If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children

by Gregg Olsen

  There would be no celebrating anything until Susan came home.

  Chuck thanked everybody for their help. Josh and Charlie and Braden were there, but the boys didn’t sit with their grandpa. In fact, they didn’t sit at all. Josh seemed not to have control of his young sons. They were running loose, almost as if they were at a party.

  Afterward, Josh and Chuck hugged. It was an awkward, stiff embrace. In an instant, Chuck let go in order to stifle a nearly overwhelming urge to wrap his hands around Josh’s neck and scream out “What have you done with my daughter?”

  But he didn’t, of course. The impulse surprised him, stunned him. Chuck knew better. He knew that he had to keep his cool, keep his distance.

  Josh, he was sure, would be arrested soon.

  After the ward meeting, a coworker of Susan’s told Chuck that Susan had kept a journal at work, and Chuck alerted the police. As he talked to the media outside the church, Chuck commented that Josh’s midnight camping trip might sound weird, but the important thing was to not stop looking for Susan. As photographers and television cameramen captured Josh’s every move, Chuck suggested that the police stop focusing solely on Josh as a suspect and said that he didn’t think Josh was capable of hurting his daughter.

  Chuck was being careful. He wanted to find his daughter, and to do that, he believed he had to keep his enemy close.

  * * *

  One by one, however, Josh and Susan’s friends were turning away from Josh. As many saw it, he simply didn’t behave like a husband desperate to find his wife. He wasn’t prodding the police to let him help or turning to his friends and family in his anguish. He appeared depressed about something, but didn’t seem worried about Susan. He hung his head and avoided making eye contact with the reporters. His brother-in-law, Kirk Graves, stood by him. At a news conference on that same Saturday, Kirk stated that portraying Josh in a negative light was harmful to the case.

  “I can tell you that the pain he feels is real. I could feel it,” he said.

  The Powell family hoped to find Susan alive, he said. Josh was letting Kirk do the talking. When reporters persisted in asking Josh where Susan was, Kirk cut short the interview. It was the last time Kirk gave Josh the benefit of the doubt.

  During his visit to Utah, Chuck Cox had dinner with Ed Smart, fellow Mormon and the father of Elizabeth Smart, who at age fourteen was abducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom and found nine months later. Ed had reached out to Chuck earlier that week when Susan first went missing. Although Ed’s daughter had been found, the Salt Lake City police and the FBI were criticized for ignoring information that could have led them to find the girl earlier. Like the West Valley City Police Department, Salt Lake City police discouraged family members from seeking public help in finding her abductors and encouraged them to leave the search to the pros. Chuck Cox asked Ed how his family had made it through the ordeal. He also wanted advice on what the Cox family could do to help find their daughter.

  Ed Smart had been there. He didn’t hesitate to tell Chuck that it was family and faith that sheltered them. He also said something that Chuck would put into practice.

  “Keep her name and face in front of the public,” he said.

  That same weekend, Josh hired Salt Lake City defense attorney Scott Williams. That way he could stave off more meetings with the police by saying his attorney had advised him not to speak to them. One of Williams’s previous high-profile defendants was Wanda Eileen Barzee, who had been convicted, with her husband Brian David Mitchell, of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart.

  * * *

  The long horrible first week of Susan’s disappearance ended at the same place as her last day, at church. On Sunday, December 13, the ward invited LDS grief counselors in to help both the congregation and Josh. Cornell Porter, president of Salt Lake Hunter Central Stake, said that the ward was supportive of the family and not speculating about Josh’s role in Susan’s disappearance. Josh skipped the normal three-hour Sunday service, but he made an appearance and accepted the prayers of his neighbors, and talked to an LDS counselor.

  Kiirsi Hellewell watched as Josh cried on and off throughout the day, while he muttered over and over, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  * * *

  About that time, Josh called his brother, Mike, and his sister, Alina, and asked them to come to West Valley City.

  Not to help search for Susan.

  Not to comfort him.

  Not even to comfort Charlie and Braden.

  He wanted Alina there to cook, change diapers, do the laundry, and think up ways to distract his sons.

  Mike and Alina would later share different memories of their week in West Valley City. Mike said he saw Josh in tears, and that the boys had asked “Where’s Mommy?” more than once.

  Alina said that the boys didn’t seem too concerned about Susan’s absence. Mike and Alina claimed they never asked their brother about his possible involvement in Susan’s disappearance.

  Their most important task was to help Josh get out of town without the media or the police knowing.

  In a ruse, Alina and Mike stayed behind while Josh and the boys slipped away and drove north to Washington.

  Mike and Alina’s own road trip back would be eventful.

  11

  I came home from work on Sat and felt so depressed I couldn’t make decent dinner for my boys. (the only protein we have is hot dogs, me making eggs or planning ahead and soaking beans and doing the beans and rice thing) so I just kept trying to disguise their food with sour cream and ketchup etc. and finally laid down in my bed and went to sleep (around 7 pm) …

  —SUSAN POWELL E-MAIL, JULY 7, 2008

  Josh insisted that Susan’s paychecks go into their joint account via direct deposit, and because he was continually changing the password on the account, she often didn’t have money to buy groceries or diapers. Josh closely monitored Susan and required her to make a record of every penny she spent.

  She explained it this way in an e-mail to a friend in July 2008:

  … he said I lied b/c I bought $90 instead of $30 worth of groceries, one of his examples was $0.25/lbs. for watermelon was too expensive. I looked at the receipt, it came to $3.35 and just yesterday he bought a watermelon for a flat price of $4 (I remember the one I purchased as larger than his).

  Money, sex, and food were ways through which Josh controlled Susan. The other ways included not letting her drive the family vehicle and, most hurtful, chipping away at her relationship with their boys.

  Susan didn’t know how to handle her husband’s streak of passive-aggressive games, and his overt attacks against her role as a mother.

  “Do you want to go to boring, boring church with Mommy, or do you want to stay home and have cake with Daddy?” he asked one time.

  Charlie and Braden loved their mother, but the lure of cake with Daddy was too much. Josh would win his little battle and grin ear to ear when he did so. Susan would be reduced to tears. And once again she would wrestle with her doubts about their marriage and its survival.

  * * *

  Not long after moving to West Valley City, Josh and Susan had dinner at the home of Michele and Brent Oreno. The Orenos were parents to six children ages thirteen to thirty-one. Like John Hellewell, Brent was a computer programmer.

  During dinner, Josh proudly told Michele and Brent about a spreadsheet he had made to track household expenses.

  “Susan had to research what was on sale at what store. Then she had to come home and put it into the computer, what she spent on every single item,” Michele recalled years later. “And he was really ticked off because the week before she had spent two cents more on a can of peas than he found it for at another store. He was serious. And it got so he wouldn’t give her money for food or anything.”

  When Susan complained about the budget, Josh told her she needed to be more resourceful.

  “We’ve got a garden,” he said. “You figure something out.”

  So in the beginning, Susan d
id. She learned to bake bread, and to puree her own baby food when the time came for that. If Josh’s game playing and unreasonable edicts were meant to crush her, he had failed.

  It was during that dinner, when both couples were forming their first impressions of the other, that Michele and Brent heard all about Susan’s father-in-law.

  Susan asked her new friend if her father-in-law had ever made advances on her.

  Michele was shocked by the question, by the very idea that any father-in-law would do that.

  Josh, on the other hand, dismissed the specifics of Susan’s charges and supported his father.

  “Susan, he’s not all that bad. He’s got some good points,” he said.

  Michele wondered what kind of good points a man might have if he’s trying to seduce or molest his son’s wife.

  Josh tried to pooh-pooh the incident that sent them down to West Valley City in the first place, when Steve came on to Susan and proclaimed his love for her. “Susan,” Josh said, “that’s just the way my dad is. You know how he is.”

  “I know he’s an evil man,” she countered.

  Finally, at one o’clock in the morning, Brent stopped the discussion and everyone said good night. It had been a long evening for all.

  * * *

  As soon as the Powells moved to Utah, Susan began working on finishing their basement so that she could have a hair salon in the house. She already knew her plans would always take second place when it came to the dreams and ambitions of her husband—no matter how ill conceived.

  During the hot summer of 2004, Susan was pregnant, studying hard for the stockbroker exam called a Series 7, and answering the phones at Fidelity Investments. She wanted to make more money. In reality, she had little choice. Josh’s résumé was a catalog of short-lived positions.

  She found refuge during the Utah scorcher at Kiirsi’s air-conditioned house, a few doors down. Not only was the temperature more comfortable, it gave her a little distance from Josh, who “worked” at home. He was trying to get a business going creating Web sites and marketing materials.

  In the middle of one study session, Susan looked up and shook her head.

  “Do you believe this?” she asked, letting out a sigh. “I never wanted to go to college. I never cared about that stuff. I just wanted to do hair and make people look pretty.”

  Kiirsi turned the subject away from school to the baby and how Susan thought it would affect their marriage.

  “I’m not worried,” Susan said. “I think he’ll be a good dad.”

  Kiirsi wasn’t convinced. “Why do you think that?” Kiirsi asked.

  “Because of the way he acts with our bird.”

  The bird.

  Josh had a parrot that went everywhere with him. On his shoulder. In the car. Everywhere that Josh went, the bird went, too, even to a New Year’s Eve party. The hostess couldn’t believe that anyone would bring an uninvited parrot to a party.

  Josh nuzzled the bird. He talked baby talk to the bird. If a prospective father could be judged by the way he treated a pet—as Susan was suggesting—then Josh was in line for a Father of the Year award.

  Charlie—named after his grandfather, Chuck Cox—was born January 19, 2005. Chuck and Judy went to Utah to be there when the baby was born. When the morning arrived and Susan knew she was in labor, Josh was too busy on his computer to drive her to the hospital, so Chuck and Judy did. When Josh finally showed up at the delivery room hours later, he had his laptop in tow. Whatever he was doing was much more important than comforting his wife while she had his first baby. When Susan called out for him, Josh barely glanced up from the screen. Annoyed and exasperated, Chuck took Josh by the sleeve and pulled him over to Susan’s bed and told him to hold her hand as Charlie was born.

  “See, Dad,” Susan said later, looking up with a weary smile. “He does care.”

  In 2006 Susan became pregnant for the second time. She had expected her parents to be overjoyed when she called them in Puyallup with the news; instead she was met by disappointment. It had nothing to do with a new baby, and everything to do with the fact that the bond between their daughter and Josh Powell would be that much harder to break.

  Chuck was especially disenchanted.

  “Why would you want to do that twice?” he asked.

  Susan kept the cheer in her voice, though she knew what he meant. “Oh, Dad. Don’t say that,” she said.

  Yet Chuck couldn’t be stopped, no matter how much he loved his daughter. She needed to hear it. “You have to get rid of Josh and get a real person for a husband,” he said.

  Susan sounded hopeful in her last word on the subject during that call.

  “Everything will get better,” she said.

  Chuck was skeptical. He’d never forgotten how he had to drive Susan to the hospital when Josh was too busy.

  Braden was born January 2, 2007.

  * * *

  Josh and Susan had a second car until Josh decided the gas and maintenance were too expensive. He didn’t factor in all the extra trips they would have to make in the van and how inconvenient it would make Susan’s life.

  Or maybe he did.

  “He bought Susan a bike,” Michele Oreno recalled later. “So she had to bike back and forth to work, which isn’t a short distance—about seven miles each way.”

  It took Debbie Caldwell’s husband, Ken, to tell Josh just how crazy it was to have Susan ride a bike to and from work. It was too far. It was dark in the morning. It was an all-around bad idea. So Josh decided he would show them all that it was no big deal. He tried riding a bike to work—and quickly realized how arduous the task was. He spent $1,500 to motorize it. Josh’s experiment at bicycling ended after just a week or two, as soon as it got cold.

  Next, Josh decided that driving Susan to work, then taking the Town & Country minivan on to his workplace was the answer. He was off work earlier in the afternoon than she was and was supposed to pick up the boys, and later, Susan. He usually left them stuck without rides. For some reason, Josh didn’t like Susan to be alone with the boys in the van. Her friends speculated it was because Josh was afraid she’d leave.

  For Susan, dealing with Josh’s restrictions on spending was toughest around the holidays. She sent Rachel Marini an e-mail one year saying that Josh wouldn’t let her buy Christmas presents for their sons. It broke Rachel’s heart.

  One thing Josh didn’t seem to skimp on, however, was life insurance. In the first few years of their marriage he and Susan held a million-dollar policy—$500,000 on each of them—from Beneficial Life. Two years later, they took out another policy, this one with New York Life. That policy’s payout was for $2.5 million—a quarter-million dollars on each boy, and a million each on Josh and Susan.

  Susan’s friends remember another day when she needed a babysitter for just an hour or two. But the meeting Josh took her to stretched into the night. Josh had apparently arranged for some legal work to be conducted that day, including the signing of a power of attorney. That way he would have written authorization to represent or act on her behalf in private affairs, business, or other legal matters should she become incapacitated. Or worse.

  * * *

  About three months after Josh and Susan took out the second life insurance policy, they made a trip to Puyallup. On September 6 and 7, 2007, Steve Powell wrote in his journal about a visit Josh and Charlie had made to his home. Braden, just eight months old, was at the Coxes with Susan because Susan didn’t like the boys around Steve. Steve wrote that Susan wanted another child, a daughter, but Josh didn’t want to have sex with her and wished he had ended their marriage years ago, before they had Charlie and Braden. Matter-of-factly Steve noted:

  Josh talked on and on, very openly, about how he would love to get rid of her. He is not attracted to her. He said he daydreams about having someone come to his door to report that she was killed by a drunk driver …

  While Susan prayed for a baby girl and tried out possible names she liked—Adeline, Jadeline, and Au
brey were a few—Josh was wishing her dead.

  * * *

  As far as anyone knew, Josh had never been physically abusive, although Susan told some friends she had once shoved him and he had threatened to hurt her if it ever happened again. Another friend recalled that Susan said Josh had shoved her, slapped her, and tried to lock her out of the house. If there was a physical altercation, there was no record of any police report or evidence that Susan sought medical attention. She did, however, call her sister. It was in the spring of 2007 when Denise picked up the phone to find Susan in tears. Between Susan’s sobs, Denise tried to make out what she was saying.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  Susan took breath. “Josh pushed me.”

  Denise had been there—she’d made some bad choices in men. “Oh, no. Are you okay?”

  Susan said she was all right, but she was frightened.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “You need to get away from him,” Denise said. “I’ll get in my car and come and get you and the boys.”

  Susan turned down the offer. “No, no, Denise. It’s such a long drive. And he’ll get custody of the boys if we try and leave. He told me it would be kidnapping.”

  And there was something else that Josh had told Susan.

  “He said I’d get the boys over his—or my—dead body.”

  * * *

  Susan was not a coward. She often stood up for herself and she always stood up for Charlie and Braden. She tolerated Josh’s unpredictability and tirades because she was hoping that with counseling he would change. Susan was a pretty woman, maybe the prettiest in her ward. She wasn’t particularly vain, but she did pay attention to her looks. She played with her hair, did her nails, and carefully applied just enough makeup to look pretty but not draw attention to herself. When her husband ignored her, she tried even harder to win him over.

  Although there were years when she carried some extra weight after the boys were born, Susan was very fit. She had exercise equipment in their basement, and according to Michele Oreno, Susan could “whip Josh’s butt anytime, any day. She was strong. She worked out and she was buff. Josh was a wimp,” she recalled.