A Cleveland block short on dreams

Where crack users sneak into vacant houses to do drugs, have sex, then steal copper pipes and wiring to make a few bucks.

Where no one asks a lot of questions, even about the smell of rotting meat that came when the wind blew a certain way. Some likened it to the smell of death and said it seemed to follow Sowell around.

No one is sure how long Sowell, a registered sex offender who would offer free barbecue to the neighbors, had been living in his three-story house with corpses lying around, many of them black women who had been strangled. Police have recovered 11 bodies at the home on Imperial Avenue, in the living room, crawl spaces, and backyard graves. There was a skull in the basement.

But if Sowell’s street is seedy, it’s far from abandoned. Occupied homes are sandwiched between vacant, boarded-up houses and scattered small businesses with a steady stream of customers.

“We’re not talking about some desolate area, some abandoned barn,’’ said Councilman Zach Reed, whose mother lives a block away. “How did somebody get away with this in a residential neighborhood?’’

Even residents seemed unfazed by the disappearances. They say many of the women were known prostitutes or drug users. But relatives of presumed victims allege that police ignored their missing person reports.

“They told us to go home, and as soon as the drugs are gone, she’ll show up,’’ said Markiesha Carmichael-Jacobs, whose 53-year-old mother Tonia, a drug addict, vanished Nov. 10, 2008. Police identified her yesterday as one of the victims, saying her body was buried in the backyard with marks indicating strangulation.

“It’s hard to imagine,’’ Carmichael-Jacobs said as she stood shivering on a street corner across from Sowell’s home yesterday, “but that’s what they told us to our face: ‘She’ll turn up.’ ’’

Police Chief Michael McGrath said the city takes about 10 missing person reports a day but typically clears at least 90 percent within 48 hours.