CLEVELAND – Now that most of the bodies found at the home of a suspected serial killer have been identified, Cleveland is turning its attention to the living — to any women who might be reluctant to come forward after encounters with a man now charged with murder and rape.
The nonprofit Cleveland Rape Crisis Center has set up a hot line in hopes of hearing from any surviving victims of Anthony Sowell, who lived among the remains of at least 11 people, all black women, most of them disadvantaged, stashed around his house and yard.
Women who might have been attacked by Sowell need to hear that "it wasn't their fault that we were in the midst of a maniac, and it's just not their fault," was the message of Tammy Davis, 44, who lives two blocks away from Sowell's house.
Authorities have indicated they're searching around places where Sowell, a 50-year-old former Marine, previously lived for any evidence of earlier crimes. At least three women have come forward alleging that Sowell attacked them.
As of now, Sowell is charged with five counts of aggravated murder and, separately, two counts of rape in a Sept. 22 attack, and is jailed on $5 million bond.
Advocates fear that sensitivities including shame, checkered backgrounds and mistrust on the part of the women he tended to befriend might make it tricky to learn of more victims. In Sowell's neighborhood, some people said Tuesday that community and family attitudes toward so-called "throwaway" street addicts must change to make them feel comfortable reporting a rape.
Davis said she senses a change as the saga has unfolded — 10 bodies and a skull found at the Sowell home, most of the victims strangled, living alone or homeless, dealing with drug or alcohol addictions.
It soon emerged that a prosecutor declined to file charges after a woman fled Sowell's home last December, bleeding and injured, because she wasn't considered credible. Police argued that they handled the case properly and that it was up to the prosecutor whether to press charges. After the bodies were found, many people came forward, concerned that their long-missing but troubled loved ones might be among the dead — and some of them were right.
Another woman, 43-year-old Tanja Doss, told The Associated Press two weeks ago that she was attacked by Sowell in April at his home and escaped the next morning. She said she didn't tell police because she felt her past conviction on a drug charge made it unlikely they would take her seriously.
Any other survivors need to know "no matter what walk of life you chose, were actually pushed into, you're still a person. Don't give up on people that sometimes choose a different path of life, as they call them 'throwaways','" Davis said.
The rape crisis center, which has a 24-hour hot line, opened a second line Monday dedicated to handling calls about the Sowell case with the goal of getting help for any rape victim. The line has gotten calls, but the center won't disclose the number or whether any were related to the Sowell case, executive director Megan O'Bryan said Tuesday.
The center held a community forum on sexual assault last week in Sowell's neighborhood, and clergy members and elected officials have encouraged victims to come forward.
Cleveland police do not have any specific initiative to identify more possible Sowell rape victims, Lt. Thomas Stacho said. Chief Michael McGrath has addressed community gatherings to stress that any victim will get police help, no matter what their personal history.
Margaret Kanellis, who handles rape cases in Akron for the Summit County prosecutor, said rapes can be reported in nontraditional ways, including by a doctor or mental health counselor who treats the woman, by a clergy member, or through a support group.
Those avenues can be less traumatic than walking into a police station to report a rape, she said. "Lots of times we see people being convinced through other ways rather than right after it happens, we just walk into the police station," Kanellis said.
Perhaps 80 percent of rape victims never report it, in part out of shame, and the backgrounds of Sowell's alleged victims left them vulnerable because many had lost contact with families, according to Elizabeth Fokes-El, a social worker who visited the suspect's street on Tuesday to see a growing memorial of stuffed animals and mementoes for both the victims and people who remain missing.
Victims might come forward if they feel they won't be seen as worthless, she said. People "need to let her know that she's worthy," Fokes-El said. "She needs to know she's OK, that she didn't deserve to be raped."
Sherri Smith, who works with churches in the Sowell neighborhood and has encouraged rape victims to seek help, said some might be hesitant for fear of being seen as "a certain profile of the women" that he allegedly targeted.

"In our community, a lot of times it's best to just keep quiet and maybe it will go away. That's sometimes the thought: embarrassment, shame, all of that," she said.

Those barriers to reporting rape mean "there's a dire need to have multiple routes" for victims to use to get help, Smith said.

ORLANDO, Fla. – You can't blame this one on McDonald's: Researchers have found signs of heart disease in 3,500-year-old mummies.
"We think of it as being caused by modern risk factors," such as fast food, smoking and a lack of exercise, but the findings show that these aren't the only reasons arteries clog, said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City.
He and several other researchers used CT scans, a type of X-ray, on 22 mummies kept in the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. The subjects were from 1981 B.C. to 334 A.D. Half were thought to be over 45 when they died, and average lifespan was under 50 back then.
Sixteen mummies had heart and blood vessel tissue to analyze. Definite or probable hardening of the arteries was seen in nine.
"We were struck by the similar appearance of vascular calcification in the mummies and our present-day patients," said another researcher, Dr. Michael Miyamoto of the University of California at San Diego. "Perhaps the development of atherosclerosis is a part of being human."
One mummy had evidence of a possible heart attack but scientists don't know if it was fatal. Nor can they tell how much these people weighed — mummification dehydrates the body.
Of those whose identities could be determined, all were of high social status, and many served in the court of the Pharaoh or as priests or priestesses.
"Rich people ate meat, and they did salt meat, so maybe they had hypertension (high blood pressure), but that's speculation," Thompson said.
With modern diets, "we all sort of live in the Pharaoh's court," said another of the researchers, Dr. Samuel Wann of the Wisconsin Heart Hospital in Milwaukee.
The oldest mummy with heart disease signs was Lady Rai, a nursemaid to Queen Ahmose Nefertari who died around 1530 B.C. — 200 years before King Tutankhamun.
German imaging company Siemens AG, the National Bank of Egypt and the Mid-America Heart Institute paid for the work. Results are in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association and were reported Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference.
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WASHINGTON – When it comes to paying for a health care overhaul, Americans see just one way to go: Tax the rich.
That finding from a new Associated Press poll will be welcome news for House Democrats, who proposed doing just that in their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system, which passed earlier this month and would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
The poll found participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress, including taxing insurers on high-value coverage packages derided by President Barack Obama and Democrats as "Cadillac plans."
That approach is being weighed in the Senate. It is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation's health expenditures, but it has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.
Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical device makers. But the only approach that got majority support in the AP poll was a tax on upper-income Americans.
The House bill would impose a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.
The poll tested views on an even more punitive taxation scheme that was under consideration earlier, when the tax would have hit people making more than $250,000 a year. Even at that level the poll showed majority support, with 57 percent in favor and 36 percent opposed.
"You know, I mean, why not? If they have that much money, it should be taxed," said Mary Pat Rondthaler, 60, of Menlo Park, Calif. "It isn't the same way that the guy making $21,000 is."
Not everyone agreed.
"They earn their money. And they shouldn't have to pay for somebody else. It doesn't seem fair," said Emerson Wilkins, 62, of Powder Springs, Ga.
The latest survey was conducted by Stanford University with the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Overall, the poll found the public split on Congress' health care plans. In response to some questions, participants said the current system needed to be changed, but they also voiced concerns about the potential impact on their own pocketbooks, preferring to push any new costs onto wealthier Americans.
For example, 77 percent said the cost of health care in the United States was higher than it should be, and 74 percent favored the broad goal of reducing the amount of money paid by patients and their insurers. But 49 percent said any changes made by the government probably would cause them to pay more for health care. Thirty-two percent said it wouldn't change what they pay, and just 12 percent said they would end up paying less.
With lawmakers searching for new revenue sources to pay for their overhaul legislation, upper-income taxes may be increasingly gaining favor.
Legislation passed by Senate committees did not go that route, but now Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has a free hand in merging two committee-passed bills, is considering raising the payroll tax that goes to Medicare on income above $250,000 a year, officials told The Associated Press last week. Current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers.
The Senate Finance Committee bill would tax health insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for individuals and $21,000 for families, although those numbers could rise. Union members are lined up against that approach because they fear their benefits could be hurt, and the public doesn't like it either, the AP poll found. Fifty-six percent were opposed and only 29 percent in favor.
Other payment methods being contemplated on Capitol Hill also met with disapproval. Participants in the poll didn't support new taxes on medical device makers, drug companies or even insurers — even though they said in response to different questions that drug companies and insurance companies made too much money.
Forty-eight percent in the poll were opposed to new taxes on insurance companies, and 42 percent were in support. Fifty-one percent opposed raising taxes on drug and device makers, while 41 percent supported that approach.

But 72 percent of people polled said insurance companies made too much profit, compared with 23 percent who said they made about the right amount of profit. And 74 percent said drug companies made too much profit, versus 21 percent who said they made about the right amount of profit.

People who told pollsters they generally supported Congress' health care overhaul plan were also more receptive to new taxes to pay for it. Taxing health care companies, drug companies and equipment manufacturers eked out majority support from that group.

The payment approach that met with least approval by far in the poll was borrowing the money and increasing the federal debt, something Obama has repeatedly vowed not to do. Just 6 percent of people polled said they could support that approach, while 88 percent opposed it.

The poll was based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,502 adults from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The interviews were conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. Stanford University's participation was made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which conducts research on all facets of the health care system.

ROME – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi hosted a soiree in Rome for some 200 young Italian women, but instead of the party they expected the women were given a lecture on Islam and copies of the Quran, a news report said Monday.
At least they got paid.
A reporter for Italy's ANSA news agency went undercover with the women, who were hired for euro50 ($75) by a modeling agency for the event Sunday evening. Journalist Paola Lo Mele said the women assembled at a hotel, where some where left behind because they were not tall enough or dressed modestly enough.
Those accepted were taken to a villa, where Gadhafi lectured them on women's rights and religion, and urged them to convert to Islam.
"All the girls expected a party with a gala dinner," Lo Mele told her agency. Instead, "he made a 45-minute speech on Islam and women's role in Islam. It was a bit of an indoctrination session."
Lo Mele took pictures before and after the event, showing the women carrying Qurans they received as gifts. A second soiree was planned for Monday evening, ANSA said.
Gadhafi was in Rome to attend a U.N. summit on world hunger.
After his speech, Gadhafi made an impromptu visit to one of downtown Rome's swankiest piazzas, stopping traffic as he sat down at an outdoor cafe for something to drink.