Red Right Hand: The Cleveland Strangler

This is not the first documentary about serial killer Anthony Sowell, but it is the most eye-opening. The first episode of this four part series focuses on his victims, and on the reaction of the Cleveland police, who appear to be the second coming of the Keystone Kops. I say four part, but it has also been uploaded to YouTube as a discrete unit.

At one point we are told that a female detective who (no surprise) does not appear in this programme, carried out the most superficial of investigations into Sowell after he was arrested for attacking one of his less unfortunate victims. Had this convicted sex offender been charged with attempted rape, he would have been taken off the streets for a few years, and probably for good, certainly if a couple of the bodies had been found in the meantime. As it was, he was a free man almost at once, and went on to murder six more women.

We see part of the court process and hear briefly from Sowell himself who apologises and says: "This is not typical of me".

If he'd been convicted of one murder, that statement might have been sincere, but eleven!