A man who lived among the rotting remains of 11 women faces a possible death sentence after he was convicted of killing all of them.

The case has haunted Cleveland, Ohio, ever since the bodies were unearthed from a house that smelled like death.

Before the bodies were found, a nearby sausage shop was thought to the source of the lingering stench of rotting meat, as many neighbours had believed.

The family-owned shop had spent £12,000 on plumbing fixtures, sewer lines and grease traps in futile attempts to get rid of the odour.

But yesterday Anthony Sowell, 51, was convicted of aggravated murder, kidnapping, tampering with evidence and abuse of a human corpse in the 11 deaths.

"We do deserve this justice," said Denise Hunter, whose sister Amelda was found buried in Sowell's back garden in plastic rubbish bags.

"I'm so glad that finally all of our families can rest assured - and all of our loved ones can rest assured - that peace has come to our families."

When Sowell was convicted of murdering Tonia Carmichael, who was strangled with an electrical charger, her mother and daughter clung to each other and wept as they rocked back and forth in the front row of the court.

The jury deliberated for just over 15 hours before announcing the verdicts.

Sowell closed his lips tightly, looked straight ahead and barely moved as the first aggravated murder verdict was read before deputies immediately handcuffed him. Then he sat down, his chest heaving as he pushed himself back in the chair.

Most jurors avoided looking at Sowell while the judge read the verdicts. Two jurors wiped away tears and others swivelled in their chairs to look at sobbing relatives of his victims.

When the jury left the room, Sowell raised his clasped, cuffed hands high in the air.

None of the lawyers commented afterwards because a gagging order remains in place until after Sowell is sentenced. The sentencing phase will begin on August 1.

The discovery of the bodies was an embarrassment for the city's police force, which was accused by victims' families of failing to properly investigate the disappearances because most of the women were addicted to drugs and lived in an impoverished neighbourhood.

In the wake of public outrage over the murders, a panel formed by the mayor recommended a complete overhaul of the city's handling of missing person and sex crime investigations.

Several victims' families filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city last year.

Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson's niece, Lori Frazier, was Sowell's ex-girlfriend and gave evidence during the trial. Mr Jackson said in a statement yesterday that he hoped the verdict brought closure for the victims' families.

The jury sat through weeks of disturbing and emotional testimony as the prosecution made its case against Sowell. They saw photographs of the victims' blackened, skeletal corpses and listened to police describe how their bodies had been left to rot in Sowell's home and garden.

The women began disappearing in 2007, and prosecutors say Sowell lured them to his home with the promise of alcohol or drugs. Police discovered the first two bodies and a freshly-dug grave in late 2009 after officers went to investigate a woman's report that she had been raped there.

Many of the women found in Sowell's home had been missing for weeks or months, and some had criminal records. They were disposed of in rubbish bags and plastic sheets, then dumped in various parts of the house and garden. All that remained of one victim, Leshanda Long, was her skull, which was found in a bucket in the basement.

Most of the victims were nude from the waist down, strangled with household objects and had traces of cocaine or depressants in their systems.

All of the victims were black, as is Sowell. He was cleared of only one charge in the 83-count indictment: aggravated robbery connected to one of the women he was convicted of attacking.

Sowell was also convicted of rape, attempted murder, kidnapping and felonious assault in attacks on two other women who survived. He was convicted of attempted murder, attempted rape, kidnapping and felonious assault in an attack on a third woman who also survived.

During the trial, several women gave gruelling testimony of alleged attacks by Sowell, telling the court how they had managed to escape. One woman, who said she was raped by Sowell, testified that she had seen a headless body in his home.

Sowell told detectives during the interrogation about "blackouts" and "nightmares" in which he would hurt women with his hands.

He told detectives that he began losing control of his anger about the time the victims started disappearing.