The first identified victim is Tonia Carmichael, who disappeared in November 2008, say police. Her car had been found about a mile from the Imperial Avenue house where Sowell lived.

Carmichael's remains were found in the backyard, and she appeared to have been strangled, say investigators. Officials are still digging through the stench-filled house where Sowell stashed his victims bodies in a haphazard manner, burying some and leaving others scattered in pieces, or stuffed in walls or the attic crawlspace.

Convicted rapist Anthony Sowell, 50, was originally arrested for rape of a woman who managed to escape the serial killer's grasp, say reports. She says Sowell invited her in for a drink, then became violent and attempted to strangle her with an extension cord. At least five of the victims have been identified as black women who had been strangled to death.

As a result of the investigation, after police started looking around the decrepit house Sowell has been residing, he was charged with multiple murders. The house is surrounded by other abandoned homes, which had produced a hideous stench in the depressed Cleveland neighborhood that many blamed on the sausage factory. Police plan a search of all the abandoned houses nearby in the event Sowell buried victims elsewhere.

Reuters reports authorities searched the fetid property owned by Anthony Sowell with a backhoe, jackhammers, wall saws, and cadaver dogs saying they plan to take the entire three-story house apart. Four bodies were found in the back yard, while six others were discovered elsewhere on the property, including in the basement of the house. A skull wrapped in a paper bag in a bucket could be an eleventh victim.

Sowell, who served in the military in the 1970s and 1980s, was charged with five murders as well as five counts of rape, kidnapping and assault. He served 15 years in prison for raping a pregnant woman, and was released in 2005.

Here is a video statement from the Carmichael's family:

Here is what we believe to be the missing persons report for Tonia Carmichael, despite some differences in details that are being reported.

Here is a video report about the Sowell serial murders: