Cleveland ? Six women whose badly decomposed bodies were found at the home of a convicted rapist were all victims of homicide, the coroner’s office said Sunday.

At least five of the women apparently had been strangled, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how the sixth died, he said.

The bodies “could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years,” Caesar said.

None of the victims has been identified, Caesar said. Two were black, but the race of the others hadn’t been determined, he said.

Anthony Sowell, a 50-year-old registered sex offender, was arrested Saturday when officers spotted him walking down the street of his east-side neighborhood. Court records and jail officials had no information about whether he had an attorney. No charges have been filed regarding the bodies.

The first bodies were found Thursday night when police went to Sowell’s home to arrest him on new charges of rape and felonious assault, but he wasn’t there. The woman in that alleged attack survived. She said she knew Sowell and was raped at the house.