CLEVELAND — Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a story published on Feb. 9, 2021.
On Friday, the Cleveland Planning Commission voted to approve the 'Garden of 11 Angels' proposed in remembrance of the 11 women killed by Anthony Sowell in Cleveland.
Tonia Carmichael, Nancy Cobbs, Tishana Culver, Crystal Dozier, Telacia Fortson, Amelda Hunter, Leshanda Long, Michelle Mason, Kim Yvette Smith, Diane Turner, and Janice Webb will be honored with a brand new monument and memorial garden located on Imperial Avenue, where their bodies were found in 2009.
"The death of eleven women at the hands of a serial killer, whose bodies were found hidden in and around the killer's home at 12205 Imperial Avenue on the border of the neighborhoods of Mt. Pleasant and Buckeye-Shaker, is a painful and traumatic memory for the families of the victims, the survivors, the neighborhood, and our entire community," reads a proposal for the memorial site. "This is the sad impetus of the Garden of Eleven Angels project."
Despite the heartbreaking nature of the project, officials believe that the monument and memorial garden will bring a community together under the resolution to remember the lives of the women taken from their loved ones too soon.
"The location that changed the lives of many community members forever will not include elements of the memorial but remain untouched except for the planning of trees in honor of the Angels," the proposal states. "For the families and the community affected by the traumatic events that transpired on Imperial Ave, the successful completion of the Garden of Eleven Angels will bring closure that they have been seeking for over a decade now. "
Officials behind the proposal also hope that the space will serve as a "reminder of the violence perpetrated disproportionately against vulnerable populations in our community, often including women of color."
The Garden of 11 Angels will include 33 different varieties of trees, plants and flowers, feature a free library for the community, an engraved monument featuring the names of the 11 women killed, as well as an excerpt of Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise," according to the proposal presented to the Cleveland Planning Commission.
"The Garden of Eleven Angels will serve as a call for our community to do better, to protect and care for one another, and to oppose the systems of oppression and injustice that often allow these kinds of horrific acts to go unnoticed, and to happen in the first place."
In February, Sowell died while on death row due to a terminal illness.
Following his death, Florence Bray, the mother of Crystal Dozier, said, "my child been dead 12 years. Yes, I'm happy. I'm happy, I'm happy, he's gone. It was like the weight of the world off my shoulder."