Author: Dave Cawley

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Susan Cox Powell felt disoriented.

She, her husband Josh and their two sons Charlie, 4, and Braden, 2, had departed on the afternoon of Saturday, May 30, 2009 for an overnight camping trip in Utah’s West Desert.

Josh intended to take his boys to a popular rockhounding site called the Dugway Geode Beds. However, he’d made an error in navigation while on the way there. Instead of turning north after crossing Dugway Pass on the Pony Express Trail, he’d turned south.

Josh then drove the family’s 2005 Chrysler Town and Country minivan up a rocky path.

“We kept climbing/driving up, I felt like at points he van was pointed straight up and gravity would take its course,” Susan later wrote. “We found this white quarry and I found out later that it had real topaz in it.”

Susan’s three-page account of the trip led many people to speculate after her disappearance that the place she’d described was Topaz Mountain, another rockhounding destination well south of the Pony Express Trail.

However, Cold recently confirmed that assumption was incorrect.

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The Solar Wind Claim

Dave Stemmons with Topaz Mountain Adventures owns mining claims in the Thomas Range and is familiar with the area. On Jan. 2, 2019, he suggested to Cold that Susan might have instead have been describing a mining claim much closer to the Dugway Geode Beds.

Cold used photos Susan had posted to Facebook in 2009 to independently confirm the location was that claim.

Bureau of Land Management records indicate the claim was titled Solar Wind #1. The Solar Wind claim sat just a half-mile south of the Pony Express Trail, on the opposite side of the Thomas Range as Topaz Mountain.

In her typed account, Susan had also described encountering a rattlesnake near the Solar Wind quarry while walking hand-in-hand with Braden. She’d screamed, then brought Josh and Charlie over to the spot.

“The snake started to rattle, and Josh just stood there explaining to the boys, and then it retreated into its huge rock and Josh tossed a rock at it as it continued to rattle.”

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Simpson Springs

Josh had taken his boys camping in the West Desert at least once before. Photos later recovered by police from one of Josh Powell’s computers showed he visited Simpson Springs with Charlie and Braden earlier in 2009, without Susan.

Susan referenced Josh’s earlier desert outing with the boys in an email dated June 29, 2009. She described overhearing a telephone conversation between her husband and his dad, Steve Powell.

“I heard him say ‘no, Susan didn’t go camping with us that time,’” Susan wrote. “Then he said ‘yeah, I just found some people and bummed off their campfire so I didn’t have to build my own.’”

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Charlie Powell Interview

West Valley City detective Kim Waelty interviewed Charlie Powell on Dec. 8, 2009, the day after his mother’s disappearance. During the interview, Charlie made several perplexing comments.

Det. Waelty asked Charlie about the camping trip Josh had taken he and his brother Braden on two nights prior. Charlie said he’d flown on an airplane to Dinosaur National Park.

Charlie also said that his mom had stayed where the pretty crystals are, adding that crystals are colorful and grow inside of rocks.

Police later learned that the Powell family had gone on a different camping trip the prior August, to Dinosaur National Monument. It seemed likely that Charlie had blurred several different trips together in his mind.

At the time, police supposed Charlie’s talk of crystals might have referred to a mine or to the Dugway Geode Beds. Detectives made their first sweep of the geode beds later that week. They returned for a more thorough check in February 2010.

A West Valley team spent much of that same year visiting hundreds of abandoned mines scattered throughout western Utah.

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Rattlesnake Rock

On April 17, 2010, Josh’s father Steve Powell made an entry in his digital journal.

“This afternoon Charlie commented that ‘Mommy is lost in the desert,’” Steve wrote. “Josh and Michael were also present, so we all heard it.”

By that point, Susan had been missing for just over four months. Josh and his sons had been living in Steve’s South Hill, Wash. home for three months, along with Josh’s younger siblings John, Michael and Alina.

“Please, please, please don’t search near Rattlesnake Rock.”

Steve Powell, quoting Michael Powell

At the time, news media were reporting on plans for a large public search for Susan in the Simpson Springs area of Utah’s West Desert.

“Michael has joked that Josh should make a comment like Brer Rabbit, such as ‘search anywhere, in West Valley, in Simpson Springs, in Salt Lake City, but please, please, please don’t search near Rattlesnake Rock,’” Steve wrote.

West Valley City police discovered that journal entry after seizing several computers and hard drives from Steve Powell’s home during a search warrant raid on Aug. 25, 2011.

That raid was a piece of a larger operation code-named “Tsunami.”

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Topaz Mountain Search

Detectives had gathered intelligence during Operation Tsunami that suggested Josh might have disposed of Susan’s body near the Dugway Geode Beds or Topaz Mountain.

On Sept. 12, 2011, police launched a major effort to scour the region surrounding Topaz Mountain using cadaver dogs. They began near the geode beds, then moved down to the southeastern side of the Thomas Range.

Several of the cadaver dogs indicated at a small pile of rocks on the eastern flank of Topaz Mountain on Sept. 14, 2011.

West Valley police announced that the dogs had located “human remains.”

“When the news reports started about this information, investigators intercepted numerous calls regarding the search,” one detective wrote in a warrant affidavit. “Conversations by Joshua Steven Powell again affirmatively indicated the police would not find Susan Marie Powell at that location.”

Detectives had been monitoring Josh and Steve Powell’s phone calls since Aug. 16, 2011. However, the court order authorizing the wiretap was set to expire as the Topaz Mountain search was unfolding. Police immediately requested and received a 30-day extension from Utah’s Third District Court.

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Human Remains​ near Topaz Mountain

Police spent Sept. 15-17, 2011 excavating the supposed gravesite and sifting through the dirt for any sign of human remains. They succeeded in locating only some fragments of charred wood. Once they removed the wood from the pit, the cadaver dogs lost interest in the site.

Police delivered the cinders to the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner for forensic testing. Those tests did not detect any DNA.

The cadaver dog search around Topaz Mountain continued until Sept. 22, 2011. GPS tracks obtained by Cold show that by that point, the dog teams had made a complete circuit around the Thomas Range. They did not locate any other sites of significant interest.

However, the tracks also show only one dog made a pass through the Solar Wind claim during the Topaz Mountain search.

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/topaz-mountain-human-remains-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46479491/cold-fbi-secret-service-failed-to-crack-josh-powells-encryption

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Steve Powell’s public flaunting of his missing daughter-in-law Susan Powell’s childhood journals proved to be a major miscalculation on his part.

He went on NBC’s “Today” show on July 14, 2011 to share his theory that Susan had “absconded” to Brazil with another missing person, Steven Koecher. He showed the TV camera crew the journals, which he and his son Josh Powell had scanned, transcribed, annotated and started to publish online.

“Them coming forth with the media and letting the media into Steven Powell’s home was great,” retired West Valley City, Utah police detective Ellis Maxwell said in an interview for the Cold podcast. “I was like ‘right on’ because that’s what I needed to get inside Steve’s house.”

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A Multi-State Operation

Ellis Maxwell had developed a close relationship with Pierce County Sheriff’s detective Gary Sanders in the year-and-a-half since Josh Powell had relocated from West Valley City, Utah to his father’s home in South Hill, Wash. The two detectives had collaborated on several prior operations connected to the disappearance of Josh’s wife, Susan, on Dec. 7, 2009.

“West Valley was calling the shots,” Gary said. “We were just the auxiliary team, I guess you might call it, assisting them.”

However, in August of 2011, Ellis provided Gary with the even more inside information about his investigation.

“Yes, we wanted Josh to see this on the news and see what he had to say about it.”

Ellis Maxwell

Police planning documents obtained exclusively by Cold revealed West Valley police had conceived of a major multi-state operation they code-named “Operation Tsunami.” It hinged on the use of a court-authorized wiretap to monitor phone calls made and received on three phone lines: Josh Powell’s mobile, Steve Powell’s mobile and the landline at the Powell family home.

Ellis Maxwell declined to discuss specifics of the Operation Tsunami plan when interviewed for Cold, citing a need to protect police tactics.

[Editor’s note: Cold independently gained access to many of the wiretap records. Details of what they contained are included in the bonus episode Justice Delayed.]

Operation Tsunami was to include a series of coordinated events that would prompt discussion between Josh and Steve Powell, including a public search of abandoned mines near Ely, Nev. and a “Remember Me” honk-and-wave event in the area of Puyallup, Wash.

West Valley needed Pierce County’s assistance with perhaps the biggest piece of the Operation Tsunami plan: a search warrant raid at the Powell house.

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Probable Cause for Operation Tsunami

Gary’s search warrant affidavit spelled out why police believed Josh Powell had committed the crimes of murder, kidnapping and obstruction. It explained that Susan’s journals held potential evidence of those crimes, as they likely included her first-hand perspective on her relationship with Josh.

West Valley police had asked Josh and Steve Powell to voluntarily turn over the journals in November of 2010, a request which the father and son had refused.

“With the lack of cooperation and criminally obstructive behavior from Steven and Joshua Powell refusing to provide the journals to law enforcement,” Gary wrote, “a search warrant must be executed to recover this evidence and in addition, any and all digital copies.”

Susan Cox Powell’s journals were not the only target of the warrant affidavit. It also sought digital media, images or papers that might contain passwords for Josh’s encrypted files, photographs or videos, trace evidence and “any items determined to be evidence of the crimes listed” that would help detectives complete their investigation.

A Pierce County Superior Court judge issued the warrant on Aug. 24, 2011. West Valley police, with the assistance of Pierce County deputies, U.S. Marshals and FBI agents, served it the following day.

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The Puyallup Raid

Ellis and Gary led the service of the warrant together. They and a team of more than 20 law enforcement officers swarmed the house at 18615 94^th Ave. Court East in the early afternoon.

“Hot day,” Gary said. “I remember because the house didn’t have A/C and it was a huge house.”

Josh Powell was at home with his sons, Charlie and Braden, as well as two of his younger siblings, John and Alina Powell. The police ordered them all out of the house.

Steve Powell was not at home, having traveled to the Tri-Cities area of Washington to investigate a business opportunity.

Ellis declined to confirm if that business meeting was arranged by police, again refusing to discuss operational details.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ellis said. “I don’t know if it was valid or not. I wasn’t there for that business meeting.”

However, the documents obtained by Cold revealed that business meeting was, in fact, part of the Operation Tsunami plan.

The detectives told Josh he was free to leave, but they would not be able to release his minivan until they’d searched it. Josh, John, Alina and the boys waited in the yard.

“We were hoping to get some more information from Josh but he just, he wouldn’t talk to us,” Ellis said.

Josh also handed over a USB device, a “token” without which his desktop computer would not boot.

As soon as police completed a search of Josh’s minivan, he left the house.

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Steve Powell’s House of Horrors

The detectives made a methodical, room-by-room search of the Powell family home.

Many of the rooms and hallways were clogged with clutter. Shelves of Steve Powell’s books lined the walls in many of the rooms.

“A hoarder is your biggest nightmare on a search warrant, just because you know you have to go through every item,” Gary Sanders said. “If you’re not being thorough, you’re not doing a good investigation.”

The main floor of the house held the kitchen, dining space, Steve’s office or music room, a back office space and the garage. All of the bedrooms in the house were on the upper level.

Josh’s bedroom was among the neatest in the house. Police found several interesting items there, including a multi-camera security system, draft documents for the susanpowell.org website and a banker’s box containing nine volumes of Susan’s childhood journals.

The camera system showed views of the front porch, the driveway and the side yard of the house. Its screen was positioned so that Josh could have monitored all of the live feeds simultaneously from his bed.

“I think he was starting to, he was getting worried,” Gary said. “They knew something was coming.”

Charlie and Braden shared a bedroom. It held a single futon, a children’s play table and a few toys. Steve Powell’s book collection took up most of the space in the boys’ room.

Alina’s bedroom held few items of interest, aside from her computers. Detectives observed that one of her laptops was powered on and logged in and appeared to be running file eraser and encryption software.

West Valley police detective Brad Hardinger located a wireless router in Alina’s bedroom and disconnected it to ensure no one could remotely log in to any of the machines on the network.

John Powell’s bedroom presented police a significant challenge. Stacks of boxes filled the floor. Clothing was scattered about, along with piles of used tissues. John’s art projects also caught the attention of detectives.

“It had a noose, had a giant paper pterodactyl that was hanging,” Gary said. “His drawings of swords through women’s vaginas, just weird depictions and stuff.”

Even more bizarre were collections of what appeared to be toenail clippings and a bag of hair.

“It was a house of horrors when we went through there,” Gary said.

They hadn’t even started going through Steve Powell’s bedroom.

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/operation-tsunami-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46474140/cold-police-coordinated-2011-events-in-susan-powell-case-as-operation-tsunami

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Josh and Susan Powell’s first child, Charlie Powell, was a bright and curious boy.

Even at the young age of five, Charlie had a fascination with the natural world. He collected bugs, memorized facts about reptiles and dinosaurs.

Tammy Forman taught Charlie in kindergarten at Carson Elementary School.

“He was really interested in rocks,” Tammy said in an interview for the Cold podcast. “He was kind of obsessed about worms and wanted to name every worm he’d ever run over with his bike, for some reason.”

Yet, there were also signs that Charlie Powell was haunted by the loss of his mother.

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Charlie Powell on How to Kill a Bear​

Josh Powell moved with his boys from West Valley City, Utah to the outskirts of Puyallup, Washington in early January of 2010, just weeks following the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell.

That summer, he enrolled Charlie in summer camp programs at the Mel Korum Family YMCA.

It didn’t take long before staff members learned who Charlie was and about the troubling circumstances of his home life. Their concern for his wellbeing grew throughout the summer, as he made a series of odd statements.

On Aug. 19, 2010, Charlie told a pair of counselors about the best way to kill a bear.

Just shy of a week later, on Aug. 24, 2010, Charlie explained during a campfire activity that it was important to kill Mormons.

Charlie Powell wasn’t alone in raising eyebrows at the YMCA.

On Aug. 4, 2010, Josh Powell told one of the YMCA managers that he wanted to make sure his missing wife, Susan, would not be able to pick up their boys. The statement baffled the manager, who spoke to Cold but asked that she not be publicly identified.

West Valley City, Utah police, who were investigating Susan Powell’s disappearance as a likely murder, later collected statements from all of the YMCA staff members who had interacted with Josh or Charlie.

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Charlie Powell at Carson Elementary​

At the end of that same summer, Charlie enrolled in kindergarten at Carson Elementary School. His father, Josh, harangued the faculty to make sure they would not allow Susan Powell or her family anywhere near his son.

The command seemed strange to Charlie’s teacher, Tammy Forman.

“I was certain that Josh had killed Susan and it was really creepy to me that one of the first things he had said to me was ‘Their mom is not allowed to see them,’” Tammy said. “Once I found out who he was, I thought ‘If you killed her, why would you even be saying that? Why would that be an issue for you?’”

Tammy appreciated Charlie for his inquisitive mind and love of science. He didn’t seem to make friends easily, but neither did he seem depressed or mopey.

“Even in the classroom, he could be sitting by other kids but he was completely engrossed in whatever he was doing and not paying attention to the kids around him,” Tammy said.

One day during free time, Tammy noticed Charlie coloring with a crayon. She asked what he was drawing. Charlie told her it was a gun.

“He drew it kind of upside down so when I first saw it, it looked like people on a mountain or something,” Tammy said. “I right away felt very uncomfortable. Sent him off to the counselor. That poor counselor.”

Another day, Charlie overheard a classmate say that his mom was dead. Charlie marched over to the other boy’s table and shouted that his mom wasn’t dead, she was just away from her parents because they had abused her.

Tammy went to try and comfort Charlie after he had calmed down a bit.

“I asked if he was feeling better.’ He said ‘I’m feeling a little better because I’m really smart and I can figure out a way for liars like this student to go to jail for fourteen years,’” Tammy said.

West Valley City police gathered statements from Tammy, just as they had from the YMCA staff.

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Puyallup Gem and Mineral Club​

Josh Powell began taking both Charlie and his younger brother Braden to meetings of the Puyallup Gem and Mineral Club after encountering their booth at the Washington State Fair in September of 2010.

The club’s vice president, Nancy, noticed the new arrivals.

“Originally he was this nice guy. And he just seemed like a nice young man.”

Nancy, on meeting Josh Powell

“I didn’t even know who he was. And I would look at the little boys and I would think, ‘Where’s your mommy?’” Nancy said. “Then I’d just put it like ‘Well maybe they’re separated and he’s got custody every other week and this is where they go because it’s something to do, rather than just stay home on a Friday.’”

It didn’t take long before another club member set Nancy straight.

“Then I went home and I watched the TV, or you know I pulled it up on the internet and there his face is,” Nancy said. “I literally cried because, first off, that’s where’s your mommy. That was answered.”

Nancy asked that her last name not be used in Cold, out of concern for her privacy.

“I got frightened,” Nancy said. “I sent an email out to the board members and I said, ‘Don’t ever leave me alone with him again.’”

Josh brought his boys to every meeting and several field trips, even though he was advised the trips were not safe for young children. He allowed the boys to use potentially dangerous tools, like rock tumblers, without supervision.

Nancy crafted new rules requiring young children to have an adult with them to take part in any hands-on activities.

“He went to the back where the kids would meet once a month — the kids had a special meeting spot — and I guess he came unglued with a gal that ran the kids group at the time,” Nancy said. “Just angry and saying ‘That’s not fair!’”

Nancy drafted a letter to Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services as a result of these and other experiences. She suggested Josh be required to take “extensive parenting classes.”

“I am doing this for Susan,” Nancy wrote.

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/charlie-powell-kill-a-bear-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46469437/cold-police-plotted-to-introduce-josh-powell-to-woman-undercover

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Steve Powell wrote songs.

On Dec. 8, 2009 — the day after his daughter-in-law Susan Cox Powell’s disappearance — Steve sat at his computer and reviewed a Microsoft Word document containing the lyrics to a song he’d written a year and a half prior. It was titled “Your Sweet Name was on my Lips Again.”

The third stanza of the song included the lyrics “There’s a sadness, knowing that you’re gone/Without you, how can I carry on?”

Steve typed an asterisk in front of those words and added a comment.

“I am now reviewing this on December 8, 2009, as I contemplate the events of the past two days, which may include Susan’s death,” Steve wrote. “She is missing, but circumstances suggest that she was murdered over the weekend. I am now truly ‘wondering what on earth to do.’”

The Cold podcast obtained a copy of that document from among the private personal files of Steve Powell. It has never previously been made public. The note suggests Steve Powell did not have an active hand in his daughter-in-law’s disappearance, or any immediate firsthand knowledge of what had actually happened to her.

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The Steve Powell Songs

Steve Powell fancied himself a talented songwriter. A draft outline for an autobiography he intended to one day write suggested Steve began viewing himself as an “aspiring composer” early in his marriage to Terrica Martin.

Steve’s personal journals showed he believed he would one day achieve great success as a singer.

“I think my “Light of Seattle” has a good chance of being in the common repertory, along with “New York, New York” and “Chicago is My Kind of Town,” as THE song about Seattle.”

Steve Powell

“There is something that always gnaws at me when it comes to contemplating the suitability for me of a given woman,” Steve wrote on Oct. 25, 2004. “I feel that with my songs and music I will step into the limelight one day, and I need someone who understands what that means.”

After meeting his eldest son’s wife, Susan Cox Powell, Steve came to believe she was that woman. He adopted the stage name of Steven Chantrey and began composing songs for and about Susan.

“I just ordered a $3,000 computerized recording studio, a hard-disk recorder. I did it mainly because she likes my music, and I am hoping there will be an opportunity to have her sing some parts, and that would be an opportunity to be near her,” Steve Powell wrote on April 17, 2003. “That’s what it’s all about: I want to be near Susan.”

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Steve Powell’s 50 Songs for Susan Powell

Steve Powell kept a tally of songs Susan had inspired on his computer. In 2002, that included 4 titles. He added another 16 in 2003. By 2005, the list had grown to more than 40 songs.

“I find it astounding that Susan has inspired so many songs,” Steve wrote in an undated digital journal entry in 2005. “When it was approaching three dozen, I thought that would be it. Enough is enough. I though she would diminish in my thoughts, and that I would have to find another muse.”

Some were full-fledged arrangements with drums, keys and guitar parts. Steve sang the melodies and harmonies in a warbling voice. Other songs were little more than nebulous ideas, comprising only titles and a few lines of lyrics.

“Clearly, not all of these song are classics or hits, but the ideas keep coming, and that’s what is important,” Steve wrote in 2006. “I think I would feel the equivalent of impotence if I were not writing songs on a fairly regular basis.”

The most up-to-date version of the list later discovered among Steve’s computer files included around 50 songs.

“I like about half the songs on this list reasonable well. Some of the others, well, I don’t even know what some sound like, let alone how to play them,” Steve wrote in an undated journal entry. “There is a lot of work left to do to make every song on this list viable.”

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The Light of Seattle

In 2008, Steve convinced Susan to record backup vocals for some of his arrangements while she, Josh and their sons were visiting Washington for Susan’s sister’s wedding reception. He did not inform Susan that the songs she was singing were about her.

“This week the highlight was spending over three hours working with her on the background vocals for one of the songs I wrote about her, ‘I Only Feel Love,’” Steve wrote in his journal on June 26, 2008. “She has a beautiful and sweet voice. While it was not really a sexual experience, it was definitely an emotional one.”

Steve’s journals revealed that his obsession with Susan had become so all-consuming, his job and finances suffered. He believed achieving success as a musician was the key to both wooing Susan and getting his life back in order.

“The only way I see of moving forward any kind of relationship with Susan is to achieve monetary success with my music. I think that is within my grasp,” Steve wrote on July 1, 2008.

He arranged several of his songs into an album, which he titled “Light of Seattle.” Clips of the songs went up on his website, www.stevechantrey.com, as well as on his Myspace page.

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Sharing the Steve Powell Songs

Just weeks after Susan’s disappearance on Dec. 7, 2009, Steve sent an email to West Valley City police detective Gavin Cook. The message included footer text that read “Hear the music at www.stevechantrey.com.”

Steve also shared his songs with his sons.

“I recently dusted off my song ‘The Stars are Twinkling Down in Provo’ and when I played it for Josh and Michael, they said it sounded like it was also about Susan,” Steve wrote in his journal on April 6, 2010. “They like the line ‘You departed in a hustle, you flipped me off and showed your muscle.’ Since wrote the song years ago, Michael called me Nostradamus, a prophet. I told him I prefer to be called Nostra-God-damn-us.”

Josh Powell, who was then living with his father in South Hill, Washington and under intense scrutiny from detectives investigating his wife’s disappearance, worried how the public would react if they discovered Steve Powell’s songs about Susan.

“Josh was telling me I should change the subject name on ‘Susan with the Sunlight Hair’ to avoid criticism that I am an old man hitting on her. I rejected his arguments, but Josh is determined and relentless,” Steve wrote on April 6, 2010. “There is a place in the instrumental bridge with the line ‘I’m in love with Susan.’ Josh said people would find that objectionable, but that’s my favorite four seconds in the whole song. If she is still in love with me, or realizing that her infatuation with me (it was at least that much) is actually love, and that she wants to be with me and her boys, that song will be a message to her that I am still in love with her.”

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/light-of-seattle-steve-powell-songs-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46464425/cold-fbi-warned-that-josh-powell-might-kill-his-sons

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Josh Powell’s estranged older sister, Jennifer Graves, suspected from the very day of Susan Powell’s disappearance that Josh had killed his wife.

Her suspicion only grew in the weeks that followed, as Josh made a hasty retreat from the West Valley City, Utah home the couple had shared for five years. He all but abandoned the house, in favor of living with his father, Steve Powell, in the community of South Hill on the outskirts of Puyallup, Washington.

Jennifer Graves remained in contact with West Valley City police, sharing her impressions and feelings about her brother.

“I kept reaching out trying to reassure them that I was on their side because I knew that they were looking for the truth, and I felt like Josh wasn’t being forthcoming with the truth,” Jennifer said in an interview for the Cold podcast.

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Kirk Graves’ Business Trip

On Jan. 13, 2010, Jennifer Graves learned that her husband Kirk Graves would be traveling to the Seattle area on business at the end of the following week.

“I suddenly had this idea that I needed to go, too. And that we needed to go and confront Josh, and see if we could get him to confess,” Jennifer said.

She called Ellis Maxwell, the lead detective on the Susan Cox Powell missing persons case, and asked if confronting her brother would interfere with the investigation. Ellis told Jennifer he couldn’t stop her, but it was a risky proposition.

“That right there tells me there is no doubt, there is no doubt in this sister’s mind that her brother’s responsible.”

Ellis Maxwell

The idea continued to circulate in Jennifer’s mind. She talked the idea over with her cousin.

“We’re just bouncing some ideas off and I’m like, ‘What if I got wired? What if the police were like behind this and actually wired me and we got, like, evidence,’” Jennifer said.

Jennifer called Ellis again.

“It was great,” Ellis said. “I’ll never forget when Jennifer came to me with that proposal. I’m not going to lie, I kind of got a smile on my face and I was like ‘I like this.’”

Josh had not cracked under the pressure of two police interviews on Dec. 7 and 8, 2009, the day of and the day after his wife’s disappearance. Ellis believed Josh might react differently when confronted by his own sister.

“She’s a strong person and determined, focused but I think more importantly for me is she knows Josh and she knows Josh better than any of us,” Ellis said, “probably better than Susan did.”

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Two-Party Consent

In order for police to wire Jennifer Graves, they needed to secure a warrant that would allow them to break what’s known as the two-party consent rule. Washington law requires all people involved in a recording be informed of and consent to their being recorded.

“Because of that, you really got to jump through a lot of hoops and your warrant’s got to have the right language,” Ellis said.

Ellis pitched the idea of sending Jennifer in wearing a wire to his superiors. They met with the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, as well as the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office in Washington. The agencies coordinated to secure the warrant and plan the operation.

“We had all the different contingency plans in place and the ‘What if this, what if that,’ so it took some time to work through all of that,” Ellis said.

“If those words are said, they’ll be rushing in. Okay, good to know.”

Jennifer Graves

When Kirk and Jennifer arrived in Washington, police briefed them on the plan. Both signed consent forms before police placed two recording devices on Jennifer. They placed a GPS tracker in the trunk of Jennifer and Kirk’s rental car.

They also provided Jennifer with code words to use in case the situation became violent.

When Jennifer and Kirk headed to her father’s house on the afternoon of Jan. 22, 2010, Pierce County deputies staged nearby, ready to swoop in at the first sign of danger. A police helicopter orbited above.

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Jennifer Graves Wire Recording

Jennifer and Kirk Graves arrived at the Steve Powell house around 5:25 p.m. All of Jennifer’s siblings — Josh, John, Michael and Alina — were there. So where Josh and Susan’s sons, Charlie and Braden.

“Relations between my family and I were already strained,” Jennifer said. “So the fact that I would show up is probably a big red flag to them already.”

Still, the situation remained civil as Jennifer played with the boys. Steve Powell invited Jennifer and Kirk to stay for dinner. Josh joined them and spent time talking about his financial troubles and his recent move away from Utah.

Josh did not mention his wife’s disappearance or seem in any way distraught about the events of the prior month.

“It’s the elephant in the room that you completely avoid. Except you have to skirt around it because it’s taking up so much room,” Jennifer said.

After dinner, Jennifer pulled Josh into Steve’s office and began telling her brother that rumors were circulating he’d soon be arrested for Susan’s murder. She advised him to take a plea bargain, to reduce any potential prison sentence.

“No, no. Don’t be ridiculous,” Josh can be heard saying on the wire recording. “I haven’t done anything and there is no plea bargain.”

Jennifer questioned Josh about where he had gone with a rental car on the night of Dec. 8 through the afternoon of Dec. 9, 2010. Josh responded “nowhere.”

Jennifer then asked what had happened at Josh and Susan’s house on Dec. 6, 2009, the last day Susan was seen alive.

“My attorney has told me just don’t talk about it, about specifics,” Josh said on the recording.

“Josh’s responses and his behavior and his actions when Jennifer approaches him kind of similar to like the interview and interrogations that we conducted with him, like ‘I can’t talk about it, I’ve gotta go through my attorney,’” Ellis said. “I mean, dude you’re not talking to a cop. You’re talking to your sister.”

Jennifer continued to press Josh for answers, but he did not budge. She blasted him for refusing to help in the search for his missing wife. Josh said he was working on a website and handing out fliers about Susan’s disappearance.

Josh and Jennifer’s dad, Steve, then interrupted their conversation. He told Josh that he needed to go and pick up a cake for Charlie and Braden, who had both recently celebrated birthdays. To police, it sounded as though Steve was attempting to help his son escape a compromising situation.

Soon after, Josh left the house with his brothers, John and Michael.

“They were all just trying to play it cool. Pretend like nothing was happening and that they had nothing to do with it,” Jennifer said later.

---

Steve Powell Disowns His Daughter

After the Powell brothers left the house, Steve told Jennifer and Kirk it was time for them to leave. On her way out of the house, Jennifer told her father that Josh would “have to enjoy it while he can.”

Steve asked Jennifer what she meant. She responded that it was obvious what Josh had done.

“Excuse me? It’s not obvious to me,” Steve could be heard saying on the recording. “It may be obvious to you, but you might be imagining things Jenny. You’ve always had a hard time with reality.”

The conversation became heated as Jennifer remarked that Josh’s story about taking his sons camping in the middle of the night at the same time Susan disappeared didn’t make sense.

“You are a goddamn f—ing b— is what you are to talk about your brother and my son that way, to make things up,” Steve said.

The youngest of the Powell siblings, Alina, then jumped in to defend Josh. She and Steve both seemed to become upset when Jennifer mentioned that Susan had hated Steve for confessing his love for her.

“Did she tell you that,” Alina shouted, “because she’s a lying b— if she said that.”

The argument ended with Steve ordering Jennifer and Kirk to get off of his property.

“I’m rejecting you out of my family,” Steve said on the recording. “I’ve given up on you Jenny. Just leave. Don’t even bother. Don’t even bother coming back.”

---

Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/jennifer-graves-wearing-a-wire-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46459734/cold-federal-law-enforcement-officer-helped-josh-powell-move

---

Abandoned mines litter the Great Basin. Could the body of Susan Powell be hidden in one of them?

West Valley City police launched an exhaustive effort to scan hundreds of old hard rock mines in the days immediately following the disappearance of Susan Cox Powell on Dec. 7, 2009. The full extent of that search, which began in earnest on Dec. 16, 2009, has never previously been disclosed.

---

Seeds of Suspicion

The theory that Susan’s husband, Josh Powell, might have deposited her in an abandoned mine rose from several sources.

On the day of Susan’s disappearance, Josh told police detective Ellis Maxwell that he’d gone camping the night before near Simpson Springs with the couple’s two sons. Simpson Springs is the site of an historic stop on the Pony Express Trail and home to a Bureau of Land Management campground. Several abandoned mines sat in close proximity to Simpson Springs.

The next day, Josh and Susan’s 4-year-old son Charlie Powell told another detective  that his mommy had gone camping with them but stayed behind and slept where “the flowers and crystals grow.” Police believed that could’ve been a reference to a mine or to the Dugway Geode Beds, a popular rockhounding site near the Pony Express Trail.

The Powell family had visited the Dugway Geode Beds before.

Detectives located a document among Susan’s work files in which she described a family outing to the West Desert in May, 2009. The family had gone hunting for geodes. In the document, Susan also made specific references to visiting Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge and Topaz Mountain.

On that trip, the Powell family had come within close proximity to many abandoned mines in the Simpson, Dugway, Thomas and Fish Springs mountain ranges.

---

Wells Fargo Christmas Party

Perhaps the most concerning lead pointing police toward the mines of the West Desert came from one of Susan’s closest work friends, Amber Hardman.

Amber told detectives that during a company Christmas party in 2008, Josh had drawn her husband into a conversation about true crime TV shows.

“I remember hearing him say ‘Those shows are so dumb. Those people always put the bodies in the stupidest places. It’s always so obvious,’” Amber said during an interview for the Cold podcast. “Josh was like ‘if it was me, have you ever been out to the West Desert? There’s mines everywhere. Nobody’s going to find anything out there.’”

By that point at the end of 2008, Susan had already told several close friends that Josh sometimes scared her and that she did not always feel safe with him.

---

The Many Mines of Utah’s West Desert

The first police searches of Simpson Springs and the Dugway Geode Beds took place on Dec. 9 and 10, 2009, just days following Susan Powell’s disappearance.

Clearing hundreds — perhaps thousands — of abandoned mines would require much more time and effort.

The mines of most interest to police were scattered across thousands of square miles of the Great Basin. At the outset, West Valley City detectives lacked the knowledge and experience necessary to safely locate and clear them. They turned to the Utah Department of Natural Resources for assistance.

In 2009, Louis Amodt headed up Utah’s abandoned mine reclamation program. For decades, he’d worked to secure or permanently close abandoned mines. He and another state mine engineer, Tony Gallegos, agreed to help the police.

“There is no closure for the family and that’s the biggest concern.”

Louis Amodt

Both signed nondisclosure agreements, promising not to speak publicly about the effort. They broke their silence for the first time with the Cold podcast in the hopes of showing the scope and scale of the effort to search abandoned mines.

“There seemed to be a public misconception that nothing was going on,” Tony Gallegos said. “We knew better.”

DNR staff put together maps showing mines that Josh Powell might possibly have visited, given the timeline provided by police. Investigators knew Josh had been driving a two-wheel-drive minivan at the time of Susan’s disappearance. It would not have been capable of navigating deep snow or steep, rutted trails.

“From the Simpson Springs where they knew where he was, they put a three-hour driving time,” Louis Amodt said. “What we looked at was the Tintics, the Oquirrh Mountains clear out to perimeter, the edge of it would have been the Gold Hill area out in the Deep Creek Mountains.”

---

The Secret Search of Abandoned Mines

In early January of 2010, Louis and Tony joined the police for a major, weeks-long operation targeting abandoned mines. They set up shop in a barrack at Dugway Proving Ground, a U.S. Army facility on the edge of the search zone.

The police dressed in plain clothes and drove unmarked vehicles, to avoid offering Josh Powell any clues as to what they were doing. They used ATVs and sometimes snowmobiles to reach locations away from the main roads.

“We expected snow and that our days would start well before daylight and end well after dark,” Louis said “We’d still be out on the ground looking until the very last light and then find your way back in the dark.”

They visually inspected most of the mines using high-intensity spotlights. At shafts too deep to see the bottom, the team broke out a borehole camera. The camera was waterproof, had its own lights and microphone and was attached to a 1,000-foot-long cable.

“We had some ropes and some carabiners and stuff so we could safely walk along the outside of the shaft and position so the camera would go right down the center of the shaft,” Tony said. “Our instructions were if we actually saw anything we were just going to hold off there and then let the detectives comment on the recording if they wanted to.”

On occasion, the searchers physically entered the old workings. That brought with it some significant risks.

“The collar — the area right around the opening to the mine — is very unstable. Rocks fall down. There are animals in there. I’ve had rattlesnakes and cougars and things like that inside but then also a bigger concern is that we always carry an air monitor to monitor oxygen levels,” Louis said.

---

Expanding the Mine Search Radius

Louis and Tony found themselves phased out of the search effort as the police grew more proficient at the job.

In March of 2010, police focused on the Gold Hill region south of Wendover, Utah. They also visited sites in the southern end of the Simpson Mountains, which they’d been unable to reach in January due to deep snow.

“[We] knew that they were putting some serious effort into looking at all these places, exploring every angle and all the clues they had,” Tony said. “That was sort of like ‘these guys, they’re doing a much better job than the public had an idea.’ They were doing their best.”

In August and September of 2010, police searched mines in the Silver City area of the East Tintic Mountains. In November, they focused on mines north of Eureka, Utah.

---

Shifting Focus Away from Abandoned Mines

The mine searches wound down toward the end of 2010, as other investigative leads began casting doubt on the theory that Josh had deposited Susan in the West Desert.

Police did conduct several additional searches in the area, including one very public search of mines around Ely, Nevada in August of 2011, based on information gathered from Josh’s computers.

Josh killed himself and his boys on Feb. 5, 2012. No formal searches of abandoned mines are known to have occurred since that time.

In May of 2013, West Valley City police declared the case cold and released a redacted copy of their case file. It included descriptions and photos of most of the mines that had been searched.

However, the specific locations for most all of the mines were omitted. Cold later requested GPS files or precise coordinates under GRAMA, Utah’s public records law. West Valley City police responded that they were unable to locate those GPS files or any other documents containing those coordinates. Cold was later able to obtain detailed GPS data for the mine searches from an outside source.

For Louis Amodt and Tony Gallegos, questions lingered about some of the mines they were not able to conclusively clear.

“You still wonder, still wonder what happened,” Tony said. “Where is Susan Powell?”

“Nobody will probably ever have the answers,” Louis said.

---

Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/scouring-the-desert-abandoned-mine-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46455768/cold-police-excavated-landfill-during-search-for-susan-powell

---

Steve Powell wasn’t keen on having police visit his house.

It was Dec. 17, 2009, 10 days since his daughter-in-law Susan Powell had vanished from the West Valley City, Utah home she shared with Steve’s son, Josh Powell. Detectives had traveled from Utah to Puyallup, Washington to meet with Steve Powell face-to-face. They wanted to see what, if anything, he knew.

Josh Powell was already the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance and presumed murder. West Valley City police didn’t know it, but Josh was that same day seeing a physical therapist for a shoulder injury.

Steve wanted to make sure his conversation with police took place somewhere other than his home.

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Steve Powell’s Police Interview

West Valley City police detectives Gavin Cook and John LeFavor traveled to Washington from Utah specifically for the interview. Steve Powell told detectives he was willing to talk, but requested they meet at Pierce County’s South Hill Library.

They agreed and invited a Pierce County Sheriff’s detective, Gary Sanders, to join them there. When Powell arrived, the investigators set out a digital audio recorder.

“Basically, why we’re here today, Steve, is to just get an idea of your thoughts, your relationship with Josh and your knowledge of Josh and Susan’s relationship and just kind of build this puzzle and put it together just so we have information,” Cook said.

Steve was coy at first, offering only vague descriptions of some past “issues” in Josh and Susan’s marriage. He claimed the trouble had all occurred early on, in 2002 and 2003.

That was false. The detectives didn’t know it then, but Powell had spent years writing detailed accounts of Josh and Susan Powell’s marital strife in his personal journals.

Cook and LeFavor noticed Steve seemed to talk about his daughter-in-law in unusual and sometimes uncomfortable terms.

“When she and Josh and I were together with the boys, it was perfect. I mean it was calm, it was pleasant. She was always nice to me,” Steve said. “She seemed to like me a lot.”

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The Unrequited Affection of Steve Powell

Susan Cox Powell did not like her father-in-law Steve Powell, a fact investigators had already learned by speaking to her family and friends.

Steve, though, told the detectives that she had been “very open sexually” when living in his house with Josh in early 2002. In the same breath, he claimed Susan’s membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led to her repressing a desire to be with him.

When Cook asked Steve if his daughter-in-law had ever physically touched him, he said he would “pass on that question.” Steve later conceded that she had not, but admitted that he had touched her several times under the guise of giving her a massage.

“She’d always sort of wanted me to be the instigator or the aggressor, wanted to think that I was, even though it all started with her as far as I’m concerned.”

Steve Powell

LeFavor asked Steve if there was a chance Susan might have slipped up to Washington to be with him or another man.

“I’d love that,” Steve said. “I loved her dearly as a daughter, I loved her dearly as a woman. I mean, she’s beautiful and yeah, she, I was conflicted about her too, I will admit that.”

Steve then pushed past his earlier hesitation and went on a long monologue about his desire. He explained how he had confessed his love for her in 2003.

“I did not want her to go to Utah and I hoped that there was enough feeling there that she would stay and she got really upset at me,” Steve said. “She would not talk to me for months.”

Steve called the love confession “the worst thing I ever did.” He told the detectives that Josh was at first “clueless” about the supposed chemistry between himself and Susan but learned about it after his 2003 confession.

“I did not think our relationship would ever heal, seriously,” Steve said. “He just said, ‘You’re crazy, you are insane.’”

---

Steve Powell Consent Search

At the conclusion of their interview, detectives Cook and LeFavor told Steve Powell they wanted consent to search his home.

Steve insisted Susan Cox Powell was not there and, through tears, urged the detectives to come see for themselves.

“I’ll be frank with you,” Cook said, “you’re in love with Susan and I think you have been for awhile. … Those feelings might be able to help us.”

“If they can help you, if there’s something I can do, I will help,” Steve said.

During the search, the detectives met and spoke with Josh’s younger brother John. However, the other Powell siblings who were still living with Steve, Michael and Alina Powell, were not present. They had traveled to Utah the week prior to support Josh.

The detectives did not locate anything inside the house to indicate Susan Cox Powell was being held there.

---

Josh Powell Shoulder Injury

On the same day Steve Powell was talking to the detectives in Washington, Josh Powell was visiting a physical therapist in Utah.

A driver had hit the back of Josh’s minivan on Sept. 2, 2009, causing minor damage to the van’s tailgate. Josh did not report the crash to police, but did open a claim with his insurance company.

Josh also went to a clinic that day complaining of neck and back pain. He received a prescription for cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant. He immediately began seeing a chiropractor, though not the same one Susan already frequented.

[Editor’s note: significant new details regarding this crash were reported in the Cold season 1 bonus episode Car Crash Con.]

Susan mentioned the crash in several emails and Facebook messages during September and October of 2009. In one, she described Josh’s injury as “classic whiplash stuff.”

Nothing in her messages indicated Josh felt any shoulder pain.

However, an insurance document obtained exclusively by the Cold podcast revealed Josh went to Meier and Marsh Professional Therapies on Dec. 17, 2009, just 10 days following Susan’s disappearance. An examination at that time revealed Josh Powell had a shoulder injury: a rotator cuff strain and likely partial tear of a rotator cuff tendon.

Dr. Peter Chalmers, an orthopedic expert at University of Utah Health, told Cold it would have been very unlikely for a low-speed, rear-end car crash to cause a rotator cuff tear like the Josh Powell shoulder injury.

“It’s really, really, really uncommon from that mechanism,” Chalmers said. “In a younger individual, it’s way less likely that a minor trauma would cause a rotator cuff tear.”

Chalmers also explained it would be very unusual for pain from a rotator cuff strain or tear to suddenly reveal itself more than three months after the initial injury.

“It’s not typically something where there’s a really minor thing and then later on all the sudden it becomes a problem,” Chalmers said. “Typically, the initial injury is associated with a lot of pain and disability and then it gets better.”

Josh billed the physical therapist visit to his auto insurance as part of the ongoing personal injury claim tied to the crash. After moving to Washington in January of 2010, Josh began seeing another chiropractor and continued billing those visits to his auto insurance.

American Family Insurance eventually became skeptical that the ongoing treatments were necessary and ordered an independent medical examination.

That report, dated March 22, 2010, noted nothing in the records from either chiropractor mentioned Josh complaining of shoulder pain. It also concluded that nothing indicated “how [the shoulder injury] is related to this motor vehicle accident.”

---

Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/josh-powell-in-the-wind-rental-car-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46451476/cold-josh-powell-diagnosed-with-shoulder-injury-10-days-after-wife-disappeared

---

West Valley City police missed their best chance to find Susan Powell — alive or dead — by just 10 minutes.

Those crucial minutes came on the night of Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009, the day after Susan’s disappearance.

Her husband, Josh Powell, had spent most of that day at police headquarters. He’d arrived around noon for an interview with detective Ellis Maxwell that had been scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.

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The Josh Powell Police Interview

During their nearly four-hour-long talk, Josh Powell told Ellis Maxwell about his overnight trip to Utah’s West Desert. He described taking his boys, Charlie and Braden, out in their minivan between 1 and 2 a.m. the day prior, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009.

Josh repeatedly expressed concern that he might need a lawyer. Ellis reassured Josh he was free to leave at any time.

“In the beginning no, I don’t care,” Ellis said during an interview for the Cold podcast years later. “You willingly came in. At this point, we’re not going to put handcuffs on you, we’re not going to take you to jail. We don’t have the probable cause.”

“Well, okay, but I do want the lawyer. Because at this point, I definitely want the lawyer.”

Josh Powell

Josh seemed spooked by attention Ellis had placed on his hands the night before. The detective had photographed some small nicks in the skin of Josh’s hands.

“You’ve implied that my hands have some kind of defensive wounds on them just because they’re all cut up,” Josh said. “That’s just the way they are.”

Ellis began to ask more pointed questions. In order to make sure Josh’s answers could be used in court, he needed to read Josh his Miranda rights.

“Obviously, I felt he was responsible,” Ellis said. “The last thing I wanted to do was to get some information and then later be in court and it be all redacted because I illegally obtained this information and I violated his civil rights.”

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Detective Ellis Maxwell’s Gambit

While Josh and Ellis were speaking, another detective had Josh’s boys, Charlie and Braden, at the South Valley Children’s Justice Center.

During a forensic interview, Charlie Powell told another detective named Kim Waelty that his mom had gone camping with them but stayed behind in the place with the flowers and pretty crystals.

“That night my mom stayed… sleep where the flowers and the crystals grow.”

Charlie Powell

Ellis, learning of this, decided to confront Josh Powell with the information. It was a gamble, as he had no way of knowing whether or not 4-year-old Charlie’s account was reliable.

“Is it the information we need that’s going to get us what we want? No. But I take advantage of it,” Ellis said.

Josh told Ellis that wasn’t true, that his son must have lied.

“She was not with us,” Josh said. “I didn’t leave her at the Pony Express. I didn’t just take her out and drop her off or even do anything.”

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Search Warrants Following the Josh Powell Police Interview

Detective Ellis Maxwell took Josh Powell’s cell phone. Ellis told Josh he was free to leave, but police were taking his minivan and his home in order to serve search warrants.

A team of West Valley City detectives and forensic specialists headed to the Powell family home on Sarah Circle. Police seized computers, hard drives and cameras. They took the vacuum cleaner and the Rug Doctor, which Josh said he used to clean his couch two nights prior.

Then, they sprayed a product called Bluestar Forensic on the couch. Bluestar can reveal the presence of blood stains, even many that are not visible to the naked eye, by making them glow blue.

A small swipe mark glowed blue on the headrest of the couch. DNA testing later confirmed the blood had come from Susan Cox Powell.

That wasn’t the only bit of Susan’s blood police discovered in the area Josh had cleaned with the Rug Doctor.

The investigators noticed small droplets on a bit of tile flooring next to the couch, each roughly the size of a ballpoint pen tip.

“I would describe it as if you were to lean over to your left and cough or sneeze and you had some sort of blood in your nasal cavity or in your throat or mouth,” Ellis told the Cold podcast.

The presence of blood in the house wasn’t a smoking gun. The amount of blood was small and at that point, police did not know whose blood it was. They could also not tell how long the blood had been there.

---

Josh Powell’s Minivan

Ellis Maxwell searched Josh Powell’s minivan as his colleagues were going through the house.

West Valley City’s major crimes unit had crafted a plan. They received permission from a judge to hide a GPS beacon on the minivan.

“We want him to stick around and get back in his minivan and we want to see where he goes,” Ellis said. “Hopefully he returns to the location — wherever he disposed of her.”

Drafting the warrants, having them signed, executing the searches and placing the GPS tracker all took time. Josh waited at the West Valley City police headquarters lobby for several hours.

Police records revealed that Josh left without explanation at about 9:30 p.m.

Ten minutes later, at about 9:40 p.m., Maxwell walked into the lobby of the police station to return Josh’s keys and, hopefully, spring the trap.

Josh Powell had slipped the snare.

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/10-minutes-josh-powell-police-interview-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46446336/cold-experiment-rules-out-possible-origins-of-mystery-evidence-in-susan-powell-case

---

Josh Powell had gone for an unexpected winter camping trip.

West Valley City, Utah police detective Ellis Maxwell was getting tired of waiting.

When Josh Powell returned home with his two sons on the afternoon of Monday, Dec. 7, 2009, he found the detective waiting for him.

“He clearly can’t get into his driveway with all the cop cars and everything,” Ellis Maxwell said. “I approach the passenger side of the vehicle and he rolls down the window and I ask him, ‘where the hell have you been?’”

Josh told Ellis he’d gone out to Utah’s West Desert with the boys, ages 2 and 4, even as a significant snowstorm was sweeping across the region. Josh expressed surprise over hearing his wife, Susan was nowhere to be found.

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The Disappearance of Susan Cox Powell

Debbie Caldwell, the Powell family’s daycare provider, had sounded the alarm that morning when the boys, Charlie and Braden, failed to arrive at her home as scheduled.

Police learned neither Josh nor Susan Powell had showed up for their shifts at work. Calls to both of their cell phones had gone straight to voicemail.

Officers feared the whole family might have been overcome by carbon monoxide gas. They’d broken a window to gain access to their home.

The house, on a quiet cul-de-sac called Sarah Circle, had been empty.

Officers found no sign of a struggle. They noticed family’s minivan was missing from the garage. When Ellis walked through the house, he found Susan Cox Powell’s purse sitting on the bedroom dresser.

“Her wallet’s in there, her ID’s in there, her keys are in there,” Ellis said. “You could tell there’s no credit cards missing or anything like that. No cash is missing. She had jewelry in the bathroom and the bedroom. None of that appeared to be missing.”

In the living room, Ellis noticed two box fans blowing air at a damp spot on the couch. It appeared as though the couch had recently been cleaned.

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Josh Powell Camping Trip Alibi

Josh Powell’s return with the boys should have come as a relief. There was a problem though. Susan Powell was still missing. Josh said he had no idea where she was.

Detective Ellis Maxwell asked Josh to accompany him to the West Valley City police department’s west side substation for an interview that evening.

Ellis pressed Josh for details about the camping trip. Josh said he’d left his home between 1:30 and 2 a.m. that morning, driving his minivan down the Pony Express Trail.

“How far down the Pony Express did you go?” Ellis asked.

“Not very far. Maybe 20 miles. I don’t know,” Josh said.

Josh said he’d pulled off to the south side of the dirt road and made camp at about 4 a.m. He’d slept until about 7 a.m., then woke up and started a fire to make s’mores with Charlie and Braden.

That’s when he said he’d realized it was Monday, not Sunday, and that he’d missed work. Instead of rushing home to beg forgiveness, he’d wandered “all over the place” with the boys.

“We drove further out the Pony Express to that campground and we turned around. When it got old, we drove back,” Josh said.

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Recreating the Josh Powell Camping Trip

Josh Powell’s story seemed a poor alibi. After all, what father takes his 2 and 4-year-old children out of bed at 2 a.m., to go camping in subfreezing cold? Surely, Susan Powell would have protested.

In order to test the timeline provided by Josh, I attempted to recreate his trip in early December, 2017.

I departed from Sarah Circle at around 2 a.m., just as Josh said he’d done. I drove north on 5600 West until I reached I-80, then headed west on the freeway. At Lake Point, I exited the freeway and headed south through the Tooele and Rush Valleys.

A cold wind howled as I turned off Utah State Route 36 onto the dusty, washboarded Pony Express Road. I drove about 20 miles down the dark trail, with only the lights from the nearby Dugway Proving Ground, an Army base, on the horizon.

About a mile or so shy of Simpson Springs, I left the Pony Express Trail on a rocky two-track path and parked near a well-used campfire ring. The 85-mile trek took just shy of two hours.

Like Josh, I went to sleep in the back of my car at about 4 a.m. I awoke about three hours later, bleary-eyed.

The trip proved that Josh’s timeline did work.

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Josh Powell’s Carwash

Josh Powell told detective Ellis Maxwell that he’d stopped to wash his minivan at a carwash on the north side of Main Street in Lehi on the way home from the camping trip. Only one carwash matches his description. It sits at the corner of Main Street and 100 East.

Josh Powell stopping to clean his minivan in Lehi, 30 miles south of his home in West Valley City, didn’t make much sense at that time. Slush, salt and grime were still covering the roads thanks to that morning’s snowstorm. However, it would have been a wise move if he’d feared mud splattered on the wheel wells and body panels might give away exactly where he’d stopped in the West Desert.

At the conclusion of their interview, detective Ellis Maxwell asked Josh if he could search his minivan. Josh agreed.

The minivan was packed with supplies. Those included a shovel, rake, broom, electrical circular saw, folding hand saw, box cutter, gas-powered generator, plastic gas can, space heaters, humidifier, tarps, sled, fire extinguisher and more.

In particular, Ellis noticed a plastic tote containing camping supplies.

“Just ridiculous amounts of unopened camping equipment that you would find in Kmart or Walmart,” Ellis said. “This guy has all kinds of stuff back there.”

The most interesting discovery, though, came from the center console.

Ellis Maxwell’s partner found a pink Motorola cell phone buried deep in the storage area between the driver and front passenger seats.

“Then I say to him, I’m like, ‘Josh, why do you have Susan’s cell phone?’” Ellis asked. 

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/find-susan-cox-powell-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46440552/cold-lead-detective-on-susan-powell-investigation-speaks

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Susan Cox Powell loved to talk.

In her early 20s, Susan learned how to chat with strangers while studying and practicing cosmetology. As she grew older and experienced deepening dissatisfaction with her marriage, the topics of her conversations often became much more personal.

“She was very open, she was like an open book,” Susan Powell’s coworker Linda Bagley said. “It felt like she really liked me because she would tell me things that you would think that you would only tell someone that you’re close friends [with].”

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Seeds of Susan Powell’s Discontent

Susan and her husband, Josh Powell, were both active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when they met in October of 2000. They’d married in one of the church’s temples the following April, making vows “for time and all eternity.”

Josh Powell didn’t stick with the religion for long. Within a few years of their marriage, he quit attending Sunday services and pressured Susan to do the same.

She remained committed, both to her faith and to her marriage vows. Susan believed Josh was her eternal companion.

Josh took advantage of his wife’s devotion by exerting tight-fisted control over the family’s finances. He became furious any time Susan spent more than he thought she should on necessities, including food for herself or their two young sons.

She dealt with it by growing a garden.

Josh would not even spend on gifts for Susan. He gave her a cheap whiteboard calendar for her birthday in October of 2008. When she unwrapped the gift, she noticed it was damaged.

“The lining was white discolored to yellow in parts, plastic. Which he immediately noticed and said he would fix,” Susan Powell wrote in an Oct. 18, 2008 Facebook message. “I’m wondering if I should do tit for tat and give him a white board ‘to do list’ or something lame like that for Christmas.”

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Susan Powell Domestic Abuse

Susan Powell saw a counselor and encouraged Josh Powell to join her, an offer he most often refused.

On one occasion, Susan’s father Chuck Cox attended a session. The counselor observed that Susan was being abused. Chuck told his daughter he agreed.

Susan’s parents bought her a cell phone, in case she ever needed to make a quick escape. They paid the monthly bill, to prevent Josh from seeing who she called or texted.

Susan Powell opened up to neighbors, relatives and even the occasional stranger about her troubles. She vented about her husband, how poorly he treated her and how much she yearned for him to act more like the man she’d married.

“She did want to make it work,” coworker Linda Bagley said. “Her first part of the married life she said was nice and good and they worked together and he was different. But he started changing and being more strict and just being harder to live with.”

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Susan Powell Last Will and Testament

On Friday, June 27, 2008, Susan Powell asked her close friend and neighbor, Kiirsi Hellewell, to come over to the Powell family’s home. Susan handed Kiirsi a stenographer’s notepad. Kiirsi knew how to write quickly using a form of shorthand.

Susan then began to recount the worst argument of her marriage to date. She and Josh Powell had just gone through a shouting match over faith and finances. 

“She was just pacing up and down, and really angry,” Hellewell said. “So angry she couldn’t sit still.” 

Susan said the argument rocked her so deeply, she felt she needed to document it as evidence. 

The next day, Susan drafted a handwritten will while at work. In it, she spelled out a fear for her life. 

“If I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one,” she wrote. “Take care of my boys.”

Susan’s messages to her friends soon displayed hints of that same fear.

Josh had purchased a million-dollar term life insurance policy for her. Susan recognized the purchase made little sense, unless he expected something horrible to happen.

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Susan Powell Divorce Deadline

Susan Cox Powell resolved to make a change.

She began diverting part of her paycheck into a personal account. Against Josh’s wishes, she paid tithing to her church. She bought her own computer, because he wouldn’t let her use his. Susan insisted on spending time with her female friends. Many of those friends encouraged her to leave Josh.

To Susan, it seemed a risky move.

Coworker Amber Hardman offered to help her escape with the couple’s two boys, Charlie and Braden Powell.

“She was so worried he would track her down no matter what she did,” Hardman said. “It was like she had no way out and I was like ‘He doesn’t know where we live. What if you came to our house and we found somewhere for you to go in another state? He would not know.’ She was like ‘No, he will figure it out. He will find me.’”

Money is control and I’m his asset to be controlled and abused and I’m not allowing that any longer.

Susan Powell

Susan’s emerging independence set her on a collision course with Josh.

“I’m just letting him decide if he’s going to deal with me or not,” Susan wrote in a Sept. 20, 2008 Facebook message to a brother-in-law. “Money is control and I’m his asset to be controlled and abused and I’m not allowing that any longer.”

As 2009 drew to a close, Susan told friends she had set a date. If Josh refused to get back into church and into marriage counseling by the time of their wedding anniversary in April, 2010, she would move forward with divorce.

Then, Susan disappeared.

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Paper Trail

Police in West Valley City, Utah used a series of search warrants and subpoenas to obtain copies of Susan’s emails and Facebook messages in the weeks following her December 2009 disappearance. The correspondence provided investigators valuable insight into her state of mind.

Police included redacted versions of those messages when they publicly released their case file in 2013.

The thousands of pages of messages revealed just how isolated, frustrated and trapped Susan felt in the years leading up to her disappearance.

In the time since, many of Susan’s friends came to see lessons in the conversations they once shared with her.

“As much as we all tried to help her get out and talk to her, keep pushing. Keep doing more,” Hardman said. “If you know someone that’s in a bad situation, use Susan as an example. Bad things can happen. You don’t want this to happen to anybody.”

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Episode credits
Research, writing, hosting and production: Dave Cawley
Production assistance: Danielle Prager, Adam Mason
Additional voices: Kristen Sorensen (as Susan Powell), Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell), Ken Fall (as Steve Powell)
Cold main score composition: Michael Bahnmiller
Cold main score mixing: Dan Blanck
Supplemental music: Dave Cawley
KSL executive producers: Sheryl Worsley, Keira Farrimond
Episode transcript: https://thecoldpodcast.com/season-1-transcript/susan-powell-faith-and-finances-full-transcript/
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46436332/cold-susan-powells-secret-writings-reveal-fear-suspicion-months-before-her-disappearance