A suspected serial killer pleaded not guilty Friday in a rape and kidnapping case that led to the discovery of the remains of 11 women in and around his Ohio home.
Anthony Sowell, 50, pleaded not guilty to rape, kidnapping and assault charges in the case of a woman who had told police he let her leave when she regained consciousness after he raped her and strangled her with a cord, court officials said.
Sowell has not yet entered a plea on the five counts of murder he faces related to the first batch of bodies discovered last month.
Investigators continue to search in the area around the Cleveland, Ohio house Sowell has lived at since he was released from prison in 2005 after serving 15 years for attempted rape.
Ten of the women have now been identified, but police said they are still struggling to establish a timeline of when they were killed.
Six of the identified women were never reported missing and the bodies were discovered in "various states of decay," a police spokesman said.
Sowell told his live-in girlfriend Lori Frazier, the niece of Cleveland's mayor, that the stench from rotting corpses scattered around his home was due to a sausage factory next door.
Source: AFP American Edition
