Mass murder suspect had served at Cherry Point

Accused serial killer Anthony Edward Sowell served at Cherry Point air station and Camp Lejeune in the 1980s while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Sowell, 50, is charged with five murders in Cleveland, Ohio, after police found the remains of 10 or more people in and around his home over the past week.

Police had gone to the residence looking for Sowell, who had warrants for rape, kidnapping and felonious assault when the first decomposing bodies were found.

Sowell, a Cleveland native, was later arrested on Halloween day a few blocks from his residence.

Sowell was in the Marine Corps from 1978 to 1985 and had been in both Craven and Carteret counties in the middle 1980s, according to published reports. At one point he was ticketed here after being caught driving on a suspended license.

While a Marine, Sowell had served in North Carolina, Okinawa, Japan and in California.

Asked if the investigation included time Sowell spent in the Marines, Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath said not at this point. “When he was discharged (from prison) in the summer of 2005 he was discharged to the Imperial Avenue address. Right now we’re focusing on the Imperial Avenue address. As we receive additional intelligence on his whereabouts and where he may have been, then we will continue our investigations at those locations.”

Havelock Police Chief G. Wayne Cyrus said “we have not had any official requests come here for anything from law enforcement or media regarding this.”

Cyrus said he had been in contact with at least one former Havelock Police officer to see if there were any unsolved cases during the timeframe when Sowell was in the area.

“We’ve seen about it on the news but haven’t been contacted by anyone about it,” said Capt. Joe Heckman of the Craven County Sheriff’s Office.

The Carteret County Sheriff’s Office could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Sowell’s arrest came after a Cleveland Police Department SWAT team discovered two decomposing bodies in the third story of his home.

Three more bodies were found inside the home after a search and a sixth was found outside.

Police returned Tuesday with a backhoe and uncovered four more bodies buried outside, according to McGrath.

“The dig continues. The dig continues. We’re not finished,” McGrath said.

Authorities also discovered a human skull in a paper bag in a bucket in the basement of the building, McGrath said.

Local neighbors had complained for years about a mysterious stench near the home.

McGrath said Sowell was discharged from an Ohio penitentiary in the summer of 2005 after having served 15 years for a 1989 rape conviction.

“When this gentleman was discharged from the penitentiary he was labeled as a sexual predator,” McGrath said. “It appears that this man had an insatiable appetite that he had to fill.”

At least six females are among the bodies and a medical examiner has said that five of them were strangled, McGrath said.

Police have been searching unoccupied homes around the Sowell house but had not found any more remains, McGrath said.

Investigators spent Wednesday tearing out walls in Sowell’s home.

“We’re going to look at the walls, ceilings, whatever until we are convinced there is nothing else there,” McGrath said. “I would like to believe that there’s nothing else there.”

None of the bodies have been identified, and McGrath said DNA testing would be necessary.