Rotten Mango - #114: The Creepy Father In Law Diaries (Case of Susan & Josh Powell)

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

He wrote in his diary everyday about his love and desire for Susan. He took hundreds of pictures of Susan - of her getting dressed, eating cereal, using the restroom, even shopping at Costco. Her husband was no good for her. They were not in love. Not like the way he and Susan were in love. You probably guessed it but Susan had no idea that he was in love with her. And she definitely wasn’t interested in dating her father-in-law. When Susan went missing - all his creepy secrets would be exposed. But you know what they say - like father like son. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Peloton app available through free tier or paid subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Butter being butterboot. Welcome to this week's mini-sode, Rotten Mango. I'm your host, Stephanie Sue, and let's just jump right into it. He would write in his journal every single day about the love that he had for Susan. No, he was not a teenager in high school, he was a middle aged man.

But what is going to set off that past shent that he has for the woman of his dreams? He wrote about his desire about how his falling in love with her was his greatest problem, but also his greatest pleasure, okay? He wrote about how he took hundreds of pictures of Susan without her consent, getting dressed, partially naked, putting on makeup, eating a bowl of cereal, inserting a tampon, shopping at Costco. He would secretly record her just doing daily activities and he would re-watch them while masturbating. He also photoshopped her face onto other naked bodies. Sometimes he would steal her underwear. But most of his writings were that he was upset.

Susan doesn't love him back. He would say, I'm in so much pain right now. I don't even know where to turn it. I spoke to my daughter who has been very supportive of my infatuation. Her advice is to accept that Susan is a player and this is what players do. They lead guys on. Besides, why wouldn't Susan love me? Her marriage to Josh is a match made in hell, truly.

I mean, it's hard to believe that two people could be so nasty to each other. In public, short, they look like a lovely couple, but in private, they had no respect for each other. Very little love. I just wish that Susan would be a good wife to Josh. But also to me, her father-in-law. He knew that Susan liked him back, but because of her Mormon religion, their flirtatious relationship

could never be out in the open. Now Susan had no idea, her father-in-law was stalking her, nor was she interested, but she did know that something was wrong, because deep inside a bank that she worked at, where there's rows and rows and rows of safety deposit boxes, filled with valuables, documents, and definitely secrets. Susan had a tiny piece of paper hidden within a vault, and it read, if I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one. Take care of my boys. She wrote that? Yes. As always, full source notes are available at rottonmangopodcast.com, but there's two really good books on this case.

The first one is If I Can't Have You by Greg Olson and Rebecca Morris. Now I love Greg Olson, okay I am one of his biggest fans I tell you. He wrote one of the best books I've read all year which is if you tell another true crime book. I highly recommend checking out all of his stuff. He does meticulous research interviews. He's got just a way of writing that makes you feel like, oh my god, this is too much. Like, what do I do? There's also another book on this case that is The More of the Intense Read Part. It's called A Light and Dark Places by Jennifer Graves. This is written by the sister-in-law of the victim. Not the sister, but the sister-in-law. It gets insanely personal. There's a ton of family dynamics at play that I don't really

include in this episode because it just felt like I was reading a diary at one point. It's really raw. It's really eye-opening. I recommend both of those books. But let's jump into the story. Let's get into all of the characters at play because there's a lot of people involved. The first is Susan Cox. Now, her childhood, she was born to parents mom, Judy, her name is Judy, dad, Chuck. I believe Charles, but they call him Chuck. She was born in New Mexico and she lived on the edge of the desert. So they really did not get a lot of visitors. They didn't really go out all the time, but they loved every second of it.

And then because of Chuck's job, they start moving around a lot. Alaska, Vancouver, Washington. That's where they finally settled down in Washington, where Chuck was an investigator for the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. So he would investigate the crash sites of planes, trying to get to the bottom of what's going on, what happened? Always raised the family super religious. They were all Mormons, and they wanted all their kids to be Mormons, so they had four

kids. They had the oldest Mary. She was the responsible one She kept track of everything and everyone including her younger sisters. We had Denise She was kind of like the black sheep of the family. She was the troublemaker. She liked experimenting with things She was spontaneous. We had Susan who was described to be a big dreamer Just someone who's always optimistic Wanted to see the good and everyone and everything, and then we had Marie who was the youngest, the baby of the family. So out of the four,

Denise and Susan were the closest. They bonded over the fact that they loved animals, especially birds. At one point they somehow convinced their parents to get them pet birds, and their bird family grew so much that they had 27 parakeets, finches, and a cockatoo in their room at one time. They had to clean their cages twice a day and even formed like a bird club at school called the bird club. It's a very, very different name I would have never guessed. They were going to grow up one day and become dog groomers and they would name their

shop beauty and your beast So Susan really showed a lot of support to Denise even when Denise was older She was always still the one getting in trouble and Susan would back her up when Denise gets pregnant at the age of 18 years old And her family super religious mind you. They're not really happy with this Denise was so sad like my parents don't want me to have this baby Like I don't know what to do and Susan was the only one that's sitting there like why can't wait to be an aunt I can't wait to be the best on ever. I'm gonna be the coolest. I'm gonna shower your baby with love and even through all of that The Cox family. I mean they were just super tight knit

They were the type that believed as long as they had each other and their faith Everything else would work out. There's nothing that those two can't solve and with that Susan was raised pretty conservative. I think maybe traditional is the better word. I mean I would show later in life She would put her children and marriage above everything else Including herself. She was known to be dependable polite Just respectable anywhere she went. She had no trouble making friends. None at all.

Eventually, she became a hairdresser and she was very successful. Well, not in the beginning. So when she was going through cosmetology school, her sisters remember that they were always the practice dummies and they would genuinely run away from Susan, holding their hands over their hair like, don't cut by here. And eventually, they all kind of grow up. Susan grows up, she moves to Utah where she's not licensed as a hairdresser.

She no longer practices, but that wasn't even the rough part. I think it was just rough that all of Susan's family wasn't in Utah. They were all in Washington. And Denise specifically was heartbroken. She said they went from talking every single day, hanging out all the time to maybe talking once a month on the phone, and it just felt one sided.

Denise would tell Susan everything. She'd be like, okay, so this is what happened today, tomorrow I'm doing this. And Susan just never really opened up. Why did she move there just for opportunities? For her husband. We're going to get into him, okay? So Susan never really opened up about her married life or anything in Utah With Susan uninterested and having a sibling relationship with Denise now that she's married is Susan hiding something

I mean these are all things that Denise was thinking like what's going on right now But we later find out it's because her new husband Josh was listening on all of her phone calls Oh boy, so let's talk about Josh Powell. This is a case that is probably one of the most famous missing person's cases in US history, just like it of all time in the United States. Really? I've talked about this briefly before, but this is like a deep dive.

No one here is a deep dive as those books, but I tell you, we're gonna get into the thick of things. So Josh Powell's childhood. He was born in a Spokane, Washington. I'm butchering that. His dad's name is Steve. These are gonna be very important people later, so we've got Steve. His mom is Terry and he had a ton of siblings. So Jennifer is the oldest. She becomes important later. She is the one that writes a book. Then we have Josh, Johnny, Mike, and Alina. Now they were the opposite of the Cox family. They had a ton of problems that they either couldn't or really didn't want to fix. So Steven Terry, the parents, they

had gotten married super young. I'm talking like 18 23 years old. So Terry's 18, Steve is 23. They hit it off. They're both Mormon. They love being outside. They love reading. And Terry really felt for Steve's childhood. When he was a kid, when Josh's dad was a kid, he was kidnapped by his own dad. And his parents were going through this like really rough patch. And Steve's dad came all the way out of state to talk to his wife. Steve's mom and it's like, hey, let's get back together.

But when she wasn't paying attention, he snatched a ball four of the kids and left. Took them out of the state, had them raised by his mom. So Steve is raised by his grandparents. Anytime he would ask, hey, grandma, where's my mom? Should respond, oh, you're never going to see her again. One time Steve told a classmate that he had been kidnapped by his dad and his grandparents. And he came home, he was forced to stick out his tongue,

and they poured cayenne pepper all over it, and rubbed it back and forth, and forced him to stand in a corner without any water or milk. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's worse, this is straight torture. You know back in the day they used to do soap when you curse? I think it's like washing your mouth out with soap,

it's really bad. So within two and a half years of being mouth out with soap, it's really bad. So within two and a half years of being married, Steve and Terry, they have three kids. Terry suffers a miscarriage, Terry's busy taking care of the kids. Steve is working these overnight shifts at a grocery store. I mean, they had intense financial stress in burden. Steve also had some strange habits that Terry just couldn't really shake off. He had an obsession with porn.

He would sneak around to these adult bookstores to masturbate. This is before the internet. So he would have to go and look at these porn magazines and he would just masturbate in public. Terry would even find some of these porn magazines in their seven year old son's room. And so she asked Steve, did you give this to him because that's inappropriate what the heck and he just said well we're all just animals anyway we got to have sex with anyone anytime we please what so they start fighting a lot just bickering slowly gets worse and worse the kids were seeing them fighting practically every single day and by the time that Josh is a teenager the parents just have a bitter divorce.

I think that there wasn't a way for it to not be bitter, because when Terry was pregnant with their last baby, Alina, she had found a diary. The diary was in her husband's writing, and it was all about his super intense sexual fantasies about other women that they both knew as a couple. And this is crazy. I mean, I saw Reddit post of a very similar situation where a woman was like, hey, I found these like diaries and this guy is writing about our neighbor,

like our mutual friend and like, our sex fantasies, this is my husband, by the way. So go looking for diaries, okay, if you're in a relationship, just dig everywhere, find that. So that woman posted on Reddit. Yeah, like anonymously. And people were like, that is not okay. It's one thing to like fantasize, I guess, and just do your own thing, but like,

people that you know really, like your your kids kindergarten teacher, that's an appropriate, that's weird. I would feel I would break up with you. Yeah, how do you feel about diary? Diaries? Oh, I always try to have one because I want to be a main character But I like my hand starts cramping and I feel like my thoughts are coming out faster than my hand is writing But then also it's like the little feeling of what is someone reads my diary? So I don't put in like all the personal stuff. I keep that for my brain. I'm like today. I get a chicken sandwich. Sheer a diary Today, I hate a chicken sandwich. Exactly. I'm a really deep person. Very emotional, okay. He even talked about this one woman and said that if her husband dies,

I would step up and be the man and marry her. Did you already married with kids? Steve even wrote a song about this woman. So of course, Terry is shocked. Before getting married, Steve was kind and caring, and now that they're married, he's controlling self-centered, verbally abusive, condescending, and this is just, this is weird. The final straw was when she realized that the older son's Josh and Johnny were picking up Steve's habits and personalities. Both of the boys started physically pushing their mom and hitting her.

Josh even threatened to kill her with a knife at one point. So she's thinking, okay, something is weird. Steve would even encourage Josh to mock and insult his own mother. Like what kind of relationship is this? What kind of family dynamic is this? So Terry files for divorce. She tries to get custody of the kids.

Now Jennifer, who is old enough to realize what her dad was doing to their mom, she's immediately on Terry's side. She's like absolutely not, I don't stand for dad, I stand for you mom, I support you. Then she goes with Terry. Josh and Johnny, they're already super influenced by their dad. They thought he was the coolest. They wanted to be just like him when they grew up, so they side with Steve. Now we've got the two younger kids, we've got Mike and Alina, and they were just caught

in the middle of all of this. They were who the parents were fighting for, and Terry fought hard, because the more she realized, the more alarming stories started to come out from the family. One time, Alina had said that the older brothers had hurt her, so much that she ended up with Bruce Rips. Alina would tell Terry, her so much that she ended up with bruise ribs. Alina would tell Terry, her mom, that she was terrified to be left alone with Steve and the older brothers. Terry told the courts that Alina had stated to her, Josh and Johnny had examined Alina with

her panties off when she was only four years old. Whenever Steve had the kids and Terry wasn't around, really gross stuff started happening. Steve would just show all of his kids no matter what their age They would just sit in the living room and yes, Hillside Stranglers you guessed it. They would just watch porn They would just sit there and watch porn like it's a Nickelodeon show Like a Disney Channel wanted to all wanted all the kids to have porn in their rooms I don't know why he's like you got to have a little bookshelf of porn He went all anti-mormon and he would go on

these brands, these speeches about how much he hates Mormonism. He said that the police and the FBI suck. We should hate all of them and you should be a loner. You shouldn't have any friends. I thought he is Mormon. No, he hates it now. He turned, he renounced his religion. And he said, uh, don't have any friends, because being socially isolated is artistic. Little bizarre. Steve would force his two youngest kids, Mike and Alina, to share his bed with him. Now, this is later a very alarming because Steve gets arrested for a possession of child pornography. Alina heartbreakingly told her mom one day, Mom, I know that daddy and the boys really don't hate me.

They just act like they hate me. I know that in their hearts, they really love me, and someday they're gonna act like they love me. That's so depressing, that's so sad. So even after the divorce, Terry had one primary custody of the younger kids. The main problem was that she was broke. She didn't really have time for the kids after the divorce.

Remember, she was 18 when they got married. She never really worked. She was a stay-at-home mom. She doesn't have like this resume to go around. I mean, she doesn't even know how to make money, honestly. Steve, on the other hand, had a full-time job. So he would take the kids more often than he was allowed, and he constantly rubbed it into Terry's face about how much money he had. How he would buy Mike and Alina any toy that they wanted to

Bride them he would buy them any food that they wanted there were no rules at his place his favorite saying to the kids was do anything you want What the kids would constantly complain to Terry? Why do you have so many rules at your house? Why don't you buy us this food? Why don't you get us this toy? Daddy got us this toy? Why don't you buy this toy? So eventually, I mean, it wasn't really Terry's toys, but it just kind of happened Mike and Alina start living with their dad. So back to Josh. With that rough childhood, at just 16 years old, Josh tries to hang himself. Now, there's not a lot of details on what caused him to do this or the aftermath. I think the Powell family tried to bury the memory and move on, which I mean I guess that makes sense, but we don't really know if he got therapy or if he was treated for

this. Then things only start getting worse. So Josh and Johnny, I mean they are the trouble duo. They start getting into trouble with the law. They start stealing. Josh was suspected of arson. So by the time that Johnny is in his early 20s, he started experiencing hallucinations.

So they take him to the doctor, and he's diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He had even killed Alina's pet gerbil on purpose. I don't know, okay? It's just kind of insinuated that it was on purpose, but Steve thought it was hilarious and did not discipline him. I was like, uh-huh, Johnny, it's a good one. Josh thought it was okay, because his dad said it was on purpose, but Steve thought it was hilarious and did not discipline him. I was like, haha, Johnny, it's a good one. Josh thought it was okay because his dad said it was, really idolized him, soaked up all of his hate-filled rants. You know, they just were living this crazy life.

So Josh is 24 years old when he meets 19 year old Susan at a Latter-day Saints singles event, like a Mormon event. Now Josh is not really religious. He is obsessed with his dad, Steve, who now hates Mormonism, who has turned his back on Mormonism. He did not care for it, but Josh felt like this is the perfect place to meet someone who's young, traditional, but also probably submissive. So, he meets Susan and they hit it off. Now everyone hated this combination.

But they just didn't understand it. Like why? Josh is loud, he's obnoxious, he's self-centered, he's ego-tistical, all he does. He will literally insert himself into conversations and just loudly brag about stuff like, you're like, why are you, that's not even something you should brag about. If anything, you should be embarrassed that you did that, why are you bragging about it? And Susan, she was just this fun person to be around. In a good way.

She was loud, she had a big personality. Why? Why are they dating? What does she see in him? Maybe Susan was attracted to the fact that Josh was, um, he's out there. He's always out there. He had these big plans for the future. Might I add a different plan every single week to be exact? But he had these massive plans for the future might I add a different plan every single week to be exact

but he had these like massive plans for the future and Susan's parents hated this. Not only did they hate his finiciness but they also hated the fact that Joshua tried to date Susan's older sister Mary before. Let me tell you, on prom night Mary's getting ready or is her knock on the door. Is Josh Powell? They had known each other from church and stuff. Josh says, well, I would like to take you to prom. Mary's like, what are you talking about? I'm getting ready for prom right now and I have a date. You didn't even if you had asked me months ago when my date asked me out, I said no. But like, what? What? But he just didn't care. He walked straight past the door,

plops onto the living room couch, and for hours, it's just talking, waiting to take Mary to prom, talking about the weather, talking about everything. And Chuck the dad was like, you need to go. You need to go, young dude. You need to go now. And Josh did not listen. He sat there and continued talking. I think both the parents were so shocked.

They had never seen anything like this before that they really didn't know how to respond. They're like, what? So of course when the parents found out that their daughter Susan is now willingly dating this guy, I mean they try to convince her out of it. Even Mary the older sister gets involved. Keeps telling Susan like he's a creep. This is a bad idea. I don't know what's wrong with him. You need to date a lot more people. You've got it made. You're a pretty girl.

You're smart. You know what you want. You make friends. You enjoy yourself. You could have so much fun. Susan would always respond. But I like him. And I'm having fun.

I'm making a ton of friends right now. And Josh just happens to be one of them. So things start getting serious. And Josh decides it's time to propose. He wants Chuck's blessing first. And he went to get it and Chuck sat there and truly grilled him. What kind of life are you going to give my daughter, huh? And the worst part of it is that on paper, Josh was fine.

He had a job, he had an apartment, He was going to college for a business degree. So it, I mean, he made sense if you didn't know who he was. So the cox parents felt like some things off, but what can we do? What can we even tell Susan? How can we tell Susan? We said no. Because there's no real reason other than this feeling that they had. So they had to give Josh their blessing. So April of 2001, there's set to be married the Cox parents and the Powell parents they finally meet And this is what Chuck had to say about Steve Steve likes to talk

I don't really like being bombarded by someone who thinks that they know everything when they don't really know anything I didn't make an effort to talk to him and they never made an effort to talk to us Even for the wedding it it was a show. The cox parents were going to be paying for a majority of the wedding. The power family, they were going to pay for a lunch before the wedding. So the lunch was a little for a hundred dollars and Steve was heard by the whole family, loudly complaining. What the hell do I have to pay?

The cox parents were so groused out they wanted to get up from their table, they wanted to confront him. Hey, maybe you'd like to play for the wedding. We can split it because that's thousands of dollars that we're paying. Yours is a little over a hundred dollars and you're complaining. The only reason that they didn't do this is because they didn't want to embarrass Susan. So Steve and all of his kids except for Jennifer Graves, they didn't go to the wedding. Because it was a Mormon wedding.

They're like, we're not Mormons anymore. Jennifer Graves went, she supported them, and after the wedding they had this little get together with a ton of the family members there. And Susan and her mom had overheard Josh just doing weird things with his dad. Just weird things. They had overheard a conversation. Steve and Josh were talking, and Steve had looked at Josh and said, well, she's not a lawyer or a doctor, but she'll do.

What? So Judy was like, Susan, what are they saying about you? What does that mean? Oh, mom, I know what it means. I think it means that I'm not going to make big money, but I'm going to do well enough that Josh doesn't have to work. What? Chuck Susan's dad was even more worried for his daughter during their little get together when he realized that Alina, the youngest of the power family, was less of a daughter and more like a servant to her dad and brothers. He said that it feels like she doesn't have a mind of her own.

Just does whatever they say Like the biggest ref like yeah Like this ever get before marriage and then in another conversation that the family overheard Steve told told his son Josh Hey, you know Josh. She's gonna divorce you one day So we're really weird thing to say or just doesn't make any sense But Susan and Josh their love was strong and after their wedding they move in together, Susan's a hairstylist, she loves her job. Josh is working at the same company as his dad selling office furniture, but for two

years they've lived in utter bliss. Even on Valentine's Day, Susan wrote Josh a love letter. Reasons why I love you. It's a handwritten five-page letter with 132 reasons. Number one, you want to talk about irrelevant topics until you've resolved the issues of the world. Two, you want children. Three, you show affection in public.

Four, you don't care what others think. Five, you love my family, get together parties. You watch friends with me for hours. You can be patient. You calculate everything. Susan was clearly in love. I mean, her parents were still not convinced. They just thought, he's odd.

He's got no social cues. He's a hard time empathizing with people. Something just feels really, really off about him. So they were really not happy when they found out that Susan and Josh were planning to move in with Steve for a while. Because they had to save money to buy their own house. Now Steve's house is not a big house, and the couple were going to be sleeping in the dining room with a curtain hanging for privacy, so it's not very private at all. Now Susan hated the Johnny lived there.

She did not like Josh's younger brother Johnny. She thought he was weird. Steven Alina would call him an artist, an artist. But his walls in his room, at 33 years old, were filled with nooses hanging on the walls, and drawings of women with knives running up of a vagina and coming out of the stomach, like futilely did women. And his dad and his younger sisters said,

well, that's just what artists do. You know, artist. She was like, okay, that's fine. I just won't go to his room. But something else started happening. Susan Katzdi, watching her get undressed. Mind you, she's only 21 at this point, he's 53. This is also her father-in-law.

He's just always home, always lurking around. But maybe she's overthinking it. Maybe he was gonna walk into their room but then saw that she was getting undressed and then they just made awkward eye cuts. Maybe that's what happened. I think she would have skedaddled out of there in two minutes if she had seen what he was writing in his journals about his crazy desire for her, about how he was falling in love with her and it was his greatest problem, but also his greatest pleasure in life.

If she had seen the stacks of hundreds of pictures he took of Susan without her consent, inserting a tampon, eating a bowl of cereal, putting on makeup, partially naked, getting dressed, shopping at Costco. At Josh's graduation for college, which a side note, he never graduated college, but he went to the graduation. So he didn't get a diploma, but he showed up.

There was a home video made by Steve, so he's behind on the camera, and pretty much the whole footage is just him up and down Susan's body. The camera literally moving up and down her body. He would secretly record her doing daily activities, and he would masturbate to them. He also would photoshop her face onto other naked women's bodies. Sometimes he would steal her underwear. But in 2003, there was a massive shift in his writing. He was so upset.

He just wanted Susan to love her back. He didn't understand how Susan could be with someone like Josh. Susan needed to be with him. And he felt like Susan liked him. There was just so many signals. It's because of our religion though that she's not telling him straight up. Now, you're probably thinking what I'm thinking. Susan had no idea.

Yeah, she really didn't. Nor was she interested at all. She genuinely thought Steve was creepy. And in 2003, Steve confesses his love for her and tries to grow her and kiss her. I mean, she ran for the hills. She ran straight to Josh and was like, we need to move out immediately, like, no if and or buts, like word leaving.

When they did, Steve just retreated to his little journal and wrote, today has been an emotionally sick day, knowing that Susan will never be coming here ever again. I'm just so sad. Later, there would be nothing written in the journals about her disappearance. In 2003, the couple also decided to move to Utah to start a new life. So Jennifer Graves, Josh's oldest sister, had moved to Utah and so had Josh's mom. So they thought, well, we've got some family there.

Let's just move in with them and start a new life. So for the first three months of Utah, they stayed with Jennifer. Now, Jennifer noticed that their honeymoon phase had completely died out. She actually saw that her brother was pretty controlling a Susan. Susan was not that interested in him anymore. They didn't even really talk to each other. They would give each other very short responses. They were constantly fighting, yelling at each other. One point of contention in the relationship was that Josh had hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt.

But he had no degree. He quit before he got his degree. So he couldn't hold down a job not even longer than a month at most. It was a few weeks. So that's not just saying like you can't find a job that's saying like your work ethic is not there. Which is infuriating. And Susan is paying off this debt because she's married to him

And she's working her butt off and she's upset like can you put in as much effort as I'm doing? But Josh would always say I'm doing everything I can and he would get fired because he was a smart-ass He pretended to know way more than the employers or the company Anytime he got hired in a new place He would complain that the company is outdated and he would tell this to his boss hired in a new place, he would complain that the company is outdated and he would tell this to his boss. Like not even in his thoughts or I don't know to a friend, but he would say, yeah, this company sucks.

We need to buy all new computers for all the employees. We need to have Macbooks, okay? Like come on, get with the times. You guys are so outdated. You guys are too traditional. I mean, you got to be innovative. Take a student though. Yeah.

He always overestimated his own abilities, thought that he was irreplaceable. And so, I mean, at that point, you're just begging to be replaced. Like, you're just begging. The bunch boss is just itching to get rid of you. So Susan is like, you gotta get your stuff together. What's going on?

He even applied for them to get alone for a three bedroom house, right before he knew he was gonna get fired. Like, he house right before he knew he was going to get fired. Like he knew, and it's hard that he was about to get fired. So he applied right before that happened. The bank approved. They closed on the house. And then he got fired.

Now Susan felt really uncomfortable and any time she tried to tell Josh, she would just say, are you kidding? I just made us homeowners. Yeah, homeowners for a mortgage that Susan would have to pay. He was obsessed with his house and he would brag to anybody that would listen, that they have the world's best sprinkler system, that their garden is state of the art innovation. And everyone was kind of annoyed because it seemed like Susan was doing all the work. They never saw him out in the garden. It was always Susan out in the garden

So why are you bragging about Susan's good jobs? They were 900 miles away from Steve the creepy father-in-law, but Susan would still be harassed by him She had gone out to her mailbox one day to open up a package It was like this thick envelope stuffed to the broom from Steve filled with pictures of Susan's favorite actor Mel Gibson Strange, but you know not not illegal not harassment quite yet That is my father and lost so she flips from picture to picture. It's like 20 pictures of Mel Gibson Then all of a sudden the naked man that she's never seen before just random naked men

Then the very last picture she flipped to was Steve taking a very seductive looking selfie. Now he wasn't nude, but it was very weird. Like he was like giving her those eyes and she was very creeped out. It felt criminal and disgusting. And she even told Jennifer, Steve's daughter, hey, your dad's creepy.

Jennifer was like, yeah, I know, I'm so sorry. So Jennifer and Susan had formed a really strong friendship and I think that Jennifer was, she had always been with her mom. So she knew how her dad was. She also knew what her brothers were like. So I think that she had this feeling of, I kind of feel bad for Susan, that she has to put up with my brother,

but I mean, she is in love at all. all I can do is be a good friend to her. For example when Susan and Josh were getting into fights Susan would call Jennifer like they were that close and in one instance Jennifer was really alarmed. Susan was fed up with Josh and she had hit him. Josh hit her back. Now Jennifer goes over there who said you think she's on? Jennifer. I mean, I mean, Susan. Even though Susan hit her brother first?

I mean, I assume she's gonna be on her side now. Yes. And she told Susan, don't ever hit Josh, because he will, and she didn't say that in like, I'm his sister, she didn't say that in like, because it's inappropriate, which it really is inappropriate, but Jennifer was looking out for Susan and said don't ever hit Josh again because he will always be stronger than you And you do not want to give him a reason to hate you So I think even Jennifer kind of knew in the back of her mind

I mean, I don't know if you guys have siblings, but I think it would take a lot for me to say something like that to my brother And you know, I think I'd be like, why, how dare you hit my sibling before I say, don't do that because, you know, she's wild. It's just, it's crazy. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No.

Who's going to catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers, and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all.

Did you consider yourself a rat? 100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Autosy Originals documentary, available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being a dirty mother f***er. So Josh and Susan, they go on to have two kids together. Their first was born January of 2005, Charlie, who was four years old at the time of Susan disappearance. And honestly, this whole birthing story is just wild. Josh was too busy on his computer to drive Susan to the hospital.

Her water had broke. She didn't know. She suspected that he was watching porn all the time, but he said he was quote unquote starting his own business. But like, can you start that later, dude? So she'd be like, I, my water broke, I'm having contractions, I need to go to the hospital right now. Now, thankfully, her parents had flown in from Washington and they were staying nearby,

right, so that they could be there for the birth. So they drove to the Powell House, picked up Susan, drove her to the hospital because Josh would not take her. He stayed on the computer. So they rushed her aside. Josh slowly makes his way to the hospital while his wife is in active labor and brought his computer with him, like his laptop. And she would be in so much pain, she would scream out for him, like, Josh, like, how may I get a die? Like, I'm in so much pain. And would scream out for him, like, Josh, like, how may I'm gonna die? Like, I'm in so much pain. And he wouldn't even glance up from his computer.

And then Steve was heartbroken when he heard the news. He wrote in his journal, I'm not unhappy that she's pregnant. I'm unhappy that Susan did not share the news with me. I kind of feel like an outsider. I was the last one to know. Josh called me not Susan. He wrote songs about Susan, about 50 songs to be exact.

One of them was titled, I said I love you, and the lyrics go something like this. I said I love you. Is that a crime? I love you so. So put me in jail. Yeah, you're gonna go to jail, Steve. So I guess that's manifestation on its best. Now they have another child, Braden, who's two years old at the time of the disappearance.

And I mean, Susan's parents were not happy when she had her second child. Her dad straight up asked her, you want to do this again with him? Like, why do you think that that's okay? I mean, they were getting very blunt with her. We don't like this guy. Even Susan's friends that she made at the Mormon church, she had a lot of friends. They were getting frustrated with her. What are you doing? I mean, your husband is just bizarre. He's off the wall. They would have this joint account. So Susan was the main breadwinner, and her friends knew this because Susan would complain about it. Susan made most of the money she paid all the bills, but she would put all of her money into that joint account, which by the way, he would change

the password for every single week, so at the time she just couldn't get in. He wouldn't let her have any money, he would take away any debit or credit cards, track to every single penny that she ever spent. He wouldn't even give her money to go by groceries or diapers. That's why she started a vegetable garden in the backyard. Which you're thinking, okay, well maybe they just don't have the money, they do have the money. Okay, that's a crazy thing. They do. Sometimes the only thing that Josh would let them eat were the vegetables in the garden and it was not enough. At one years old, the doctor said that Charlie is severely malnourished. Sometimes her friends would get that phone call around dinner time. Hello? Hey, it's Susan.

Can I borrow some hot dogs? The boys are hungry. I mean, they were just upset and confused by this. Not upset at Susan, but rather for Susan because you're the breadwinner. You run the house, you work all day, you come home, you cook dinner for Josh and the kids. Most of the day, Josh's unemployed lounges about on his 15 freaking computers that he has. What is he buy so many electronics? What is that? How many computers? What is he? Is that many computers? Yes, it's almost like a hoarder's house and there's a video of their house online that Susan had taken. So he buys a lot of things for himself? Yes, that's why I'm saying they do have the money.

But the more you even feed the kid. No, and Susan's making like, I would say they're like comfortably middle class, but Joshua's spending it all. No, Susan's suspected that he's spending most of the day watching porn. She tried to snoop around, but it was all password protected. And he would say, babe, I'm not watching porn. I'm trying to start my own business.

Susan would email her friends. I came home from work on Saturday and I felt so depressed. I couldn't even make a decent dinner for my boys. The only protein we ever have is hot dogs. So I keep trying to disguise their food with sour cream and things like ketchup. Susan had to research ahead of time what was on sale at the grocery store. And when she got back from the grocery store, Josh made her input every single item into like an Excel spreadsheet on the computer with how much it was.

One time he got so mad. So mad at her. About a can of peas. Because he had found the same can of peas at a different store for two cents cheaper. I don't know what's wrong with him, I don't know if he ever factors in gas money, you know, time is money, I guess those things don't matter to him, but he was just mad. What the hell is wrong with you?

Two cents cheaper. So that week he refused to give her any more money for groceries. Which typically by the way was only $20 that he would give her every single week for a budget of food for the entire family of four. Two growing boys, $20. So Susan had to learn to be resourceful. She had to learn to make her own bread, puree her own baby food. I mean, it was rough. Josh would take her to the

grocery store because he controlled when she used the car. They just had one car. More on that later. And he would just tell her, figure it out. So Susan, you know, once we found out that Charlie was malnourished, she started buying supplements for him and Josh argued with her in front of others. He gets one meal a day a daycare. That's all he needs. No, you can give him some formula and that's it, you're not wasting my food on him when he's just gonna poop it out. Meanwhile, Josh is buying whatever he wanted. Whatever. Now this bothered Susan not because she wanted things, she just felt so bad for her boys. Even during Christmas, Josh refused to let them buy things.

On their birthdays, they got no presents, nothing. He spent all the money them buy things on their birthdays. They got no presents nothing He spent all the money on himself and on their life insurance premium. Oh, he never skimmed on that Both of the parents had a one million dollar life insurance policy each With Josh and the wife yes Susu's in had a million dollars Josh had a million dollars and they had a quarter million dollars per kid So it totals up to 2. a million dollars, Josh had a million dollars, and they had a quarter million dollars per kid. So it totals up to 2.5 million dollars. I mean, I don't even know how much a premium like that is. I imagine it to be quite a bit.

Yeah. So she's there running her whole family, trying to do everything that she can for her boys, and Josh would try to sabotage them. Just like Steve, he would ask the two kids. Do you want to go to boring, boring, boring the two kids, do you want to go to boring, boring, boring church with mommy or do you want to stay home and let's go get some ice cream with daddy. And of course the kids would choose ice cream and Josh would smile and brag to Susan that they don't even love you. They don't want to go to boring church with you, you're the boring mom. And he would do this so often, Susan would cry. Sometimes he would tell the kids, repeat after me, mommy is evil, church is evil.

Susan was overworked, exhausted, not fulfilled, miserable, terrified of her own husband. Remember how I said that they only had one car? Well Susan was the one that was working all the time. So instead of giving her the car, Josh buys her a bike and told her to bike to work in back seven miles each way. Unbelievable. When she left for work, it was still dark out. So she told him it's dangerous, it's exhausting, I show up to work super tired, super sweaty. And he said, how hard could it be? You're

making it sound so much worse than it is. So in order to prove it, Josh tried biking to her workplace the next morning. And he didn't say anything, but he started driving Susan to work after that. Then there was our sex life. That was non-existent. They were obviously having issues in their marriage. Susan wanted it to work. Josh said that he was repulsed by her because she had had kids.

So of course her body changed. So she did her nails. She worked kids. So of course her body changed. So she did her nails, she worked out, she tried to get his attention and it just never worked. If she ever did something that upset him, he would scream at her no more sex for three months. Um, excuse me sir, I don't even think you know the location of the clitoris if you had a GPS. Thank you very much. Susan said, let's just change our lives. Josh hated the idea of counseling, but eventually he consented. All of their friends would joke,

but not really, but kinda say jokingly, that Josh treats his parrot, his pet bird, better than his own wife and kids. The friends who had known Josh in Washington also had joked that there was two Josh's. The one in Washington was quirky and fun. The one that Susan fell in love with. And now this Utah Josh, he's controlling, he's selfish, he's weird.

Josh even started defending his dad, telling Susan you're overreacting. I mean, all he did was try to kiss you and like, you know how my dad is. That's just the way he is. Everyone in New Susan, family, friends, church friends. They all kept trying to encourage her to divorce him. Now, I don't know how it is now or I'm sure it's different by person, but when you talk about anyone who's religious, typically, divorce is a very last option, last resort type situation. So if all of her religious friends are telling her, you gotta get rid of this dude.

I think, you know, there was a lot going on. But through this, Susan never thought it was feasible to divorce Josh. Maybe it was her faith. Truly, I think she was terrified to leave because he would threaten her that he would get custody of the kids. So she said to her friends,

I'm gonna give him until our seventh anniversary. That's 2008. Spring of 2008 is our seventh anniversary. If he doesn't change by then, I'm gonna divorce him. In 2007, I mean, it was a wild year. So the year right before her ultimatum, a lot of stuff started happening. Denise, Susan, sister, said that Susan had called really upset. She's just sobbing. Uncontrollably sobbing. She can't even understand what's going on, what's going on? What happened? Josh pushed me. I'm alright, but I don't know what to do. Listen, you need to get away from him Susan. I'm gonna get my car and I'm gonna come drive to you guys

We're gonna get the boys and let's go. No, no, no I mean it's such a long drive for you and he's gonna get custody of the boys if we try to leave He he told me that if I ever take the boys and leave it's kidnapping and I'm gonna get arrested He said that I'm gonna get the boys over my dead body. That same year, in 2007, the family went to visit Susan's parents. Now, they live pretty close to Steve, so Josh takes the kids to meet their grandpa and Steve is just harassing Josh about their marriage and he would write in a journal that Susan wants to have another kid, a daughter, but Josh is too repulsed to have sex with her.

Josh also told his dad that he wished that he ended the marriage with her years ago before they even had children. He talked on and on about how he would love to get rid of her, how he's not attracted to her, he said that he'd daydreams about having police come to the door to report that she was killed by a drunk driver on the road. After their visit, Josh decides, I'ma be a real tour. But he wants Susan to do it with him. They're own little business together.

Not that he wanted to connect with her on something, not that he wanted to build an empire with his wife. No, he wanted her to do all the work, but he could make a name for himself. And have all the money. He had all these cringy business cards, he printed literally thousands of refrigerator magnets and business cards, and it wasn't even something that someone would want to stick on the refrigerator.

It was just him and a leather jacket trying to look cool. He started buying massive ads in the yellow pages, which were like giant phone books for businesses before the internet existed. He agreed to an $83,000 contract. For ads? For ads to place on bus penches and in the yellow pages. And for those thousands of refrigerator magnets.

Now, this is a ton of commitment, even for some of the best realtors in the area. Let alone this guy that just started, that hasn't even sold a house yet. And of course, it didn't work. Anytime you get an interested buyer and they'd say, oh, can we go look at this house? I saw this on the market and I think it'll be beautiful.

This might be my dream house. I'm ready to put down a down payment. He would say, yeah, yeah, let's go tomorrow. I'm kind of busy today. He was just so lazy. He didn't care about speed or efficiency or his business. So now with no sales, he couldn't afford the yellow pages ads.

So they sued him for the money for the contract and he sued them right back. He said the phone number that you printed was incorrect, it cost tons of business. Now that is not true. So the only option that Josh Felte had was to declare bankruptcy. He starts maxing out all his credit cards, Susan begged him to stop but he said this is the only way. So in 2007 the Powell's filed for chapter 7, listing more than $200,000 in credit card debt. Not including their mortgage and their car, so that's a lot of debt, that's a lot of financial

burden. And when all of that failed, Josh wanted to get into IT. He loved his phone, he loved his computer, cameras, all the tech here. I mean, what consumer doesn't, but that doesn't mean you can work IT. He doesn't even know the first thing about programming. So his neighbors, John and Kirstie, they lived near the powels. John was a programmer. So yes, well, can you teach me for free?

I don't want to spend money on courses. Now John refused. John hated Josh. John was like, that guy sucks. Kirstie, I know that you're friends with his wife, Susan, and you guys are super close at church, but like, I hate that dude. I can't even go to dinners with you guys because oh my god he makes me want to die. So Kersi's thinking well I mean Kersi wants her husband to help Josh not for Josh but for Susan

that's her friend so she thought okay okay I can forgive this out. Listen Josh I have a proposition for you. I will tell John it's okay to work with you in the evening if you go to church once a month and spend 10 minutes a week with Susan. Just 10 minutes! Not on your laptop, not on your phone, not on your computer, just sitting with her holding her hand. Maybe watching a movie. 10 minutes! He said, yeah, no, I can't do that. I'm busy.

No, you're not a Josh! That's the deal. He teaches you programming for free and all you have to do is go to church once a month and pay Susan, what, 30 minutes of attention a month, 40 minutes? Can you do that? So he agrees, but it didn't last long. The minute that he learned enough programming to get a job at Aspen Distribution, a warehouse and trucking company, he didn't care to learn more. So he stopped.

Now even with this new job, even with that like 10 minutes of quality time a week, Susan decided, you know what, I got to do something. I got to listen to my parent. I got to listen to everyone. In 2008, she takes the advice of her family and friends and calls some divorce attorneys. And these divorce attorneys told her, you need to go around and videotape the entire house and all the belongings inside. So Susan picked up a camera and narrated a tour, which is online. She said, this is me, July 29th, 2008. It's 12.33 mountain time.

I'm covering all my bases, making sure that something, if something happens to me or my family that all of our assets are documented, I hope everything works out and we're all happy and live happily ever after, as much as it's possible possible and she kind of rolled her eyes and smiled a little Looked skeptical and so it's 40 minutes of her just showing Josh's ridiculous items Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of tools cameras bikes an unused treadmill a $300 meat grinder

But Josh just like to buy everything. Yeah. Ramo controlled cars. Every type of saw, like an axe, every type of a saw made, he's not a handy dude by the way. He doesn't fix anything. A motorcycle. I mean, the place looked like it belonged to a hoarder. Susan was so terrified that Josh would find the video she gave it to her friend, Cursey, her neighbor.

So Susan gets a promotion at work shortly after and her mom kept encouraging her, hired some money away from Josh. He would never even know, but somehow he found out and it was just this explosive fight. And with all of that, I don't know if she thought this isn't right, this isn't normal, but she had gotten a safety deposit box at work. And it would write, June 28th, 2008, I wanted it documented it somewhere, that there is extreme turmoil in our marriage. If something happens to me, please talk to my sister-in-law, Jenny Graves. My friend, Cursey, who I gave the tape to, check my blogs on my space, check my work desk, talk to my friends, co-workers, and family. If I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one.

Take care of my boys. I want my parents, Judy, and Chuck very involved in in charge of Charlie and Braden. I love you Charlie and Braden. I'm sorry you've seen how wrong and messed up our marriages. I would never leave you. She also started writing some concerning emails to friends and families and even attorneys. She would write that that one night we had this huge hour long fight. I'm amazed that my voice still works. I even threatened to call the police because Josh was being so irrational and unpredictable. I told him that he needs change, counseling or something. Every time I take a moment and I step back and I realize what I'm dealing with, it feels like a never-ending cycle, but I'm too afraid of the consequences of losing my kids, or him kidnapping them. Her friends would advise her, hey just cool off, like any

time something happens, here's what I do. I take my kids and I go for a drive, that always helps me clear my head. I should say I can, it's not that simple. Josh would accuse me of kidnapping the boys. This is a really sad story, so she wrote an email. Yesterday I helped him organize and clean his office and all those loose papers that were laying around, and that night I was soundlessly crying myself to sleep and I told him desperately. Now is the time you can say nice things to me and he said in a very tired, very bored voice thanks for helping me clean my office and stuff and that was all. And he kind of bumped into me and I said as a hopeful suggestion,

are you trying to hold my hand? And he muttered something and we held hands before he tried pulling away. My three-year-old for the first time yesterday said, Mommy, I can't, I'm too busy working. That's what Josh always says. My three-year-old was stomping around the house, acting angry. He was scowling at me and he would fight every time I said no, another thing that he learned from his dad. She also wrote, I hope that counseling will help Josh, and everyone else can see the guy that I fell in love with. Susan suspected that Josh may have been bipolar,

which is why she kept insisting on counseling and therapy, but Josh would always come up with an excuse. He said, if my real estate clients find out that I'm on medication, they won't learn with me. They'll think I'm crazy that I need to get checked out. So the year 2008 passes, he convinces her to stay together and early 2009, the cox parents, they start getting worried. So the couple were visiting the cox parents in Washington and Josh kept telling Susan, he wanted to go on a camping trip with just the two of them. Let's leave the kids Susan, you and me, let's just go camping, you and me.

In Washington? Yeah. Leave the kids to parents. Yeah, but she said, okay, well let me ask my mom and dad. And he said, no, no, no, I'm gonna leave them with my dad, Steve. She said, absolutely not, I do not feel comfortable with the kids with Steve, nope.

She said, we can go, but I want the kids with my parents. And they get into this huge fighting match, which by the way, the cocks parents over her, all of this. And he was screaming at her saying, you're such a goody-two shoes. You're such a bitch. And she yelled back at him. I might be a bitch, but I'm not a child molester.

So this kind of implies maybe some things, Steve, she knew something about Steve, because he wouldn't get arrested for our child pornography until way later. This would be Susan's last visit home. December of 2009, um, Sunday was a very fun day for a woman named Giovanna. She had gone over to her church friend's house Susan Powell to crochet and talk. She loved Susan. Giovanna was 20 years older than Susan, but she could not get enough of Susan. I mean, she just was full of life. They had the same fate. They loved to read. They loved crocheting.

And it really helped that they only lived like a block away from each other. And Susan was losing a lot of her friends. Javana had heard bits and pieces here and there from people at church, but the pals were constantly asking for things like baby sitting, rights, money, food, emergencies. Even the pal friends' kids were upset. Josh was creepy. Every time that the kids, like these teenagers would babysit for the kids, he would only pay them two dollars an hour. They're like, what the heck?

Why am I even babysitting? Jovanna didn't really have an opinion on Josh before she met him, which was two weeks before Susan disappeared. She had heard from everyone around her that he's like this unpredictable, argumentative, just like crazy dude. The only person that ever tolerated him was Susan. So Javana, she goes in trying to keep an open mind because she likes Susan, but the minute that she meets Josh.

All he did was sit there and endlessly brag about his electronics. Look at my remote controlled car. Look at me on my new TV. Look at that. Look at this. Look at that. It felt like he was like this five-year old boy. It was just so strange.

You'd keep going on and on and on old boy. It was just so strange. You'd keep going on and on and on and on. Okay, that's fine. But what else? That night, she witnessed a fight between the powels. It was near Thanksgiving time, and the couple were going to take the kids to visit Josh's family. Susan was asked by Josh's family to bring 6 pumpkin pies.

So I think everyone was bringing a dish, and they needed to bring enough of that dish for the whole party. But Josh was super upset. These are his relatives, by the way, not even Susan's. I just don't understand why we can't just take one pie. I don't know, that's what I was told to take, that's what I was assigned. And he gets right in the face and started screaming, but there's only four of us. So why do we need to take six pies? All four of us aren't going to eat six pies. So he's kind of insinuating that they only want to bring enough food that would feed the four of them so that it's like an even exchange. If that makes any sense. And he, she's like, what, everyone else is bringing it enough for what other bringing. So I'm going to bring six pies. And he was just red in the face like this was a huge blowout fight for them.

One day, Javana had asked Susan for their home phone number and Susan immediately started rambling on about, no, no, you can't, I can't use it. Javana had no idea, it was because Josh spied on all of the phone calls. So she gave Javana her cell phone number instead, which by the way, crazy thing, Josh refused to get Susan a cell phone. Her dad got it for her for emergencies. It was like, you are too old, you have children, you can't not have a cell phone, that's insane. Everyone has a cell phone. So, Javana had been going out to hang out with Susan

quite a bit now for the past couple of weeks. Susan told her that she had miscarried, that she felt pregnant, but was bleeding a ton, and she felt like that bleeding was her miscarrying. She also got an ear infection at the same time, so it was just a lot going on. Her doctor prescribed her antibiotics, which for some reason Josh was like,

don't take him. Stay away from antibiotics. Later, it's theorized that Susan was not pregnant, but Josh was poisoning her. He was always making all these weird things for her to eat as of lately, like thick yogurt, fermented drinks with a key for just weird. Yeah, he has a big life insurance on him.

So Thursday, December 4th, Susan talks to her dad on the phone. Everything was normal. She was so excited for Christmas, so were the kids. She said that she had the Christmas tree half decorated. There were ornaments in the garage, but Josh refused to get them. They were on a very high shelf. So she was waiting for him to finally do that. Saturday, December 5th, there was a Christmas breakfast for the members of the church.

Josh took a ton of pictures of Susan making plates for the kids in the buffet line. Javanna's son came to babysit while the couple went to an office party at Josh's workplace where he won a raffle prize. Another camera. So Sunday, the 6th, Susan made her last Facebook post that said, My husband won a digital video camera called Flip at his work party last night. What the heck good will this do for us? Typically, Sundays were reserved for church, but Josh kind of pulled away from church and his friends. He had a conference at work, so he skipped church and Susan went with the kids,

and everyone said that Susan seemed completely normal, even gave one of her friends a ride after church. Then afterwards, Giovanna comes over, spends the whole day with Susan. Everyone said that Susan seemed completely normal, even gave one of her friends a ride after church. Then afterwards, Giovanna comes over, spends the whole day with Susan. They're knitting some of Braden's favorite colors. The kids are playing in the living room. Josh is making dinner for once. Which everyone thought was weird. He was making cream cheese pancakes and scrambled eggs.

Giovanna knew that he didn't cook for the family often, but sometimes he would, sure, but he was really struggling. And that night, Susan went to go lay down in the room. Giovanna stayed to help with some of the knitting. And Josh was making it clear that he and the boys were going to go sledding that night. So what sledding, it was snowing in Utah. Okay. So Giovanna's like, okay, that's my cue to leave. So she gets her stuff and she leaves the next day, Monday, Debbie's like, okay, that's my cue to leave. So she gets her stuff and she leaves.

The next day. Monday. Debbie called well, ran the local daycareer that a lot of families trusted her with. It was called Daydreams and Fun Things Childcare, and the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. I think a lot of people felt safe with Debbie because she had four kids herself. You could tell that she loved kids. She was super friendly. She got along with the parents too, so I mean, it's just perfect.

Over time, Debbie developed this huge fondness for Susan. Susan had been dropping off her kids for daycare for the past one and a half years, and never, never did Debbie ever have problems with her. But Debbie was not a fan of Josh, the kids dad. I mean he was nowhere near as put together as Susan. If he was the one dropping them off, Debbie knew that the kids would be late and they would stay late. So late that every single other child would be gone and Debbie would have to stay until the sun set wouldn't even be able to put her own kids to bed because she would be waiting for freaking Josh Powell to pick up her

sons. So December 7th, 2009 was like any other Monday. Super busy for Debbie, she noticed that Charlie and Braden were running late. Josh is probably dropping them off, right? Because Susan's always on time, Debbie was more annoyed than anything, but she got swept up in the chaos. Someone had thrown up, someone had pinched another child, there was a poop situation, you know, the joys of running a daycare. And finally, when things started calming down, she realized that the two kids had not been dropped off Charlie and Braden. But they were scheduled.

Okay, that's weird. So she picks up her phone, call Susan Powell, did something happen? No answer. Okay, that's strange. Susan would always let me know if the kids can't make it on their scheduled days, tried her personal phone call. Nope, tried Susan's work number, their home number,

no responses. So suddenly the annoyance for Josh was gone, and she was just worried, she even called Josh's workplace and the boss said oh Sorry Josh didn't come in today Wait, what are they all sick or something? So Debbie had her parents come to the daycare watch all the kids She rushed to Susan's place and something just was bothering her

She felt that something was strange at least if she goes there and everyone's fine They just came down with the flu. you know, it has been really cold outside It'll be embarrassing, but that's all But none of that would happen because when she knocked on the door there was no answer Okay, okay, don't panic. Let's call the Powell's emergency contact Jenny Graves, Josh's sister, but she gets voicemail Hi Jennifer, this is Debbie Caldwell. Josh and Susan's daycare person It's 9 o'clock and I'm at Josh and Susan's house. No one's home.

They didn't drop off Charlie and Braden this morning. Do you know what's going on? Josh's mom would be the first one to hear the voicemail. She was living with her daughter, Jennifer, at the time. And she hears it and immediately starts freaking out. Jennifer, we gotta go. We gotta go. We have to go to your brothers.

I don't know. What if it's like carbon monoxide poisoning? I've heard there's a lot of cases of that recently. It's been so cold out. We gotta go. we gotta go. So when they get there, Debbie had already left. They're knocking on the door, nothing. They call the couple on every single phone number that they could think of, they're calling iPads at this point.

They're freaking out. Nothing. They call the police. The police force their way into the house. Will they straight up ask, can we break a window, but you guys would be financially liable for it? The police say, listen, if you're willing to pay for the damage of the window, we're going to break in right now. So of course, Jennifer and her mom are like, yes, let's break open the window. They get inside. There's no carbon monoxide poisoning.

In fact, there's nothing. There's nobody there. Nobody was home. So everyone's like, oh, thank God. I mean, they were so worried. Wait, what do you mean? Nobody's there. There's nobody there at all? No, Josh is not there, Susan's not there,

neither are the two kids. Neither is their family car, nobody's there. Well then where the hell are they? Jennifer walks into the master bedroom and she saw Susan's purse, her wallet, her credit card, her keys, no phone, all of that, just laying around. She gives it to the police and they search inside the purse and they find a tiny small key. They know what this key is from, they're like this looks like a safety deposit box key.

At a bank, a block away from her office, so let's go, right? They follow all the cues when they get to the bank, desu's and powwow, a safety deposit box here, we need to see it. They're led into the vault where they slowly enter the key, in her purse and it clicks. It opens up. Inside of it was a single item, a folded piece of paper torn out of a notebook, and the letter was haunting them. It would keep the investigators in the world up at night, and it just said, if I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one, take care of my boys. For mine and my children's safety, I feel the need to leave a paper trail at work. Which will not be accessible to my husband.

It is an open fact that we have a life insurance policy over a million dollars if we die in the next four years. This was dated June 28, 2008, about a year and a half before she disappeared forever. So word starts getting around that the power family are missing and the police are searching for all of them, the parents, and the kids. Nobody knows about that safety deposit box or the letter just yet, but they're all searching. So, Javana, the church friend that spent the last day with Susan, not only was she potentially the last one to see Susan alive, but she had talked to Josh on the phone that day. What did you just say? Yeah, around 3 p.m. I talked

him on the phone. So, my son Alex babysits the two sons sometimes. So I had called and not thinking that they would pick up because they were all missing. Like this is after the police said they were missing. But what do you know? Josh picks up. This is after the missing. Yes. What time did police go to see that?

Probably like around 10. Oh my gosh. But what do you know? Josh picks up and she said, Josh, where are you? What are you doing? The police are looking for you. Oh, we're driving around. We're Susan. There was a pause. She's at work.

What? I don't think she is. And he starts rambling about how he and the boys had gone camping overnight without Susan. No, Josh. She's not at work. We're really worried about you. She's not at work. We're super worried about you. She's not at work. We're super concerned. You didn't go into work today either. I got confused. I thought it was Sunday.

That's why we went camping and I didn't go to work today because I totally forgot it was Monday. I thought it was Sunday today. Now, Javana is really quick to feel like this guy is not right. He's a little lion. You know, he's weird. No, you didn't, Josh. You knew it was Monday. Don't tell me that. You need to get No, you didn't, Josh. You knew it was Monday.

Don't tell me that. You need to get home now. Right now, Josh. They hung up. Josh checks his voicemail immediately and then he calls Susan's phone. But it went to voicemail. So you left her?

Yes. So he left her a message. Who cares if her phone was sitting right in the passenger seat of his car? He left her a message. What was the message? Like, where are you? Around 6 p.m. Jennifer Graves, Josh's sister, gets a hold of him.

I mean, she had been trying to call him all day, but finally, he picks up. Where are you, Josh? I'm at work. You're lying. I know you didn't go to work. Where are the boys? They're safe. We're Susan.

I don't know. Work, I guess. No Josh, we know that's not true. How much do you know? She said in her book at this moment, she knew that her brother had done something, but she didn't want to scare him off. So she just said, why would you ask that Josh? Did you do something? Did you say something? Any hung up? And Jennifer tells the police about this phone call. They grab her phone and they call him right back. This and Josh is a police officer.

You need to come home right now. He said, yeah, but I need to stop. I need to get the kid something to eat first. So 30 minutes later, Josh pulls up in his minivan. And Jennifer is like, where the hell were you? He's like, like I said, I went on an overnight camping trip with the boys. Susan was in bed when we left

What time did you leave? A little after midnight. I have no idea where Susan is right now. I mean I'm confused I thought today was Sunday not Monday When I realized it was Monday, I was too scared to call in to work because I thought they were gonna fire me Well, why don't you answer your phone? I kept it off to preserve the battery I mean we were camping so I didn't bring a charger, we were out in the desert. There's no service. They find Susan's phone in his car and he has no response as to why. He said, oh, I am a man of taking it as accident.

I think it was my phone. Now, Josh is with his kids. They're escorted to the police station for questioning. Because, I mean, at this point, all they have are questions and they have gotten practically no answers. Okay, well, can you please run us through the story again? Josh starts getting nervous. He starts mushing his words together. There were a lot of red flags in his story, so Sunday night, which he allegedly thought was Saturday night, he remembered Susan being super tired and laying down all afternoon,

but he doesn't remember what she was wearing that day, not even a hint, nothing. The rest of the day, he claims when as normal, they watch Santa Claus 2, or was it Santa Claus 3, they'd haught dogs together, and then Braden fell asleep, so Josh took Charlie to go sledding at the park. So he takes his four-year-old to go snow sledding at the park, and when they circled back, they asked him about the park trip, suddenly he changed his story and said that he took both of his sons to the park. And he got this idea while he was at the park, oh what are not I just take the boys camping?

Of course Susan's not going to want to go because she's been tired lately, but I just, you know, I came up with this idea really late in the day, like after dinner. So I started getting ready and we weren't able to leave until after midnight. I mean, this story itself is bizarre because my sister has a child too, like a one-year-old, they're not doing anything after midnight. It's especially not with that kid. So you're gonna wake up your two-year-old and your four-year-old to go camping

in the middle of December when there's a snow storm. Because you just feel like it. Did you check the weather app, Josh? It's December. If you did, you should have seen that there were warnings of ice, snow, and cold weather. He said, no, no, I didn't. But I thought it was a spectacular idea.

So I took the boys to Simpson Springs, which is about a two hour drive from the house, and they were going to sleep in the car. He said that they even brought firewood with them to roast smores and heat stuff up. I mean, the whole thing is odd. The police are not really getting much from this. It's just bizarre. It's very, definitely not the truth. So they ask, well, tell us about your relationship with Susan. Any fighting the day before or the

night before? No. What can you explain to us your relationship then? I mean, it's pretty good. We have disagreements sometimes, but it's not like, it's not like we're going into screaming fights or anything. Well, not usually. I mean, it's happened a few times which you know, it's very rare. Josh couldn't name anyone of Susan's friends. It seemed like he didn't even know his wife that well. He didn't ask about where Susan was or where she might have gone. She didn't seem concerned that the police were searching for his missing wife. Never did he offer to even help look for her.

When the officer searched his van, they did not find a single trace of any camping-friendly items, like sleeping bags or diapers for Braden who's only two years old, no food either, they did however find. A saw, two knives, a newly opened box of latex gloves and a shovel. Oh, you're kidding me. Oh, you're gonna get, this is like when the anger's gonna start seeping in for this case because of the absolute utter incompetence on so many people. So they had taken both Josh's phone and Susan's phone, but because someone had sneakily

taken out the SIM cards, the SIM cards, SIM, I'm in my 20, no, in my 70, it was impossible to retrieve the call logs without them. So they're like, well, why did you, what's going on? Who took the SIM cards? He's like, well, I accidentally took her phone with me when I left to go camping But as for the sim cards it beats me. I don't know why they're missing So after the police interrogation is over. They released him. They had nothing to hold him on neighbors Tell the police, you know, I think this is sketchy ever since you released him from his first interrogation

He's just been cleaning out his car all day like a deep clean Just from the garage back to his van back back to the garage back to his van, I mean, he's putting things into the washing machine. You don't think that's weird? You don't think you should try to stop this? Jennifer even stopped by to be like, what are you doing? What are you doing this?

So the next day, he was scheduled to go back to the police station, but he was so busy cleaning his car. He showed up four hours late. Four hours late. So his second interview went as expected as utterly useless as the first one, because Josh is utterly useless.

He was so passionate about the topic of the broken window, though, he said, why did you have to break the window, though? Did you guys really have to break the window? I mean, Debbie, our daycare person, how's the key, so why don't you just call her? Was it really necessary to smash open a window? Um, hello, your wife is missing.

Yeah. Yes, Mr. Powell, but Debbie wasn't there when we got there. But you could have called her to get the key, you know, because who's going to fix that window now? He cared exponentially more about his window being broken than his wife being missing, and not to mention something else that was, while they're in him that he decided to rant about, was the fact that Susan had even given Debbie a key to begin with because she didn't pass it off with Josh first. She didn't ask Josh for permission first. So the sky is mad at the police for not using Debbie's key to the house

but also mad at his missing wife because she had given Debbie a key in the first place. Another thing that Josh had to pick up about was that Susan would never miss work. She would have gone into work. She wouldn't have missed work. And the police were like, well that's so strange. Why are you so passionate about this? Because you guys share one car and you took a camping! So how do you suppose she went to work, Josh?

So the very first interrogation they had taken a picture of his hands. They were incredibly red. They had some markings on them. So they took some pictures and they did not bring it up, but Josh did. He said he requested that those pictures be retaken. Because you believed my hands looked really red, but they were just chapped, and there was allegedly a cut on my knuckle. I mean, you guys wanted a picture of it, so can we retake it? The photos of my hands. I mean, you were implying, you were saying, anyway, you made a really big deal out of this. Josh, we made a big deal because we asked you where you got that, you know,

Nick on your hand? Why thought you were trying to say that I got some sort of like defensive wound, you know? I never said that. Did I? It seemed implied. Okay, so let me get this straight. You want me to take more photos of your hands again? I mean, yeah, I kind of do.

I just want to have both photos available, you know? I mean, I haven't come in here with the camera. I haven't worried about your hands, but you're still worrying about them. What does that tell you? Well, I just want my second photos, you know, because I just to prove that they're my hands did it on their own. I mean, he's not making any sense on this one. I'm gonna be honest. He spent all of his time cleaning his fan, never called Susan's family, friends, workplace, or even asked the kids if they had seen something, heard something. Do you think Susan was ever suicidal or depressed? Oh, yeah, suicidal. She was. Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm partly to blame because I don't do everything she wants and for a while we were not affectionate, you know.

I guess that was depressing and I don't know if maybe she was upset about work or something But I don't know it. I mean all I can say is we didn't do a whole lot of talking about it I thought she was over it. Sometimes she thinks I'm lazy or something, you know So what caused her to be sad? Are you implying that you caused it? Um, I don't know actually can I take a couple of days to think about these questions and you stood up So the police sit him back down and they they say, you do realize that your wife is missing right now. You're not under arrest, but you don't have to talk to us either. But any concerned husband would help, right?

So we decided to stay. At the same time, they were interviewing Charlie, the four-year-old. And he was a bit too young to provide any useful information, but he mentioned that Josh took the whole family to the Dinosaur National Park on Sunday night, which is nowhere near the campsite at Simpson Springs where Josh claimed they went camping, and the child said that Susan was, quote, camping with them.

She went out with them. So with this information alone, it was enough to help the police decide to keep Josh in the station. With or without his consent. But for some reason tell me why. Within a few minutes a police officer tells him, hey so you can leave if you want now. What? Why is that? I don't know. Maybe they couldn't get a warrant, maybe they couldn't do all these things, but he gets up and Josh leaves with nowhere to go. He can't go home because he has the search words. He doesn't have his phone because the police took it. He can't even get his van back. So I'm not sure what the plan is but he stood up and left. He rents a car,

heads to Trementon near the Idaho border, nearly two million acres of national forest, and at that same time that Josh rented this car, Steve called in sick to work for a few days. It's speculated that during these two days, Steve and Josh were getting rid of Susan's body. During this time, the only person that saw Josh really wear his neighbor's timm and his wife, and Josh was complaining about how the police took his blanket and now he has to get a new one from Walmart. And they asked about his hands because they were incredibly red and they looked like

something was done. And he said, oh, it's just odd. I'm just cold. Tim's wife was confused. Well, do you know where Steven is and Josh snapped at her? It's not like I stabbed her. Okay, that's weird. Susan's friends got together. They made a Facebook group to help facilitate search efforts within days. It had over 1200 people who joined. Kersi, her friend, really helps Susan get media attention. So did Chuck.

He did a ton of interviews, feeling, feeding the press, everything that they wanted to know so that her story would stay in the news cycle. They had a candlelit vigil for Susan. Josh showed up with the kids late and he just seemed like he didn't trust anyone. He seemed so standoff-ish. Kersi was so suspicious of him. She would invite him to dinner and all of the kids they would be talking about how they hate living in their van, they're eating cookie crumbs off the

floor because they're that hungry, and one of them blurted out while they were playing with toys, I hate my dad. But wouldn't explain further. So the family would stop by Kersi's place often to get food and Josh wanted to use the computer because his has been taken, and he said that you couldn't look for his wife. So he wants to set up a website for Susan using their computer. Finally, he's doing something, right? But the website was just an anti-mormon, anti-cock's, anti-general graves, anti-utual

police website, not actually intended to help find Susan. The only people, I mean everyone had deserted Josh at this point. The only people that were on his side were his family and Mike and Alina. Minus Jennifer Graves, okay? He had asked Mike and Alina to come, not to look for Susan, but to help comfort him, to cook, to clean, change diapers, do the laundry, and think of ways to get him out of town without the media or the police knowing. But first, he had to cancel Susan's chiropractor appointment and withdraw money from her IRA account,

which was about $10,000, and had Mike and Alina stay behind watching the kids while he drove up to Washington to see his dad Steve. Oddly, he mentioned to his dad, I think Susan had an affair and got pregnant, that's why she ran away. When Mike and Alina were driving back to Washington to join the family, their car broke down, and instead of trying to get it fixed, they sold it for dirt cheap for scrap metal. Why would you want to get rid of Mike's car so badly for scrap metal? And it's only going to keep this in mind because it's going to come back in the end. Steve also agreed to do some interviews, and it was super strange. She just kept saying that him and Susan had a special relationship. He's talking about his missing daughter-in-law, by the way.

He said that the couple were only together for the boys and Susan really liked Steve a lot. Not just as a father-in-law, but just like really liked him. When they were living together, she was very open about her sexual things. Like, she liked to do these like, just little teasing things. She would shave her legs and walk over to his office and say, feel how smooth they are. I highly doubt any of this happened just to put that out there. Like this guy's a liar. Steve complained that she was very obviously leading him on teasing him.

One night he said this. One night she wanted me to massage her feet and legs. She had been standing up the whole day. And you know, I moved her feet to my crotch so she could feel, you know, what she was doing to me. And that went on for about an hour. She didn't move it. Who is he telling this to? Like the police in the press. Are you kidding? Yeah. She said, and then he said, I couldn't take it anymore. So I confessed my love for Susan. And I didn't want her to move to Utah. There was already enough feeling there that she would stay. And she just got really upset with me. She wouldn't her to move to Utah. There was already enough feeling there that she would stay and she just got really upset with me. She wouldn't talk to me for months.

It was the worst thing I'd ever done. It was so troubling. I was so shocked when I found out that she was missing. I was sick for days. I couldn't even function. The police report notes that Steve was quote-unquote aroused and nostalgic while recounting all of his alleged sexual incidents with Susan. I mean, truly sexual fantasies because none of this took place. In the meantime, Josh kept working on his website for Susan,

just really strange stuff, things that would say Mormons mobilized against Susan Powell and family. False claims about Josh and Susan Powell. He deliberately used the most unflattering pictures of Susan, and when people called him out on it, he would say, oh, it's to show that Susan wasn't perfect. Yeah, that's not what no. There would also be a ton of entries about Josh by Josh, and there'd be a third person Josh and Joyce Gardening, woodworking building construction projects. He knows a few songs on the

piano and guitar. He's also been known to sing a song when the mood hits. He's very involved in his children's lives and every day he includes the children and his many hobbies, such as educational events and outdoor activities. Josh, this is not Tinder. Where are you talking in third person? The site also claimed that Susan was emotionally abused as a child. She was mentally unbalanced, had come on to Steve, her own father-in-law sexually, had renounced her Mormon faith and ran away with another man. So January of 2010, Josh starts packing up his house, the family house, the Powell House, because they're gonna try to put it up for rent. I mean, I don't know if it's gonna work, but that's his whole game plan. He had professional movers come and help pack up the place. Of course,

Kersi, the neighbor came over and said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can I help pack Susan's things? I don't really, I don't really feel comfortable with strangers like mishandling them. Yeah, I don't care as long as it gets done. Well, you can also store her things at my place so you don't have to bring them all to Washington. So Josh was going to move to Washington to be with his family.

He said, no, no, I'll take them with me. She might come back or something. So while Kirstie's packing up Susan's things, she kept having this intrusive thought. What if Susan's alive being held captive by Josh, being beat up somewhere, to be submissive to not leave him? She probably doesn't think that we'll stand up for her, protect her. So in that case, Kersi had written a little note.

I love you, we care about you, I told everything to the police, don't worry, folded the notes, slipped it in Susan's slipper. She just was that heartbroken, and the gravity of the situation was completely lost on Josh. After the U-Haul was all packed up, he joked to his neighbors. I just loaded Susan's head in the truck. Oh, you know those ketchup stains,

probably blood in there. What? Yeah. So Chuck and Judy had asked for some photo albums to keep up their beloved daughter who is missing and who refused. He even told Jennifer Graves, they will never get those photo albums, not ever, that I will make sure of it.

Josh ends up moving back in with Steve. And now that they're really close to Chuck and Judy, of course the cocks parents are trying to be a part of their grandparents' lives, especially because Steve is not a good grandparent nor a good role model. I mean, they're trying to do the absolute best that they can, but he hated them being around. Sometimes Susan's sisters would be around any with smirk and lie. The police have cleared me, so I'm no longer a person of interest in Susan's case. That is not true. At one point, a member of Susan's family was reading a book to the kids when Braden pointed to a figure's chest and said, Mommy has an owl-y, like on her chest.

Anytime Susan's family members would try to leave after their visits, Braden would hold onto their arms, would not let them go, Charlie would beg them to stay longer, would start crying if they left. So Susan's parents, they call the police in Utah, urge them, you guys have to interview the kids again. I mean, something's happening for sure, but it's hard to get any information. They asked, do you know what happened to mommy? It's a big secret. Charlie reiterated that

his mom went camping but he didn't come home, stayed where the crystals are. At school, Charlie told a teacher, my mommy is dead. So Steven Josh had each other and their sick ways, but the Cox family had national support. They went on to the doctor Phil showed to talk about Susan, her favorite color words purple. So all the neighbors were Josh was staying put up purple ribbons on their trees. It's a big f**k you. But Josh fought with the HO way to have them all removed unless they were private property. So a ton of private landowners also hung up posters of Susan all over their front lawn as a big FU Josh.

They literally called Josh's house, Steve's house that Josh was staying in, forced Powell because they had erected one of the tallest, just private home fences ever. What? Around their whole place. When Josh went back to the family home in Utah, the entire place was covered in purple ribbons on the doors, on the trees, on the bushes. There were signs made by his own sister, Jennifer, and Susan's friends that said,

we will find you, Susan, we will bring you home. And in the middle of the night, Josh came out of the house to take it all off. Two months after Susan goes missing, the Cox family starts the Susan Cox Pallel Foundation, a nonprofit that helps families of missing people raise awareness of domestic violence. Now, Josh was infuriated that Susan's maiden name was being used. It should be Susan Powell, he said. He was also upset

at the implication that Susan was a victim. He said, angryly, they're trying to solicit donations on the bullsh**t idea that I'm an abuser. So they start their own campaign, the Powell family, Josh and Steve to be exact, that said that Susan had abandoned her family for the first guy that wanted to have sex with her. They made it sound like Susan had head on every guy that she ever met and had been like this for a while. They went on a hate train against Mormons, said that the Mormons are just butt hurt that

Steven Josh renounced their faith, which side note, the Mormons don't care about you. Okay, I'm just gonna be honest. This is all because of the Mormons. It's a witch hunt. Susan renounced her faith before she disappeared too, but they don't wanna bring that up. This is not true. She would have never done that.

And then the father, son, duo, implicated and innocent man. So about five hours away from Utah, there was a man named Steven, who had disappeared from Nevada a week after Susan. So Steven was probably her, the person she was having a affair with. That's what Josh said. The Miranda Missing Dude. Why?

How did you come to this conclusion? Did you find pictures of them? Did you find chat logs between them text messages? No, but they loved the great outdoors. They both loved music. They were both Mormons and they worked downtown Salt Lake City. So they both went missing around the same time. They're probably off in Brazil having the time of their lives. I mean, why would Susan do that?

Susan would never do something like that. Then Josh pulled out her teenage diary. I don't know how Josh got her hands, his grubby little hands on her diary, but he posted excerpts from it. At 15 years old, Susan wrote about being with a boy. She was worried that the relationship had gone too far and she wrote that she will continue to pray on it. She also wrote about the time that she accidentally took an overdose of an over-counter pain killer on accident,

but Josh made it seem like it was a suicide attempt and she's so unstable. He started publicly releasing her diary entries from when she was a teenager. She went missing when she was like 28 Alina also joined in on bashing Susan. Alina was a very troubled woman So it's very hard to bash on her when it's Josh and Steve her around She was abused by her dad. She was raised as a maid to her brothers and her dad She was also said to have been incredibly insecure. I thought that she was very ugly, and she was jealous of Susan. So she went out there and she called Susan a bitch and said that

Susan is not very pretty or smart and has a poor personality. She claimed that she walked in on Susan having intimate moments with Steve, and just kind of like backed up her dad saying, yeah, Susan was the one making all these sexual advances, and Steve just went along with it. Of course, nobody believed her if anything, people just felt like she was another victim of the family. Not saying what she said wasn't horrendous and despicable, but you know, so 2009 and 2010 that winter. So she disappears December of 2009, but that following January February and March, I mean the winter was crazy. It was just storm after storm So these police and the search parties they had to wait for these storms to be over to actually start searching places

There were about 20,000 mines alone in Utah where you could have essentially dumped a body But they were they weren't searched. They were deemed potentially dangerous Potentially emitting poisonous gases They were deemed potentially dangerous, potentially emitting poisonous gases. Meanwhile, Chuck and Judy, they're not allowed to see the kids. By coincidence, they had run into Josh and the two boys at a supermarket. And Charlie started booking it to them, like, yelling, grandma, grandpa! And Josh starts yelling through the store. You'll get back here right now, Charlie.

Charlie, don't you dare. So Charlie looked at them and his face fell and you turned on his grandparents and head down walked back to his dad. The next month they ran into each other again and Judy asked her husband, hey, can you ask Josh, can I, if I can give the boys a hug, just one hug. I just missed them so much. Okay, I'll try. Hey Josh, is it okay if Judy gives a boys a hug?

No. Why not? Just no. Josh, who can it hurt? It's just a hug. I've made my decision and you need to leave now. They weren't low, so okay, you don't own lows. Josh, you leave.

So they didn't push it, watch them walk away, and two weeks later, Chuck was served a restraining order. Josh claimed that Chuck threatened him and mouth the words, you're dead to him. So that summer of 2010, Josh wanted the kids gone, but he didn't want to take care of them, but he also didn't want the Cox family to see them. So they sent both the boys to summer camp

and he had no idea that Braden would draw the now famous picture at summer camp. The teacher saw it and said, well, tell me about your picture, Braden, what's going on here? Oh, it's us going camping. Oh, who's that? That's Daddy.

That's Charlie, and that's me. And there's one more person. Oh, who's that? Mommy's in the trunk. No fucking way. Why is she in the trunk? And he got a little bit confused. We stopped and mommy and daddy got out and mommy never came back.

This is still not evidence. October 16, 2010, nearly a year later, it was Susan's 29th birthday. Everyone at church gathered together and they released 150 balloons as tribute. Meanwhile, the Powell family are still releasing more diary entries. They would even send it to press and say things like Susan is a lot more vulnerable emotionally than Chuck and Judy Cox would like people to believe.

So Susan's parents, they were represented by a passionate Seattle attorney, pro bono, not getting paid, or not paying, and the Cox family filed a civil suit against Josh and his family, and the Cox family filed a civil suit against Josh and his family, and the judge also barred the pals from publishing any more of Susan's diary. But even then, Josh and Steve would come out and call Susan a tramp that she abandoned her family.

Steve said that his only regret in life was that the sexual part of his relationship with Susan didn't go further. What? He said, you know, Susan is a beautiful woman, and when a beautiful woman comes onto you like that, it's really hard to resist that kind of thing. So with all of this, the police decided to search Steve's place.

That's when they find just a plethora of child pornography and a lot of disgusting things. They also find on Josh's computer that they couldn't arrest him for though, was that he had cartoon images of child pornography, incest, and beast reality. So cartoon draw-out images of, I mean, there was this one in particular

that was really disturbing. It was this young little girl talking to her dad, and the little speech bubble had said, come on, daddy, let me finish what I started. I know you're gonna like it. It was incredibly just disgusting. I mean, there was lots. A lot of things focused on incest and child pornography, but he technically couldn't be arrested because there was no victim because it was cartoons. Steve, on the other hand, he had taken

pictures of his neighbor's kids while they were in the bath through the window. They were like eight years old, nine years old. He had taken pictures of any of his neighbors on dressing. He had a file folder called neighbors. And it was just female neighbors that he was taking pictures of without their knowledge through their windows.

What a freak in creep. He had screenshots of hair removal ads on TV, which I thought was kind of strange. He had two videos of minors using the bathroom without their knowledge. He had 15 total computers. So meanwhile, Mike's car was found by the police and they brought in dogs to search it and there was a hit in the trunk for a body. But again, it was still not enough to put anyone away, but now we can kind of assume that Mike was heavily involved in the process of maybe getting rid of Susan's body.

So September of 2011, Steve is arrested for possession of child pornography, 14 counts of voyeurism, and the kids were so happy to see the police officers. They were taken away. Josh did not even say goodbye to them, and they were taken to the grandparents, Chuck and Judy. They said it was not easy. The kids were acting out. They were wild.

They were mean. They were like animals, they said. Just vicious. They had to re-teach them the basics of setting boundaries, teaching them how to treat people, sharing food, things like that. Braden and almost drowned Charlie in the tub while they were playing and the grandparents were so worried.

What were they taught? The boys confessed that they liked sleeping completely naked in their bed because they always slept completely naked in their bed with their dad. That made everyone incredibly uncomfortable. Braden refused to make eye contact with most people. He liked to destroy things. He was very aggressive towards other kids and animals. He liked to bite and kick things out of nowhere.

Charlie once blurted, checkcocks is a person. So Chuck said, what do you mean? Chuck Cox is evil. I'm Chuck Cox. Am I a bad person? And he looks confused and he said, why don't you change your name so that you're not Chuck Cox because Chuck Cox is a bad person. So scary what the kids learn to fix up. And so they would repeat other things like don't mess with Joshua, you'll end up dead. Mommy ran away because the Mormons were hurting her. Sometimes they would blur it out their own thoughts and they would cheapishly, cheapishly say, my daddy is a little bit bad. Eventually Josh was given supervised visits, I don't know how. Psychiatrist said that Josh was oddly strange with the kids when they had watched Josh interact with his own children.

It seems like he tried to force a relationship. Like it was weird. He would come in and he would talk about how commercially processed flour was bad because it was stripped of the fiber and oil. He talked about the properties of water, principles of vacuum pressure, explained gravity. It seemed like he came in with these scripts to seem like he was this amazing intellectual dad teaching his kids a lot of things, but really the kids just needed someone to be there and hang out with them and listen to them. And in the last week of 2012, the Utah police discovered even more pictures on Josh's computer, 400 pictures of simulated CPB's deality and incest. Porting of cartoon characters like the Simpsons engaging in Orgis, Sautami, Captain America, cartoons of him probably having incess with an

allergic daughter, catwoman, teenage mutant ninja turtles, even Spongebob Square pants. Yet Emma Watson's face photoshopped onto nude models. I mean, this was so concerning that the psychiatrist said, okay, we're gonna have to give him a little test. Like, I think it was called like a psychosexuality test to see if it's okay for him to even be around children. And at the same time, they were gonna force him to take a polygraph test before he was given even partial custody of the children. So right before this, he had one last visit with the kids before he would have to take

these tests. Sunday February 5th was the day before and he was busy running errands preparing for the kids. He withdrew $7,000, went to the storage unit to pick up toys and books that he would donate to the Salvation Army and he bought two gallons of gasoline. Meanwhile, Chuck and Judy, they were worried about the visit. They asked the social worker who was tiny by the way, her name is Elizabeth. What are you going to do if he tries to take the kids? We're pushing this guy into a corner. What are you gonna do? And she said, well I can't touch them. I can't run after the kids. I can't grab the kids.

All I'm allowed to do is call 911. They're like, that's not reassuring at all. The boys even told their grandparents they don't want to see daddy. And right before the visit, Josh emailed his boss, attorney, cousin, and Texas, and a pastor, I'm sorry, goodbye. So the social worker, Elizabeth, pulls up at Josh's house with the kids. The kids go through the front door, and before she can enter, he slams its shut and locks it. She starts banging on the door, trying to grab her phone, which she left in the car. Rushes to get it, she heard Josh say, Charlie, I have a surprise for you and Braden scream.

So now she's getting hysterical. She calls her supervisor, then she calls 911 and this is gonna be the most frustrating 911 call. Hi, I'm on the supervise visit for a court-ordered visit and something really strange happened. The kids went in the house with Josh Pal and he won't let me in. What should I do? What's the address, ma'am? 8-1-1-9. I think it's 89. I don't know the address. It's in my car. Let me go get it.

I'm just really shocked. I can hear one of the kids crying and he won't let me in. Okay, it's, um, wait, just one minute. I have it right here. Can you guys just find me via GPS? No, ma'am. Okay, it's, I still can't find it. He's on a very short leash with the DSHS.

He looked right at me and closed the door and I, I mean, sure I pull out of the driveway. I feel like I smell gasoline. He won't let me in. He won't let you out of the driveway? No, he won't let me in the house. Whose house is it? Josh Powell. You don't live there? No, I've been contracted by the state to provide supervised visitation for Josh Powell.

He's the husband of Susan Powell. This is the high profile case. I was one step in back of them. So they went in the house and locked you out. Yes, he shut the door in my face. What's your name? Elizabeth and her last name. They asked her for her number. They asked Elizabeth where she works. And what's the dad's last name? Powell. Two owls at the end of Powell? Oh my god. Yes! And his first name? Josh. Is he alone or anyone with him?

I don't know. I couldn't get in the house. Are you on vehicle or foot? I'm in my car right now trying to give you the address. What color is the car you're in? It's a great Toyota Prius. Do you know your license plate number? No, I mean, do you need it?

I can go check. Yeah, why don't you grab me your license plate number? So she I mean, do you need it? I can go check. Yeah, why don't you grab me your license plate number? So she got out of the car and she smells gasoline. She gives the license plate number. Okay, well, we're gonna have someone out to you. Do you know how long it'll be? Man, they have to respond to life threatening emergencies first. This could be life threatening.

He is...he is...he...this could be life threatening. I don't know what he's doing in there. Has he threatened the lives of the children previously? I have no idea! Well, we will have the first available deputy contact you. No freaking way. Elizabeth was in shock. The call lasted seven full minutes. And as she's sitting there, backing out of the driveway, trying to park on the street,

she starts smelling more gasoline. And she felt a giant pop, than a whoosh, and a boom, and she felt like her car was rocking, and she looked up. The house had exploded. Josh had attacked his sons with a hatchet. Charlie was hit on the neck with an axe, Braden was hit on the neck and the head. Charlie's left arm was gone, whether it was hacked off or burned, we're not sure. He was, the kids were still alive when Josh put them on a mattress side by side, they

were actually found touching hands. Josh poured gasoline all over them, sent, some of them even went down their throats, and he lit them on fire. The two boys died of smoke inhalation. It was murder suicide. Josh was also found dead. The powells tried to paint Josh as the victim that he was so harassed that the only way he could get out

was to take the lives of his whole family. But everyone thought differently, especially because Mike Powell, remember his brother who had the hit on his trunk, he committed suicide a few days later. Steve was found guilty of all counts of voyeurism, he was sentenced to just 36 months in prison, forced to register as a sex offender, but he would later be re-arrested for child pornography charges, released in 2017 and he died in 2018. And with that, the case of Susan Powell was closed by the police. So she was never found?

No. This was one of the largest missing persons cases in US history. Susan's DNA wasn't found in Mike's car, but they believed that Mike was heavily involved in the disposal of her body. I mean, this is Elizabeth, the social worker. I didn't want to say her last name because she carried so much guilt. She was just trying to do her job. These were the rules that she was given.

She told 911, everything that she felt that they needed. She from that day on could barely hold down her job full time and could not work on bitter custody cases. She can only take easy cases. Of course, the families they were all really hard-broken. I mean, Jennifer Graves, the sister-in-law, who since day one, she was the one telling the police that she literally had to go through fighting her own family, like her mom was upset with her, because she straight up went to the police the day that she found Susan

was missing and was like, you need to look into my brother. She tried to maintain a good relationship with Judy and Chuck Cox. And they love her, but imagine how hard it was in the beginning. She said that she could hear the hesitancy. They always loved her, but they just didn't know if they could trust her. They felt unsure, but in the end, they knew Jennifer was on their side. In 2020, so last year, Chuck and Judy Cox successfully sued the state of Washington, the State Department of Social and Health Services for the wrongful

death of their boys, and they were awarded in the boys' state $98 million. Chuck said, I hope that all the states will remember this. The fact that the award was made tells them, you have to do something different, you have to protect the children. Which they do need to do, I mean I just don't understand. You push Josh into a corner, the state did, not anyone, the state, and they still let him have visitation. They should have had him take the test, the polygraph, not given him any visitation rights. I think even when they found those, cancel the visitation, what are you doing? The kids don't even want to see their dad.

I think that's why a lot of the states they don't do it in houses, they do it in public areas. That's the story of Susan Cox and the PAL family. This was an intense one. I hope you guys enjoyed the Seeks Mini Sewd and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye!