RAPIST: SPARE MY FRIEND (A SERIAL KILLER)

CLEVELAND

- A man who killed 11 women and dumped their bodies around his property cried as his prison buddy, himself a convicted rapist, appealed to a jury yesterday to spare his friend's life.

"He deserves not to die," Roosevelt Lloyd, 54, told the jury that must decide whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison for Anthony Sowell, 51.

Sowell, who has remained mostly impassive during his trial and subsequent sentencing phase, used his sleeve to wipe away tears as Lloyd described him as a loving friend who merited his loyalty.

"Killing him ain't going to bring nobody back," said Lloyd, who was serving 20 years in prison for rape when he met Sowell, who at the time was serving 15 years for attempted rape.

Under cross-examination, Lloyd said he was expecting good things from Sowell when he left prison in 2005.

"I don't approve of what he did," Lloyd said. "I'm sad for the families."

Lloyd testified that while they were in prison together, he and Sowell became the "very, very best of friends." He described daily basketball games, with Sowell frequently falling and hitting his head on the concrete floor.

The defense has suggested that Sowell's health began to deteriorate in 2007, about the time his victims began disappearing, because of a head injury or untreated heart attack.

Earlier Wednesday, Nolan Coleman, 52, a mail carrier and Marine Corps veteran, testified for the defense to highlight Sowell's military service. Sowell served in the Marines 1978-85 and received two good-conduct medals.

Sowell's niece testified on Tuesday that he began sexually assaulting her when she was 10 and he was 11.

The woman, now 50, remained composed as she spoke in a hushed courtroom about what she said was years of almost daily sexual abuse at the hands of Sowell in a home in which they lived together as children.

Sowell showed little reaction during the testimony about a troubled, sometimes violent household where the niece and her siblings moved after their mother died. The woman, who was called to the stand by Sowell's attorneys, said that after Sowell began abusing her, an older brother and uncle did likewise.

"You were being sexually abused by Anthony on a daily basis," prompted assistant Prosecutor Pinkey Carr.

"Yes," she responded.

The niece, who has a history of mental-health issues, said she never told anyone about the sexual assaults - even when police took her into custody for setting fire to her grandmother's house to escape almost nightly beatings.