Experts: Cleveland killer a sexual sadist

CLEVELAND, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Evidence in the case of Cleveland's "Imperial Avenue Strangler" suggests he is a stereotypical sexual sadist, crime experts say.

Five experts assembled by The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer said mounting evidence suggested that the killer, suspected to be Anthony Sowell, 50, lured women to his home with alcohol and drugs and raped them to assert power over them and put cords around their necks to control them, the newspaper reported Monday.

Sowell has been charged with murder after investigators found 11 bodies in his East Cleveland home -- the city's grisliest case of serial killing since the never-caught Torso Murderer killed and dismembered 12 to 13 people in 1935-38.

The experts told the Plain Dealer that the Imperial Avenue killer was able to get away with his crimes for so long by living and hunting along society's margins. They also theorize he was a pathologically precise liar and hid an intense hatred for women behind a "mask of sanity."

"I can guarantee you, every place (the killer) lived, you're going to find cases of women just like these being raped and killed just like this," John Douglas, the retired agent behind the FBI's Criminal Profiling Program, told the newspaper.