The people in the neighborhood of accused Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell lived with a foul odor for years but never connected to corpses, residents say.

Police last week found six decomposed female bodies in a house owned by Sowell, who is being held on suspicion he killed the women found there. Neighbors told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer there was a stench in the area for years but residents wrote it off to a variety of sources.

Some, it said, blamed a 57-year-old sausage shop across the street from the house.

"People used to think it was the sausage shop," the unnamed owner of a nearby pizza shop said. "We now realize what it was."

Renee Cash, he owner of Ray's Sausage, told the Plain Dealer she knew her store wasn't the cause of the stench, saying the smell puzzled her and other employees and that they always were careful to clean the equipment.

"If we had any smells like that, we wouldn't be in business for 57 years," Cash told the newspaper. "That is wrong. This smell from here makes you want to eat."