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

by Gregg Olsen

  There were two traditions that the Coxes weren’t going to give up, and there was nothing Josh could do about it. They continued to pray at mealtime, and they still held family home evening, a Mormon tradition of families spending Monday evening together playing board games, making crafts, or cooking.

  * * *

  “They found Mommy in the desert,” Braden blurted out during one Sunday visit.

  Charlie, Braden, and Josh were eating pancakes when Braden matter-of-factly delivered the news.

  A lab had finished examining the charred wood found near Topaz Mountain in September, the debris that dogs had alerted on. The West Valley City police wouldn’t give any details on what had or hadn’t been found. Although the Coxes were careful not to talk about the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance in front of the children, Braden must have overheard something.

  “What did you say?” Josh asked.

  “They found Mommy in the desert,” Braden repeated.

  “Who said that?” Josh asked.

  Griffin-Hall tried to divert Josh from the talk of Susan’s disappearance. “Josh, we can’t talk about this during the visit,” she said.

  Braden didn’t answer.

  But Josh persisted. “Who said that?” he asked again, now agitated.

  Both boys were quiet.

  Griffin-Hall wrote in her notes that Josh seemed worried and anxious the rest of the afternoon. “He never recovered his equilibrium,” she said later.

  In late November, Josh’s attorney, Jeffrey Bassett, received an e-mail from John Long, the assistant attorney general for Washington State who represented DSHS in the custody case:

  We may need to slow up a bit on this case.

  Utah police planned to release five or six images of computer-generated child porn found on Josh’s computer in 2009. Long suggested that Dr. Manley, the psychologist who had been assigned to evaluate Josh as part of his custody battle, review the images before they proceeded with the custody case. A hearing had already been postponed from mid-November to January, but Long wanted to make sure there would be time for the state, and Josh’s attorney, to deal with the child porn.

  * * *

  A few days later, on December 3, 2011, Josh sent a handwritten letter to his brother Mike in Minnesota. The missive was nothing if not specific. It notified Mike about a beneficiary change on his life insurance. If something should happen to him, Mike would receive 93 percent, Alina 4 percent, and Johnny 3 percent of a payout worth 2.5 million. There was no accommodation for his father, though Josh surely would have thought that his father’s future as a wage earner was particularly bleak since his imprisonment on the pornography and voyeurism charges. It was doubtful that employers would hire Steve for any but the most menial jobs. Ever. Although Terri had emerged during the custody fight as a supporter of Josh’s parenting skills, she was also left out in the cold.

  According to the letter, the change had been made to ensure that Charlie and Braden would be taken care of if something happened to Josh. It was clear that Josh trusted only Mike. He told his brother that he was afraid Alina and Steve would “squander” any large amount of money he left them.

  No one knows for sure what Mike’s response was to the letter. He had to know that Josh was unstable. He knew about Josh’s teenage suicide attempt.

  Despite the scrawled letter from Josh, Mike Powell didn’t do anything. Not one thing. He didn’t call Josh to see how he was coping with the most recent court setbacks. He didn’t reach out to ensure that his brother was doing all right, or that his nephews were safe.

  In retrospect, Mike admitted later it seemed that Josh was contemplating suicide again.

  When the boys visited Josh the next day—Sunday, December 4—Josh had numerous boxes of ornaments and a Christmas tree ready to decorate. When Charlie looked through the boxes, he found a stocking with Susan’s name on it. Josh told him to put it back in the box, but Charlie set it on the floor by the tree where it remained for the rest of the visit, never far from him and Braden.

  * * *

  The police had been tapping the phones of all the Powells for months, long before Steve was arrested. Now that Mike and his abandoned car had the attention of the WVCPD they stepped up their investigation of Josh’s younger brother, the one who they thought kept his distance from the family craziness. He defended his father and brother, but he seemed to live his own life. During the first weeks Susan was missing, Chuck Cox wrote the WVCPD worrying that Steve Powell was holding her prisoner. As for other family members, Josh might help his dad but, Chuck added, Mike would never go along with it.

  The police got search warrants to increase surveillance of the family and to monitor Josh’s and Mike’s computers. They knew the two didn’t trust phones, but probably discussed the investigation over the Internet. But Josh and Mike were using sophisticated computer encryption to communicate. No one—not the police, the FBI, or even the software manufacturer—could decipher it.

  42

  The reviewed images indicate someone’s fantasy-laden view of having sex with children.

  —DR. JAMES MANLEY, JANUARY 31, 2012

  James Manley sat in a room at the Pierce County sheriff’s office in downtown Tacoma. The psychologist, a sexual deviancy expert, and Detective Gary Sanders looked down at a few dozen of the 400 images that Utah police had found on Josh’s computer in December 2009. The pornographic images played out like a kind of twisted, disgusting, version of Cartoon Network. Well-known cartoon characters from the Simpsons to the Flintstones to Superman to Dennis the Menace were depicted in a wide array of sexual activities including incest, group sex, fellatio, cunnilingus, and sodomy.

  It was a subset of child pornography, the likes of which are rarely seen by law enforcement, much less by the parents who let their kids watch cartoons.

  Captain America, Catwoman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rugrats, characters from Family Guy, and Jungle Book and SpongeBob SquarePants—every one of them doing the nastiest things imaginable. Some were hand drawn, others were computerized, anime, or photographs. Some had identifying logos indicating where the cartoons and 3-D images had originated. Web sites trumpeted exactly what they were.

  Toon porn.

  The majority featured depictions of incest or child molestation. There were also photographs of female frontal nudity. One had the head of Harry Potter actress Emma Watson Photoshopped onto a nude figure. Some drawings showed bondage. Some showed beasts having sex with a woman. Others depicted sex involving mother on son, mother on daughter, or father on daughter. In one, there were two adults on a bed praising a girl who was fellating a boy. In another, a girl was fellating a penis with a caption that read “Come on Daddy, come on, let me finish what I started, you’re gonna like it.”

  While these were not photographs of real children and couldn’t be legally defined as child pornography, Dr. Manley wrote that they communicated an approval of sex between an adult and a minor.

  “The fact that such a collection of images from different sites were collected suggests a high degree of interest,” he wrote. The collection of images revealed a pattern of “poor sexual boundaries between the [Powell] family members. If these are Mr. Powell’s images, it gives rise to great concern.”

  A Utah judge had specified that eight people were permitted to see the images that had been found on Josh’s computer; in addition to Dr. Manley and Detective Sanders, Assistant District Attorney John Long, and a CPS social worker viewed the toon porn.

  Josh’s attorney, Jeffrey Bassett, wasn’t there because he wasn’t told of the viewing until after the fact. Neither was Steve Downing—the Coxes’ attorney in the custody case—who wasn’t notified until February 9 that he could have seen the images. If he had, he said he might have asked to change the terms of Josh’s supervised visitations with his sons, so that the visits would return to the FCRN offices or another public office.

  Using what he had seen, as well as what he knew about Josh—from Josh’s parents
’ divorce records and from Josh’s psychological evaluation—Dr. Manley recommended that Josh undergo a psychosexual evaluation, the “peter meter” test. He also advised giving Josh a polygraph.

  No one expected those requirements to be met with much enthusiasm.

  * * *

  Aside from his letter to his brother Mike notifying him of the change of life insurance beneficiary, there were no signs that Josh was contemplating making a life-or-death decision.

  On the supervised visit of Sunday, January 29, Charlie and Braden jumped out of the car and ran to greet their dad, beating Griffin-Hall to the front door as they liked to do. It was to be a four-hour visit, extra-long to make up for the visitation that had been cancelled because of snow the week before. Griffin-Hall noted that the house was tidy as ever, with a classical music station playing in the background.

  Both boys said “I love you” to their father.

  Braden was limping slightly from the hot-water burn on his foot that he’d gotten at the Coxes’ home.

  With Josh doing his best to teach and engage them, Charlie and Braden ate some of the candy used to decorate a gingerbread house they had assembled on a previous visit. Then they played with remote-controlled cars for a while, and Josh gave them guidance on how to better work the controls. They also drew flowers and animals with crayons and watched a Leap Frog learning video about outer space. For snacks, Josh gave them hot dogs and breakfast sandwiches.

  Then it was over.

  “I love you,” Josh said. “I’ll see you as soon as I can. Be happy and have a good time.”

  That night, Josh called Tim Atkins. Josh admitted to Tim that some questionable images that might be considered child pornography had been found on his computer. But Josh was feeling optimistic. He didn’t think Chuck and Judy would ever give up their custody fight, but he felt the state was leaning to restoring custody to him. He was thinking of extending an olive branch to the Coxes.

  “Tim, can you just tell Chuck and Judy that I want things to be different?”

  Tim felt some progress was in the offing. Finally.

  “You need to go into that courtroom and you need to show them you want to be different, in the way you respond,” Tim said.

  As Tim saw it, Josh had it in his mind that if he didn’t put up a really strong fight that somehow he would communicate to the world that he didn’t want his boys back.

  Fighting proved he was a good father.

  Tim told him he was wrong. “No, Josh, you’re showing them that you want to fight. Do what they want you to do and be the dad.”

  Two days later, on January 31, Josh had his last scheduled visit with his sons at the Atkinses’ home in Steve’s Country Hollow neighborhood. Josh was certain he was going to get his sons back that week. He and Tim talked about the long-awaited hearing the next day.

  Charlie and Braden played with Tim’s four children and they all had a snack. Josh sat on the couch and read a book to the boys, and helped Charlie read a book about different kinds of insects. They all sat on the floor and played with blocks, and Josh asked Tim to take some photos before they knocked down the blocks.

  They ate a Tater Tot casserole. Then Tim broke some news to Josh: He and Brenda had decided they needed to stop helping Josh with his supervised visits. Not only had some of Tim’s parishioners complained, but for months DSHS had implied that there was something the Atkinses didn’t know. As Tim later recounted, “They would say, ‘Well, Mr. Atkins, there are things we can’t talk about in this case.’ And I always told Josh, ‘Josh, they know something they’re not telling you and they’re not telling me.’”

  In an e-mail to Josh’s social worker, Forest Jacobson, Tim wrote that it was clear the police were “actively building a criminal case against Josh.”

  Josh would still have two visitations a week with his sons. Both would take place at the rental house in Graham and not at the Atkinses’. Tim insists that Josh wasn’t upset that the only people to befriend him since Susan’s disappearance—the minister, his wife, and their four children—had decided to limit their contact with him.

  43

  Having demonstrated my fitness as a parent, it is time for my sons to come home.

  —JOSH POWELL, IN AN AFFIDAVIT, FEBRUARY 1, 2012

  On February 1, 2012, the child custody hearing originally scheduled for November, and then for January—postponed because of a rare Pacific Northwest snowstorm—commenced in the Tacoma courtroom of Superior Court Judge Kathryn Nelson.

  Chuck and Judy Cox were sitting near the back. Their attorney in the custody case, Steve Downing, was in an observational role only. This hearing was between the State of Washington and Josh Powell.

  Josh, who was all smiles, walked Griffin-Hall and her supervisor, Lyn Okarski, from an elevator to the courtroom, then went to meet with his attorney. He had told the two women that he “expected to take the kids home that day.” Josh was confident. Josh’s attorney was confident.

  Suddenly there was a wail and raised voices from outside the courtroom.

  Judy turned to see where it was coming from; so did Griffin-Hall and Okarski. It seemed to be in an alcove adjoining the courtroom.

  It was Josh, being warned by his attorney that he was not going to get custody of the boys. He already knew that Dr. Manley was suggesting further psychological testing. He hadn’t known, however, that the testing would delay the custody proceedings for months, possibly forever.

  Despite the news, Josh argued that he should regain custody of his children. In an affidavit filed that day, Josh wrote that he missed his wife, and would remain strong for the boys.

  A lesser person would fall under the intense scrutiny I am facing, but apparently my inherent resilience as a person makes it increasingly difficult for them to pursue their agendas. I am standing tall for my sons, but it deeply hurts to face such ridicule and abuse. I know my own heart is free of any guilt regardless of what people claim.

  The incestuous images were mentioned briefly in court but not discussed in depth. John Long argued that a psychosexual evaluation was necessary because of those images, as well as the pornography found at Steve Powell’s house when Josh was living there with his sons.

  Judge Nelson agreed. Despite a plea from Josh’s attorney that such a test was “intrusive” and that Josh hadn’t been charged with any crime, the judge would not consider giving Josh custody unless he underwent the exam. She did not change his visitation schedule, which included the supervised Sunday and Wednesday visits. Charlie and Braden, who had recently had birthdays and were now seven and five years old, respectively, would remain with the Coxes for the foreseeable future.

  Chuck and Judy Cox sat behind Josh and could see that he was angry.

  “I wanted to ask why are they still letting him have visitation if they have all these concerns?” Chuck said. “It crossed my mind, ‘Hey, this is really tightening the screws on Josh.’”

  The Coxes were worried about how he would react to the increasing stress.

  * * *

  The hearing was the tipping point for Josh. If he refused to participate in the psychosexual evaluation, he would lose custody of the boys. If he participated in the test, he would still lose custody of the boys, because it was more than likely that he would not pass it. And for the first time, he would have been asked during a polygraph exam about what had happened to Susan.

  * * *

  Josh would have been subjected to a penile plethysmograph, or PPG, an exam that measures the blood flow to the penis. The PPG is administered with a strain gauge, which is a kind of cuff worn at the base of the penis that tests a man’s arousal while he is shown photographs and videos of normal sexual behavior as well as deviant acts. The PPG exam takes about two hours; there is also a two-hour evaluation that covers the individual’s sexual history and the sexual behavior of his family when he was a child and adolescent. Penile plethysmographs are commonly used in criminal proceedings when judges need to assess how likely a defendant is to reoffen
d, but they can also be ordered in civil matters. As it had been for Josh.

  * * *

  Josh spoke briefly with Tim Atkins. They made plans for Sunday, February 5. Josh would see his sons, go to church in the evening, then go over to the Atkinses’ house. “That would be great,” Tim said.

  On the night of the pivotal hearing, the Coxes put Charlie and Braden to bed. Susan’s portrait—the same image the public would hold in their minds of the missing mom—was propped up next to the fireplace. Susan wasn’t there, but the boys still remembered her.

  That night was a calm one. There was no fighting or acting out.

  Even so, Judy had been uneasy. She had been worried since the court hearing—more worried than usual.

  Chuck felt his wife’s anxiety. They had been together long enough to know what each other was thinking, even when no words were shared.

  Judy was afraid that the court ruling had backed Josh into a corner.

  “You’re right. The court put him in a spot,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I wonder what he’s going to do next.”

  Chuck didn’t know. In fact, Chuck Cox could never have dredged up a scenario as dark as what was to come.

  Not in a million years.

  44

  I remember Chuck made a comment to me … “Wow, this is the first visitation after that court date.” We felt he was going to do something, but we had no idea.

  —JUDY COX, SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

  Those who knew the family always considered Mike Powell the one that “got away.” While it was true that Jennifer, too, had escaped the toxic household, she’d been able to leave because she was of age when the family imploded. But Mike was a kid. He had to bide his time. The young man, who looked like a younger version of his father—or a healthier version of Josh—found a roadmap out of Puyallup by serving in the army for five years and then going to college, where he majored in International Studies at the University of Washington. Mike was different from his brother. His ambitions were met with follow-through, though not always to the degree he’d hoped. In 2008 he ran unsuccessfully for state office, but the setback didn’t stop him. He still managed to be one of nine delegates to represent Washington State at the National Democratic Convention in Denver.