attacks where he took anap, so she was able to then
get this laser focus and look aroundthe room, look for any opportunity in

(46:45):
which she could escape, and shefound it. And by the grace of
God or by the grace of theuniverse or whatever, those two women were
there and they saw her and wereable to come to her aid by calling
the police. I can't imagine whather options would have been had nobody been
there. Would you jump, Ohmy gosh, she'd be dead, for

(47:05):
sure. She'd have been dead,you know, and either you would have
killed her or she would have jumpedto her death, you know. And
so I'm so grateful that, likeyou said, by God's grace or by
the grace of the universe, therewere two people who were watching and who
were standing right out there as shewas trying to get help. And so
thank goodness for that, because onlya few minutes later police show up,

(47:27):
and you know, Joels I havehad very stressful days. They have been
days where I've come back from avery stressful work day, or something has
happened in my life, my dogshreet up my carpet or something, and
it's so hard for me to sleep, you know, because the emotions were
stirring in my body and the adrenaline. This sick guy, Anthony, was
still sleeping when the police came tohis room. You can only imagine how

(47:50):
sick do you have to be tobe able to sleep comfortably deeply when you've
done this to another human being.Right, this is not somebody that's feeling
any remorse or any anxiety about hisactions. He's pretty comfortable in what he's
doing, which makes me think thatthis is not his first time, and
what is his problem with sleeping.It's weird how deep he's sleeping. You've
got a live woman who you've toldyou're going to kill, and you're so

(48:14):
comfortable to go into like this deepestrem sleep ever, right in the middle
of an attack. It's strange,right, And the fact that you're so
comfortable doing that in a home withthese other people. His other family members
are sleeping, So there's responsibility,there's a responsibility on us, whether it's
you have a sibling or an uncleor a cousin. Other people saw this

(48:37):
girl enter this home. Right,I know there were kids or whatever,
but if you have a family memberyou feel like something isn't right. The
onus is on YouTube. Make surethat the people who could potentially be in
danger in your home are safe.And so I wish, I really wish
his family would have intervened it,which someone would have been able to help
the scroll while she was there.But thankfulness for her actions, she was

(48:58):
able to save her own life.And you're right, this guy is still
sleeping. He finally wakes up andhe's looking at the police. He's looking
at the victim, and he decideshe's looking at Malvette and he says,
I can explain no, no,no, there's no explanation here, sir.
So he's arrested. Malvet's taken tothe hospital. Unfortunately, Anthony makes
bond. He's indicted by a grandChurie. But of course because he's made

(49:22):
bond, he doesn't show up forhis court date and he's on the run,
and so when police send the notice, his registered notice of indictment to
the Page Avenue address, it said, returned to sender. He was not
caught again until he was involved inanother crime seven months later. What year
was this? So at this pointwe're talking about nineteen ninety, so it's

(49:45):
a little more difficult, I guess, to track people down. The internet
was sort of in its infancy,then it would be a lot more difficult
for somebody to sort of evade capturenowadays, don't you think? Yes,
I think it would, And Ithink it's because Malvet's crime took place nineteen
eighty nine, the crime that tookplace seven months later was nineteen ninety.
But you're right, I think wereassuming people watching TV. But for those

(50:07):
who are plagued in a community that'swe've got a crack epidemic, maybe there's
not that much of a focus onwanted ads and stopping by where police are
driving through communities and knocking on doors, especially in communities where there is a
distrust of police. Potentially police mighthave been driving around and saying have you
seen this man? Have you seenthis man? But if people don't want
police coming anywhere near them because theycan tell that they're high, maybe people

(50:30):
weren't wanting to be as helpful becausethey didn't want to be arrested for possession,
and so it definitely is easier now. And I think because we as
a community, as a society,have been exposed to information such as the
bigger fish concept. And what Imean by that, Jewels, is if
you are reporting a crime, orif you're being helpful to police, even

(50:52):
if you are committing a crime yourself, the assumption is that police are going
to try to work with you.Right, So, if I'm a drug
user and I have some cocaine onme or whatever it is, but I'm
coming to the police for help withthe situation, I think there's now a
greater focus and now a greater pushfor police departments to focus on how do
we help people, how do werehabilitate people, how do we address the

(51:14):
bigger fish, the crime that they'rereporting, the murderer who's out there,
the abuser who's out there, notfocusing on snatching people up and putting them
in cuffs as soon as they comein and they've got cocaine on them or
a small amount of marijuana on them. So I think that's also helped as
well, this kind of rehabilitation ofthe concept of reporting crime. And I
think it makes people much more comfortablebeing involved with the police and telling them

(51:37):
when something is wrong. Oh,I totally agree. It's a much more
pragmatic approach to policing, where they'refocused on the bigger picture rather than these
tiny little offenses. These tiny littleoffenses of people having enough drugs it's going
to be for personal use. Puttingsomebody like that in jail and charging them
with it is really not going tomake a difference in society unless you're going

(51:58):
to be putting them into rehab,unless you're going to actually be giving them
some meaningful intervention. Don't really botherwith it if they're not committing any other
crime than having drugs. But usingthe information that they have to then secure
a greater conviction of somebody who isof a greater threat to the community or
society as a whole is a muchbetter approach. Yes, And I think

(52:22):
people should be comfortable knowing that,like you might be involved in a crime,
You might be using drugs or whateverit is. You could be a
sex worker. Maybe that's looked downupon in your community, but your actions
and going to the police and reportinga person who is harmful and dangerous will
save other people's lives. You know, it is worth going to the police
station and getting that peace and knowingthat you help save someone's life. So

(52:45):
I think that definitely is helping inthis day and age. But unfortunately,
as you know, in that day, back in ninety nineteen eighty nine,
Anthony was able to get away withsome stuff because there was this distrust.
And so seven months he's hiding,he's running, his parents are not his
mom is not reporting him. Buton Sunday, June twenty four, a

(53:06):
thirty one year old woman who's fivemonths pregnant ends up drinking with the Sky
in Cleveland. His name's Anthony SowAnd you read that right. She was
drinking while five months pregnant. Again, we've talked about the fact that we
cannot shame people for wanting to escapethe realities, and so at some point,
while she's drinking with him and they'rejust talking, this guy grabs her

(53:28):
from behind and chokes her with hisarm, and she is yelling. He
is also yelling at her, andhe's screaming at her and demeaning her and
trying to exert power over her andtalking about how he's going to hurt her
and how she's useless, and hepulls her, drags her upstairs, and
he rapes her, no care,no respect for the life that she's carrying,

(53:49):
her for her life. And asyou know, Jules, once he
does this, this is Anthony Sowell. He went to sleep, and so
this thirty one year old woman takesadvantage of the time that he's sleeping,
and like Malvett Softwall, she runsout of there and she goes to police
to let them know that she's beenraped, she's been assaulted by this guy,
and she disappears. She doesn't wantto have anything to do with the

(54:12):
trial, the court system, oranything like that. She just wanted police
to be aware that, you know, this guy hurt her. Unfortunately,
and you know what usually happens,Joel's when you don't have a victim,
it's very hard to move forward withcharges. As a prosecutor, people think
that reporting a crime is enough.No, we need the rape kit,
we need to examine someone, weneed you to talk. And so with

(54:32):
this woman, it would have beena disaster. Anthony would have probably continued
to do what he was doing.He would have probably escaped because police can
find the girl. But fortunately Malvette'sSoftwall's case was still pending, that indictment
was still ripe, and so theyfind out that he's got a warrant out
and they arrest him and he goesto trial for Malvette's rape, and she

(54:55):
bravely testifies for the prosecution. Soagain back to what we were saying,
if you are involved in a crime, if you're hurt, whatever it is,
please be available for trial, Pleasebe available to testify, because you
will save people's life. We justbring some focus to the fact that Malvette
is an incredibly brave young woman,because there can be a huge stigma with
going to law enforcement, even ifthere is a valid reason, especially within

(55:20):
marginalized communities at that moment, rightno one wants to be seen as a
quote rat or to be cooperating withpolice. So sometimes people will go and
not report crimes because they don't wantto be perceived in a negative light within
their community. So props to Malvettefor being able to be courageous. And
I'm not saying that those people who'veexperienced sexual assault who don't go to police

(55:42):
aren't courageous. It just isn't alwaysthe right thing for everybody, and there's
a billion different factors that can comeinto play with that. That's such an
important point that you stated. Weknow that there's no statute of limitations on
murder. Okay. And for thoselisteners who are not aware of what I'm
staying here is there's a clock thatruns on how long you can report a

(56:04):
crime, and so with sexual assaults, it differs by state. I believe
in some instances you might have longerperiods of time. I'm not sure.
I'm only aware of the times availablein my state. But you have a
period of time where you can reallythink about this. Okay. So maybe
you're not ready now, as Julesaid, maybe you've been a victim of
sexual assault, but the clock isticking during that period of time. Take

(56:28):
the time you need think about yourself, think about what you were deprived of,
think about what was taken from you, and see value in yourself.
And when you're ready, before thatclock has run, get justice for yourself.
Report that person who did that toyou. You have every right to
you before that before it's too lateto make sure that that person is held
accountable. And we know that there'sso many women who do end up finding

(56:50):
the strength to do it, butso many years have gone by that by
the time they tell their story,there's no actual prosecution or child that takes
place, and so it is unfortunatein that instance. But girl, guy,
whoever's listening to this, if youhave been the victim of an assault,
a sexual assault, a crime thathas taken something from you emotionally,
whether you feel fine or not,consider reporting it. You deserve that,

(57:14):
you deserve justice, You deserve tobe treated fairly and kindly, and so
you know your one percent. Rachel'sMalvett did what so many people afraid to
do. She went in front ofa courtroom filled with people, filled with
strangers, and told them about themost personal hurt, the most personal discomfort,
this horror, this nightmare that she'dexperienced for twelve hours. And we

(57:35):
can only thank her for what shedid because during that time, Anthony Sowell
was off the streets for fifteen years. I mean, that's a huge chunk
of time where Anthony wasn't able tocontinue what has been his pattern of behavior,
right, disarming women coming off ischarming. You know, he's one
of those people that hides in playin sight. He just he knows how

(57:57):
to manipulate and how to read theroom. He's become really good at it.
And these women, who I thinkare most of them, are probably
pretty good at reading people due tothe type of community that they're in.
They're trying to avoid trouble and avoidthese type of situations. So the fact
that he can ingratiate himself to thesewomen, that speaks volumes to how he's
able to charm his way into situationswhere if he was this reclusive loaner,

(58:22):
he wouldn't be able to do.You hit the nail on the head Jewels.
These guys blend so well into theircommunities, and you know, unfortunately
there's some people who we think ifit's your grandfather, it's it's your uncle,
if it's your neighbor who's making youfeel uncomfortable. Sometimes we start to
like convince ourselves that we're overthinking,like, oh my gosh, like this
person, they wouldn't do anything tohurt me, they're coal, you know.

(58:44):
But meanwhile, this is someone thatwe shouldn't trust, that we shouldn't
expose ourselves too. And so Anthonywas able to blend right in and to
fit right in and plain sight becausehe looked like just the normal guy,
and he made people believe that hewas safe and trustworthy, and unfortunately we
know that Anthony wasn't going to berehabilitated in prison. You know, I

(59:05):
had a couple of cases that involved, you know, sexual assault, and
I assisted with cases where there wassexual assault. And what typically happens when
you've got a sexual offender is thatobviously they get a they're supposed to undergo
treatment when they incarcerated, and sowhat the hope is is they get sex
offender classes. We try to identifythe cause of the behavior. We try
to get them the help that theyneed so that when they go back into

(59:29):
society, because we want people tobe rehabilitated. We don't want to just
lock people up, especially black menin American prisons, right and so in
prisons across the world where we seea disproportionate amount of black men who are
incarcerated, and so we want peopleto be rehabilitated to go back into the
communities and be productive members of society. But Anthony was not willing to get
that help. He goes to prison, and as we know, sexual offenders,

(59:52):
as they should be, are notliked by other prisoners. You know,
for whatever reason, other criminals lookeddown on sex offenders. You know,
it's the lowest of the low thelowest of the law. They're at
the bottom of the totem pole.Yeah, they're going to be the ones
who are going to have to gointo protective custody or something because their lives

(01:00:12):
could be in danger. So thereis a stigma attached to it, and
rightfully so, rightfully so, butunfortunately it ends up crippling Anthony's development.
If let's hope he wanted to actuallyget help, but he had a cellmate
in the nineteen nineties. We laterstated that Anthony didn't want to take the
sex offenders classes because he didn't wantto be identified as a sexual offender in

(01:00:32):
the prison. So what I'm assumingis that at this point in Lorain,
Ohio, and in the correctional institutionthat he was transferred to, they didn't
identify sex offenders by their clothing,you know, the prison garb, and
so Anthony just decided, I'm justgoing to act like I'm just here for
other crimes so that I don't endup getting targeted and segregated from the rest
of the prisoner community. It seemsso strange to me, though, don't

(01:00:54):
they usually know what somebody is inthere for, what type of charge they
have, would think so, right, But I guess maybe for him,
perhaps you know, Lorraine was farenough away from Cleveland that maybe the sex
you know, his sex assault wasnot you know, overly broadcast or whatever.

(01:01:14):
Perhaps being in that prison protected himbecause maybe he could provide his own
narration of what happened to what hewas in there for, And so he
was able to get away with beinga sex offender in prison because I guess
the other inmates did not know whenhe wasn't classified by his clothing as one.
Here's a question. So we knowthat he's really good at manipulating women
and putting on this kind of ricosuave act where he's charming. So does

(01:01:37):
he origin any meaningful bonds with menor does he have any friendships with men?
At any point? I did notget that impression, Jules, you
know, and learning about him andreading about this case, we always say
these guys are not always obvious,right, Like then it's not always obvious
that they are criminals because they looklike everyone else. But this Anthony was

(01:01:59):
interesting and that he seemed like aloner, but he surrounded himself and you'll
see later on in the line whenhe moves to the address, the big
address that we're about to talk about. In this case, he moves to
the infamous address where he commits hisbigger crimes. But he had people over,
he had women over, he hadmen over. But whether or not
those were actually real solid friendships orif he was just trying to identify vulnerable

(01:02:22):
people that he could take advantage of, is what I'm more leaning to.
I think these people surround themselves notwith friends and family, but they surround
themselves with people that they can useand abuse, and that's what they end
up doing. They try to findpeople that either they can groom or people
that they can take advantage of onceeveryone else leaves the room. Yeah,
I think you pretty much nailed it. It's this behavior that's verging on sociopathic.

(01:02:43):
Like, I'm not trying to diagnosehim as a sociopath. I don't
know if he's had any diagnosis doneby any mental health professional, but it
certainly seems pretty characteristic and pretty textbookthe way that he's treating people, just
with absolutely no regard for their heyand no regard for the ramifications long term
of what he does to people.He's a sadist. He actually enjoys those

(01:03:06):
moments where he's inflicting pain, tortureand harm on people. Oh my gosh.
And what's the worst part is,as we know that assault, that
abuse of Malvette didn't end after thosetwelve hours, and after he was sentenced
and after the trial was over,Malvette continued to be affected by Anthony Sowell
because by July of nineteen ninety,this is just a short time after the

(01:03:30):
assault on her, she's charged withthe possession of a controlled substance. Remember
we talked about escapism at the beginningof your podcast episode. And she's failing
to appear for court, just likeAnthony. She's sentenced to stay prison.
It's so sad that they weren't awareof what she was dealing with. They
should have associated what not that wejustify criminal behavior with. We don't want

(01:03:52):
to tell people you can get awaywith doing this crime because you're a victim
of abuse, but we should recognizewhen we hope that prosecutors in the in
the criminal system can recognize people whoare crying out for help and not just
committing crime for the sake of committingit. Malvette needed an escape from her
reality. She wanted to forget thosetwelve hours of complete torture. And you

(01:04:13):
know, she keeps going back andforth to prison for possession charges. She
keeps violating probation. She undergoes mentalhealth counseling and drug rehab, but she
continues to violate. And so,like Anthony's favorite niece, Malvette was caught
in a cycle of mental illness,drug addiction, and jail time and she
was just kicked out of houses.She had eight children along the way,

(01:04:34):
you know, as we know whenthis crime was committed, she had three
kids. And so one of theheartbreaking statements that Malvette said was quote,
I knew that if he ever gotout, he would do it again.
And she means the torture that heinflicted on her. And they, here
she's referring to those involved in thecriminal justice system, just didn't seem to

(01:04:56):
care what I thought. They tookmy statement, they had me idea him
and that was it. I knewhe went to prison. I just went
back to the streets and that wasthe end for me. It sounds like,
and as you know, Juels,there are so many individuals who are
victims of crime where it is onsociety to provide resources for these victims.
It goes beyond just reporting the crime. It goes beyond just celebrating them when

(01:05:17):
they testify in court. We haveto help them after because we know when
that person leaves the courtroom and theygo home and they're facing those demons,
they're remembering their cries for help,they're thinking about the eyes of the person
who was penetrating them and violating themand torturing them. They're alone in that
aus to society. It's on us, people in the community, to reach

(01:05:40):
out to those individuals and help themto get through that trauma. All of
that trauma doesn't end in the courtroomand from all vet unfortunately issues all alone,
and like Anthony's favorite niece, shewas continued to be subject to abuse
after the abuse was over. Thisis just so sad because you see how

(01:06:00):
someone being the victim of abuse orbeing the victim of an incredibly violent attack
can have these emotional reverberations that gothrough many many years, through time,
right and those reverberations touch every singleperson in that person's life, so it
branches outwards and it affects so manypeople, and it's like this unintended consequences

(01:06:25):
of a bad action. It's likethis person wants to do A and B
to this person, but yet theyare affecting this person's mother, their niece,
their nephew, their brother or theirsister, their boyfriend, and then
they're affecting these people at all stagesthrough their life because this trauma will stay
with them. If they're lucky enoughto get the support from a mental health
professional or have that community outreach likeyou mentioned, then they're one of the

(01:06:48):
fortunate ones. But that isn't availableto so many individuals, and so they
end up going to what is theeasiest solution, and that's often reaching for
a substance, and we see alot of times too that's to medicate a
pre existing mental health condition that theypotentially aren't taking their medication for or have

(01:07:09):
it been diagnosed with. Yet.So true, because you know, if
you're going to sleep and your sleepand your dreams are plagued by the crime
that was perpetrated, of course you'renot going to want to sleep. You're
going to try to escape all ofthat. And like you said so eloquently,
the person who is raped is notthe only person who's a victim here

(01:07:29):
the appearance, These siblings, theirchildren are all victims as well. Because
they see this person spiraling, theyfeel responsible. They wish they could have
protected this person. So crime doesn'taffect just one person. There's so many
people who are affected by the selfishacts that are committed by the person the
Anthony Sowell's of the world. It'sdevastating, it's painful, and you know,

(01:07:50):
I wish we could fix these issueswith more money with This is just
a little bit of the iceberg ofwhat we as a society need to address
as far as criminal justice. Itbreaks my heart to talk about it,
but I know that these types ofconversations are going to trigger things in those
people who can help in any waythat they can. Whether it's social workers,

(01:08:11):
where there's investigators, whether it's justtrue crime fans who have access to
an organization that can shed light onthese stories. We all have a part
to play. We're all responsible forensuring that we continue to stop raising Anthony
Sowell's. Absolutely, and I thinkjust as a regular human being, if
you yourself haven't been the victim ofsexual assault, what you can do is

(01:08:31):
if somebody close to you decides toshare their story. Just be open,
be there for them and just listen. Yes, yes, And I think
that's what Malvette wanted, you know, that's all she needed. Unfortunatelywa Malvette's
life is spiraling out of control.Anthony is thriving, like we saw during
his time in the Marine Corps.He does well, you know, in
prison, he's enjoying it. Helikes the routine as he did with the

(01:08:55):
military, and he doesn't seem tounderstand what he needs to do in order
to make parole those fifteen years.He didn't have to spend fifteen years in
there. If he was remorseful,if he was aware, if he was
taking training, if you know,going through sex offender classes, if he
was striving to get an education forhimself, perhaps that would have been trimmed
down. But he spent the entirefifteen years just kind of delhi dwing in

(01:09:16):
life fall while Vet's life was justfalling apart. Yeah. I mean,
you're a prosecutor, don't you seethis all the time with individuals who you
know are guilty, but yet whenit comes to getting parole, just admit
responsibility for the crime, but they'llbe like, no, I'm innocent.
We all know that you did it, but they are so stubborn they will
do extra time to avoid admitting it. You have either two individuals. I

(01:09:39):
feel like Joel's the one guy whosaid I never did anything wrong and if
you did catch me, then therewas nothing wrong with what I did.
It wasn't my fault. That youhave the second individual who doesn't feel remorse,
and that person will say whatever theycan to get out and then recommit.
Well, and I guess there isthe third person where we do have
in some instance as a person who'struly remorseful, who wants to change their

(01:10:00):
life. Where prison was an eyeopener, but Anthony Sowel was definitely the
first person who was just kind oflike, you know what, I'm going
to sit here and enjoy the freefood and I'll get out and you guys
are just going to have to dealwith it. You know, this was
a very sick, sick individual.He just sat in prison and kind of
enjoyed it awful. So Anthony getsout of prison, he tries to go

(01:10:21):
back to the Page Avenue house,but it's been repossessed. His family failed
to pay the mortgage, and sohe's now kind of stuck going into this
new home where his mom is.I assume at this point the grandmother has
passed away. I wasn't able toidentify that in my research. But he
joined his family in these thirteen peopleliving there, nine of them kids,

(01:10:42):
and so while he's living there,I guess he's unhappy, you know,
obviously it's a full house. He'strying to kind of readjust to society,
and so he ends up moving tohis stepmom's house. As we know,
Anthony's dad was not married to hismom, and so at some point point
he had a relationship with this womanwho's living at twelve two or five Imperial

(01:11:03):
Avenue. That's Anthony's stepmom. SoAnthony goes and lives with her. I
want your listeners, jewels, topay attention to that address. Twelve two
or five Imperial Avenue is going tocontinue to come up in this story for
a very heartbreaking reason. So Anthonyis a free guy and he's moving in
his stepmom is living at this housealone. It's got three floors, and

(01:11:26):
he's supposed to. As we know, with sex offenders register and one of
the first requirements as a sex offenderis to receive a sex offender evaluation it's
a sex predator evaluation, and whatusually happens is an Anthony, a county
employee classifies you based on your crime. They kind of try to predict whether
or not you would commit a similarcrime, like how much does this person

(01:11:50):
have a propensity to commit the sametypes of crimes? Is are they a
violent offender? Now, Anthony isa manipulator, was able to manipulate this
individual? Or maybe this county eployeejust didn't care. I don't know exactly
what went wrong, but instead ofbeing classified as a sexual predator, he
was incorrectly classified in Ohio as asexually oriented offender and in some states,

(01:12:12):
set is a totally different term.But what that meant was Anthony was a
low risk offender. There was noscrutiny placed on him whenever sex crimes were
reported in this area. Because whathappens is the reason we classify these individuals,
the reason we want them to registeris because when a crime is committed,
we know that a lot of theseindividuals who were evaluated correctly have a

(01:12:33):
propensity to commit crimes. They havea certain type of victim that they usually
chase after. And so thank goodnessfor the passage of the Adimal Child Safety
and Protection Act because there's now newmandates put in place about registering. But
at that time, Anthony was prettymuch a free floater. You know.
All he had to do was reporthis address to the sheriff's office once a

(01:12:54):
year, which meant, you know, for ten years. Okay, once
a year, I'm here. Oncea year, I'm here. Whether or
not he's committing crimes, that's noneof their business because he's a low offender.
So scary, scary, scary?How does that even happen? Though
he's got recidivism written all over him, right, ChEls, He's wearing a
badge with recidivism on it, youknow, exactly like I will be a

(01:13:15):
recidivist defender is exactly the T shirt. And I don't understand how this county
or city employee let this slide.This is a guy that did fifteen years
when he didn't have to because hedidn't want to admit. Did they maybe
look at that and go, oh, well, he isn't a threat,
because if he truly was a threat, he would have said so and then
just got out earlier. I don'tknow what logic they use. He seems

(01:13:38):
like a really great manipulator though.It's insane and it shows you again these
types of individuals are able to getaway with so much because they can turn
into whatever the viewer or the personin front of them needs them to be.
If you want me to be arehabilitated individual, I will become that
rehabilitated individual. So long as it'sabout selfishness, right, these are narcissists.

(01:14:00):
Well, I get out of this. When he came to prison,
he was comfortable there, so hewas in no rush to get paroled.
But here he wanted to move freelyin society to continue to commit his crimes.
Right, so being classified as asexually oriented offender was exactly what he
needed, and so he did whathe needed to do to be classified as
a lower ranked offender. Jeez,And unfortunately, I know, scary,
scary. It's just it feels likethe society was really punished here for his

(01:14:26):
ability to manipulate, because it seemsimpossible that somebody like him would just and
I know it seems like just asimple change in the verbiage, but it
seems like okay. So Anthony soWell is like a classic sexual predator.
He finds a woman who he seessomething in they are vulnerable for whatever reason,
and then he isolates them and perpetratesthese horrific attacks on them. He

(01:14:49):
textbook sexual predator. So to justbe this lower classification, a sexually oriented
offender, which what does that reallymean? Does it just mean that somebody's
attacks, if they go and attacksomebody, it comes from a sexually driven
place, But yet they don't predate. I don't understand the distinction here.
And that's the thing when we lookat these types of definitions. Anthony by

(01:15:14):
definition, by looking at his crimealone, a twelve hour assault on a
pregnant woman, that pregnant twenty oneyear old girl in his own home,
with the use of a knife,a large knife, where he stabbed her.
He had already cut her, he'dpunched her in the head, he'd
bound her, and he brutalized herfor twelve hours. Right, he also

(01:15:35):
strangles her during that assault. Howis that a sexually oriented which means just
kind of associated with the crime,but not driven by the desire for sex.
This everything about that crime against malththat Sockwall was driven by sex,
was driven by a sadistic desire tohurt her. It was sex driven so

(01:15:56):
how is that not a sexual predator. It's beyond me. And maybe perhaps
it's related to the lack of fundingin some of all counties, the lack
of you know, we know thata lot of these county offices are underfunded,
understaffed, and they've filled with cases. But this, no, no,
no, no, no, thisguy, I mean this, just
look at the facts of this case. Don't take this guy's word for it.

(01:16:16):
Look at the facts of this case. If he goes back into community,
into society and he doesn't commit thesecrimes, great, but he should
have been someone that police identified asa violent offender one. It's like,
do they classify it based on thisis somebody who commits his crimes for power
and to inflict pain, and thensex is third on the list. I

(01:16:39):
don't know how they make that distinction. It seems so confounding to me.
Yes, you hope that after theAdam Walsh Act that a lot of that
has changed, and I know thatthey've been efforts to change the law and
there's still efforts, I'm sure overthe last few decades where people have been
working to say we now have agreater understanding of these types of crimes,
right we can't take this guy's Youcan't sit down with one of these guys

(01:17:00):
and said, you know, doyou still want to rape women? Do
you still want to harm women?How what are your thoughts on strangling women?
Do you feel bad about your no? No, no, no no.
You can't get a manipulator to admitwrong when they don't see any fault
in what they did, right.So I think now we have science based
research. We have individuals who areanalyzing these crimes and the psyche based on

(01:17:23):
the history of these people. AndI'm so happy for that because I think
we're able to highlight these individuals andstop crimes before they happen. That's the
hope. Now, I want tothank everybody for listening to this special episode,
and I also want to do abig shout out to my editor who
goes by the name SMI, buther name is also Elisa, and she's
done such a great job for me, and I'm going to link her music

(01:17:45):
in the show notes, so pleasego check her out support her music.
She is incredibly talented. I'm alsogoing to link the Patreon in the show
notes if you were interested in joiningPatreon. So until next time, stay
safe and member except nothing, question, everything,

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