Angela Deskins: Family Had Been Desperately Searching For East Cleveland Murder Victim

Angela Deskins had been missing since June 7 and family members were frantically searching the East Cleveland neighborhood where she went missing, but this week their worst fears were realized.

Deskins was the first victim identified in the East Cleveland killings, in which the bodies of three women were found wrapped in plastic bags in three nearby locations. Police continued to search on Sunday but found no additional victims.

Autopsies were completed on all three victims, but Angela Deskins was the first to be identified. Medical examiners were able to match her fingerprints, and are looking at the tattoos of another victim in the hopes if ID’ing her.

Deskins was reported missing in early July, a missing persons report with the Cleveland police found.

He brother, Jermaine Padgette, posted pictures of Angela on his Facebook page, asking people for help in locating her.

“My sister might be missing y’all,” Padgette wrote. He later added that he tried looking for his sister, but had no look.

Police have arrested 35-year-old Michael Madison, a registered sex offender, and charged him with three counts of kidnapping and aggravated murder. He graduated from Euclid High School in 1996, the same year as Angela Deskins.

“I miss my sister so much,” Padgette said hours after he learned she had been killed. “I’m hurt help me.”

There were few details about the life of Angela Deskins, but police records show she had also been reported missing by family members in 2009. She also faced a misdemeanor drug charge for having a small amount of marijuana, and had a warrant for her arrest when she did not show in court.

Friends said Deskins had become homeless, but was well liked and a fixture in the East Cleveland neighborhood where she would be found dead.

“She was quiet, but she had her little goofy moment, and every time I had seen her, she was by herself, like a loner,” friend Michael Pritchett said.

Madison, the man accused of killing Angela Deskins, was a known drug dealer in the area, Pritchett added.