Disappearance of Susan Powell

For other people named Susan Powell, see Susan Powell.

West Valley City, Utah

Graham, Washington

The Powells lived in West Valley City when Susan disappeared in 2009. Josh Powell killed himself and their children in Graham in 2012.

Susan Cox Powell is an American woman missing from West Valley City, Utah, and last seen on December 6, 2009. Her disappearance has garnered national press attention, and police investigation is ongoing as of February 2012. Significant public scrutiny focused on her husband, Josh Powell, who was considered a person of interest in the investigation.

In late 2011 Josh lost custody of the couple's two young children shortly after his father, who was living with Josh and the children, was arrested on voyeurism and child pornography charges. During a supervised visit with his children on February 5, 2012, Josh locked out the social worker, took a hatchet to his children, and killed himself and his children by setting his home on fire, using gasoline as an accelerant.

Disappearance

At first, the entire Powell family—Susan (then 28 years old), her husband Josh Powell, and their sons Charlie and Braden (ages 4 and 2)—were reported missing on Monday, December 7, 2009, by family members. Josh Powell's mother and sister went looking for the family at their home in West Valley City, a suburb of Salt Lake City, shortly after being informed that the children had not been dropped off at daycare that morning. They called the police when they failed to make contact with Josh and Susan. The police entered the home and found no one inside.

Later that day, at about 5 pm, Josh Powell returned home with the two children but without Susan. He asserted that he left his sleeping wife at their home at about 12:30 am on December 7, to take the children on a camping trip on that snowy night to Simpson Springs Campground in western Utah. Susan Powell didn't show up at her job at Wells Fargo Financial on December 7; her purse, cell phone, and car all were left behind at home; and she never contacted the police or anyone else that the police knew about.

Investigation

Police and neighbors labeled Susan's disappearance "suspicious" and authorities began investigating. Authorities searched the Powell home on December 9, removing some items.

Police interviewed Josh Powell and their 4-year-old son, and the child confirmed that the camping trip took place as described by Josh. The parents of Susan Powell said that while at day care several months after Susan's disappearance, Braden drew a picture of a van with three people in it, and told caregivers that "Mommy was in the trunk."

McLachlan initially told the media that authorities planned to re-question Josh Powell. Police have also subpoenaed all footage and interviews, aired and unaired, of Josh Powell from local television stations. By December 24, the police considered Josh Powell to be a person of interest in the investigation. On December 14, Josh Powell retained an attorney in connection with the investigation, and police have said that he grew increasingly uncooperative with the investigation.

On December 28, 2009, the search warrants in Susan Cox Powell's case were sealed by a judge.

Developments in 2010–2011

In January 2010, Josh Powell moved to Puyallup, Washington, where he occupied a home with his sons and father, Steve Powell, and indicated that he would rent the house in Utah. It was reported that he returned to his hometown of Puyallup after he had lost his job.

In early 2010, the website SusanPowell.org was established. Described as "the official website of Susan Powell," the site's anonymous entries describe Josh as a loving father and grieving husband who was the subject of a smear campaign by members of Susan's family, his sister Jennifer Graves, and the LDS Church to which Josh and Susan belonged. Additional pages on the site suggest that Susan's disappearance might be connected to the disappearance of Utahan Steven Koecher, an erstwhile Salt Lake Tribune contributor who vanished the same week as Susan. According to Salt Lake City news sources, the website was "widely believed to be written by Josh and his father".

In late 2010, Josh and Steven Powell claimed that Susan had abandoned her family due to mental illness, and also that she had left with another man. Susan's family rejected these claims as being unsupported by any evidence.

The Facebook page for Susan Cox Powell was taken down for technical and identity-verification reasons on January 30-31, 2010. The page was subsequently re-established, and has over 45,000 members as of early 2010.

On September 14, 2011, Utah authorities discovered what they believed might have been a grave site and human remains while searching Topaz Mountain, a desert area near Nephi, Utah that Josh had frequented as a campsite. Excavation of the Topaz Mountain site found no human remains. There were signs of recent soil disturbance and shoveling, but after digging a few feet down police were unable to find any remains, in spite of careful sifting of the soil. Federal anthropologists also ruled out the possibility of the site being an ancient burial ground. Police continued to examine the site for a time, but offered no explanation as to why they previously announced the finding of remains, when none had actually been confirmed yet. Authorities said they were following a scent detected by their sniffer dogs.

Relationships between and within the Powell and Cox families had become increasingly hostile. After a police raid on their home in 2011, both Josh Powell and his father Steve spoke to major news outlets regarding journals that Susan had allegedly written, and about the relationship between Steve Powell and Susan. Steve Powell claimed that he and Susan had been falling in love prior to her disappearance, and he cited the content of the journals (written when Susan was a teen) as evidence to support his theory that she was mentally unstable and could have run away with another man. On September 23, 2011, a judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding Josh and Steven Powell from publishing any material from Susan's journals, ordering the pair to either return or destroy any journals already published.

On September 22, 2011, Steve Powell was arrested on charges of voyeurism and child pornography. Police say he had secretly videotaped numerous women and young girls, including Susan Powell. John Long, assistant Attorney General for Washington, said that Josh Powell was a "subject" in the child porn investigation. A friend of Steven Powell claimed that Steven was preoccupied with pornography and "was hung up on [Susan] sexually, it seemed." After Susan's disappearance, the friend reported Steven's apparent obsession with Susan to police.

Chuck Cox (Susan Cox Powell's father) filed for custody of Josh and Susan's children the day after Steve Powell was arrested. A Washington court eventually granted Cox temporary custody of the children. The court said that Josh would have to move out of his father's home if he wanted to regain custody of his children, so he rented a house in Graham, Washington, and maintained it like his home. However, authorities later alleged that he had never actually moved into that house, that he merely made it appear that he had satisfied the court's instructions while he continued to reside at his father's home.

In late September 2011, Josh Powell's sister, Jennifer Graves, stated that she believes Josh was "responsible for his wife's disappearance". His other sister, Alina, had been suspicious of him as well, however she later withdrew her suspicions and felt that he had been unduly harassed by the investigation.

By the end of September 2011, West Valley City had spent more than half a million dollars on the case. On September 28, 2011, Mayor Mike Winder indicated that he felt that the case was worth the expense. He said that "we feel that we are getting to that tipping point where we have more hot evidence than we have had in the past two years" and that the case was moving forward.

In December 2011, Dateline NBC aired an interview with Josh Powell, to mark the two-year anniversary of Susan's disappearance. Josh declared that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Death of Josh Powell and sons

On February 5, 2012, a social worker called 911 after bringing Braden and Charlie Powell to their father's house in Graham, Washington. The woman, who was supposed to monitor a supervised visit between Josh Powell and his children, said he grabbed the children and wouldn't let her in the door. Soon thereafter, the house exploded, killing Josh and the two children. Local authorities treated the case as a double murder-suicide, saying that the act appeared to have been deliberate.

After a relatively brief investigation, officials confirmed that the explosion had been deliberately planned. The official cause of death for Josh and the two boys was determined to be carbon monoxide poisoning, though the coroner also noted that both children had significant chopping injuries on the head and neck. A hatchet was recovered near Josh's body, indicating that he had attacked the boys with it before being overwhelmed by smoke and fumes. The fire investigation also found two five-gallon cans of gasoline on the premises, as well as evidence that gasoline had been spread throughout the house. Friends and relatives of Josh Powell told authorities that he had contacted them by email minutes before the incident to say "goodbye". Some of them, including his pastor, received instructions on finding his money and shutting off his utilities. Records also showed that Josh had withdrawn $7,000 from his bank account and had donated his children's toys and books to local charities the day before the incident.

The day after the explosion, officials released a statement saying that a comforter had been found in a storage unit Powell had been renting in Tacoma, Washington. The comforter reportedly had blood stains on it.

On February 8, 2012, authorities released recordings of the 911 calls from the social worker who had brought Josh's children to the house. In the first call, the social worker stated that Josh had had his children locked inside the home for ten minutes, that she was afraid for their safety, and that she smelled gas fumes. The dispatcher spent more than six minutes questioning the woman before sending a police deputy to the scene, saying "We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first." The dispatcher's handling of the call has prompted an investigation, though authorities agreed that there was little they could have done to save the boys even if a deputy had been dispatched sooner.

One week later, following the funeral for Charlie and Braden Powell, the Powell family attempted to purchase a burial plot for Josh that would have been next to his children. When the plots were determined to be unsuitable due to water pipes buried in the soil, the Powells requested a spot about 25 feet away from the boys. The Cox family threatened legal action to prevent this, and their attorney requested a temporary injunction to stop the sale of the plot. The Pierce County CrimeStoppers organization also purchased the plots next to the boys and requested donations to turn them into a memorial. The Powell family later retracted their request.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Susan Cox Powell Update : Husband Kills Himself and Kids In House Explosion
• Facebook Group - Official Friends and Family of Susan Powell Facebook Group
• YouTube Channel - Collection of News Clips and Slideshows
• SusanCoxPowell.info - Information site with updates, photos, videos, etc.