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Cleveland's sick theater of dead and missing women again captures the world's attention: Phillip Morris
Are there more bodies out there?That’s the haunting question consuming East Cleveland, long one of the most security-challenged towns in Ohio.
It doesn’t matter where you go, the question hangs in the air: at barber shops, at convenient stores, at the places where people gather in this town known for abandoned houses, foreclosed dreams, eccentric mayors and the most celebrated high school marching band in the region.
Tuesday afternoon, Tasha, 29, a lifelong resident of East Cleveland, walked with her sister and 7-year-old son to a corner store near where the first decomposing body was found Friday.
She warily eyed an approaching stranger, but warmed a bit after I identified myself as a reporter. She wore a dollar store T-shirt that bore the following inscription:
“You have the right remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.”
It was a good icebreaker. She said she knows Michael Madison, the man charged with three counts of aggravated murder and three counts of kidnapping. She considered him a friend.
But she knew him only by his street name, “Ivan.”
“I didn’t know him by his government name until after he got arrested. I asked him why he went by Ivan, and he just, said, ‘I’m Ivan the terrible.’ I didn’t think anything of it.”
But a birth name wasn’t the only thing Tasha was unfamiliar with. She also had no idea that her friend, “Ivan,” was a registered sex offender until after his arrest this week.
“Yeah, that surprised me. But I didn’t have any reason to do a background check on him. He was just a friend,” she said shaking her head.
Now, in the wake of the discovery of three slain women, and the random manner of their disposal near her home, Tasha is nervous. Before the gruesome discoveries, she said she was comfortable living in East Cleveland.
It was familiar.
Now she finds herself looking over her shoulders.
“It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to happen for the city to even cut the grass. But here’s what really bothers me. I know as soon as the media leaves, [the tall grass at abandoned houses across the city] will grow back higher than his head,” she said pointing at her son.
“It makes you afraid to walk by a lot of these houses, especially at night.”
Vacant houses don’t kill women. Crumbling and distraught properties aren’t violent predators. But Tasha’s fears are valid.
If someone is looking to stash a body, East Cleveland -- with its nearly 4,000 vacant residential structures -- teems with unmonitored and easily accessible houses.
This is a lesson that Cleveland knows only too well. When someone schemes to kill and bury 11 women in their home and back yard (Anthony Sowell), or allegedly holds three women captive for more than a decade (Ariel Castro), sparsely inhabited streets filled with abandoned homes facilitate such deviance.
Just before the rain arrived Tuesday afternoon, Charles Storrs, 64, finished cutting his grass. He lives behind Chambers Elementary School, on one of the “stronger” streets in East Cleveland.
“We only have three vacant houses on this street that I’m aware of. That’s pretty good,” said Storrs, who moved here from Alabama in 1972.
“But what bothers me is the city’s priorities. Did you see the speeding camera over there?” he said, pointing in the direction of Shaw Avenue, less than 100 yards from his property.
“This city is more concerned with catching speeders than it is in catching killers. I think our politicians need to get their priorities straight.”
With as many as 30,000 vacant homes scattered across Northeast Ohio, we have no choice but to become national leaders in the crusade against crushing blight and the horrid pestilence it invites.
Too many missing Greater Cleveland women continue to be found in houses that were vacant or on streets that are abandoned.
It’s time to urgently ramp up the business of tearing down these abandoned homes that are too often being turned into sick mausoleums or torture chambers for the lost and missing.
It doesn’t matter where you go, the question hangs in the air: at barber shops, at convenient stores, at the places where people gather in this town known for abandoned houses, foreclosed dreams, eccentric mayors and the most celebrated high school marching band in the region.
Tuesday afternoon, Tasha, 29, a lifelong resident of East Cleveland, walked with her sister and 7-year-old son to a corner store near where the first decomposing body was found Friday.
She warily eyed an approaching stranger, but warmed a bit after I identified myself as a reporter. She wore a dollar store T-shirt that bore the following inscription:
“You have the right remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.”
It was a good icebreaker. She said she knows Michael Madison, the man charged with three counts of aggravated murder and three counts of kidnapping. She considered him a friend.
But she knew him only by his street name, “Ivan.”
“I didn’t know him by his government name until after he got arrested. I asked him why he went by Ivan, and he just, said, ‘I’m Ivan the terrible.’ I didn’t think anything of it.”
But a birth name wasn’t the only thing Tasha was unfamiliar with. She also had no idea that her friend, “Ivan,” was a registered sex offender until after his arrest this week.
“Yeah, that surprised me. But I didn’t have any reason to do a background check on him. He was just a friend,” she said shaking her head.
Now, in the wake of the discovery of three slain women, and the random manner of their disposal near her home, Tasha is nervous. Before the gruesome discoveries, she said she was comfortable living in East Cleveland.
It was familiar.
Now she finds herself looking over her shoulders.
“It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to happen for the city to even cut the grass. But here’s what really bothers me. I know as soon as the media leaves, [the tall grass at abandoned houses across the city] will grow back higher than his head,” she said pointing at her son.
“It makes you afraid to walk by a lot of these houses, especially at night.”
Vacant houses don’t kill women. Crumbling and distraught properties aren’t violent predators. But Tasha’s fears are valid.
If someone is looking to stash a body, East Cleveland -- with its nearly 4,000 vacant residential structures -- teems with unmonitored and easily accessible houses.
This is a lesson that Cleveland knows only too well. When someone schemes to kill and bury 11 women in their home and back yard (Anthony Sowell), or allegedly holds three women captive for more than a decade (Ariel Castro), sparsely inhabited streets filled with abandoned homes facilitate such deviance.
Just before the rain arrived Tuesday afternoon, Charles Storrs, 64, finished cutting his grass. He lives behind Chambers Elementary School, on one of the “stronger” streets in East Cleveland.
“We only have three vacant houses on this street that I’m aware of. That’s pretty good,” said Storrs, who moved here from Alabama in 1972.
“But what bothers me is the city’s priorities. Did you see the speeding camera over there?” he said, pointing in the direction of Shaw Avenue, less than 100 yards from his property.
“This city is more concerned with catching speeders than it is in catching killers. I think our politicians need to get their priorities straight.”
With as many as 30,000 vacant homes scattered across Northeast Ohio, we have no choice but to become national leaders in the crusade against crushing blight and the horrid pestilence it invites.
Too many missing Greater Cleveland women continue to be found in houses that were vacant or on streets that are abandoned.
It’s time to urgently ramp up the business of tearing down these abandoned homes that are too often being turned into sick mausoleums or torture chambers for the lost and missing.
