A Cleveland jury will return next Monday to consider the death penalty for Anthony Sowell, 51, one of the most prolific serial killers in Ohio's history — who took the lives of 11 women and discarded their remains in crawl spaces, trash bags, and shallow graves, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A jury convicted Sowell last Friday of 82 counts, including charges of attempting to kill three other women who survived.
Jonathan Carmichael, the youngest child of victim Tonia Carmichael, is ready to move on and believes Sowell's life should be spared. “The harder path,” Carmichael said, “would be for him to spend life in prison.” Sowell's attorneys, John Parker and Rufus Sims, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on experts to build a case against executing Sowell. In the penalty phase, jurors might hear from neuroscientists who have interviewed Sowell at length or analyzed scans of his brain for insights into his disposition. A military expert is expected to testify about Sowell's career as an officer and electrician in the U.S. Marine Corps.