Crystal Dozier, a 35-year-old African American woman from Cleveland, Ohio, disappeared in May 2007. She was a mother of seven and had struggled with drug addiction, including crack cocaine, in the years leading up to her disappearance. Despite her personal challenges, her family described her as a loving and responsible person who had once been the “little mother hen” of her household. Her son, Anthony Dozier, recalled how she cared deeply for her children and had a passion for cooking.
When she went missing, her family filed a police report and began searching for her themselves, frustrated by what they perceived as a lack of urgency from authorities.
Crystal Dozier was the first of eleven African American women to go missing between 2007 and 2009 in Cleveland. Her remains were discovered in 2009 in the backyard of a house on Imperial Avenue, a location that would later become infamous as the site of a series of gruesome murders. The house belonged to Anthony Sowell, a 50-year-old African American man and convicted sex offender who had previously served 15 years in prison for kidnapping, rape, and attempted rape. Sowell lured his victims—many of whom were vulnerable due to addiction or unstable housing—into his home with promises of drugs or alcohol. He then raped and murdered them, often by manual strangulation, and hid their remains throughout his property
