Judy described visiting Steve’s home one time when Josh and Susan were vacationing in Washington. Susan had left their sons, Charlie and Braden, with Josh at Steve’s home while she went to spend time with her family. However, Susan had forgotten something and returned to the Powell house to retrieve it.
“We’re going up the stairs to the second floor,” Judy said. “As soon as I got to the top of the stairs, she looked at me, she goes, ‘Do you feel it?’ I go ‘What? I feel uncomfortable. I am not exactly happy to be here.’ She goes ‘You feel the evil?’”
When police served a search warrant at Steve Powell’s home on Aug. 25, 2011 in search of Susan’s childhood journals, one detective described the scene as a “house of horrors.” Investigators uncovered Steve’s collection of voyeur videos, many focused on Susan, as well as more than 2,000 pages of journal entries about his daughter-in-law. Most of them were explicit.