Dave Cawley: Josh Powell loaded his sons, Charlie and Braden, into their car seats on Saturday, December 19, 2009. He was leaving West Valley City, Utah for his dad’s house on the outskirts of Puyallup, Washington. He was headed home for the holidays. His wife, Susan, had been missing for 12 days. Ellis Maxwell, West Valley City’s lead detective on the case, was powerless to keep Josh in Utah.
Ellis Maxwell: It was frustrating at the most because this is a crime that we’re investigating here and the individual that we’re really focusing on is now leaving the state and going 12 hours away.
Dave Cawley: On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Josh dropped the boys with Susan’s parents. Each time, he refused to set foot inside his in-law’s home. Susan’s dad, Chuck Cox, had suspected from the beginning that Josh was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance.
Chuck Cox: I didn’t have anything to say to him other than, “what did you do, you creep?” Y’know? “You’d better get her, you’d better find her, find her and show us where she is and free her from wherever you have her stashed or whatever you’ve done.”
Dave Cawley: Between Christmas and New Years, West Valley police learned about Josh’s request to withdraw Susan’s retirement, using the power of attorney she had signed earlier that year. They couldn’t stop the distribution. The paperwork was air-tight.
At the start of the new year, Ellis learned Josh did not intend to come back. He was moving away from West Valley, permanently.
Ellis Maxwell: It was surprising to us but it wasn’t.
Dave Cawley: Remember, police had been keeping close tabs on Josh’s movements, including using a GPS tracker.
Ellis Maxwell: We’re eyes-on, we’re following him, we’re doing everything that we can to see if we can pick up on any cues and he’ll kind of screw up somewhere and we can be like “ok, there it is” or, y’know, and, and be able to locate her.
Dave Cawley: Word of Josh’s arrival spread fast though among the community in Puyallup.
Ellis Maxwell: It didn’t take long for Josh to kind of ruffle the waters up there and when people started learning that he was in the area and his kids were coming to church or whatnot, y’know, it caused some concern. And rightfully so, because I think everybody wanted to, to see an end in this investigation and probably wanted to see him sitting in jail and then obviously Susan to be found.
Dave Cawley: This is Cold, Episode 8: Wearing a Wire. I’m Dave Cawley. Right back after this.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley: Members of the Gem Heights Ward were buzzing. Josh had suddenly shown up in their midst. He attended services at the church on the first Sunday of 2010, January 3rd, with his boys Charlie and Braden. It had been awhile since Josh had attended church with any regularity. When he and Susan had met, Josh was an every-Sunday kind of guy. His personal audio journals from that time often included what he called “spiritual entries.”
Josh Powell (from February 17, 2000 audio journal recording): I have many sore trials but I am exceedingly blessed and exceedingly blessed in the spirit and so much that I know what I have to do, that I have to live righteously in order to receive those blessings.
Dave Cawley: But of course, Josh had lost interest in religion just a few years after marrying Susan. That remained a source of friction in their marriage, right up until she disappeared. So it seemed odd that he would suddenly find faith again, right then. There was a logic to it. Josh needed help.
He introduced himself to the bishop of the Gem Heights Ward, a man named Dahl Johnson, as “the husband with the missing wife in Salt Lake City.” Then, he explained he was moving in to the neighborhood. He’d lost his job and couldn’t afford food. The bishop offered Josh food assistance and gave him the name and number of an employment specialist.
Josh had also brought the boys to church. Charlie and Braden attended Primary. That’s the church’s Sunday School program for young kids. While there, Charlie ran wild. (Laughs) He was rambunctious, just weeks shy of his 5th birthday, and surrounded by new, unfamiliar people.
The Primary teacher, Crystal Lewis, had no clue who Charlie was. She didn’t know if he was a visitor or if his parents were new members of the congregation. At one point during the class, Charlie flipped the light switch on and off. Crystal told him to stop. He just grinned, having discovered a new game. Then, he turned the lights out again.
Crystal warned Charlie that if he didn’t shape up, she would tell his mom and dad that he was misbehaving.
“My mom is dead,” Charlie said.
Lewis was stunned. Later that day, she learned Charlie’s last name was Powell. She realized he was the son of the missing woman from Utah, the son of the guy who’d been all over the news.
[Scene transition]
Dave Cawley: Five days later, Josh was back in Utah. He and his brother Michael pulled up to the Sarah Circle house in West Valley with a U-Haul truck and trailer.
In spite of all that’d happened, Josh’s neighbors turned out to help him pack. They moved boxes, tools and furniture into to the truck. Josh stood around, watching and giving directions.
Wendy Trujillo: I helped pack the kitchen up, most of the kitchen, a little teeny bit in the bedroom. I felt uncomfortable in the bedroom ‘cause like, that’s your private space. I don’t want to be in there. (Laughs) And then a little bit downstairs and in the storage and…
Dave Cawley: Wendy Trujillio’s parents lived a couple of houses away from the Powell house. She’d heard rumors about trouble in Josh and Susan’s marriage, but wasn’t sure what to believe.
Wendy Trujillo: I’m like, “uh, she couldn’t have been starving or out of food. They have five gallon jugs of rice and peanut butter and corn and like all kinds of food storage that lasts for a long time.” And five gallons of peanut butter and more than one five gallon bucket is quite a bit, so… (Laughs)
Dave Cawley: There were other buckets in the basement though that Josh didn’t want anyone but his brother Michael to get near. After Josh and Michael had moved them out of the basement, Wendy noticed what appeared to be an odd chemical splashed on the exposed insulation of the cellar. Some of it also appeared to have spilled on the floor in the kitchen. Josh joked that it was blood and he’d better clean it up before the police arrived.
Wendy Trujillo: To me it was, you don’t joke about stuff like that when you’re in a situation like he was in.
Dave Cawley: When Josh wasn’t looking, Wendy pressed a piece of packing tape to the spot on the kitchen floor, collecting a sample. She did the same thing in the cellar. She eventually provided both to police, who tested the samples for blood. Both came back negative.
At one point, Josh quipped that he’d just loaded Susan’s head in the truck. Then, he laughed. Wendy didn’t respond, so Josh asked if she’d heard him.
Wendy Trujillo: I looked at him and I was like, looking, I turned away and looked down and finished packing. And I’m like, “did he really just say that? Are you serious?”
Dave Cawley: Josh wouldn’t give it up. Finally, Wendy asked him if he meant a mannequin head, something Susan would have used for cosmetology. Josh said yeah, then laughed again.
Wendy Trujillo: It was interesting because sometimes he’d crack those horrible jokes and then sometimes he’d be really emotional. Whenever he packed up in the bedroom, he’d get really emotional and he’d cry and he’d have to come out of the room and take a break and then he’d try to go back in and sometimes he was like “alright, I’m not going work on this for, y’know, until I need to say a different day.”
Dave Cawley: Word made it back to Susan’s parents in Washington that Josh was abandoning the house.
Chuck Cox: The fact that he was moving back just said he knows where she is and that she’s not coming back.
Dave Cawley: Chuck Cox called Josh’s sister, Jennifer Graves.
Jennifer Graves: We went over to help pack up not because we felt like that was the right thing for him to do — to leave — but because we wanted to, I guess, be a little bit more in the know. … Chuck had asked us to set aside a couple of Susan’s personal things that he didn’t want disappearing.
Chuck Cox: Uh, she had a, a graduation present which was a, a bench with uh, storage in it and uh, she had her journals in there. And we wanted her journals. They’re our daughter’s journals, we should have her journals. And uh, he wanted everything. He, he, what use would he have for her dresses? None. But he wanted them.
Dave Cawley: Michael saw Jennifer walking out of the house with some boxes, not toward the U-Haul but instead to her own van. He stepped in front of his older sister and told her to stop.
Jennifer Graves: So it just felt like a really strange situation. Why are you all covering up for him? Why aren’t you just pushing him to tell what he knows? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?
Dave Cawley: Josh told Jennifer she couldn’t take the boxes or the Deacons bench. She called Susan’s dad, then handed her phone to Josh. He argued with Chuck, but finally agreed to let Jennifer take the bench.
Chuck Cox: So, when he said we could have it, I said, she heard yes, we could have it, she took it and put it in the car and drove it away. So it was gone. And then later he changed his mind and it’s “oh no, I want it.” “No, you can’t, sorry, it’s gone.” So, then it was “oh, you stole it.” No.
Jennifer Graves: Because of pressure from other ward members that were in the room at the time, we were able to get that Deacon’s bench and, and some things. He wouldn’t give the, I don’t think he ended up giving the pictures.
Dave Cawley: …Or Susan’s journals. Under no circumstances would he allow the Coxes to have those.
Chuck Cox: Well his dad wanted the journals and he gives them to his dad. Really? What an idiot. Who would do that?
[Scene transition]
Dave Cawley: If the move back to Washington was meant to be a clean break for Josh, it didn’t work out that way. He called the Gem Heights Ward leaders on January 11th, to let them know he’d need help unloading the U-Haul. Latter-day Saints tend to have something of a reputation when it comes to this kind of service.
The task of helping Josh fell to the ward’s Elder’s Quorum. The president of the Elder’s Quorum was a man named Rod Stephens. He explained to Josh it would take time to rally enough people, but they’d get the job done. Rod and about five other guys met Josh at his storage unit in the city Sumner on the evening of Wednesday, January 13th.
Rod Stephens: Yeah, it was a good-sized storage unit and they even built umm, a loft above it so we could put stuff up higher, even. … His father was there and his brother, his younger brother was there.
Dave Cawley: That would of course have been Michael. Rod and the crew started to unload the U-Haul.
Rod Stephens: He had some kids stuff, his stuff, but in fact I remember he didn’t have anything of Susan’s, really, which surprised me. There just wasn’t anything of hers but it was all just his stuff and the kids’ stuff.
Dave Cawley: Steve and Michael both pitched in, helping carry and stack boxes. Josh stood off to one side and watched.
Rod Stephens: Josh is lazy. Uh, one of the laziest people I’ve known. He was kind of aloof from us. He would kind of walk around and look at all of his, his goods but he didn’t help lift anything. He didn’t help his father. He didn’t help his brother. He ate Dorito chips and drank water. And he did that until I was so frustrated that I would grab boxes and put them right in Josh’s hands. Then he would take the box that I gave him, he would walk, set it down then he’d go back and drink his water and eat his potato chips.
Dave Cawley: Josh didn’t even bother with conversation during the two hours it took to stack the storage unit.
Rod Stephens: No, in fact he rarely said anything at all except to tell us thanks and that he was, ‘cause I kept handing him boxes, he told me, he says “well, I’m really tired and really thirsty” is what he told me. And I said “ok” and then I’d hand him another box. I didn’t care.
Dave Cawley: If Josh’d bothered to ask, he might’ve learned that Rod wasn’t just the Elder’s Quorum president. He was also a federal agent. Rod’s day job was with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Rod Stephens: I work in law enforcement, so, my own thoughts were “I wonder if part of her body is in this bucket that I’m offloading” and he had so many buckets — I can’t recall now — but I want to tell you 50, 100 buckets of five-gallon buckets. So every time I pick up a heavy bucket I’m thinking “is part of Susan in this bucket?” Literally, I’m wondering that.
Dave Cawley: The barrels contained food storage, grain, mostly. Rod kept his eyes open though for any possible shred of evidence. He didn’t see any.
Rod Stephens: No, if I would have found something then, well I would have stopped it right then and I would have held it. I would have called West Valley, then I would have called the local agency out and we would have held it. Period. And then I would have backed myself off because, yeah this wouldn’t have been my jurisdiction or my, right. But it would have stopped right then.
Dave Cawley: Of course, that didn’t happen. When they were done, Rod contacted his boss, who just happened to be a former police officer for West Valley City. It was a crazy coincidence.
Rod Stephens: You’d probably win the lottery easier than saying “hey, I’m Josh Powell’s Elder’s Quorum president and I work in law enforcement.”
Dave Cawley: Rod’s boss reached out to some old contacts at the department and told them where they could find Josh’s storage unit. Detective Ellis Maxwell was already on the hunt for it. He’d traveled to Washington that same week and had visited several storage unit businesses in the area. At the time, police believed Josh, or possibly Steve, might be holding Susan captive in one.
Ellis also visited Steve’s work, Washington Correctional Industries.
Ellis Maxwell: We didn’t spend any time lallygagging around. We, we were interviewing friends and family, past old friends, high school friends all the way to the Sunday school teachers and putting together and developing plans as far as what our next step was going to be.
Dave Cawley: On the same day that Rod Stephens was helping unload Josh’s U-Haul, the Sunday School teacher Crystal Lewis was telling Ellis what Charlie Powell had told her: his mommy was dead.
[Scene transition]
Dave Cawley: That wasn’t even the most dramatic thing that happened day. On January 13th, Josh’s estranged older sister Jennifer learned her husband Kirk was scheduled to fly to Seattle for work the following week.
Jennifer Graves: 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.
Dave Cawley: She called the West Valley police department to ask for guidance. At first, the response didn’t seem all that enthusiastic.
Jennifer Graves: They don’t know who to trust. They don’t know that I’m really, really there to help them.
Dave Cawley: But Jennifer had started to develop a rapport with the many of the detectives.
Jennifer Graves: I called Ellis and I asked him, “can you,” I mean, “can I do this?” I didn’t even know if they would be ok with that. Y’know, would that be ok? Would that be legal? Would that be, would that mess up what they’re doing?
Dave Cawley: Ellis warned Jennifer that confronting Josh could be dangerous, but he couldn’t stop her. The idea continued to stir in Jennifer’s mind.
Jennifer Graves: And 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, we got, like, evidence?” So I called Ellis again. I’m like, “this is, this is what I want to do, I think, y’know, what if we wired me and I went in?”
Ellis Maxwell: It was great. I’ll never forget when Jennifer came to me with that proposal. I, I’m not going to lie, I kind of got a smile on my face and I was like “I like this.”
Dave Cawley: But it wasn’t that simple. Utah is a one-party consent state. That means as long as one person in a conversation knows it’s being recorded, it’s all good. Washington, on the other had, is two-party consent. All people involved must be made aware of and agree to being recorded. Jennifer obviously wasn’t going to tell the rest of her family she was carrying a hidden microphone.
Ellis Maxwell: So, because of that, you really got to jump through a lot of hoops and your warrant needs to have the right language.
Ellis reached out to Detective Gary Sanders with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office. They worked together to secure a warrant that would allow Jennifer to break the two-party consent rule.
Gary Sanders: I mean, when your own sister, your own sibling, your own blood is willing to turn and she knows that’s what’s going on, that speaks volumes.
Dave Cawley: Kirk and Jennifer arrived in Washington on January 21st. The following day, they went to the Pierce County precinct to meet the team.
Jennifer Graves: Got all wired up. I had a thing in my pocket and that was recording.
Dave Cawley: It was also transmitting a live feed of the audio to a police vehicle parked a street or two away from the Powell home. A helicopter orbited overhead. They didn’t anticipate violence, but the police gave Jennifer code words to use if the situation got out of hand. If that happened, Pierce County deputies would rush the house.
Ellis Maxwell: It was a little, uh, nerve-wracking simply because you just don’t know what’s going to happen. Right? Yeah, we know Jennifer. We know the Powells. But we all know emotions are hard to manage and so once she was in that situation it was, it was a little nerve-wracking.
Dave Cawley: Jennifer summoned her courage. She and Kirk pulled up to the curb outside her father’s house at about 5:30 p.m., stepped out of the car and knocked on the door.
(Sound of car door chime beeping)
Dave Cawley: The audio you are hearing now comes from the recording device Jennifer was wearing that evening.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What’s happening?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): How’s it going?
Dave Cawley: For the first time in years, the whole Powell clan — Steve, Jennifer, Josh, John, Michael, Alina and the boys, Charlie and Braden — were together under one roof.
Jennifer Graves: Relations between my family and I were already strained. And so the fact that I would show up is probably a big red flag to them already. And so, are they on their guard? Yeah. For sure. They are on their guard.
Dave Cawley: Susan’s absence loomed over the gathering, but no one mentioned it.
Jennifer Graves: 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.
Dave Cawley: Charlie and Braden were excited to see familiar faces from their former home in Utah. Both boys had recently celebrated birthdays.
Charlie Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And it’s my birthday!
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): It is, it’s your birthday Charlie. We brought you a present.
Dave Cawley: Susan hadn’t tried to contact her boys on Christmas or on either one of their birthdays, yet another sign that she was not only missing, but likely dead.
Charlie, now five, had a message for Jennifer about her recent appearances on the news.
Charlie Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I have one more thing to tell you.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah?
Charlie Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Quit, quit, quit umm, a media on.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): (Laughs)
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Ok, quit on that media. Have they been too bothersome lately?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Not even at all.
Dave Cawley: That last voice belonged to Josh. He chatted with Kirk and Jennifer about his trip with Michael in the U-Haul a couple of weeks prior.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Did Mike drive part of the way? Did he really?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He was nervous about that.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He was telling me he didn’t want to drive. He was nervous to do it.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah, Mike shouldn’t be driving…
Dave Cawley: Josh seemed relaxed. He talked freely about birthday party plans for the boys and his efforts to find a new job. He hoped to land something in the IT field. If not, well, there was always unemployment.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): My only thought right now is it would be pretty stupid to take a pay cut, to go to work for a pay cut, compared to unemployment—
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh, right. Well—
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —this early in the game. Now, a couple months from now—
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Can you collect unemployment in the state of Washington?
Dave Cawley: The Sarah Circle house back in West Valley was also on Josh’s mind. He still had a mortgage to pay and with no income, the house was turning into an albatross.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Probably going to have to go back, obviously, eventually.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh really? Oh, you’re going to go back to Utah, you mean.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah, so—
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know when. I haven’t decided.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): But…
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You’re going to work on the house?
Dave Cawley: Josh wasn’t sure selling was the best idea, though. The market was soft and the house still needed work, liking finishing the new back deck or completing the basement.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know if I’ll rent it or sell it, you know?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I like the rental idea because I just don’t want to let it go. It doesn’t seem appropriate to let it go, y’know?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): But on the other hand, if someone goes in there and trashes it, fails to make the mortgage, or make the rent—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —then it’s gone and there’s nothing I can do to save it at that point.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): That’s true.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I just plain don’t have the money—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Mmhmm.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —unless I can get another job. Then, I could make the difference and sort of carry the black. If there is—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Float it for awhile, yeah.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —but I’m guessing if I were to rent it I’d have to pay the difference, I’d probably have a shortfall anyway.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You think so?
Dave Cawley: Josh’s finances were tight. Not only had he lost his job, Susan’s income was gone, too. He had used the power of attorney to draw her 401k, but that money wouldn’t last long.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Both of our credit is tied to that house and if we, if we lose it, then we’re, y’know, we’re basically going to have a problem.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yours is already not so great, right? You got a bankruptcy.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I had a bankruptcy.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh, is it gone already? Wow.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh, it’s over. I, no one denies me credit.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Wow, ok.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I’ve never been denied credit because of the bankruptcy.
Dave Cawley: At no point during any of this did Josh talk about Susan as anything other than an asset. He didn’t lament her loss or complain about the straights she had put him in by leaving, something he might have been expected to do if she’d taken off with some other guy. In fact, he didn’t raise a single question about where she might be.
Jennifer Graves: Topic of Susan’s disappearance never came up until I brought it up. I had to force the subject. And it was. It was very strange and strained. Y’know, at least on my side, it felt very strained ‘cause I’m like, “this is so weird. We’re not even saying anything about it” and he doesn’t appear to be distressed at all about his wife not being here. Not knowing where she is.
Dave Cawley: The Powell family sat down to dinner. Josh, uncharacteristically, asked to say grace.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Let’s just say a super fast prayer, ok? Here we go. Be done real quick. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, ask you to bless this food…
Dave Cawley: Jennifer’s heart raced as they ate. Behind a forced smile, she wondered how best to make her move.
Jennifer Graves: I just didn’t know how to go about it. Do you do this in a soft approach? Do you take a hard line? How do you approach someone when you know that they are guilty of a heinous crime and get them to admit that?
Dave Cawley: The pork chops disappeared from their plates. Dinner was soon done. While the rest of the family cleared the table, Jennifer pulled Josh aside into the office, closing the French doors behind them. In a hushed voice, she told her brother there’d been rumors that he’d soon be arrested soon.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You’re going to be gone for a long time.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): (Unintelligible)
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I understand what you mean.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You don’t understand jail?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No, I don’t understand why you’re, what rumors you’re talking about.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I’m just, I’m just concerned. I mean, you know what, it doesn’t look good. From everything I’ve seen…
Dave Cawley: I know this is tough to understand, so listen close.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Y’know what? I, I’ve, I’ve got this feeling like you need to step up now, like do a plea bargain.
Dave Cawley: Jennifer told Josh to take a plea bargain.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Anyway.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): It will reduce your sentence Josh.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No, no. Don’t be ridiculous.
Dave Cawley: Don’t be ridiculous.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You want to go to jail for a long time? I don’t want to see that happen and you’re gonna, you’re not going to be able to see your boys for years.
Dave Cawley: Jennifer warned him if he goes to jail, it will be for a long time and he wouldn’t be able to see his boys for years. Jennifer pressed, questioning where he had gone in the rental car on December 8th and 9th, those mysterious 800 miles in 18 hours.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What, what’s up with all this, this, you wandering around? They, think think that, that you were going for hundreds of miles on Tuesday. Where were you going with that? Tuesday night, that night after you got the rental car. They were talking about that. Where did you go?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Nowhere.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): For hundreds of miles?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Nowhere where?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I didn’t go anywhere in specific.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You just drove around all over the place?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah. I mean, whatever, y’know. There’s no plea bargain, I mean, y’know.
Dave Cawley: “There’s no plea bargain.”
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I doubt the rumors but whatever. I mean, who knows. They do what they do. They think what they think. I don’t know what to tell you.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Hmm. What do you think?
Dave Cawley: Josh’s response: I doubt the rumors but whatever, I mean, who knows. Jennifer tried another approach.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): So what happened on Sunday?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): My attorney has told me just don’t talk about it, about specifics.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Who cares about your attorney, Josh?
Dave Cawley: “My attorney has told me: just don’t talk about it, about specifics.”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What happened? What happened that night?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I’ve already told. Y’know, I’ve sat down with the cops. I’ve told them everything.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Well you didn’t tell me anything. I’ve asked and you haven’t said anything to me.
Ellis Maxwell: Josh’s, y’know, responses and his behavior and his actions when Jennifer approaches him kind, y’know, of similar to like the interview and interrogations that we conducted with him. Y’know, “I, I, I can’t talk about it.” Like, “I’ve gotta go through my attorney.” I mean, dude you’re not talking to a cop. You’re talking to your sister.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Why not? Why don’t you, why won’t you tell me? Why don’t you put my mind at ease and tell me what happened? I’m your sister. Susan was my friend. She’s your wife for crying out loud. What happened?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Well what did you do. What did you do that night? What do you know?
Dave Cawley: Jennifer’s appeals didn’t work. Josh wasn’t going to tell her anything.
Ellis Maxwell: You can only play that for a minute. You can only act, the way he was acting, you can only act like that for so long. And he never fell out of that which tells me that, y’know, he is who he is and he’s clearly responsible.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): It just doesn’t seem like you care at all.
Dave Cawley: “It just doesn’t seem like you care at all.”
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Honestly, I can’t believe that you’re, that you say that stuff.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You walked away.
Dave Cawley: “You walked away.”
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What do you mean “walked away?”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You walked away. You’re trying to get rid of your house. You’re walking away from it.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): The house I can’t afford.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): So? They’re not going to take it out from under you right now.
Dave Cawley: Josh and Jennifer’s youngest brother Michael had noticed them slipping away after dinner. He’d followed them, staying out of view but within earshot.
Jennifer Graves: For them to hear everything, I don’t know that they were hearing everything but they were probably concerned because it was a full glass wall with the glass doors and you can see everything that’s going on. And they were probably a little distressed.
Dave Cawley: In fact, Michael described that day in a court filing years later. He said he’d positioned himself just outside the glass doors, because that was standard practice in the family with people they didn’t trust. He heard what Jennifer was saying and relayed that information to his dad.
Steve swooped in to put a stop to it. He interrupted, telling Josh it was time to go pick up a birthday cake for the boys’ party. He told Jennifer it was probably time for she and Kirk to leave.
Jennifer Graves: But he was just, they were all just trying to play it cool. Pretend like nothing was happening and that they had nothing to do with it.
Dave Cawley: As soon as Steve left the room, Jennifer went back to work. She challenged Josh, asking what he was doing to aid the search. Josh replied, in typical form, that he was building a website.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And I’m not gonna do anything in the public. I don’t care what anyone says about me. They can say what they want. That’s why I can’t really go out and—
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): People are comparing you to Mark Hacking. He got up and walked away from his—
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t even know who that is.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —as soon as he killed her. As soon as he killed his wife. That’s the guy that killed his wife and put her in the dump.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Ok, I did hear something about that.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Dave Cawley: Josh was not being honest here. He knew the Mark Hacking case very well. Here again is Ellis Maxwell.
Ellis Maxwell: He made a comment to somebody about the Lori Hacking case and he said that Mark Hacking screwed up because he, he lied to the police too many times. He didn’t give them, he lied too many times and he didn’t give them reliable information.
Dave Cawley: A brief aside is necessary here. Mark Hacking shot and killed his pregnant wife Lori in their Salt Lake City apartment in July of 2004, just months after Josh and Susan arrived in Utah. Hacking tried to stage Lori’s murder as a disappearance. He took her car to a nearby park where she liked to jog and abandoned it there. He dumped her body and the mattress upon which he’d shot her in a dumpster, then went and bought a new mattress to replace the blood-stained one.
Hacking called 911 to report his wife missing, saying she’d failed to return from a morning jog. He went before news cameras and tearfully asked for help. The local community sprang into action, just as it had two years earlier when a young girl named Elizabeth Smart had been abducted from her bedroom.
Salt Lake City police detectives immediately spotted inconsistencies with Mark’s story, little details like the position of the driver seat in Lori’s car. Lori was short and wouldn’t have been able to reach the gas pedal, but the seat was set perfectly for somebody as tall as Mark.
They also learned Mark had not graduated from the University of Utah, as he’d claimed. Nor had he been accepted to a postgraduate program in North Carolina, as he’d led his family and Lori to believe. Mark Hacking had woven a web of lies that was stunning in its complexity. It had all came apart when Lori learned his secret, confronted him and demanded he come clean. That’s why he killed her.
Police recovered Lori’s decomposed remains from a landfill after a search that stretched on for several weeks. Detective Ellis Maxwell had a hand in that.
Ellis Maxwell: I was a part of that investigation. I was out at the landfill for I can’t even remember how many weeks looking for Lori. I haven’t been to the landfill since. (Uncomfortable laugh)
Dave Cawley: I, I was sitting on the other side of the fence a lot of those days—
Ellis Maxwell: Were you?
Dave Cawley: —just waiting. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellis Maxwell: Oh my. That was, it was horrible.
Dave Cawley: Yeah.
Dave Cawley: That wasn’t the only tie. Before her death, Lori Hacking had worked for Wells Fargo Investments, the same company where Susan was working when she disappeared. Some of Susan’s coworkers had known Lori.
When Susan disappeared in 2009, many people were quick to draw parallels between her case and that of the Hackings five years earlier. The sense in the community seemed to be that Josh would crack under the pressure and confess, just as Mark Hacking had and that the police would in short order locate and recover Susan’s remains.
Neither happened. Josh was a much better liar than Mark.
Ellis Maxwell: Josh clearly took something from that case. In all honesty, it was very good advice, right? You cannot offer too many lies but you also have to offer some truth. Ok? And he followed that fairly well.
Dave Cawley: The comparison didn’t phase Josh. He brushed off Jennifer’s comment, flatly denying that his situation was anything like that of Mark Hacking.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): So why were you having so many problems just before she disappeared then?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): We weren’t having a lot of problems.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): It’d been a few weeks but she was talking about stuff.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): We weren’t having problems.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You weren’t having problems?
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I just don’t buy it. I talked to Susan myself, Josh. You can’t tell me that I didn’t hear it from her.
Dave Cawley: Josh’d had enough. He told Jennifer he was leaving to go get the birthday cake.
Jennifer Graves: I finally actually shoved him into the bathroom and was like, “come on, just tell me where her body is.”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I think you just need to confess now and get it over with.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve told you already.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I see it in your face, Josh. I can see it in your face.
Dave Cawley: “I can see it in your face.”
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Then I don’t know what to say because I’ve already told you.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Everything I’ve seen and now this.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know what you mean “and now this.”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And now this in your face.
Josh Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know what to say—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): If you, if you’re—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —but I guess I’m going to go do what I’m gonna do. I’m going to go get ready for a party.
Dave Cawley: Josh left with his brothers, John and Michael. The operation, in Jennifer’s eyes, had failed. She and Kirk gathered their things and started making for the door. On the way, she shot a parting comment to her dad, Steve.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): So anyway…
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Well, he’ll have to enjoy it while he can, I guess.
Dave Cawley: “He’ll have to enjoy it while he can, I guess.”
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What? What do you mean “while he can?”
Dave Cawley: “What do you mean ‘while he can?’”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t think he’s going to be able to escape this much longer.
Dave Cawley: “I don’t think he’s going to be able to escape this much longer.”
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Escape what?
Dave Cawley: “Escape what?”
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): It’s pretty obvious, he’s going to be—
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): To who? What’s obvious?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): What he’s done.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Excuse me? It’s not obvious to me. It may be obvious to you but you might be imagining things, Jenny. You’ve always had a hard time with reality. That’s a reality in your case.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): I don’t know what you’re talking about “hard time with my reality.”
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah. You, you, you, you need to face reality—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Ok—
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —yourself. In your own way—
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —I’ll face reality.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Let’s see, Josh went camping in the middle of the night and Susan’s gone now. Hmm. That doesn’t sound like reality unless he did something.
Dave Cawley: Steve told Jennifer to face reality and Jennifer said “I’ll face reality. Let’s see. Josh went camping in the middle of the night and Susan’s gone now. Hmm. That doesn’t sound like reality unless he did something.”
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah. Anyway. Why don’t you, y’know I think, I think it’s time to, to go. I think it’s time to go. I think you’ve kind of worn out your welcome.
Dave Cawley: The pretense of civility that had cloaked the Powell family during dinner came off.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You are, you are a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] is what you are to talk about your brother and my son that way and to make things up.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And yet you’re willing to call your daughter that?
Dave Cawley: Shocked, Jennifer’s husband Kirk stepped in to defend his wife.
Steve Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Steve—
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —it’s been a month and a half and there’s only two scenarios.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Hey, y’know what, Jenny’s the one who said the thing about the Elizabeth Smart thing.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): She’s, she’s kidnapped, right? And somewhere out there maybe she’s still alive.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): She said that two days after it happened. A week.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Right.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): But after a month and a half, an adult female, odds are like zero. Or she’s dead. Those are the two scenarios.
Dave Cawley: They’re talking over top of one another there but Kirk told Steve, the odds were Susan was likely dead.
The other female voice you hear there belongs to Alina, the youngest of the Powell children. Jennifer questioned why Josh had spent the morning after Susan’s disappearance cleaning his house and doing laundry. Alina offered a full-throated defense of Josh.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Do you know how hard it is to sit on your ass and do nothing when you’re in absolute horrible horrific [expletive] pain?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah, I do.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And you feel your heart breaking?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): The last month and a half has been nothing but pain.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And you’ve sat there and created a wall the whole time.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He is different than you. He works when he is in pain.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): That is exactly what has been happening.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He goes around a works.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Did you, did you hear her say?
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): That is why he is going around doing everything that he does.
Dave Cawley: Alina claimed Josh dealt with his pain by working and accused Jennifer of doing nothing. Steve was irate. He seized on something Jennifer said, ignoring the talk about Josh.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): She said that I hated Susan.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah, ever since you made a pass at her.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh that is the funniest thing on the world.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): And she turned you down.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Did she tell you that? No, hold on, hold on.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No wait a minute, wait a minute. That’s what she told you?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh yes.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yes. Absolutely.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Because she’s a lying [expletive] if she said that.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): That’s what she told you? She told you that.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yes.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Oh, so you’re saying Susan’s a lying [expletive] now?
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Apparently, she is.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No, no, no. No, she is…
Dave Cawley: There is a lot going on here. Alina, it seemed, felt little care for Susan. But Steve, confronted by this idea of Susan hating him, rejected the thought.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No, she didn’t tell you the whole story, and, but I’m not going to tell it to you because you guys—
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): The fact is, dad has always—
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —aren’t going to accept it anyway and I’m not trying to—
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Y’know what, if she lied to you, that’s fine.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You’re probably right.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): If she lied to you, that’s fine.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You’re probably right. We probably wouldn’t believe it.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You wouldn’t believe it so—
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): If she lied to you about it, it’s fine because—
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —the reality is, yeah, yeah.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —the fact is, he has always spoken highly of her.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Always.
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He has gotten her birthday presents every year.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Well sure—
Alina Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): He’s got her Christmas presents.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): —trying to buy her back.
Steve Powell (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Y’know, just get off my porch. Get off my property.
Dave Cawley: Jennifer and Kirk retreated the car. As they drove away from the house, she filled in her husband on what Josh had said, or more accurately, hadn’t said.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): So did Josh get like vocal or anything or did he calm right down.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No, he got defensive but he was all more like “I can’t believe you do this, or you would think of this.”
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): You ok?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): No.
Dave Cawley: I know that’s tough to hear, but Kirk asked Jennifer if she was ok and Jennifer said “no.”
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Was it most because of your dad just now or the just the lack of anything with Josh?
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Yeah, I guess that’s it. Well yeah, that’s (unintelligible) to talk to my dad but, he is so awful.
Dave Cawley: Kirk consoled his wife as best he could.
Kirk Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): Honey, you did great. The fact you were willing to try to do that…
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): (Laughs)
Dave Cawley: Then, Jennifer broke down over what she’d seen in her brother’s eyes.
Jennifer Graves (from January 22, 2010 wire recording): (Heavy breathing) My god, he killed her. My god, he killed her. (Jennifer sobs)
Dave Cawley: “My god. He killed her.” Josh had not confessed but Jennifer was more sure than ever that he had killed Susan.
Ellis Maxwell: What that brought to us and brought to the police department and would have brought to a trial is just, it was another piece. Another piece of Josh’s personality, lack of concern, consideration for Susan, lack of cooperation and, y’know, at the end of the day just his guilt.
Dave Cawley: Looking back, Ellis couldn’t help but praise Jennifer.
Ellis Maxwell: She went in, she did a phenomenal job in my opinion. … She probably felt like she didn’t do enough. She didn’t push hard enough. She didn’t get what we all wanted and, y’know, but at the end of the day… I hope she knows that there was nobody that was going to break Josh. Nobody.
[Scene transition]
Dave Cawley: Josh had told Kirk and Jennifer that he wanted to sell his house in West Valley City. That was complicated because Susan’s name was on the mortgage. Instead, he turned to his former neighbor Dax Guzman with an offer. Dax had helped Josh rebuild the deck on the back of the Sarah Circle house in the months prior to Susan’s disappearance. Josh then suggested Dax and his family move one street over and rent the Sarah Circle house.
Dax Guzman: He called us, asked us if we wanted to rent it, rent the house since they weren’t going to use it. And so we took him up on the offer and, umm, because he knew I knew how to build things and was good with my hands, he asked if I’d be interested in maybe a reduced rent and working something out if I finished the basement. So we agreed to that.
Dave Cawley: Life in the Sarah Circle house had its drawbacks, though. News crews continued to set up on the sidewalk. Their bright lights would keep the Guzman kids up at night.
Dax Guzman: For us it was just a house. Honestly, when we moved in and after he left, I tore into that house.
Dave Cawley: Dax, like so many others, wanted to know if Susan might still be on the property.
Dax Guzman: Tore into the ground. Tore up a little bit, some of the parts of the basement that looked like they had been redone but found out it was just more plumbing that had gone in, which is fine. … Tore up the back yard. The garden that was there, several feet down. I tore the whole thing apart, just seeing, just making sure that there wasn’t anything there. Looked through the shed. There was a whole bunch of 50-gallon, water gallons in there and made sure there was no body in there too. … It was just a lot of freaky stuff but you see things on TV, you see things on, on the news and in movies so I checked as many places as I could and she wasn’t there.
Dave Cawley: Josh had a hard time finding allies among the local church congregation in Washington. By that point, word had spread among members of the Gem Heights Ward and some were unnerved or outright fearful to see a suspected murderer sitting in their sabbath services.
Rod Stephens: He came to church for awhile and he would sit in the back of the Elder’s Quorum. He would open up his scriptures, never turn a page and then look blankly in them for the whole hour. It was, yeah, you could just tell. He was sitting there, but he wasn’t there.
Dave Cawley: Church members fell in love though with Charlie and Braden. The noisy, playful boys would run through the hallways of the church building on Sundays. Rod Stephens, the president of the ward’s Elder’s Quorum who’d helped Josh unpack his U-Haul, said it seemed as though Josh wanted to find them some friends.
Rod Stephens: But it caused a lot of problems because everyone liked his two sons but they didn’t want Josh around and nobody wanted to let Josh in their homes. So it was awkward, it was tough and you really felt bad for those two good-looking kids, but… yeah, and as much as you want to be involved in those kids and help those kids, you don’t want him by you. And you could just feel it, he just was just vacant.
Dave Cawley: Before long, Josh and the boys disappeared.
Rod Stephens: Maybe a month or two month, two months had gone by and he quit coming to church and then finally the executive secretary to the bishop, uh, he saw him at Lowes and said “hey, we haven’t seen you in church for awhile” and that’s when he told him, he said “I don’t believe in God any more.”
Dave Cawley: A few months later, Josh published a website explaining his decision to abandon The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and investigate non-denominational Christianity as an alternative.
Eric Openshaw (as Josh Powell from susanpowell.org post “Mormons Mobilize”): The proficiency of the Mormon Church to organize and motivate people to action can be used for positive purposes, such as when church members help people with moving or with home repairs. However, this solidarity also motivates individuals to cover for fellow Mormons and attack perceived critics of Mormonism.
Dave Cawley: I’m not implying that there’s anything wrong with Josh choosing not to identify as a Latter-day Saint any longer. But this website was slap to the face of many of the people, both in Utah and in Washington, who had volunteered their time and effort to help Josh move, in spite of their own suspicions.
Rod Stephens: It was absolutely self-serving, in my opinion and I think he was there, two reasons. One, I think he needed the help of the church, which was ok. But I think he wanted to keep up appearances just long enough to where he thought it was ok and then after that he quickly left.
[Scene transition]
Dave Cawley: Josh’s move to Washington had taken Charlie and Braden away from the only members of the Powell family who were cooperating with the investigation: Jennifer and to a lesser extent, Josh’s mom Terrica.
During January, detective Kim Waelty placed a call to Washington State’s child services agency. She wanted to know if they could drop in on the Powell home and see how the boys were doing. A lawyer at the Washington Attorney General’s Office responded, saying their agency didn’t have the authority to perform welfare checks unless there was a specific accusation of abuse or neglect.
West Valley police did not have that. They also couldn’t speak candidly with Washington’s child welfare workers because their case was still under a court secrecy order. They were allowed to talk though to the local law enforcement agency. Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Gary Sanders helped secure a warrant from a Washington judge, allowing deputies to go to Steve Powell’s house and seize the boys.
Gary Sanders: So basically, they were a form of evidence. Just to get their statement. And they just wanted them to be interviewed because now they’re in this home and they were kind of closed off with Steven and Josh and all of them living in the house.
Dave Cawley: They served the warrant on the morning of March 10th, 2010. Another Pierce County detective named Theresa Berg approached the boys.
Gary Sanders: She went in there and the boys ran to her, let her pick them up and they just glommed onto her, which was crazy, y’know? These strangers and stuff like that taking you out of the home. You would think there’d be a little bit, but she held them and, and then we interacted with them and I think it was kind of something they were missing. I was just, anytime we were in there it was cold. It was a cold environment.
Dave Cawley: As detective Kim Waelty carried Charlie out of the house, the five-year-old asked if he was being arrested. She assured him he was not.
The police drove the boys to the Mary Bridge Safe and Sound building. West Valley detectives — including Kim Waelty, who had performed the first interview with Charlie in December — going to get a second shot at it.
Repeat interviews of child witnesses were not usual protocol. Still, she had to try. She brought Charlie into a separate room and tried to talk to him. He wasn’t very cooperative. He told the detective he didn’t want to talk and walked out of the room. In a formal report, Waelty wrote “anything from this point on was not going to be the best case scenario.”
She tried again. She gave Charlie paper and crayons, hoping they would help him relax. Then, she started to ask about Susan. Charlie told her he did not want to talk about that. She asked if he’d been camping recently. Charlie said he only goes camping in Utah, a desert with rattlesnakes. She pressed for more, asking if Susan had gone camping with him. Charlie told her he didn’t want to talk about that stuff. He wanted to color, not talk. Then, he left the room. Again.
Ellis Maxwell: Little kiddos like that at that age, they’re they’re tough.
Dave Cawley: Waelty turned her attention to Braden. She started by asking if they could speak about his mom. Braden said something about his mommy, then trailed off into gibberish. If they were going to get any answers, it was clear, they would have to come from Charlie.
The Pierce County crew took the boys to their office a few blocks away for lunch. While they were away from the Safe and Sound building, Charlie told the deputies that he would talk. When they returned, detective Waelty asked what he wanted to talk about. Charlie said he wanted to work on his “homework” and needed a pair of scissors, but was afraid he might cut himself if she distracted him. Waelty suggested Charlie not use the scissors while they talked. He said it was ok, he’d just ignore her. Yeah.
Waelty again asked about Susan and camping. Charlie said he couldn’t talk about those things because they were secret. He said his mom was lost, but he did not see where. He said his Uncle John knew where. This was interesting.
Detective Waelty asked Charlie who told him these things were secret. He said his brain. Then he explained his mom had told him she was going to the North Pole and would not come back until it stopped snowing. Waelty again asked who had told him these things. Charlie said no one, then changed his answer. He said his dad told him that.
Ellis Maxwell: He had been exposed to all of that coaching and guiding and direction from Steve and Josh and so, y’know they’re young, right? And they pick up that and they see that behavior all day long when they’re in the house. They hear it and so they, y’know, start acting and walking the walk like everybody else in that house.
Dave Cawley: Charlie babbled about the Earth going crazy, about wanting his aunt Jennifer and uncle Kirk to die. He wondered what time it was and left to find out. When he popped back in to the room a few minutes later, he told detective Waelty he only guessed him mom was at the North Pole. The investigators got nothing useful out of the boys that day.
Ellis Maxwell: At the end of the day man, they’re locked up inside this Powell home and being coached and being directed to “you don’t talk about this” and “you don’t talk about that.” And that’s why we got nothing from Charlie when we did that second interview.
Dave Cawley: The police had no choice but to return them home. Pierce County Detective Gary Sanders told me the drive back to Steve Powell’s house was more telling than anything Charlie actually said in the interview.
Gary Sanders: It was weird. As I’m driving along, I’m driving along, Theresa’s in the back seat with both Charlie and Braden, Charlie’s talking along just, y’know, very talkative and stuff like that and then he noticed — I turned off Meridian I think it was and I was going down into their neighborhood — and it was like a, a switch. He just flipped. And all of a sudden he was like, he started looking around. He goes “well, I’m just going to tell them I was with friends.” And we’re like “what are you talking about, Charlie?” And he goes “no I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna tell him, I’m gonna tell him that I was with friends and that’s all it was.” And we’re like “what are you talking about?” He goes “well, I’m just going to tell my dad that I was with friends and nothing more.” And it was, it was the, weird, the transformation that as soon as he knew he was going back to the house, there was going to be some consequences for him speaking with us and being with us and stuff. And that was kind of scary at that point because how young he was. But he, he was adamant about that. And so we got bak there and right when he got in there, he ran up to Josh and was just like “oh yeah, I was with friends, dad” and, and tried to play it off like it was nothing. And I’d, I’d love to be a fly on that wall of what Josh talked to them about after we left.
Dave Cawley: On the next episode of Cold…
Russ Johnson (from February 24, 2010 FBI interview recording): If he would kill his wife because he’s got something broken inside of him—
Steve Powell (from February 24, 2010 FBI interview recording): Oh, you’re saying he would kill his kids.
Russ Johnson (from February 24, 2010 FBI interview recording): He might, you know. Do we know that? I know, you’re just saying “he’d never do that.”
Steve Powell (from February 24, 2010 FBI interview recording): I don’t think so.