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Two More Female Bodies Found in East Cleveland
July 20, 2013 –Two more bodies have been found in a neighborhood where a woman’s decomposing body was discovered in a garage Friday.

East Cleveland police and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner responded to the scene near Shaw and Hayden Avenue Saturday afternoon. According to East Cleveland Police Chief Ralph Spotts, the two bodies appear to be black females, although it is hard to determine because the bodies are so badly decomposed. One of the victims has a tattoo of a pink and green flower on her leg. Police said the other woman was wearing a purple leotard.

Authorities told Fox 8 that the women were found with plastic wrapped around their heads and parts of their bodies. Police did not release ages or identities. Officials said it is too early to determine how the women died. According to authorities, the women were likely killed in the last six to ten days. East Cleveland community members will search vacant houses on Sunday to make sure there are no more victims. Saturday, Chief Spotts said Michael Madison, 35, is the prime suspect as of now.

Several people said they called police Friday morning before 11 a.m. complaining about a foul odor coming from a garage on Shaw Avenue just south of Hayden Avenue. A woman’s body was found in a black bag wrapped up in a pink cover. Friday, Madison was arrested following a standoff at his mother’s home on East 197th Street and Chickasaw Avenue in Cleveland.
Saturday, authorities said Madison gave police information that led them to believe there were more bodies in the area.

Two More Female Bodies Found in East Cleveland | FOX8.com

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Ohio coroner: 3 bodies are female, very decomposed
21 July`13 — An Ohio coroner says three bodies found wrapped in plastic bags in a suburban Cleveland neighborhood are female.

Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County medical examiner Dr. Thomas P. Gilson said Sunday that the bodies found in East Cleveland are in advanced stages of decomposition. He says it will take several days to identify the women and determine how they died.

One body was found Friday, and two others were found Saturday. A registered sex offender who authorities say is suspected in their deaths is in custody but hasn't been charged.

Police Chief Ralph Spotts told volunteers combing through vacant houses and high weeds in the neighborhood that they should be prepared to find one or two more bodies. He declined to elaborate.

Ohio coroner: 3 bodies are female, very decomposed

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Ohio chief says 1 or 2 more bodies could be found
Jul 21,`13 -- Searchers rummaging through vacant houses in a neighborhood where three female bodies were found wrapped in plastic bags should be prepared to find one or two more victims, a police chief said Sunday.

Police Chief Ralph Spotts told the volunteers to brace themselves for the smell of rotting bodies and to look out for trash bags that might conceal a body. He declined to elaborate on his comments about the possible additional victims. When asked about Spotts' remark, East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said authorities have "lots of reasons" to suspect there are more victims, but he refused to say why.

A 35-year-old registered sex offender in custody is a suspect in the deaths, Norton said. The suspect, who was arrested Friday after a police standoff, has indicated he might have been influenced by Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in 2011 of killing 11 women and sentenced to death, Norton said. "He said some things that led us to believe that in some way, shape, or form, Sowell might be an influence," Norton told The Associated Press. The man hasn't been charged.

A report of a foul odor emanating from a home led police to the discovery of the first body, found in a garage, and to the suspect. Two other bodies were found Saturday - one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house. The bodies, all female, were found about 100 to 200 yards apart, and authorities say the victims were killed in the last six to 10 days. The bodies were each in the fetal position, wrapped in several layers of trash bags, Norton said. He said detectives continue to interview the suspect, who used his mother's address in Cleveland in registering as a sex offender, the mayor said. "The person in custody, some of the things he said to investigators made us go back today," the mayor said.

Cuyahoga County medical examiner Dr. Thomas P. Gilson said Sunday that the bodies were in advanced stages of decomposition and that it would take several days to identify them and how they died. About three dozen volunteers, including community anti-crime activists, fanned out Sunday morning across yards, through vacant houses and along a railroad to help police search. The chief advised them to watch for missing floor boards as they looked inside houses. One young searcher crawled under a board screwed across a door to go inside a house to search. "The MO of each body we've found so far was wrapped up in a lot of garbage bags, so if you see anything .... and it might not look like it's a body, but it could be - because each bag, the way he had each person was in a fetal position," Spotts told searchers before they began. "It didn't look like a person could actually fit in the bag."

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