Alright, Cleveland, it is hard to defend you when this shit keeps happening

The bodies of three women were found in East Cleveland. The police conducted a weekend-long search for bodies near East 139^th Street and Shaw Avenue, but they found no additional bodies than those discovered on Friday and Saturday.  Law enforcement officials combed vacant homes, overgrown lots, railroad tracks, and even bushes and brush behind the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center (makes you think of Chris and Snoop on The Wire). Michael Madison, 35, was arrested and charged with the deaths. The police indicated Madison was influenced by Anthony Sowell, the serial killer of 11 women in Cleveland, who is currently on death row. Madison is a registered sex offender with the Cuyahoga County sheriff after a four-year prison sentence for a 2002 attempted rape conviction. He pled guilty and was given the least serious sex offender status, which requires yearly registration for ten years. Additionally, Madison is not being cooperative, refusing to say if there are more bodies. Madison was arrested on Friday after a two-hour standoff at his mother’s Cleveland home.

Madison is being held on a $6 million bond after being charged with three counts of aggravated murder and three counts of kidnapping. He didn’t enter a plea during the court appearance in East Cleveland Municipal Court, which is being transferred to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. The murder charges could result in life in prison, and the kidnapping charges carry a possible sentence of three to ten years.  Eric Wilson, 40, claims to have known Madison since their days at Euclid High School, said, “He was kind of quit. He never created a conversation. But if you talked to him too long he’d say some kind of demented things.” When asked for an example, Wilson said, “He hated women.”

Two of the women remain unidentified as of Monday. Angela Deskin, 38, of Cleveland was identified by the Mayor of East Cleveland, Gary Norton. The medical examiner couldn’t give cause of death because the decomposition of the bodies was too bad, but authorizes believe the women were killed in the last ten days. You can read more about the bodies, particularly identifying tattoos and markings here.

Gov. John Kasich being as enlighten as always had this to say when asked about the murders and the discovery of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus, 

“It was heartbreaking when we had the last announcement. Fortunately, somehow through the grace of God, those women appear to be pulling through.” Adding, “This is what happens when you have poverty. It’s what happens when you have individuals who are very dangerous inside the community and somehow lost track of them. It’s about breakdown of neighborhood, sometimes, where, you know, we don’t always know our neighbors. There’s so much to it.

“But poverty, to me, is kind of at the core of it. And that’s why I feel so strongly that no neighborhood can be left behind. That’s why I feel so strongly about the fact that when you start doing better, everyone has to share in the growth. Everyone has to share in the good things. And that’s why no one in Ohio isn’t important and no one in oh shouldn’t be in a position of being lifted at times when they’re not hitting on all cylinders to a point to where they can have a secure job and a great family and a great neighborhood.”

This all sounds like very much like the Sowell and Castro cases. I’d like to be clear, this isn’t happening in Cleveland because people in Cleveland are poor. This is happening in Cleveland because Cleveland wasn’t taking sexual assault cases seriously, because as a society we devalued the lives of poor women of color, and even if the police were interested in looking for these women, they couldn’t because Cleveland and most of the surrounding area had to issues cut backs, and those happened first in the poor communities. So you know, just your regular reminder about the shittiness of society. I don’t suppose now is the time to talk about sex offenders being repeat criminals and misogyny in society? Don’t get me wrong, I’m an advocate of prison reform and felons being allow to vote after time served, but sex offenders are serial predators. The stats support this, so maybe we start talking about a new way to deal with them. I’m not advocating indefinite detention, but more active contact with parole officers, I don’t know something.

This map of the crime scene is by Joel Downey, The Plain Dealer.