Author: Dave Cawley

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By May 22, 2013, West Valley City police had received more than 860 tips in the Susan Powell investigation.

The tips ran the gamut, from simple suggestions of where detectives might search for the missing mother, to accounts from self-described psychics of discussions with Susan from beyond the grave.

Sifting out legitimate leads from irrelevant information proved a major undertaking, especially as public interest in the case grew. Many of those tips involved sightings of Josh or Susan Powell in places ranging from Atlanta to Alaska.

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The Josh Powell Flying J Sighting​

One of the most perplexing reported sightings occurred much closer to where the Powell family lived. It happened at the Flying J truck stop in Lake Point, Utah, just off of Interstate 80.

On January 27, 2010, a woman named Denise called police to report having seen Josh and Susan Powell, as well as their sons Charlie and Braden, at the Flying J on the same night as Josh’s winter camping trip on the Pony Express Trail.

Denise described working the register late on the night of Dec. 6, 2009, as a  winter storm began dumping snow.

“It was around midnight, 12:30, and I was busier than normal because of the storm. It was coming down like crazy,” Denise said during an interview for the Cold podcast. “I heard, ‘Hey, Charlie!’ and then I’m waiting for a customer and I’m just kinda waiting for a response to that and I didn’t hear a response.”

A few moments later, a man approached carrying a toddler in one arm. With his free hand, he placed rescue tape on the counter. A woman stepped up beside the man and also set down licorice and crackers.

“So I looked up and I made eye contact with her and then the dad said he said, ‘Hang on a minute let me buy this stuff and then we’ll go camping,’” Denise said. “I looked over at the RV islands that was just over my right shoulder, and there was nobody there. There was no RVs or anything. And I thought, ‘Camping? In this?’ So  turned a little bit further and I’d seen the minivan sitting on pump six.”

Denise rang up the items. While she was doing so, the boy in the man’s arm stirred.

“He looked at his mom and I looked at his little nose — he was just such a cute little man, his little nose was all scrunched up — and I said ‘well he doesn’t look too happy about going camping,’” Denise said. “She did the mom thing, rubbed his little cheeks and smiled and said ‘yeah, he’s pretty tired.’”

The woman took the child from the man and walked over to the doors, where Denise then noticed another, older boy.

The man handed Denise cash to pay for the items and told her to put the change on pump six. Then, he went out into the storm and left.

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Josh Powell Flying J Tip Proves Unverifiable​

Several weeks elapsed before Denise saw Josh’s face on the news. She believed he was the man she’d seen. Denise told West Valley police she’d seen Josh Powell at the Flying J.

“I am positive. I am positive it was them,” Denise said. “Especially that baby. That little scrunched up nose that was just like Susan’s and her making that direct eye contact with me.”

“They were there. 100% they were there. I believe that in my soul and I will stand by that with my words.”

Denise

However, Denise’s tip proved impossible to verify. West Valley dispatched a detective to interview her.

“When they asked me ‘what took you so long?’ that was gut-wrenching,” Denise said.

Police sought video surveillance, both from the store and from an ATM in the store.

“Much to my surprise, Flying J only kept their film for ten days and then they would record over it again. So it wasn’t available for them,” Denise said.

Denise provided police a description of what the people she’d seen had been wearing that night. However, by that point, images of the Powell family had circulated in news reports.

On March 2, 2010, Denise delivered a hand-written statement describing what she’d seen to West Valley police. She never heard back from them.

“I had a lot of anger issues, frustration with them and stuff because I had such valuable information that I felt was discarded,” Denise said. “It’s been very difficult to deal with over the years. I watch these things that they have on TV, all these stories they have on Susan Powell and stuff and it’s like, ‘That is so not true. She was there. I made eye contact with her.’”

The lead investigator on the Powell case, detective Ellis Maxwell, said tips like Denise’s showed why police kept many of the details of their investigation secret.

“The more information that gets out, that’s more information now you have to sift through in these tips and these leads and trying to identify ‘Okay, is this credible information or this information that they’ve obtained because of information that we’ve released?’”

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Josh Powell Sighting at Duces Wild​

One tip that made the news early in the investigation led to a lot of speculation about Josh. It came from a man named Sherman, who was a regular at a strip club called Duces Wild in South Salt Lake, Utah.

Sherman phoned police on Dec. 14, 2009, a week following Susan Powell’s disappearance. He told them he’d witnessed a disturbance at Duces Wild on the afternoon of Dec. 7. A man who looked like Josh Powell had told Sherman that he’d had a very bad day and had quite a story to tell.

Over the course of the next several days, detectives interviewed the club’s owner, the bartender and another patron who’d interacted with the ‘bad day’ guy.

They learned the disruptive patron had arrived at the club around 2 p.m. and left at approximately 4:30 p.m.

Josh Powell’s phone records would later show that he was mobile during that time period, using his phone first in West Valley City and then later in Lehi, Utah. The Duces Wild patron could not have been Josh Powell.

But police did not announce that conclusion publicly.

“It just makes the investigation a heck of a lot easier to move forward when you can keep the evidence closed until you come to a resolution,” Ellis said. “I can only imagine if we didn’t keep those records sealed and all the information in those affidavits was released, we would have probably ended up with thousands of more tips and leads that we would have had of wasted resources on for nothing.”

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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/chasing-leads-josh-powell-stripper-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46500057/cold-interview-casts-doubt-on-claim-josh-powell-confessed-to-a-stripper

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West Valley police hopped a plane to Minneapolis, Minnesota in October of 2011. They were interested in speaking with Josh Powell’s youngest brother, Michael, about his car.

Weeks earlier, detectives had located and seized Michael’s 1997 Ford Taurus from Lindell Auto, a salvage yard in Pendleton, Oregon. Michael had sold the car there for $100 on Dec. 23, 2009, just two weeks after the disappearance of Michael’s sister-in-law, Susan Cox Powell.

At the time, Michael Powell was living in Minneapolis. He worked at the University of Minnesota and was also pursuing a PhD in cognitive science there.

The detective and lieutenant who traveled to meet Michael did not warn him that they were coming. During their ambush interview, the police asked Michael about his scrapped car and if it had been involved in transporting Susan’s body.

Retired detective Ellis Maxwell, who was the lead detective on the Powell case, told the Cold podcast Michael Powell refused to talk.

“He wouldn’t answer any questions and he straight told them, like, even if he thought that his brother was involved he wouldn’t tell us anything,” Ellis said.

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Request to Apollo Mapping

On Dec. 3, 2011, two months after the unexpected visit with police, Michael Powell went to the website of a Boulder, Colorado company called Apollo Mapping. He entered his personal information into a contact form, along with the message “I am looking for an aerial photo of Pendleton, Oregon taken in October 2011 or later.”

Katie Nelson, one of the partners and co-owners of Apollo Mapping, responded to Michael’s message by email a few hours later. She said Apollo’s most recent image of the Pendleton, Oregon area dated back to August 2011. She asked if he would like to purchase that satellite image.

Michael responded in the negative, but said he’d be interested if another satellite image taken later than October 2011 became available.

“When he contacted me I just thought he was just a normal guy,” Katie told Cold of the Michael Powell satellite image request. “There was nothing weird about our interaction.”

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University of Minnesota

Michael Powell’s email exchange with Apollo Mapping took place on his University of Minnesota email account.

On March 6, 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Alba had signed a search warrant authorizing police access to Michael Powell’s digital data at the university. That included all emails sent and received from his university account since August 16, 2011.

By that point, Josh Powell had been dead for a month, having killed himself and his two sons by setting fire to his rented home in Graham, Wash. Police suspected Josh might have shared information about Susan Powell’s disappearance with Michael, or possibly even enlisted his help with her presumed murder.

The university provided Michael’s digital information to police. While reviewing the internet sessions, police discovered the communication between Apollo Mapping and Michael Powell.

“You pay a lot for the security of knowing that people don’t know your secret.”

Katie Nelson

Detectives had also obtained AAA records that showed Michael’s car actually broke down in Baker City, Oregon, not Pendleton. Michael and his younger sister, Alina Powell, had insisted that AAA tow the Taurus all the way to Pendleton, bypassing several auto shops in Baker City and La Grande, Oregon.

“Made him very suspicious, obviously with being super concerned about this vehicle,” Ellis said. “It is interesting that they went 100 miles north to dispose of it and then him being concerned why it wasn’t smashed and looking for satellite imagery.”

Detective Darrell Dain contacted Katie Nelson at Apollo Mapping about the Michael Powell satellite image request.

“It was kind of surreal, because you don’t really think about yourself being attached to anything like that and I didn’t understand at first sort of the implications of it,” Katie said. “I kind of was like jumped into the middle of something without understanding really what was going on and why it was important and sort of what he was trying to accomplish with this imagery.”

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Michael Powell Satellite Image of Lindell Auto​

Darrell asked Katie if she would be willing to call Michael, in an attempt to learn what specific area of Pendleton he was attempting to view. She agreed.

“I was like ‘I hope I can help you, I hope I can give you more information and get something out of him’ but also going into it knowing that that might not happen,” Katie said. “It’s like a sort of pressure where you know you’re probably going to fail and it was very cloak-and-dagger.”

Darrell traveled to Boulder to meet with Katie and listen in on her phone call with Michael on Sept. 4, 2012.

“I was surprised he came out and took the time, stayed a night in town to come up for something that was kind of, I mean it was a long shot,” Katie said.

Katie called Michael and told him new imagery of Pendleton had come available. She asked if he was still interested and if he could provide precise coordinates or an address for the spot he wanted to view.

“How about the name of the establishment? I don’t know if you go that way,” Michael said.

Katie told him that would work.

“It should be like Lindell’s. Lindell’s junk, Lindell’s junk yard. Oh, Lindell’s Auto Salvage, I bet,” Michael said.

Katie told Michael that she would double-check to make sure the new satellite image showed the Lindell Auto lot and would get back in touch later.

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Michael Powell’s Satellite Image Desperation​

After Michael hung up the phone, Darrell told Katie that Lindell Auto is where police had located Michael’s car nearly one year prior. A cadaver dog had indicated the presence of decomposition in the trunk.

“It’s just one of those moments where you feel someone’s walked over your grave and you’re like ‘oh, that’s uncomfortable,’” Katie said.

In a subsequent conversation, Katie told Michael Powell the new satellite image only showed part of the Lindell lot. West Valley police records said Michael expressed a desire to purchase a copy of the image.

“So that would have been $437.50,” Katie said. “Rather surprising that someone wants to spend that kind of money but in his desperation, you pay a lot for the security of knowing that people don’t know your secret, which I think is what that was worth to him.”

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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/fall-of-the-house-of-powell-life-insurance-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46494701/cold-josh-powells-brother-lied-under-oath

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Josh Powell killed his sons on February 5, 2012. The horrifying murders of two innocent children compounded the already tragic loss of their mother, Susan Cox Powell.

This episode of the Cold podcast tells the story of the day Josh Powell murdered Susan’s sons. On this page, we honor the memories of Susan, Charlie and Braden by sharing photos of them from happier times. Many of these photos have not previously been shared publicly.

“I don’t want Charlie and Braden to lose a married mother and father. But more importantly I know they should have HAPPY parents.”

Susan Powell

“I love my boys, I live for them and I choose not to cheat or do drugs because I wouldn’t want to risk losing them.”

Susan Powell

“I try so hard to at least about 10 times a day tell my children ‘I love you, you are my favorite!’”

Susan Powell

“I cherish my boys but realize they’ll grow up and move on.”

Susan Powell

“I love you Charlie and Braden and I’m sorry you’ve seen how wrong/messed up our marriage is. I would never leave you!”

Susan Powell

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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/killing-susans-sons-murder-suicide-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46489983/cold-devastating-fire-left-few-digital-clues

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Pendleton, Oregon didn’t figure as a key location in the story of Josh and Susan Powell. It was, at most, a place they would stop for gas during occasional road trips to visit family in Puyallup, Washington.

That changed in 2011 when West Valley City police learned Josh Powell’s youngest brother, Michael Powell, had sold his 1997 Ford Taurus at an auto salvage lot in Pendleton just two weeks after Susan Powell’s Dec. 7, 2009 disappearance.

Michael stopped at Lindell Auto on Dec. 22, 2009, looking to unload his car. He claimed it had developed a transmission problem.

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Michael Powell’s Car at Lindell Auto​

Lindell Auto is well known in eastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. The owner and operator, Dave Lindell, told the Cold podcast his business had been in the family since his dad first bought it in 1963.

Lindell advertises auto wrecking services, but that’s just one part of the operation.

“We run an automotive recycling, auto parts scrapping, towing type business,” Lindell said. “We do a variety of things with cars, and we sell some used cars. We’re in a small town and you might have to do several different things to make it all kind of band together.”

It wasn’t at all unusual for people to show up at the Lindell Auto lot near the Umatilla River looking to unload broken-down vehicles.

“We have customers all over on a regional basis somewhat, out of other towns, within a decent distance,” Dave said. “It keeps us pretty busy.”

As a result, Michael Powell didn’t stand out much from the crowd.

“I can remember him being kind of a clean cut, decent looking, normal run of the mill kind of guy,” Dave said. “Maybe a thirty-something, young thirties, something like that. Looked like he had a job. Looked like he probably had some responsibilities and needed to get somewhere in a hurry.”

The Taurus was more than 10 years old at that point and supposedly not in running order. Dave offered Michael $100 for the car. Michael accepted the offer on the spot.

“I bought the car and didn’t think much about it,” Dave said. “Had the title, paid him. Time went by, we sold a few parts off the car.”

Dave didn’t think much about that clean-cut man with the Ford Taurus again until September 2011, when he received a phone call from a detective from West Valley City, Utah.

“All the sudden the West Valley police department showed up from Utah, asking about a car that I got from Michael Powell,” Dave said.

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Police Discovery​ of the Car

West Valley police were approaching the two-year anniversary of Susan Powell’s disappearance and still lacked any solid piece of physical evidence to link her husband to her presumed murder.

However, at that time the investigation was by no means cold. Detectives had secured a wiretap on the phones of Josh Powell and his father, Steve Powell.

They had just gone public with a search of mines in Ely, Nevada and served a search warrant at Steve’s home in South Hill, Washington. They were preparing to launch another major desert search at Topaz Mountain, Utah, hoping to find human remains.

“He might have thought he was selling it to somebody who’d just run down and squish it right away.”

Dave Lindell

Dave Lindell knew about the case.

“I was aware of the Powell murder just through the news,” Dave said. “I pay attention to those kind of stories and I’d kind of read pretty much what had happened in Seattle and what had happened with Josh’s dad.”

In the midst of all that, West Valley City police had learned of Michael Powell’s stop at Lindell Auto.

“An intel analyst of ours at West Valley, phenomenal intel analyst, she came across this information and got it right to us and we followed up on it right away,” Ellis Maxwell said.

Ellis, the now-retired lead detective on the Susan Powell case, figured it was a long shot to hope the Michael Powell car might still be in Pendleton.

To his surprise, it was.

“It was a 10-year-old car,” Dave said. “We don’t keep 10-year-old cars very often for very long. But just that one had managed to stick around. In fact, I probably had told my guys at the time, if they’d come probably another three months later, it wouldn’t have been there.”

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Cadaver Dog​ Hits on the Ford Taurus

West Valley dispatched another detective, David Greco, to Pendleton with a cadaver dog.

“We dug up the paperwork, which is pretty easy,” Dave said. “They gave me the VIN number. I went back by the VIN number. Pulled the file on the car, and I could see where the paperwork had come from and what it was. And I started to put the picture together in my head that this was to do with that Michael Powell.”

Dave Lindell took the West Valley team out to his lot, pointing out where they could find the Taurus.

The dog’s handler let his animal loose.

“And this dog went directly, didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop at any other vehicles, went directly to Michael Powell’s vehicle,” Ellis said.

That was a surprising result, considering many of the wrecked vehicles that turn up in salvage yards like Lindell Auto have been involved in injury crashes.

“So you’re gonna have blood and stuff like that in those vehicles,” Ellis said.

The dog, named Tug, sniffed around the rear end of the Taurus and then sat. That’s what Tug was trained to do when he’d detected the odor of cadaver.

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Search and Seizure

Detective Greco returned to the Lindell Auto office.

“They said they got a hit on it,” Dave said. “Then they said, ‘Well, we’re gonna load that car up and take it back to Utah.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ ‘Cause it was like, I was kinda shocked by the whole thing.”

Dave told the police he had already submitted paperwork to the state of Oregon to have the car declared destroyed.

“I had to figure out what was going on,” Dave said. “I called our police chief and says, ‘so, can they just take this car?’ And he said, ‘yeah, you gotta give them that car.’”

The next day, on Sept. 21, 2011, West Valley police returned to Lindell Auto with a flatbed tow truck. They put a sheet of cardboard over the missing front passenger door, wrapped it in place with plastic and drove away.

Dave Lindell was left wondering if a key piece of evidence in a murder case from two states away had sat on his lot for the better part of two years.

“We had no idea that it was in our possession at all,” Dave said. “It had just been sitting out there. I mean anything could have happened to it in the meantime.”

As for Michael Powell, Dave couldn’t help but question what his motive had been for dumping the car midway between Utah and Washington.

“He might have thought he was selling it to somebody who’d just run it down there and squish it right away,” Dave said. “When we checked the car out, we couldn’t really find that much wrong with the car. … I said, ‘Well, he said there was something major going on but everything I find on this car, I don’t find what he’s talking about.’”

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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/4thekidzz-josh-powell-custody-battle-full-transcript
KSL companion story: https://www.ksl.com/article/46484497/cold-forensic-psychologist-shares-impressions-of-josh-powell

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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.

---

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

---

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

---

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

---

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.

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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.”

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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/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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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/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