If Something Happens to Me (Revisited)

Speaker 1 Hi 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 2 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland, Ohio, into a crime scene.

Speaker 3 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 2 The first thing that hit my mind is a monster. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020: The Hand in the Window.

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Speaker 4 This is me

Speaker 5 covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us.

Speaker 6 And the phone rang, and the voice on the other end said, when was the last time you saw Susan? And I instantly kind of felt like dread.

Speaker 8 What has happened?

Speaker 9 28-year-old Susan Powell was last seen.

Speaker 10 It has been three days.

Speaker 11 Four days and counting. She's been missing for a week.

Speaker 15 Josh had taken the children on a middle-of-the-night camping trip.

Speaker 15 It was freezing cold. None of this makes any sense.

Speaker 16 He was like, yeah, the kids are here. No, Susan's not with me.

Speaker 16 And I was like, where is she?

Speaker 16 You know, and he was like, I don't know.

Speaker 18 Who were you camping with?

Speaker 18 My dad and my mom.

Speaker 19 The children said mommy was in the van but didn't come back with us.

Speaker 19 Pretty significant thing for a four-year-old to

Speaker 19 tell a detective.

Speaker 8 Susan had often referred to her father-in-law as creepy.

Speaker 17 We're too close.

Speaker 22 There was Stephen wanting to be interviewed, and he ends up revealing the biggest bombshell.

Speaker 23 We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because I enjoy doing that.

Speaker 27 She even goes as far far as to say if I die it may not be an accident.

Speaker 28 Okay, go ahead and ask one last question.

Speaker 26 How am I going to find your wife without your help?

Speaker 29 Peallop is a smaller town. It's located in an area that's kind of protected from wind and rain from the mountains around it.

Speaker 20 It's a suburb of Seattle and Tacoma.

Speaker 20 It's a homie. It's growing.
Low crime.

Speaker 31 Lots of children who live there. Lots of families.

Speaker 27 How many people are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Speaker 32 A lot of really nice people interconnected through the church. It's kind of a very typical American community.

Speaker 8 It is in Puyallup, Washington, where these two families and these two lives intersect. Josh Powell and Susan Cox.

Speaker 19 Susan was one of four daughters born to Chuck and Judy Cox.

Speaker 19 She was just, you know, a really typical girl and teenager. She liked to ride horses.

Speaker 34 She's my partner in crime.

Speaker 35 Susan tried to be rebellious, but she had too good of a heart.

Speaker 10 She was doing well in church and school, had friends, she loved choir.

Speaker 35 She liked her hair done, her nails done, wore stylish clothes.

Speaker 32 Susan had gone to cosmetology school. She liked to make other people feel good about themselves.

Speaker 19 She got interested in boys as a teenager. She met Josh when she was 18 at a social event for young Mormons and he was in his 20s and she hadn't dated a lot.

Speaker 32 In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, if you are unmarried, you can attend a congregation that is for other unmarried individuals.

Speaker 32 And so Josh and Susan are both kind of circulating in this singles crowd.

Speaker 43 There are these incredible home movies taken by Josh's dad, which were later released by police, that show the couple's blossoming relationship.

Speaker 44 You cut that out of the tape, right?

Speaker 38 When I first met Josh, I guess I thought he was cute. He was very confident and he thought he could get any girl he wanted.

Speaker 35 Susan said that he was treating her really well and he cared about her and he promised he'd make her happy.

Speaker 32 Josh Powell was an ambitious, strong-headed, kind of nerdy guy.

Speaker 35 Just tall, dorky, his head's too big for his shoulders.

Speaker 40 He just looked awkward.

Speaker 29 He's got a job, he's got his own place, and he's going to college.

Speaker 49 Sounding pretty good.

Speaker 32 He's going to go to school for business, so he's somebody who is bright when he applies himself.

Speaker 14 They quickly fell in love.

Speaker 13 You see pictures of them.

Speaker 14 They looked to be completely smitten.

Speaker 32 Josh and Susan's relationship goes from not knowing each other at all in October to being engaged by the end of December.

Speaker 35 When she told me she was getting married, I wasn't that

Speaker 35 supportive because she barely knew him

Speaker 35 and she just assured me that she's going to be really happy and that he wanted in life what she wanted in life.

Speaker 43 Those videos also capture Josh and Susan's wedding and the home life they built together after.

Speaker 19 Susan looked very pretty at her wedding. Very traditional long white dress.

Speaker 18 Please put the ring in that box and I'll

Speaker 18 open it up, put it on.

Speaker 35 She was very excited to show off Josh and start their lives together.

Speaker 13 Let's see the ring.

Speaker 25 Let's see that ring.

Speaker 25 Hold your hand up, please.

Speaker 8 It's a young person's love story that quickly becomes dark.

Speaker 35 As the reception went on,

Speaker 45 Josh was ignoring her more and more,

Speaker 35 taking pictures and hanging out with his family and then disappearing I could tell she's getting more agitated.

Speaker 19 Susan and Josh didn't have much money and they found themselves in doing some odd jobs just to get by.

Speaker 16 Susan actually was the financial provider. He kept going in and out of jobs and was never really settled with anything.

Speaker 8 They moved to West Valley City in Utah because they were looking for a better life.

Speaker 33 They wanted to improve their economic situation.

Speaker 33 They buy a house and they start to have a family.

Speaker 38 I still remember the day that she told me she was pregnant. It was probably

Speaker 38 the most

Speaker 38 impactful day of her life. She was so excited because she always wanted to be a mom.

Speaker 31 I would describe Josh as an unattached dad.

Speaker 6 Josh wanted to hold hold Charlie when he wanted to show him off to people

Speaker 6 but other than that he didn't want to change his diaper or feed him or give him a bath.

Speaker 33 And then they had Brayden

Speaker 8 and if you look at the family pictures there is joy and there is sparkle.

Speaker 53 Yeah.

Speaker 6 As little boys they were rambunctious and mischievous and ran around being typical happy little boys.

Speaker 10 What are you watching?

Speaker 10 Car!

Speaker 54 Cars!

Speaker 6 And Susan loved them more than anything in the world.

Speaker 31 Monday morning, December 7th, 2009.

Speaker 6 They didn't show up.

Speaker 32 Debbie Caldwell.

Speaker 55 She is the daycare provider for Charlie and Brayden Powell.

Speaker 50 And by

Speaker 56 seven o'clock, still no Susan.

Speaker 8 She had to be to work at seven.

Speaker 31 That's not like Susan to be late and not call.

Speaker 32 They don't show up that Monday morning as the snowstorm is coming in and Debbie Caldwell becomes concerned.

Speaker 19 Debbie tried to call Susan on the phone, tried to call Josh, couldn't breach anybody.

Speaker 31 So I got in the van and I went up the street to her house. And as I pulled into her circle, there was no tire tracks in the driveway.
So I pounded on the door and I got no answer.

Speaker 32 So Debbie calls the emergency contact, which is Josh's sister Jennifer Graves and Josh's mom, Terry Powell.

Speaker 16 The conclusion that we came to was carbon monoxide. They're probably dead in their beds.
We ended up calling the police.

Speaker 32 911, what's your emergency?

Speaker 57 My son and his wife and their two children are not responding to calls and they're not responding to people pounding on their door and there's no tracks coming out of of their driveway.

Speaker 57 We're worried that maybe gas has been left on or something like that.

Speaker 32 And a couple of officers come out on a welfare check. They determine that the best course of action is to break a window to see whether or not the family is in there.

Speaker 16 And they said, we'll go in if you'll pay for the window. And so we said, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 44 They find evidence that pointed to some unusual circumstances.

Speaker 16 Why would that be here? That just wasn't a normal thing.

Speaker 58 Good Monday morning, you too.

Speaker 31 Today is December 7th.

Speaker 12 Snow and ice.

Speaker 8 Two to four feet of snow in this.

Speaker 25 December 7th, 2009,

Speaker 12 I was viewing a bank robbery case, and the sergeant asked me to reach out to patrol where they were out on a missing family out on on the west side of town.

Speaker 19 Jennifer gave permission to the police to break a window and go into the house.

Speaker 16 Most officers just kind of shimmied in. He was like, what is up with the fans?

Speaker 16 There are two box fans pointed at the carpet in the living room and we were all confused.

Speaker 12 The officers cleared the entire residence and found nobody inside the home. And the PAL vehicle, which was a blue minivan, it wasn't parked in the garage.

Speaker 16 The first thing I saw was Susan's purse was on a table. And I started pulling out things.
You know, I found her keys, her wallet, and had her driver's license and her credit card.

Speaker 32 You would expect that if she had left on her own, was intending to go someplace, she would have taken those items.

Speaker 12 The kitchen, the master bedroom was fairly clean. I mean, the bed wasn't made.
The bedroom for the children, the blankets were missing. But yeah, the house was pretty orderly.

Speaker 12 There was no sign of a disturbance, physical altercation inside of the residence.

Speaker 6 On the morning of December 7th, I was sitting in my family room, homeschooling my three kids, and the phone rang.

Speaker 6 A voice on the other end said, Josh, Susan, and the boys are missing and nobody has seen them since yesterday. It's just the most horrible, sickening feeling.
I just thought, what has happened?

Speaker 19 Susan's friends were afraid that they'd gone out on a jaunt because Josh liked to drive and take photographs and maybe had slipped off a cliff or they'd gotten stuck in the snow.

Speaker 6 I made a few phone calls asking other people in the congregation if anyone had seen Susan. Giovanna goes, I actually had dinner with them last night.

Speaker 19 Susan asked Giovanna to come over to the house and help her with her knitting and crocheting. While she was there, Josh, who never did anything domestic at all, offered to make people dinner.

Speaker 60 She was crocheting on her blanket, I was working on the yarn.

Speaker 61 Josh and the boys were in the kitchen cooking.

Speaker 36 He called his father, Steve, to ask for a recipe for pancakes.

Speaker 34 Everything he did was a little bit different routine than anybody else would have. He made them one by one.

Speaker 34 He took a plate into Giovanna.

Speaker 19 He took a plate with different pancakes made, obviously, into Susan.

Speaker 60 He and the boys ate at the table and he brought

Speaker 60 our plates into us in the living room.

Speaker 60 I think that was probably very unusual.

Speaker 6 I never ever witnessed them ever eating in the living room.

Speaker 19 Shortly after that, Susan began to not feel well. Susan laid down and Josh sort of suggested to Giovanna that it was time for her to leave.

Speaker 60 He was going to take the boys sledding and he and the boys actually drove out before I had finished putting on my seatbelt. That was the last time I saw anybody.

Speaker 60 Around five.

Speaker 16 My brother finally called right away, asked about the kids, asked about Susan, and he was like, yeah, the kids are here. No, Susan's not with me.

Speaker 16 And I was like, where is she?

Speaker 16 You know, and he was like, I don't know. I have no idea.

Speaker 16 She went to work.

Speaker 32 Josh drives all the way south to a place called Point of the Mountain, and he places a phone call to Susan's phone.

Speaker 17 Hello, Susan. We are on our way back, and

Speaker 62 I can't believe that somehow my brain missed the day.

Speaker 17 I thought today was Sunday. That was really, really stupid.
All right, I'll talk to you later. Okay, bye.

Speaker 16 We sat there and waited. It was a long time.
It was

Speaker 16 an hour, maybe more. Josh finally showed up at the house.

Speaker 15 Josh had taken the children on a middle-of-the-night camping trip.

Speaker 64 It was freezing cold.

Speaker 15 None of this makes any sense, except to him, he does things spontaneously without any plan.

Speaker 22 And he took the kids. He said that he left Susan in the house.

Speaker 15 She was sleeping.

Speaker 12 We really wanted to talk with Josh and we wanted to record it. We had Josh follow us to the substation.
He was adamant about taking the boys with him. When's the last time you've seen her?

Speaker 53 Probably about midnight of last night.

Speaker 53 We're finishing up a movie.

Speaker 12 What movie did you just watch?

Speaker 66 Fly.

Speaker 53 Love Movie.

Speaker 55 Hey, go back.

Speaker 32 Josh is very evasive and he uses the kids who are in the room to distract away.

Speaker 12 He wasn't forthcoming with answers or information, so it was very frustrating.

Speaker 53 And where did you drive to? Well, I started heading south through Tallilla, turned onto the Pony Express.

Speaker 12 How far down the Pony Express did you go?

Speaker 28 Not very far. Maybe 20 miles, I don't know.

Speaker 12 So what did you do once you got there?

Speaker 53 Hooked up a heater and

Speaker 28 had a fire for the boys.

Speaker 19 Josh said they drove to Simpson Springs and had s'mores over a campfire.

Speaker 19 It's not really very clear exactly what happened that evening and the next morning.

Speaker 12 We asked him if we could search his minivan, and he agreed. The minivan was full of camping supplies, like there was a tarp, a generator, shovel, graham crackers.

Speaker 32 During that search of the minivan where they find Susan's phone hidden in the center console,

Speaker 32 it's this pink cell phone, clearly not Josh's.

Speaker 12 And he was kind of like turned headlights. He just kind of looked at us.

Speaker 19 In no way did it make any sense. Susan's cell phone is in the van with him.
Where the heck was Susan?

Speaker 68 Detectives talked to Josh and Susan's son, Charlie.

Speaker 44 There was one particular statement that raised a lot of eyebrows.

Speaker 66 Who were you camping with?

Speaker 69 My dad, and my mom, and my

Speaker 69 little brother.

Speaker 66 Dad, your mom,

Speaker 66 and your brother?

Speaker 70 Down the street from the Powells, Kiersey Helliwell sat in a downstairs playroom wondering, where is Susan?

Speaker 19 Then came the news.

Speaker 70 It made her heartbeat faster, her stomach turn in somersaults.

Speaker 31 I just lost it.

Speaker 31 Nine o'clock that night, Jennifer told me that Josh and the boys are home. And I'm like, well, where's Susan? And she said, we don't know.

Speaker 6 As soon as I heard that he was back and Susan was not with them, I instantly said to myself, what has he done?

Speaker 8 It became like this game of telephone

Speaker 8 where people were passing along these little bits of information and suddenly a larger story was coming together.

Speaker 60 He said he was out driving around, he'd gone out camping with the boys.

Speaker 61 And I'm like, are you a crazy man?

Speaker 60 It was cold?

Speaker 38 That is 100% Josh. He did that kind of stuff all the time.

Speaker 6 But Susan would have never allowed him to ever take the boys out in the winter to the desert in the middle of the night. Never.

Speaker 36 I never believed his story at all.

Speaker 12 It was determined we didn't have enough probable cause to secure a search warrant for the residents. Ledloan booked Josh into jail because we didn't have any physical evidence.

Speaker 32 The decision was a huge mistake because he burns this metal object into oblivion.

Speaker 32 So thoroughly destroyed was this item that nobody to this day can say what exactly it was.

Speaker 27 Bags and bags of things are shoved into the garbage.

Speaker 48 Why would you do that the day after your wife disappears?

Speaker 32 The following morning, he is observed with the minivan pulled out of the garage, all the doors open, thoroughly cleaning it, wiping it down, vacuuming it.

Speaker 16 It was really odd to me because he was running around the house grabbing piles of towels and putting them in the washer and finally we're like you've got to go to your interview with the police.

Speaker 17 All right, I'll probably have to see. I'm going to go grab my notebook and I'll be right back, okay? Okay.

Speaker 32 Josh Powell kind of has a uniform of sorts. It's typically a t-shirt, it's a leather jacket, it's denim pants, and it's dingy white shoes.

Speaker 32 When Josh goes in to talk to the police, in the tape, you see him initially acting very emotional.

Speaker 28 I don't know.

Speaker 40 I didn't even think it was that.

Speaker 17 It

Speaker 48 didn't even sink in yesterday.

Speaker 32 He's crying. His voice is shaking.

Speaker 32 He's just trying to hold it together. But as Detective Maxwell continues to push Josh about what's going on, Josh's demeanor changes.

Speaker 17 Can you remember what we were doing?

Speaker 17 Okay.

Speaker 28 So you don't remember what you guys did from 6 o'clock till you went to bed on Saturday night?

Speaker 74 I just don't remember what activity we were doing.

Speaker 19 Josh is not a participant at all in talking about his missing wife.

Speaker 32 Shows no urgency in getting out to go look for her.

Speaker 75 Have you checked any places where she could be?

Speaker 54 I haven't had much of a chance to do any of that yet.

Speaker 32 He asks police no questions about what they're doing to find her.

Speaker 75 Jack, what places should we go check to see if we can find her?

Speaker 17 CD supply?

Speaker 74 I don't think she would be there, but she likes them.

Speaker 32 And he offers no suggestions, suggestions, really, about where they might look.

Speaker 26 Okay. Let me ask you this before you go on.

Speaker 28 Go ahead and ask one last

Speaker 28 question.

Speaker 26 How am I going to find your wife without your help?

Speaker 12 While I'm interviewing him,

Speaker 12 another colleague conducted a child forensic interview.

Speaker 17 Right there.

Speaker 58 Yeah.

Speaker 77 Good job. It's got nice lights, huh? Pretty.

Speaker 16 We went to the Children's Justice Center and they

Speaker 16 were able to interview Charlie. Brayden really wouldn't talk to them.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 77 Well what did you do last night?

Speaker 69 Go camping.

Speaker 66 You went camping?

Speaker 66 Who were you camping with?

Speaker 69 Um my dad and my mom and my

Speaker 69 my little brother.

Speaker 19 The children said mommy was in the van but didn't come back with us. A pretty significant thing for a four-year-old to

Speaker 19 tell a detective.

Speaker 40 We got

Speaker 69 in the airplane, on the airplane,

Speaker 69 we went to the US from National Heart.

Speaker 5 You went to an airplane yesterday?

Speaker 32 Charlie's interview is perplexing because he says a lot of things that don't make much sense.

Speaker 66 Okay, so Charlie, when you guys came home from camping, who came home with

Speaker 69 My dad.

Speaker 66 And

Speaker 69 my mom stayed at the next one nasty park.

Speaker 16 My mom stayed where a crystal arm.

Speaker 44 There was one particular statement that raised a lot of eyebrows. Mommy is with the crystals.
And how some people interpreted that was that the boys had been with their mom and she was not alive.

Speaker 28 Your children are telling our detectives that mom went with you guys last night

Speaker 17 and that she didn't come back.

Speaker 75 She did not go with us.

Speaker 54 They know that she didn't go with us.

Speaker 20 So your kids lie then?

Speaker 26 Do your kids lie?

Speaker 28 Sometimes they do.

Speaker 78 With children, they're going to go from threads of truth and reality to fantasy.

Speaker 68 And maybe things that happened long before mom disappeared. They're still in his memory and in his his mind sort of fuses together.

Speaker 43 She was not with us.

Speaker 74 I didn't leave her at the Pony Express.

Speaker 74 I didn't just take her out and drop her off or even do anything.

Speaker 9 I do want the lawyer because at this point I definitely want a lawyer.

Speaker 12 Could have I went and booked him into jail? Yeah, I could have.

Speaker 12 But we wanted to find Susan, so we were putting a GPS tracker on his his van. We want him to be out and about and see where he goes.

Speaker 8 Instead of picking up his van, he went to the airport, he rented a Ford Focus.

Speaker 32 And he vanishes in that rental car for 18 hours. And when he returns that rental car, it has an additional 807 miles on the odometer.

Speaker 32 To this day, we don't know where Josh went.

Speaker 19 Very quickly, the police realized that Josh was lying to them, that he was evasive, and he was not acting like a bereaved husband.

Speaker 8 When detectives spoke with Susan's friends, there was a very different picture of this marriage.

Speaker 6 She went to see a divorce lawyer, and he told her to make a videotape.

Speaker 5 This is me

Speaker 5 covering all my bases.

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Speaker 9 For a missing wife and mother in West Valley City.

Speaker 44 We had been hearing some buzz in the community that there was a woman who was missing.

Speaker 9 28-year-old Susan Powell was last seen.

Speaker 39 Sunday night, a family dinner with other friends.

Speaker 10 It has been three days.

Speaker 11 Four days and counting. Be missing for a week.

Speaker 27 Utah gets missing persons cases almost every day. So this didn't really stand out as anything out of the normal.

Speaker 13 ABC Force Brian Carlson is live at the West Valley Police Station tonight until you start to hear some of the details unravel we've learned the search warrants for the powell's home have now been sealed up it's strange that he came home with the kids and not her west valley city police calling this one a puzzler call it suspicious not even a clue if you see her or know anything please contact the west valley police department

Speaker 44 Her friends and family were just starting to ask questions. They were out there with flyers, just trying to find out where she might be.

Speaker 8 Volunteers fanned out handing out flyers of Susan Powell.

Speaker 29 Josh, after Susan went missing, he went from the guy who was talking about everything and knew everything to somebody who said nothing, knew nothing.

Speaker 11 And a husband who says he does not know what has happened to her.

Speaker 82 We know the answers are out there and we need those who know where she is and what happened to come forward.

Speaker 6 I held a candlelight vigil a few days into her disappearance and Josh came to that.

Speaker 10 late.

Speaker 37 After the candlelight vigil was over, Josh Powell did show up here in the park with his two children, but he quickly left without saying anything.

Speaker 31 Charlie had come up to me and he was telling telling me, Debbie, my hands are cold, my hands are cold. And Josh scooped Charlie up and kind of pulled him away like this.

Speaker 6 And reporters were trying to chase him through the snow and he was walking away from them.

Speaker 10 You were camping with the boys?

Speaker 7 I have to go get my boys.

Speaker 6 There was no point at which Josh ever seemed to even be concerned that Susan was missing. If he wanted to help on the website, he should have detailed a timeline.

Speaker 6 He never participated in any of the massive, massive efforts that myself and relatives and friends launched to put out flyers and malls and parking lots.

Speaker 27 He didn't seem like he was engaged at all in what was going on. It seemed like his mind was somewhere else.

Speaker 10 He spoke very briefly with local media.

Speaker 54 I've been trying to figure out

Speaker 54 what I can do so I don't sit idle and dealing with

Speaker 17 this repeatedly.

Speaker 10 People were upset that he didn't seem upset that she was missing.

Speaker 48 And so people thought that's because he's guilty.

Speaker 83 Josh, will you give us a comment today?

Speaker 78 Pointing the fingers at Joshua, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 27 It seemed like initially Josh and Susan were a pretty conservative couple,

Speaker 10 loving family, couple of kids. We learned that there was a lot of distress, a lot of turmoil in their marriage.

Speaker 14 He controlled the money, even though she was the breadwinner.

Speaker 32 Josh is very willing to spend money building himself a fancy computer. Susan doesn't get that privilege.

Speaker 33 Susan was tormented about how troubled the marriage was.

Speaker 14 She'd been really happy, he'd been a great husband, and she said that he really changed.

Speaker 86 He became not affectionate.

Speaker 16 Taking a picture of the back of your head.

Speaker 38 Awkward to talk about, but they also had issues, you know, in the bedroom. Susan was this beautiful girl, but Josh just was not interested

Speaker 38 in her sexually. It was just really weird.

Speaker 6 He kept her at arm's length. He wouldn't kiss her anymore.
He wouldn't touch her. He wouldn't hold her hand.

Speaker 32 Josh and Susan's marriage reaches rock bottom in the summer of 2008.

Speaker 32 Josh and Susan are constantly fighting. They're arguing in front of the kids.
Josh is exhibiting extreme control over Susan.

Speaker 6 She said one time we were having a screaming fight and I shoved him, pushed me back and he goes, if you ever do that again, I'm going to hit you.

Speaker 56 But she said he never did.

Speaker 32 Susan's now starting to think about, I've got to get out of this marriage.

Speaker 6 She went to see a divorce lawyer one time for a free consultation at my advice and

Speaker 6 He told her to make a videotape of everything in your house.

Speaker 22 This is me.

Speaker 5 July 29th, 2008. Covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us, that our assets are documented.
And here is our safe.

Speaker 13 Got all sorts of files.

Speaker 5 Financial information. Speakers, 5.1 surround sound.
Broke this and threw all my DVDs and made a mess. There's a hole in that wall.
Beautiful diamond necklace my mom bought.

Speaker 5 Jade, that's a family heirloom. Not worth thousands of dollars, but I have assets.
Hope everything works out and we're all happy and

Speaker 5 live happily ever after as much as that's possible.

Speaker 6 After she would email me a lot and just say it, I want to do everything in my power to save my marriage before I walk away.

Speaker 19 Josh had warned her, if you divorce me, you'll never see the children. So she stayed.

Speaker 33 Police ended up discovering the safety deposit box that Susan kept secretly from Josh at the bank where she worked.

Speaker 8 In it, they found a DVD, some savings bonds, and there was a makeshift will and testament.

Speaker 12 The last will and testament, handwritten on one piece of paper, both sides,

Speaker 12 top to bottom, side to side. There was no room to write another word.

Speaker 33 She wrote about how bad the marriage had become.

Speaker 33 She talked about a million-dollar life insurance policy that Josh had taken out on her, and she told her boys she would never leave them.

Speaker 27 She even goes as far as to say, if I die, it may not be an an accident.

Speaker 17 That is our biggest piece of evidence.

Speaker 12 It's her last words. There was no doubt that this document was authored by Susan.

Speaker 10 The biggest mystery of this case is why didn't police arrest Josh Powell?

Speaker 29 I was frustrated because they hadn't arrested him. I felt they had plenty of evidence to arrest him.

Speaker 80 Police have officially named Joshua Powell a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan.

Speaker 32 The West Valley City Police Department took a lot of heat for not throwing the handcuffs on Joshua.

Speaker 12 There's a pile of circumstantial evidence. Is there enough there to arrest him and book him into jail and hold him accountable?

Speaker 17 Absolutely there is.

Speaker 12 Could we? No. The district attorney's office would not file any charges.
They were very specific and told us that we needed to wait 12 months with no body.

Speaker 43 ABC News reached out to the DA at the time, who declined to respond to this claim and refused to comment on the case.

Speaker 19 Within days of Susan's disappearance, he had closed their bank accounts, cashed out her retirement fund, took the boys to Puyallup.

Speaker 80 People we talk to say they can't believe that Joshua Powell has emptied the house and left what is ground zero in the disappearance of his wife.

Speaker 80 They say it only casts more doubt on a man they're having an increasingly difficult time believing.

Speaker 16 I suddenly had this

Speaker 16 thought I should get Josh to confess.

Speaker 19 Jennifer volunteered with the police to wear a wire.

Speaker 4 What is he doing?

Speaker 87 I know what I've done, and I haven't done anything.

Speaker 88 For right now, you just endure and take each day as you can.

Speaker 27 When Josh told police he took the boys camping in the middle of the night in Utah's West Desert,

Speaker 27 Police started their search there.

Speaker 43 Detectives are scouring rocky hillsides and abandoned mine tunnels for any signs of Susan Powell.

Speaker 27 The police for months and months would search these mines, taking canine teams.

Speaker 10 And West Valley police detectives say they plan to survey as many as possible.

Speaker 64 The most intense part of this search is happening right at the bottom of this.

Speaker 11 Investigators are swarming the high desert.

Speaker 12 Josh told somebody that

Speaker 12 the best place to dispose of a body would be in a mine.

Speaker 26 This is one of those abandoned mine shafts in which detectives went through.

Speaker 12 Nobody would ever find it.

Speaker 10 It's like finding a needle in the haystack.

Speaker 37 A lot of questions still unanswered at this point.

Speaker 36 There's a big part of you missing, and you want to know the truth?

Speaker 49 But the family won't give up hope.

Speaker 24 There are still purple ribbons at their home. There are still stickers on car windows.

Speaker 32 Josh decides that he's going to take the boys up to his dad's house in Washington to try to get away from the media circus.

Speaker 89 Do you have anything to say?

Speaker 83 Josh, will you give us a comment today?

Speaker 29 They'd open a crack and say no. They weren't talking to anybody.

Speaker 78 Hi, I'm trying to find Josh Powell.

Speaker 29 They were just their own little

Speaker 8 country.

Speaker 8 Josh isolates himself from the world. He's not talking to police.

Speaker 71 He's not talking to media.

Speaker 8 He's certainly not searching for his missing wife.

Speaker 16 I suddenly had this

Speaker 16 thought I should try and get Josh to confess.

Speaker 43 Even Josh's sister, Jennifer Graves, doesn't believe him. So she goes to police and she volunteers to wear a wire and go inside her dad's house.

Speaker 16 They were just about to have dinner and we went in and the boys were so excited to see us. My birthday, it is your birthday show.
You're going to be.

Speaker 16 I didn't know exactly how to force this confrontation with Josh.

Speaker 16 Suddenly, I just I sh I just shoved Josh into the bathroom and at that point I was like drop all pretense just tell me where her body is.

Speaker 80 We tried to cover it up.

Speaker 90 Where is Susan?

Speaker 12 Jennifer did a phenomenal job.

Speaker 90 I just don't believe it anymore. I can see it in your eyes.
There's something there.

Speaker 63 You're wrong.

Speaker 17 I think you just need to confess now and get it all away.

Speaker 91 Don't be ridiculous.

Speaker 54 I know what I've done and I haven't done anything.

Speaker 91 I've already told you

Speaker 91 everything.

Speaker 63 I'm not going to violate my attorney's direction.

Speaker 16 He still wouldn't budge. He still would not

Speaker 16 give me anything. I was so frustrated.

Speaker 12 Eventually, Steve kicked Jennifer out of the residence, calling her derogatory names.

Speaker 91 You are a

Speaker 91 gift is what you all said. Talk about your brother and my son that went.

Speaker 16 I regret not getting the confession, but I don't regret going.

Speaker 3 This is Good Morning America.

Speaker 13 And joining us now is Susan's mother and father, Judy.

Speaker 44 Susan's parents, from the moment she was missing, they were

Speaker 16 very involved with the press.

Speaker 49 Your grandchildren, what they saw.

Speaker 21 But very quickly, the tone changed.

Speaker 29 We made a conscious decision. The politeness wasn't working.
So we basically called him out.

Speaker 29 Josh is a desperate person.

Speaker 32 He has no valid explanation for where he was.

Speaker 48 Chuck Cox and the family, they're putting the purple ribbons.

Speaker 92 They've got the billboard outside the neighborhood.

Speaker 68 All these things, I'm sure, are driving him crazy, but for 18 months he sits in isolation and doesn't talk to anybody about it.

Speaker 12 To try to get Josh to talk, we put together the honkin' wave.

Speaker 6 What in the world is a honkin' wave?

Speaker 16 Thank you!

Speaker 6 And he said, you make these, you're gonna get these huge signs and you stand on the really busy corners and get people to honk and wave to show their support.

Speaker 16 Thank you.

Speaker 68 It can cause anxiety and disruption in your suspect's mind. People start to do things as the stress tends to build.

Speaker 19 They picked a... busy street near a store that they knew Steve and Josh shopped at and

Speaker 19 Chuck and Judy and others were out there with signs and everything.

Speaker 19 And there were television cameras there.

Speaker 6 We're not going to stop looking for her no matter how long it takes.

Speaker 48 They had these shirts with Susan's face. I think it said, have you seen me?

Speaker 17 And they had some big posters and they were waving and balloons and handing out flyers to cars as they went by.

Speaker 29 Steve pulled by and the next thing I know he's stomping over towards me.

Speaker 78 You can't do this.

Speaker 88 This is a store that I shop out.

Speaker 88 The only places where they've passed out flyers about Susan, the only place where they've put up billboards, the only place where they've duct taped flyers to light posts.

Speaker 26 How is you coming here helping to find Susan?

Speaker 88 It isn't helping to find Susan. How is your standing at our neighborhood market helping to find Susan Chuck?

Speaker 11 An extraordinary, personal, and very public confrontation that erupted in the middle of the search for Susan Powell. Several family members were clashing in front of the cameras.

Speaker 17 That's all over the media.

Speaker 40 If somebody has seen her, then they can report to the camera.

Speaker 88 You're only going to do this. Which other stores are you doing this at, Chuck?

Speaker 48 It was ugly. It was weird.
It was really contentious. I was waiting for the cops to come and haul one of them away.

Speaker 88 Said you come out against my family.

Speaker 19 Then Josh showed up midway into this confrontation on the street corner, and he had the boys in the van with him.

Speaker 54 Chuck Cox uses my sons as pawns in the media to drive whatever message he is trying to drive.

Speaker 17 Are you doing okay? Yeah, that's all right.

Speaker 15 I get a call from Josh. We were telling Josh, okay, are you gonna do this interview or not? And

Speaker 15 he finally said yes.

Speaker 22 So I just want to go back there.

Speaker 13 You still love her?

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 15 He seemed very distant when I spoke to him.

Speaker 13 He had a hollow look and a stare

Speaker 15 that

Speaker 15 I wondered, is he trying to intimidate me?

Speaker 13 Josh, did you kill your wife?

Speaker 15 Then there was Stephen wanting to be interviewed, and he ends up revealing the biggest bombshell.

Speaker 24 There were just sexual things going on between us.

Speaker 13 This is your daughter-in-law.

Speaker 6 We were watching this on TV, and our jaws just dropped.

Speaker 89 McNew feed the birdie. Yeah.

Speaker 54 Don't crawl crawl in the dirt, boys.

Speaker 5 Hope everything works out and we're all happy and

Speaker 5 live happily ever after as much as that's possible.

Speaker 16 And I was like, where is she?

Speaker 16 You know, and he was like, I don't know.

Speaker 6 I instantly said to myself, what has he done?

Speaker 89 You have anything to say?

Speaker 83 Josh, will you give us a comment today?

Speaker 84 Even his own sister didn't believe him anymore.

Speaker 16 I just shoved Josh into the bathroom. And at that point, I was like, drop all pretense.
Just tell me where her body is.

Speaker 33 Susan had often referred to her father-in-law as creepy, but she, I don't think, had any idea how creepy the man truly was.

Speaker 93 I can love you in a secret way.

Speaker 69 We can talk about Susan or Campus.

Speaker 17 I

Speaker 17 always keep things as secrets.

Speaker 32 During that interview, it's very clear that Charlie has been coached.

Speaker 35 He looked more and more like a psychopath. He was running out of places to hide, slams the door in her face, and locks it.

Speaker 10 This is a story you can't write in a Hollywood script.

Speaker 26 No one would have thought in a million years that's how the story would have ended.

Speaker 15 Susan Powell was a young, beautiful mother of two adorable children. She just one night vanished.

Speaker 95 Detectives have named Josh Powell a person of interest in the case.

Speaker 15 He did some local news, some ambush-style interviews where they would ask him something on the fly.

Speaker 10 You were camping with the boys?

Speaker 7 I have to go get my boys.

Speaker 15 But he never really sat down and talked about what happened.

Speaker 15 I'll never forget the first time that I met him. I shook his hand, and a chill just like raced up through my spine.

Speaker 15 I just shook the hand of a killer.

Speaker 40 Are we rolling?

Speaker 15 Why talk now?

Speaker 40 Oh man.

Speaker 54 I wanted to come out and

Speaker 54 say something.

Speaker 54 People who know me know that I'm a good dad.

Speaker 54 I was a good husband.

Speaker 54 I provided for them.

Speaker 54 Susan also contributed.

Speaker 15 Nothing he told me during that interview convinced me that he was not part of what happened to her and why she disappeared.

Speaker 13 I know that you've told police that you were camping. You brought your two-year-old and your four-year-old camping.

Speaker 16 Is that where you were?

Speaker 54 I'm not going to talk about anything that

Speaker 54 my attorney has specifically told me not to.

Speaker 13 Okay. Why not just answer where you were when she disappeared?

Speaker 13 Josh, can I suggest something?

Speaker 22 His father was there and

Speaker 15 his father really wanted to be interviewed, which was odd. And I had really no desire to interview Stephen Powell at that time, zero.

Speaker 22 And I just thought, this is such a waste of time.

Speaker 4 This is pointless.

Speaker 13 You think she ran away with another man?

Speaker 24 It was another man.

Speaker 13 I I don't think Josh was in the room for that part of the interview.

Speaker 15 And before you know it, he ends up revealing the biggest bombshell out of all of the interviews that I've had done out of the whole case.

Speaker 13 What makes you think that she would leave,

Speaker 13 leave her kids, her two young sons,

Speaker 13 and run away with another man?

Speaker 37 With another man.

Speaker 24 Susan was very, very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious.
I mean, she was just, she did it.

Speaker 25 I did it.

Speaker 24 I mean, we interacted in a lot of sexual ways because

Speaker 24 Susan enjoys doing that.

Speaker 25 But this is I enjoy doing that.

Speaker 16 Why are you telling everyone that?

Speaker 16 That's not to your benefit, but somehow in my dad's own twisted mind he thought that that was the greatest strategy to keep the dogs off Josh or something. I don't know.

Speaker 25 One day we were at an animal park.

Speaker 24 I was holding Brayden in my arms and I had my hands like this.

Speaker 24 The part I remember is that Susan came over to take him from me and instead of just reaching out and grabbing him, she pressed her breasts against my hands tightly.

Speaker 25 And she wouldn't let my hands out.

Speaker 24 And that's nice. It was a cold day, so it was a nice, warm feeling.

Speaker 15 Give me a break.

Speaker 13 But he loved to talk about it.

Speaker 32 Josh and Susan, early in their marriage, move in to Steve Powell's home.

Speaker 33 Susan had often referred to her father-in-law as creepy, but she, I don't think, had any idea how creepy the man truly was.

Speaker 96 No, I'll do this.

Speaker 32 And during this period of time, Steve Powell is constantly filming Susan. This is a man who is collecting video for his own perverse gratification.
Because Steve Powell is a voyeur.

Speaker 19 He wrote a number of songs about Susan.

Speaker 43 Stephen Powell even recorded them and posted them on his website.

Speaker 93 I can love you in a secret way.

Speaker 93 I can love you each and every

Speaker 19 day.

Speaker 19 He had a pseudonym he used, Steve Chantree.

Speaker 16 While Josh and Susan were living with my dad, there was a point where she was alone in the car with my dad for a short time while Josh was in the house and my dad actually hit on her.

Speaker 32 He has put his camera in the bag on the center console and left it recording.

Speaker 23 And so the audio of this conversation is captured.

Speaker 1 I've really fallen in love with you.

Speaker 62 You know, for the last year and a half, you're about the only thing we can think about.

Speaker 1 And just, for example, when we were sitting on the couch, it just felt like you were very,

Speaker 1 you know, I mean, I was extremely aroused, and I think you were somewhat aroused, at least I thought.

Speaker 62 I don't know where you're going with this.

Speaker 32 That audio was an opportunity to hear Susan in her own voice telling Steve, in no uncertain terms, she was not interested.

Speaker 97 Kind of meaning to talk to you about this

Speaker 97 because I realized the last time I came over that my own father doesn't kiss me and

Speaker 97 you kiss me and I didn't like that.

Speaker 35 She was extremely upset about that and disturbed, but even more disturbed when Josh just said that that's his dad.

Speaker 22 I mean, he was obsessed with Susan. He was absolutely obsessed and

Speaker 13 he wanted to talk about it.

Speaker 22 To me, this was

Speaker 15 the headline. And it also put a target on Steven's back.

Speaker 22 And maybe he had something to do with this. The focus was less on Josh, and it shifted straight to Josh's father because it was so creepy.

Speaker 13 That was my big takeaway.

Speaker 84 Police raided the home of her husband and father-in-law, seizing several computers and sealed boxes after those those disturbing allegations made by both of them right here on GMA yesterday.

Speaker 3 Audiences and top critics are celebrating. Rental Family is the perfect feel-good movie of the year.
What do you need me for? We need a talking white guy.

Speaker 3 Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser delivers a masterful performance.

Speaker 84 This girl needs a father.

Speaker 3 I hate you.

Speaker 2 She hates me.

Speaker 3 It's worth being a parent. Yes.
In this tender and funny film about the importance of connection. This is amazing.
It's cool, but it's fake. Sometimes it's okay to pretend.

Speaker 3 Rental family now playing only in theaters. Ready PG-13 may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Speaker 96 Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments? When the killer's identity is about to be revealed. During that perfect meditation flow.

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Speaker 39 Susan Powell disappeared from her home near Salt Lake City on December 6, 2009.

Speaker 40 Since then, no word, nothing.

Speaker 8 The Powells, they had this entire campaign of their own, and it was to make Susan look bad.

Speaker 8 It was to make her look like she was promiscuous, like she was looking to leave the marriage and abandon her children.

Speaker 36 Susan Cox kept a diary, a secret diary.

Speaker 13 Let's stay focused on the journals, okay, because I think that's very interesting.

Speaker 24 I believe that Susan had a liaison with somebody who disappeared the same week she did.

Speaker 24 She was very open sexually, and when I read her journals, it's clear that most of the male, the relationships she got into with males were ones that she initiated.

Speaker 20 Basically, Josh and Stephen on their own stupidity were telling them, hey, this is the holy grail. This is telling us where Susan is.

Speaker 4 This is telling us how Susan acted.

Speaker 20 So that gave us the nexus through the judicial system to get into the house.

Speaker 43 When Josh moved in with his father shortly after his wife's disappearance, he took some things from his Utah home, including Susan's journals.

Speaker 98 Susan Powell's diaries have taken center stage. According to the search warrant left at the Powell's home, police came looking for seven very specific diaries, all written by Susan.

Speaker 98 Diaries that her husband insists will help explain her disappearance.

Speaker 19 They went through everything in the house, including all of Steve's, you know, files, journals, computers.

Speaker 32 They also find Steve Powell's collection of Voyer videos. Steve Powell is doing things like sliding mirrors under the bathroom door, attempting to get images of Susan while she's undressed.

Speaker 75 I love putting her underwear against my face, just smelling her scent.

Speaker 19 Steve would narrate his videos to himself as he's shooting video of her dirty underwear.

Speaker 26 Steven Powell would save things of Susan that she'd throw throw away in a bathroom garbage. Things like cotton swabs, wax strips, tampons.

Speaker 76 He would mark each one of them, like for specific storage.

Speaker 20 In his walk-in closet, there was a filing cabinet that was locked. And once we got into that, that was kind of like the unwanted treasure that we found.

Speaker 98 Police say inside Powell's bedroom, they found thousands of images of mostly young girls, many naked, being videotaped without their knowledge.

Speaker 99 Prosecutors say two former neighbors, sisters just seven and twelve, were repeatedly videotaped while bathing.

Speaker 50 Police said Powell shot from his bedroom window into the neighbor's bathroom window using a telephoto lens.

Speaker 32 They've looked at Steve Powell, the suspect, and Susan's disappearance, and ruled him out, but it's obviously of great concern to detectives as they're scouring through all the material they take out of Steve Powell's home when they see underage neighbor girls undressed on Steve Powell's tapes.

Speaker 49 Powell entered a plea of not guilty to 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography.

Speaker 43 Stephen Powell was eventually convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for possession of child pornography.

Speaker 79 Because of all the things that the police encountered in the search of the Stephen Powell home, it became apparent eventually these boys were at imminent risk of harm.

Speaker 12 The best part that came out of the search warrant with Steve's house was Child Family Services of Washington stepped in and shared with us that they would take custody of the children.

Speaker 50 The boys, ages four and six, were taken last night by the state, and now Susan's father is fighting to keep them with him.

Speaker 29 They were going to be placed, relative placement with us, so we were essentially foster parents. Josh didn't want them with us.

Speaker 54 My sons are safe with me. They're safe in my home.
They're safe with my family.

Speaker 38 I think Josh's main fear probably was that once Charlie started talking to their grandparents, the story would get out.

Speaker 14 They were saying things like, Our mommy went with us on the trip but didn't come back. We can only see our mom again if we go camping again.

Speaker 89 Brayden drew the picture of

Speaker 29 a minivan with stick people inside. And who's this? Oh, that's that's me.
Who's that? That's Charlie.

Speaker 71 Who's that?

Speaker 29 That's daddy. And he said, and he volunteered, mommy's in the trunk.

Speaker 20 We wanted to interview them.

Speaker 51 Were you sitting right there?

Speaker 26 So I wrote the search warrant for that.

Speaker 77 Charlie, has anybody talked to you about your mom?

Speaker 69 No?

Speaker 17 I don't know where she is.

Speaker 4 I see our lost sister somewhere.

Speaker 32 During that interview, it's very clear that Charlie has been coached.

Speaker 32 His answers are extremely evasive.

Speaker 69 We can talk about schools or camping.

Speaker 17 I always keep things as secrets.

Speaker 20 The only thing we got out of that time was that at one point he said that she went camping, but she didn't come home with them. And then he kind of clammed up after that.

Speaker 69 I didn't want to talk to you on this long.

Speaker 69 I mean it on this many

Speaker 69 minutes. Now I'm done.

Speaker 8 While the Coxes were fighting for custody of the kids and had temporary custody of the boys, they were still essentially wards of the state.

Speaker 33 Washington state had control over these children and the Coxes were glorified foster care.

Speaker 8 So the boys are living with grandma and grandpa and Josh is getting supervised visitation with the boys.

Speaker 32 The visitation is at first understood to be taking place

Speaker 32 at a secure third-party facility, but in short order, Josh takes steps to rent his own house and he begins pushing the social workers, asking them if they can move visitation to this new house that he's rented because it's not Steve Powell's house.

Speaker 32 It shouldn't have the same concerns.

Speaker 29 I think the boys were ones that originally told me, hey, we got to go to daddy's house or something. And I went, oh, really?

Speaker 52 I was concerned about that they were very excited they were thrilled about the new house and they were they were thrilled about the yard at the new house

Speaker 43 I am in their best interest

Speaker 79 as their father that I should be raising them through December

Speaker 79 into early January

Speaker 78 he was confident from everything that I've been told that his reunification motion was going to be granted

Speaker 79 well that was doomsday for Josh Powell This is a story you can't write in a Hollywood script.

Speaker 26 No one would have thought in a million years that's how the story would have ended.

Speaker 89 Josh, is there anything you'd care to see on your way in?

Speaker 19 When Josh was fighting for custody of Charlie and Braden, it wasn't about being a father. It was about beating the Coxes.

Speaker 64 The kids seemed like typical kids to a certain extent, but they were undergoing a lot of stress.

Speaker 32 I think Josh went into that hearing on February 1st thinking he was going to get his kids back.

Speaker 20 I was pretty positive that Josh was the one that killed Susan. I wanted to keep those boys out of that home as long as possible.

Speaker 20 I was going to West Valley going, hey, guys, we need something.

Speaker 43 Pierce County authorities and investigators in Utah shared the common goal of protecting the boys.

Speaker 43 So the West Valley police in Utah passed along previously unreleased evidence recovered from the pals' home.

Speaker 20 When I pushed West Valley and they sent us the disc with the cartoon incestuous

Speaker 20 images.

Speaker 32 The West Valley City Police Department in Utah had found images on a computer taken out of the house in Sarah Circle way back in December of 2009 that were of great concern.

Speaker 32 They were characters from popular Nickelodeon shows engaged in sexual acts, acts of incest.

Speaker 51 The evidence was allegedly taken from Josh Powell's Utah home by investigators.

Speaker 32 They raised very serious questions about Josh's ability to be a safe parent for the boys.

Speaker 100 He denies ever looking at any children, kiddie porn. He denies any knowledge about any of these images that had purportedly been taken off of his computers.

Speaker 100 Illegal images? No. I asked Mr.
Long, he saw nothing on there that he believed would be in violation of the law.

Speaker 99 Bad taste?

Speaker 100 I'll give you that from what he was describing to me.

Speaker 20 And that's when the judge ruled that the boys would stay with the Coxes longer.

Speaker 51 The images are enough that Judge Catherine Nelson is ordering Josh Powell to now undergo a psychosexual evaluation.

Speaker 14 This is an exam where they measure aberrant arousal. So you can't lie because physically the arousal will show if you're into things that might be illegal.

Speaker 29 He had to take psychosexual evaluation, which is one thing that I know he wouldn't pass, but it included a polygraph.

Speaker 32 And that means that Josh is going to have to do what he's avoided doing from the very first days after Susan disappeared, which is take a lie detector test.

Speaker 14 He'd been able to get away with murder, so to speak, for a long time. But a polygraph, I think, he was really afraid of.

Speaker 14 He didn't want to answer all these questions about Susan and how she went missing.

Speaker 79 He truly had gone down in flames from being pretty sure that he was going to get his kids back.

Speaker 34 Are you disappointed that he didn't really coming home with you?

Speaker 20 I think the arrow was taken out of him. He looked bad.
You just saw his welfare diminish.

Speaker 45 He looked more and more

Speaker 35 like a psychopath. He was running out of places to hide and he was running out of options and it was tearing him down as a person.

Speaker 19 The custody hearing between Chuck and Josh essentially was put on pause.

Speaker 71 That was on February 1st.

Speaker 19 We know then that Josh spent the next four days preparing.

Speaker 87 We know that he transferred some of his finances.

Speaker 19 He gathered up some of the boys' things and toys, took them to Salmon Army in Goodwill. He bought five-gallon gas cans and went and filled them with gas.

Speaker 29 I said, look, I am afraid Josh is backed into a corner with the psychosexual and the polygraph. He knows there's no way he's going to beat those.

Speaker 19 So the morning of Sunday, February 5th, Chuck had gone to church early.

Speaker 29 I knew they were going for their visit, and they were making it clear to my wife and myself, we don't want to see him today.

Speaker 49 No, we don't want to go.

Speaker 52 I picked up the boys. They were waiting with their grandmother and I expected to return the boys in about four and a half hours.

Speaker 44 And things just go very wrong.

Speaker 95 The Pierce County Sheriff believes what has happened is nothing short of pure evil.

Speaker 10 This is a story you can't write in a Hollywood script.

Speaker 26 No one would have thought in a million years that's how the story would have ended.

Speaker 27 When you talk about a tragedy, this is it.

Speaker 19 The morning of Sunday, February 5th, Elizabeth Griffin Hall

Speaker 19 arrived at the Rettle House, parked out front, and as children do, Charlie and Braden got out of their car seats.

Speaker 52 They rushed to the front door, which is what they always did. I was one or two steps in back of them.

Speaker 52 When the kids just rushed in, I saw Josh for just one second. His eyes caught mine, and he had a look in his eyes.

Speaker 36 She looks him straight in the face, he slams the door in her face and locks it.

Speaker 52 I knocked and I knocked and I rang the doorbell and I started yelling at Josh let me in and I heard him say, Charlie, I've got a big surprise for you.

Speaker 15 And immediately she smelled gasoline and she knew it was an emergency situation.

Speaker 86 I'm on a supervised visitation for a court-ordered visit and something really weird has happened. I think I need help right away.
He looked right at me and closed the door.

Speaker 86 All right, we'll have somebody look for you there. Okay, how long will it be? I don't know, ma'am.

Speaker 17 They have to respond to emergency, life-threatening situations first. The first available deputy.

Speaker 86 This could be life-threatening. He went to court on Wednesday, and he

Speaker 86 didn't get his kids back. And this is really...

Speaker 86 I'm afraid for their lives.

Speaker 17 Okay, has he threatened the lives of the children previously?

Speaker 86 I have no idea. All right.
We'll have the first available asking deputy contact you.

Speaker 20 February 5th, 2012, Super Bowl Sunday.

Speaker 4 I went to church.

Speaker 31 I came home.

Speaker 8 Super Bowl Sunday.

Speaker 10 I remember watching the Super Bowl that day and seeing the reports come in.

Speaker 10 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm John DiSepolo.

Speaker 78 We are interrupting your programming for some breaking news.

Speaker 38 And I got a call from my neighbor, and he said change the channel.

Speaker 13 I was actually in Indianapolis. The Patriots were playing the Giants at the Super Bowl.

Speaker 50 Patriots lead the Giants 10-9 at halftime.

Speaker 13 And I was there with my family

Speaker 13 and it was halftime and Madonna was about to take center stage.

Speaker 43 As Madonna takes the stage to perform Vogue, Abby's in the stadium concourse trying to absorb the text she just received.

Speaker 15 I get a text, pops up on my phone.

Speaker 78 There has been a fatal explosion at the home of Josh Powell.

Speaker 52 I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.
I thought, I'm going to get help from the neighbors. They'll be able to help me get the boys out.

Speaker 52 So I went screaming to the neighbors and said, there's two children in there. There's two children in there.

Speaker 40 I said, oh my God.

Speaker 14 And I thought, like natural gas or something.

Speaker 14 And And they said they found three bodies.

Speaker 6 There's a fire. The house exploded.
And we're hearing that Josh and Charlie and Brayden were inside.

Speaker 31 This can't be. This can't be.

Speaker 35 And I thought, no, that can't be real. I would have heard something.

Speaker 6 And I called Susan's father.

Speaker 71 I said, Chuck, is it true?

Speaker 31 Chuck, Chuck, is it true?

Speaker 56 Is it true?

Speaker 51 He said, yes.

Speaker 60 And I didn't even say goodbye.

Speaker 31 I just hung up the phone and started crying.

Speaker 29 And I was looking at a house with steam still coming out of it and fires, and he went, talked to his sergeant or whatever. He said, yeah, they're there.
And they're dead.

Speaker 35 Honestly,

Speaker 35 I wasn't surprised. And the actions that he

Speaker 35 made after she went missing,

Speaker 35 I never underestimated him.

Speaker 26 And then to find out the details, it just breaks your heart.

Speaker 87 the pierce county medical examiner says both boys had chopping wounds on their heads and necks but that's not what killed them the cause of death for all three was carbon monoxide poisoning we believe he bought two five gallons worth of gas and one was used in the room where the boys were killed where we found the hatchet the boys and one of the gas cans and then after he had

Speaker 6 incapacitated them, he arranged them on the floor next to each other and poured gasoline on and around them and around the house. And then he sat on a gas can and lit a match.

Speaker 6 And they were still alive when the fire started and they died of smoke inhalation. And there was also gasoline in their lungs.

Speaker 71 Police say there's clear evidence Josh planned out this house explosion and meant to kill himself and his children.

Speaker 19 The morning of the 5th, he sent a couple of text messages and voicemails to people, essentially saying goodbye. His sister Alina found one when it was too late to intervene after the explosion.

Speaker 20 What did he say?

Speaker 34 I think he said,

Speaker 34 hello, this is Josh.

Speaker 12 I am

Speaker 12 not

Speaker 40 able to look out myself.

Speaker 40 And I'm not able to go on anymore. I'm sorry to everyone I'm hurt.

Speaker 15 Goodbye.

Speaker 51 When you heard the audio recording, what did you think? What did you make of that?

Speaker 34 I thought he had lost all hope.

Speaker 38 To find out that,

Speaker 38 you know, he used the axe first and to find out that he said to them, you know, I have a surprise for you. Any little bit of doubt that anyone could have possibly had that Josh killed Susan.

Speaker 38 had to have gone out the window. The fact that he could have done that to his kids

Speaker 85 This wasn't tragic.

Speaker 76 This was deeply wrong.

Speaker 32 This was evil.

Speaker 85 You do not kill little kids.

Speaker 95 Police are convinced the explosion and fire that destroyed Josh Powell's home is a murder-suicide.

Speaker 29 I don't know anything else I could have done.

Speaker 29 And they're still dead.

Speaker 29 My daughter's still missing, and now the children are dead. I had them safe.

Speaker 88 They were in my care.

Speaker 25 They were gone.

Speaker 31 I was frustrated with the Child Protective Service Agency. Why would they put this single woman in charge of these boys and send her into the lion's den?

Speaker 76 They had the right to grow up.

Speaker 43 The Cox family is determined to hold the state accountable and make them pay for the deaths of their grandchildren.

Speaker 44 You'll cut that out of the tape, right?

Speaker 27 That's the saddest part is you look at photos of of Josh and Susan, Charlie and Brayden,

Speaker 27 you think about what could have been.

Speaker 41 Those boys deserved to grow up and they never got the chance.

Speaker 35 We've been robbed of three precious lives and it's just unthinkable that the same person did it.

Speaker 35 Amazing grace,

Speaker 35 how sweet the sound.

Speaker 55 Why take the kids?

Speaker 55 Why?

Speaker 26 It makes absolutely no sense.

Speaker 31 My worst nightmare had just happened.

Speaker 31 But I went from praying that somehow Susan was alive to praying now that she was dead so that she could greet her boys in heaven.

Speaker 95 Outside the fenced-off crime scene, strangers visit the memorial that has risen. Flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals offered in memory of Charlie and Brayden Powell.

Speaker 35 Why would he go through so much

Speaker 22 to get custody of the boys only to murder them?

Speaker 53 Come here, Charlie.

Speaker 16 Here we go, Charlie.

Speaker 35 Hey, buddy.

Speaker 87 Well, one of the possibilities is he destroyed the evidence. Those boys were starting to talk.

Speaker 87 And by destroying the evidence, basically he committed murder on his two boys.

Speaker 27 It shows how much of a monster he really was and it shows how many people dropped the ball in this case.

Speaker 31 I was frustrated with the Child Protective Service Agency. Why would they put this single woman in charge of these boys and send her into the lion's den? It made no sense to me.

Speaker 52 I wanted to get the kids no matter what. I wanted to get the kids.
If I could have gotten through the door I would have.

Speaker 89 She did what she could.

Speaker 87 She did everything right.

Speaker 87 There's no blame on her at all. Anybody puts any blame on her, it's misdirected.

Speaker 33 The Coxes have filed a lawsuit against the state of Washington on behalf of Braden and Charlie.

Speaker 8 It's a wrongful death lawsuit. And their position is that the state of Washington put Josh's parental rights before the welfare of these boys.

Speaker 43 The Cox family lawsuit didn't include Elizabeth Griffin Hall or any other individuals as defendants.

Speaker 14 The fact is she she was not the one that made the decision for this to be in the home. So to a certain extent, she's lucky she's alive and she's, I think, a victim in a lot of ways too.

Speaker 8 They filed this lawsuit, $35 million

Speaker 33 for Brayden, $50 million for Charlie, $5 million for each minute that these boys suffered at the hands of their father before they were ultimately blown up in Josh's rental house.

Speaker 12 Please be seated.

Speaker 12 Good morning, everybody.

Speaker 68 You have a civil case against the state that started in February, was disrupted because of COVID-19.

Speaker 65 Please now give your attention to Mr. Buck as he presents the plaintiff's final argument.

Speaker 89 It is out of the state's failure to live up to their own primary directive of assuring the safety of the children that this tragedy was born.

Speaker 79 What was the place that had the least protection?

Speaker 23 Josh Powell's home.

Speaker 4 What about the level of risk?

Speaker 79 Then the state learned of the boy's statements. It learned of this incest images.
It learned that he was going to have to undergo a psychosexual evaluation of polygraph.

Speaker 76 If the state had followed its policies,

Speaker 79 its guidelines, common sense, investigated, had visitations where it was supposed to have them, none of this would have happened.

Speaker 39 Thank you very much.

Speaker 85 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this will be the only and final time that you hear from the state in this matter.

Speaker 32 The state took this very serious.

Speaker 10 They did their job.

Speaker 4 They followed their policies.

Speaker 85 Yes, the fact that Susan Powell was missing was known, but after more than two years after her disappearance, still

Speaker 76 no arrest, no charges against Josh Powell.

Speaker 32 It actually takes facts and proof to remove a child from their parent, to keep them out of the home.

Speaker 85 The guides on visitation shows the number one preferred location is at a parent's home. That's why transition to a home occurs.
The goal in these types of cases is always family reunification.

Speaker 85 I'm going to submit to you that Mr. Powell is the sole cause of the murder of his sons.

Speaker 85 It was not due to any negligence by the state of Washington. It was Mr.
Powell who did this.

Speaker 29 The truth of the fact of the matter is, they're the only ones who could have protected the children at that point. They're the ones with with responsibility.

Speaker 65 Has the jury reached a verdict ma'am?

Speaker 65 All please rise.

Speaker 14 Please be seated. The court is reconvened.

Speaker 65 Has the jury reached a verdict ma'am?

Speaker 13 If it pleases the court we have

Speaker 92 was the state of Washington negligent? Answer yes

Speaker 92 What do you find plaintiff Charles Powell's total amount of damages? $57,500,000 $57,500,000. Braden Powell's total amount of damages, $57,500,000.

Speaker 79 For eight years, the Cox family has been trying to find justice.

Speaker 79 And it took us a long time. And we took a long hiatus with the pandemic.
Today, justice has been meted out.

Speaker 30 What I intend to do is

Speaker 30 use...

Speaker 30 the award to try and help other people in that so that we can save more children.

Speaker 43 Jury members told ABC News they didn't believe any one individual at Child Protective Services was responsible for what happened.

Speaker 51 They blame a systematic failure for the tragedy.

Speaker 14 It just came down to this.

Speaker 14 You cannot have reunification, you know, as your goal

Speaker 14 at the expense of child safety. And, you know, lawsuits change things.
Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v.
Wade. I mean, that's how things change.

Speaker 43 So 2020 reached out to several agencies in both states and they declined to comment or refer to us to other departments. In the end, we were unable to get an answer to our questions.

Speaker 43 Could the actions of these agencies or their inactions have contributed to the murders of Brayden and Charlie Powell?

Speaker 50 It should have never have got to the point where you had Josh getting his kids into that house and blowing it up.

Speaker 12 Josh's actions are definitely an admission of guilt. She's going to divorce him.
If he can't have her, nobody will.

Speaker 12 So he kidnaps Susan and most likely murders her and disposes of her body. Where? Nobody knows.

Speaker 19 I know there are 10,000 abandoned mines in Utah. That's a lot of places where you can dump a body.

Speaker 47 We do begin tonight with the search happening hundreds of feet down deep inside of a mine in Utah's West Desert. The search for Susan Powell's body continues.

Speaker 81 Emily, what happened to Susan Powell is still unknown and her family never got closure.

Speaker 81 But now a crew is searching a mine shaft in the West Desert.

Speaker 10 Dave and I, since we were kids, we've been out exploring this sort of stuff since a long time ago.

Speaker 32 But every once in a while we get a really cool opportunity to, you know, get involved with a missing person case, like this one with Susan Powell.

Speaker 32 I was very fascinated with the idea of maybe helping find Susan. I've kind of just been following along ever since and then we got a tip that there's a chance she's out here.

Speaker 32 The majority of our search, rescue, and recovery operations are all pro bono. We are not part of law enforcement.
As a private entity and a volunteer search group, we can kind of just move faster.

Speaker 32 Early on in the excavation, roughly at about the 75-foot level,

Speaker 7 did you find a bone?

Speaker 62 Looks like a rib.

Speaker 32 We were more motivated to keep getting down in there and removing more and more material.

Speaker 30 The likelihood is pretty low that we're going to find something, but on the other hand, she's still out there somewhere.

Speaker 32 And Chuck kind of came over to me quietly and he's like, hey, I know how to operate a radio. Do you need help down there? I said, Chuck, do you really want to go down in this hole?

Speaker 32 And he said, absolutely. He went from a father who was looking for the body of his daughter to part of the search team.

Speaker 32 We're still at the point where it's like, are the bones animal or are they human? So we're excited to get the DNA test back.

Speaker 30 It's a blessing, and I'm just so thankful that they're doing it.

Speaker 55 And I'm just grateful that people are still looking for Susan.

Speaker 43 The testing shows the recovered bones were animal and not human.

Speaker 43 Sadly, for all those who love Susan, the search continues.

Speaker 8 My heart absolutely breaks for Chuck and Judy Cox.

Speaker 33 Think about what this couple has gone through.

Speaker 8 They lost their daughter.

Speaker 33 Both of their grandbabies were horrifically butchered.

Speaker 33 And the only three people that could shed any light on this are dead.

Speaker 16 Her story will continue to live on and inspire others to move in the right direction, to move towards good relationships and get out of bad situations, abusive situations.

Speaker 59 The Washington Court of Appeals reversed an earlier decision and reinstated the Cox Civil Award of $98 million.

Speaker 39 And Chuck Cox actually tells us that that money won will now help domestic violence survivors. That is our program for tonight.
Thanks for watching.

Speaker 37 I'm David Muir.

Speaker 34 And I'm Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 59 From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.