Nobody's Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer by Steve Miller Page B
Authors: Steve Miller
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including Sowell.
In the coming days, weeks, and months, Jermaine Henderson, Segerna’s nephew, would come by sometimes, checking on the house and, once in a while, partying a little bit.
Twelve years younger than Sowell, Jermaine also had a long criminal record, spending time in state prison on various charges including witness intimidation, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, and receiving stolen property. On the street, they called him “J,” but he handed cops all kinds of names, like Jezel Michaels or Edward Stevenson.
C HAPTER 7
We were praying that she was doing drugs— you can fix that.
—SHANNON LICCARDO
While things had coalesced to end Sowell’s relationship with Lori, the neighborhood was enduring a wave of disappearances.
On February 12, 2008, LeShanda Long called her father, Jim Allen, on his cell phone.
“Do you know what day it is?” she asked him.
“No, it seems like there’s something, but I can’t remember,” Jim said. And LeShanda giggled. She had once been a little girl, after all, and sometimes it seemed all she wanted to do was to curl up and return to that world of innocence.
“It’s your birthday,” LeShanda said.
It was a game father and daughter had long played. Jim Allen was a corrections officer for Cuyahoga County, and although his daughter had seen more trouble in hertwenty-four years than he cared to acknowledge, he loved her like any solid parent would. She was his baby.
Still, when LeShanda disappeared, in May 2008, there was no one who really paid attention. She had been hanging out with a boyfriend, a ne’er-do-well named Reggie. But LeShanda would split on him sometimes and be gone for weeks. And her dad—well, it would be months between calls or visits.
LeShanda was born in Cleveland to Jewell Long, who was plagued by her own drug addiction and criminal behavior. Her raps included criminal trespass and drug possession. Jim Allen lived with the kids and his grandmother, trying the best he could. Jewell’s sister Caroline Long was also in the picture.
“[LeShanda] was controlling and she had all these boys around, brothers and relatives, she would always try to get to do what she wanted,” Jim said. “They would sit on her and hold her down.” And when she didn’t get her way, she cried, and they dubbed her Crybaby Gangster.
But in 1990, a social worker paid a visit to the house on Folsom, about five miles from downtown, and found six kids between the ages of one and thirteen, including LeShanda, home alone. Records show that Jim’s grandmother had asked the county several times to find the children a home because she could not give them the care they needed.
But it took the visit to make that happen. LeShanda and the rest of the kids were headed for foster care, but their aunt Caroline rescued them, taking all six kids intoher home to join her own two sons. She worked at a gas station to help pay the bills.
“That is what you are supposed to do for family,” she said. “In my heart, it wouldn’t have been right if they all were separated.”
Caroline moved them around, first to the Cleveland suburbs and then to the smaller village of Kokomo, Indiana, where she got a job at a nursing home, and the kids got a new start. But that’s when LeShanda started acting up.
“It got to a point to where she would stay out and not let me know where she was,” Caroline said. “She kept saying she wanted to be with her mother and father. So one day, I told her if her daddy wanted her back, she could go back home.”
So back to Cleveland LeShanda went, along with her ever-growing shadow of rebellion and defiance.
“I was always part of her life,” Jim said. “But I couldn’t be there always.”
At one point, LeShanda lived with Jim and his new wife. But she kept running away. Her father reported her missing numerous times, and she would always be found, in trouble. At thirteen years old, LeShanda already had her first child, one of three she would have
In the coming days, weeks, and months, Jermaine Henderson, Segerna’s nephew, would come by sometimes, checking on the house and, once in a while, partying a little bit.
Twelve years younger than Sowell, Jermaine also had a long criminal record, spending time in state prison on various charges including witness intimidation, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, and receiving stolen property. On the street, they called him “J,” but he handed cops all kinds of names, like Jezel Michaels or Edward Stevenson.
C HAPTER 7
We were praying that she was doing drugs— you can fix that.
—SHANNON LICCARDO
While things had coalesced to end Sowell’s relationship with Lori, the neighborhood was enduring a wave of disappearances.
On February 12, 2008, LeShanda Long called her father, Jim Allen, on his cell phone.
“Do you know what day it is?” she asked him.
“No, it seems like there’s something, but I can’t remember,” Jim said. And LeShanda giggled. She had once been a little girl, after all, and sometimes it seemed all she wanted to do was to curl up and return to that world of innocence.
“It’s your birthday,” LeShanda said.
It was a game father and daughter had long played. Jim Allen was a corrections officer for Cuyahoga County, and although his daughter had seen more trouble in hertwenty-four years than he cared to acknowledge, he loved her like any solid parent would. She was his baby.
Still, when LeShanda disappeared, in May 2008, there was no one who really paid attention. She had been hanging out with a boyfriend, a ne’er-do-well named Reggie. But LeShanda would split on him sometimes and be gone for weeks. And her dad—well, it would be months between calls or visits.
LeShanda was born in Cleveland to Jewell Long, who was plagued by her own drug addiction and criminal behavior. Her raps included criminal trespass and drug possession. Jim Allen lived with the kids and his grandmother, trying the best he could. Jewell’s sister Caroline Long was also in the picture.
“[LeShanda] was controlling and she had all these boys around, brothers and relatives, she would always try to get to do what she wanted,” Jim said. “They would sit on her and hold her down.” And when she didn’t get her way, she cried, and they dubbed her Crybaby Gangster.
But in 1990, a social worker paid a visit to the house on Folsom, about five miles from downtown, and found six kids between the ages of one and thirteen, including LeShanda, home alone. Records show that Jim’s grandmother had asked the county several times to find the children a home because she could not give them the care they needed.
But it took the visit to make that happen. LeShanda and the rest of the kids were headed for foster care, but their aunt Caroline rescued them, taking all six kids intoher home to join her own two sons. She worked at a gas station to help pay the bills.
“That is what you are supposed to do for family,” she said. “In my heart, it wouldn’t have been right if they all were separated.”
Caroline moved them around, first to the Cleveland suburbs and then to the smaller village of Kokomo, Indiana, where she got a job at a nursing home, and the kids got a new start. But that’s when LeShanda started acting up.
“It got to a point to where she would stay out and not let me know where she was,” Caroline said. “She kept saying she wanted to be with her mother and father. So one day, I told her if her daddy wanted her back, she could go back home.”
So back to Cleveland LeShanda went, along with her ever-growing shadow of rebellion and defiance.
“I was always part of her life,” Jim said. “But I couldn’t be there always.”
At one point, LeShanda lived with Jim and his new wife. But she kept running away. Her father reported her missing numerous times, and she would always be found, in trouble. At thirteen years old, LeShanda already had her first child, one of three she would have
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