James Bennett, 41, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was found buried beneath the basement floor of a home on West 49th Street in Cleveland’s Brookside neighborhood; his body was recovered on February 22, 2022. The Cleveland Division of Police’s Homicide Unit opened the investigation after receiving a tip that an inmate at the Cuyahoga County Correction Center had killed a man and buried the body in that residence. Officers executed a search warrant at the 4000 block of West 49th Street around 1 p.m., and Cleveland firefighters assisted with a difficult excavation in which investigators in hazmat suits used shovels to recover the remains.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner identified the victim as James Bennett and ruled the death a homicide, finding gunshot wounds to the head and chest. The inmate named in the tip, 28-year-old Andrew Douglas Smith, was already in custody on an unrelated matter when Bennett’s body was located and was later charged with aggravated murder, a first-degree felony. Does anyone who lived in or near Brookside in February 2022 have information about activity at the 4000 block of West 49th Street?