The bodies, believed to be female, were found about 90 to 180 metres apart, and a 35-year-old man was arrested and is a suspect in all three deaths, though he has not yet been charged, East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said yesterday.
The suspect is a registered sex offender and has served prison time, the mayor said. In police interviews, the man led them to believe he might have been influenced by convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell, Norton told The Associated Press.
Sowell was found guilty in 2011 of killing 11 women and hiding their remains around his Cleveland home from June 2007 to July 2009. Police found their mostly nude bodies throughout the house after a woman escaped and said she had been raped in there.
Sowell's victims ranged in age from 24 to 52, all were recovering or current drug addicts and most died of strangulation; some had been decapitated, and others were so badly decomposed that coroners couldn't say with certainty how they died.
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Yesterday, Police Commander Mike Cardilli announced that a woman's body had been found Friday in a garage and two other bodies were found a day later -- one in a backyard and the other in the basement of a vacant house.
All three people are believed to have been killed in the last six to 10 days.
Police did not know the identities of the three victims. Norton said police believe the three were female, although the bodies had not yet been examined by the medical examiner.
Cardilli said the man was arrested after a standoff with police Friday. Police did not immediately release the suspect's name. He was jailed in East Cleveland, the mayor said.
"The person in custody, some of the things he said to investigators made us go back today," the mayor said.
Police searched vacant houses over about three blocks in the neighbourhood yesterday and planned to expand their search today, Norton said.