A US man suspected of being a copycat serial killer has been charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of three women.

Police say there may be more victims yet to be discovered in East Cleveland, Ohio.



"This is an ongoing investigation. We're nowhere near done," East Cleveland Police Chief Ralph Spotts said.



"We did have information that there may be more to this, which is why we are continuing our searching."



Over 100 volunteers helped police search abandoned buildings in the Cleveland suburb over the weekend after the first body was discovered in a garage when police got a call about a foul smell.



Two more bodies - also wrapped in plastic - were discovered before the initial search was suspended Sunday. All three corpses are those of young black females.



The suspect, identified as Michael Madison, 35, who is also black, was arrested at his mother's house after a standoff.



East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton told CNN that Madison was influenced by and even idolised Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in 2011 of killing 11 women and hiding the remains at his Cleveland home.



Sowell, dubbed the "Cleveland Strangler", is currently on death row in an Ohio prison.



Madison, a registered sex offender who served time in prison, was held on a $US6 million ($6.5 million) bond after a brief court appearance on Monday.



The county coroner said all three bodies were "very decomposed" and as a result autopsies were unable to determine the cause of death.



One victim was identified: Angela Deskins, 38.



It's the third recent high-profile case in the Cleveland area that involves missing women.

In May, three women who separately vanished about a decade ago were found captive in a run-down house. Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, has been charged with nearly 1000 counts of kidnap, rape and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.

Castro is accused of repeatedly restraining the women, sometimes chaining them to a pole in a basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. The charges say one of the women tried to escape and he assaulted her with a vacuum cord around her neck. He also fathered a daughter with one captive, authorities said.

In 2009, Sowell was arrested after a woman escaped from his house and said she had been raped there. Police found the mostly nude bodies of 11 women throughout the home.

Sowell's victims ranged in age from 24 to 52, all were recovering or current drug addicts and most died of strangulation; some had been decapitated, and others were so badly decomposed that coroners couldn't say with certainty how they died.

He was found guilty in 2011 and sentenced to death.

- With AP