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Mackenzie
My name is Mackenzie, and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about 10, $10,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.
Narrator/Host
GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe. This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
Investigator/Reporter
On August 12, Anthony Sowell is sentenced to death for the murders of 11 women whose remains were found in and around his Imperial Avenue home. He preyed upon African American women down on their luck, hooked on drugs.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
And he continued it, and he continued. And that's how sick he was. He's a sick individual.
Investigator/Reporter
You choke someone with your hands. That's all I can think.
Vanessa Gay
He looked me in my eyes, and I never ever seen eyes like that. They were just black holes.
Investigator/Reporter
Police officers see bad things every day, but this is about as bad as it gets.
Vanessa Gay
And as I'm walking, I see sitting on the floor what appears to be a body with no head. I just kept thinking, is this how I'mma die? Is this how I'mma die? You remember what happened, right?
Investigator/Reporter
Yeah, but it's like a dream. Like, hey, honest shock. Maybe night you have a dream.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Can you tell us about one of the dreams?
Investigator/Reporter
All I know is that I heard
Narrator/Host
something like real people who faced death and live to tell how this is. I survived a serial killer.
Vanessa Gay
My name is Vanessa Gay, and I survived a serial killer. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. We had a pretty normal, happy life. But I met my husband, and that's where I started to use drugs. That's where crack entered into my story. I was in my 30s when I smoked it. I began to let everybody down, including myself. We were used to doing things as a family, so my time with them got shorter and shorter and shorter.
Narrator/Host
Lemmy Griffin is retired Cleveland homicide detective, East Cleveland.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
It's a low income section. Drugs are prevalent. When the crack cocaine hit the scene, everything changed.
Vanessa Gay
My life became a nightmare. One day I just left home because I didn't know how to turn my life back around. It was September 2008, and it had been a while since I had been home, maybe a year. It was warm outside. Everybody was out and about. A guy walked past. He said, it's my birthday today. And I said, happy birthday. He said he had nobody to celebrate his birthday with him. So did I want to celebrate his birthday with him. He said he had some crack, some weed, and he had some drinks, and we walked to his house to get high. While I walked to his house, there was no signs that the worst night of my life was about to take place. On the walk, he talked about his life in the military. He talked about his family. He didn't try and hide anything. He had much respect. In the streets, people were greeting him, you know, saying, how you doing? So it didn't throw red flags up. I remember that when we walked to his house, there were posters of a female who had been missing. Everywhere you see these posters. But I didn't think about it, and I just kept walking.
Narrator/Host
Rick Bombick is retired Cuyahoga county assistant prosecutor.
Investigator/Reporter
A year earlier, Christopher Dozer disappeared around Mother's Day of 2007. The Dozer family reported Crystal missing. Being missing is not a crime. So until you have evidence that the person may have been kidnapped or some type of ill will was begotten upon them, there's nothing you can do about it.
Vanessa Gay
Walking up to the house, everything was normal. But opening the door and stepping in, I felt something ain't right. You could just feel a thickness of dread in the air. As we walked in, he put all the locks back on the door. It was just like lock after lock after lot. I felt like I should turn around and leave, but I walked all the way over there and I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, we here now. You know, what's the worst that could happen? There was a smell in the air, and it just threw my whole. Everything up, everything. But as we walked up his stairs, he had boxes of food lined up. You know, it was like a lot of stuff that would spoil. That could be the reason for that smell. We was conversing, and about 15 minutes went past. I'm sitting on the bed and he's just talking and talking, and I say, so what's up? We gonna smoke or what? That's when he turned around and punched me in my face. There was no time to think. I didn't have time to do anything. Told me, bitch, take your clothes off. He looked me in my eyes and I never, ever, ever, ever seen eyes like that. They were just black. They were black holes. And he kept saying, you know, you don't deserve what's about to happen to you. And I'm thinking, oh God, nobody knows where I'm at. My family, they won't know.
Narrator/Host
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Vanessa Gay
I was getting beat on and raped. I just kept thinking, is this how I'm going to die? But God said, you're not going to die today. And I believed. And all the pain went away. Everything. He was still doing what he was doing. But I didn't feel anything else after that. It's like a peace that came over my body. God directed me through that whole thing. I put myself in that situation. But he got me out after a while. He didn't come in with me, but he allowed me to go to the bathroom. And when I walked out, that room, a room that I had passed was taped off like there was some work being done. But the plastic tarp had. Didn't pant back. And as I'm walking, I see sitting on the floor what appears to be a body with no head. She was wrapped in plastic and taped so you see the perfect form of what it was. But no head, no head. Never could I have imagined that there was no way he was going to let me go after that.
Investigator/Reporter
Several months earlier, victim number two, Deshawna Calver, went missing in approximately June of 2008. She had a long standing drug problem. Lashonda Long disappeared At this point, three women have gone missing. Ms. Long's parents last saw her sometime around August 2008. She too had a drug problem.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
This guy targeted the women, his victims, due to the lifestyle they had at
Investigator/Reporter
this point in time, the police have no reason to believe that any of these women have come in harm's way.
Vanessa Gay
From the time he punched me in my face until the next day, I got beat and raped. There was no sleep throughout that entire ordeal. And then that morning, he said he don't know what he gonna do with me because I'm a tail. Said, I ain't gonna tell. I wanna come back. And he did calm down. When I would answer his questions, I would say, yes, sir, no, sir, and it would diffuse him. He kept being thrown off guard. And soon after that, he told me to get dressed. We start walking to that front door. I stayed side by side with him every step, because if I got too anxious looking, he could have killed me. I stayed arm in arm with him and we stepped right to the door. And he let me out. God fought for me. God made him walk me out that door. The sunlight hit me, but I couldn't run. I couldn't barely walk. I couldn't look back. I didn't look back, he might have been behind me. And it seemed like if I look back, he gonna kill me. At that moment, I felt like I was just too. As I walk up the street fighting to stay alive, I couldn't run because my body was damaged that bad. I was hoping somebody would at least see that something was wrong with me. And nobody helped. I got to a payphone and tried calling the police. But when the police tell me I gotta come down to them and they won't come to me, I just really lost it then. I never felt that disposable. I felt like less than human at that point.
Investigator/Reporter
There is a classic example of the system breaking down. She was not given the benefit of the doubt.
Vanessa Gay
I felt like it was my problem now I survived it, it's my problem, and nobody gonna do anything anyway, so let's. Let me not say anything.
Investigator/Reporter
He preyed upon African American women down on their luck, hooked on drugs.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
He felt that they wouldn't go to the police and complain. So he continued it, and he continued. And that's how sick he was. He's a sick individual.
Investigator/Reporter
One month later, In October of 2008, Michelle Mason went missing. Her family put up flyers in the area of Imperial Avenue, and someone would take down the flyers.
Narrator/Host
This is the voice of Anthony Sowell.
Investigator/Reporter
I remember I seen this picture of this girl on the door to the store, and I was like, I know her. And the man from sheriff. The next woman to go missing was Tanya Carmichael. She was last seen in November of 2008. After that, six more women over the course of 2009 go missing.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Personally, I've never seen a timeline of victims so big.
Investigator/Reporter
All of a sudden, it was a break in the case. Letundra Bellotz was attacked on September 22. She knew this person. They were friends.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
They were getting high. And all of a sudden, he asked Latondra Billups to turn around. He was viewing her body in a sexual manner. And once she refused, he assaulted her.
Investigator/Reporter
She talked her way out of it because they were friends, but it was just her lucky day. Billups went to the police. Detectives interviewed her. It was Billups that set everything in motion and righted a very wayward ship as far as justice is concerned.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
She told the guy that we're looking for is Anthony Sowell.
Investigator/Reporter
Anthony Sowell had just gotten out of prison a few years earlier, having done 15 years for attempted rape. A warrant was issued. They went to his house to execute that warrant. They knock on the door, no one's home. They breach the door. They go in. They search for Anthony Sowell. He's nowhere to be found. There's another locked door. They breach that door. Behind that door are two very badly decomposed human bodies. Just, I mean, whoa.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
And they call us the homicide unit. And the smell was so bad, you had to dispose of the clothes that you had on because the scent was embedded in the material in your clothes. We found two more bodies. One was in a black garbage bag, and he had placed one victim behind the crawl space behind the wall. We went through the entire home, and we found that a body was behind the stairs going into the basement, as well as the skull that was in a red bucket. And we proceeded to dig up the yard, and we found five bodies all wrapped in plastic that he had buried no more than 18 inches in the ground.
Narrator/Host
Cleveland police are using a backhoe to dig up the yard of accused serial killer Anthony Sowell as they search for the bodies of his victims.
Investigator/Reporter
Police officers see bad things every day, but this is about as bad as it gets.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
11 dead victims. You have 11 families that you responsible for getting some answers to.
Narrator/Host
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Investigator/Reporter
They search for Anthony Sowell. He's nowhere to be found.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Cleveland police and other law enforcement agencies
Investigator/Reporter
have cast a dragnet across the city
Detective Lemmy Griffin
as they search abandoned homes and buildings and anywhere else Anthony Sowell may be hiding.
Vanessa Gay
I started to try and work my way back to some type of normality and when I saw his picture in the paper, that was the first time over the course of maybe a year I had seen him again. When I seen the face, I lost everything and kind of like fell on the floor. The caption was, 11 women murdered. And that's when I came to the realization that I am blessed to be alive.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Turning every rock over our reach goes
Investigator/Reporter
anywhere in the United States of America. That Halloween, the whole city was made aware of what was unraveling at this house on Imperial Avenue.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
And it just so happened that a guy who was driving down the street saw Anthony so well, I was shocked to see him out there just walking down the street and notified a couple officers. They pulled up next to him and he matched the description of the male we were looking for.
Investigator/Reporter
They had to take him down back to the police station and get him to open up a little bit.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
He was kind of tight lipped at first just because the bodies was found in his house. We know that he done it, but you have to prove that he connected with. With each body.
Investigator/Reporter
And it's like as if I had a dream.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Can you tell us about one of the dreams that.
Investigator/Reporter
All I know is that I heard somebody.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
Did the dreams say that you shot him? The dreams say that you stabbed him. Did the dream say that you choked
Vanessa Gay
them with your hands?
Detective Lemmy Griffin
And next thing you know, he's telling us more than we ask. He choked someone with your hands?
Investigator/Reporter
That's all I can say.
Vanessa Gay
After Sowell was in the jail, I felt like I had to say something. I just wanted to make sure that I did everything I can so nothing like that could happen again.
Detective Lemmy Griffin
We wind up talking to Vanessa Gay. She told us about the headless body that she saw.
Vanessa Gay
I had to testify. I had to. Especially knowing that he killed 11 women. I had to be a voice for the voiceless.
Investigator/Reporter
Anthony Sowell was charged with 11 counts of aggravated murder. He was facing the death penalty.
Vanessa Gay
He said, you don't deserve what I'm about to do to you. When I gave my testimony, I could not look his way. I was so fearful that I was gonna see those eyes again. And it was all bad after that.
Investigator/Reporter
You could probably hear a pin drop. During her testimony, she brought to the jury's attention the amount of tear that not only she experienced, but each and every One of the 11 women who did not survive the type of terror that they experienced. On August 12th, Anthony Sowell is sentenced to death for the murders of 11 women whose remains were found in and around his Imperial Avenue home in the fall of 2009.
Vanessa Gay
In the end, God exacted justice. He let me out of there and allowed me to testify to get this man put away.
Investigator/Reporter
Tear it down. Tear it down. Tear it down.
Narrator/Host
Residents cheered as Anthony sowell's House of Horrors was demolished this evening.
Vanessa Gay
Every day is a fight, fight, fight for your life. So whatever happens, love yourself, you know? Know that you are worth it. Know that you are somebody. When I heard he died, I was at home and it caught me off guard. It just. I wasn't expecting to hear that news. That was the first day since this has happened that I know that he would never get out and hurt nobody again. I survived a serial killer, you know. How could you not come away with a grander appreciation for life?
Narrator/Host
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Investigator/Reporter
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Vanessa Gay
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Narrator/Host
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Vanessa Gay
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Investigator/Reporter
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Mackenzie
Huzzah.
Narrator/Host
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Vanessa Gay
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Vanessa Gay
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Narrator/Host
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Detective Lemmy Griffin
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Vanessa Gay
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Podcast: Cold Case Files (A&E / PodcastOne)
Episode Date: April 11, 2026
Host/Narrator: Marisa Pinson
This episode of Cold Case Files recounts the harrowing story of Vanessa Gay, a survivor of notorious Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell, also known as the Cleveland Strangler. Through Vanessa's firsthand account, police interviews, and the perspective of investigators, the episode details the chilling sequence of events leading to Sowell's capture and ultimate conviction for the murders of 11 vulnerable women in Cleveland, Ohio. Themes explored include survivor resilience, systemic failures in policing, and the challenges faced by victims overlooked by society.
Throughout the episode, Vanessa Gay’s candid, unfiltered testimony anchors the narrative, giving a voice to victims frequently silenced by stigma and systemic failures. The tone balances horror and heartbreak with hope and resilience. Investigators and prosecutors discuss the procedural aspects with sobriety, while the survivor’s statements are raw and deeply human.
This episode is a searing exploration of trauma, survival, and the pursuit of justice in the aftermath of unspeakable violence. Through Vanessa Gay’s account, listeners are confronted with the vulnerabilities exploited by Anthony Sowell and the ways in which societal and institutional failures prolonged his crimes. The story ultimately serves as a testament to survivor courage and community perseverance, urging recognition and respect for the dignity of every victim.