CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court will not review a Cleveland appeals court's decision that said a jury should decide whether a former Cleveland police detective was negligent when investigating serial killer Anthony Sowell a year before authorities found the bodies of his victims.

The Dec. 20 decision from the state's high court to not review the case means the families of Sowell's victims, all of whom were strangled, can continue to pursue their lawsuits against retired Cleveland sex crimes detective Georgia Hussein. It leaves in place a decision from the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals from March.

Several family members of the victims filed the lawsuits in 2010 and 2011, after police found the bodies of 11 women at Sowell's home on Imperial Avenue on the city's southeast side.

The lawsuits claim Cleveland police and a city prosecutor were negligent and reckless in investigating and prosecuting Sowell for a December 2008 complaint made by Gladys Wade. Wade said Sowell tried to kidnap, rob and rape her, though Sowell was not charged and investigators released from custody.

The victims' families say a proper investigation and charges would have prevented Sowell from carrying out several of his murders.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Fuerst dismissed the lawsuits, saying the evidence presented did not prove negligence, recklessness or any of the other claims. A three-judge panel from the 8th District revived a claim against Hussein that said she was reckless, and said the families provided evidence that Hussein did not conduct a thorough investigation of Wade's complaint.

The claims against other police officers and a city prosecutor were dismissed.

Sowell, 58, was sentenced to death in 2011. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to hear his case.

He remains on death row in Chillicothe.

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