According to officials in Cleveland, a cold case unit in Ohio that was investigating suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell believes it has stumbled upon another suspected serial killer who has been preying on area women.
"There were questions about whether there were more homicides related to Sowell, so our cold case unit looked at DNA in other unsolved murders, and, in doing so, they identified a second suspected serial killer," Ryan Miday, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office, told AOL News.
Sowell, 51, is charged with the murder of 11 women, along with several counts of rape and one count of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges; he faces the death penalty if convicted at his trial in June.
The investigation into Sowell began in 2009 after the victims' bodies werefound at his Cleveland home. During the course of that investigation, a cold case squad began looking at 75 unsolved murders that had occurred within a three-mile radius of Sowell's home.
"We collected evidence on those unsolved murders to determine if there was any biological evidence that could be analyzed for DNA," Miday said. "We began that process in 2010, and, during that process, we got a hit in CODIS [Combined DNA Index System] for two unsolved murders."
The victims in those slayings have been identified as Mary Thomas and Tondilear Harge.
Thomas, 27, was found dead on March 28, 1989. Two gas utility employees who were working in an alleyway on First Avenue in East Cleveland discovered her body between two buildings. During an autopsy, it was discovered that Thomas had been three to four months pregnant. She had been raped and murdered by strangulation, police said.
On Sept. 30, 1996, police found the body of Harge, 33, in a vacant lot on the south side of Chester Avenue in Cleveland. According to police, she also had been raped and murdered by strangulation.
DNA evidence found at the scene of the crimes links both of the homicides to a convicted felon named Joseph Harwell, aka Joseph Ober, police said.
According to Miday, locating Harwell after all these years was not difficult. He is housed at the Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio.
"He is doing a 15-to-life term of incarceration for another murder," Miday said.
Cuyahoga Co. Sheriff / Ohio Department of Corrections / AP
While police were investigating suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell, left, they tied some unsolved homicides to Joseph Harwell, right, who was indicted Tuesday.
Harwell, 50, has served more than a decade behind bars for Vinson's murder and will be eligible for parole next year. However, that date may now be postponed indefinitely.
"We presented the charges and, [Tuesday], a grand jury in Cuyahoga County returned an indictment against Harwell," Miday said. "We have him indicted now on 14 charges for murdering" Thomas and Harge.
According to court documents, the 14 counts include charges of aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping.
"This is good law enforcement work by the cold case unit. ... These families have spent many sleepless nights mourning the loss of their loved ones and wondering about the circumstances that led to their deaths," said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, who added that the unit has solved 15 murders and rapes since its inception in 2006.
"Solving these cases is the first step in the healing process."
In regard to the 73 other unsolved homicides that occurred near Sowell's home, DNA analysis in some of the cases is still ongoing.
"We have had some success," Miday said. "Twenty-nine of the cases have been closed due to no DNA evidence, but we have 44 cases we are [still] looking at to see if we can determine if there is DNA evidence."
According to the prosecutor's office, Harwell will be formally arraigned in a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court within the next two weeks.
In the meantime, according to Miday, investigators will attempt to determine whether there are "other homicides that we don't know about connected to Anthony Sowell."
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