Susan Cox Powell

 

Susan Marie Cox Powell was generous and kind-hearted person who liked to make others feel good. She liked to ride horses. She did well in church and school. She loved choir. She also loved getting her hair and nails done and would wear stylish clothes.

Susan was born on October 16th, 1981 in Alamogordo, New Mexico to Judy and Chuck Cox. She had 3 sisters.

She was pursuing her cosmetology license and actively involved in the LDS church when she reconnected with Josh Powell. Josh Powell had previously dated Susan's older sister and now he had his sights set on Susan.

Josh in 1976, to Steven and Terrica Powell in Puyallup, Washington. Joshua's parents had a dysfunctional marriage. Steven allegedly shared pornography with Joshua and his two brothers and refused to teach or enforce limits on certain behaviors. When Josh was a teenager he allegedly killed gerbils belonging to one of his sisters and threatened his mother with a butcher knife. He also had a history of attempting suicide.

By 1998, Josh was living in Seattle and attending the University of Washington. He met Catherine Terry Everett at a local LDS Church congregation. The two moved into an apartment together and Josh became possessive. He would limit what she could and couldn't do when it came to her family. When Everett visited a friend in Utah without Josh she didn't return and broke up with him over the phone.

During a dinner party at Josh's Tacoma apartment in November 2000 Susan fell in love with Josh. They began dating and in the Portland Oregon Temple in April 2001 they were married.

Due to financial difficulties, in 2002 Josh and Susan Powell briefly moved into Steve’s home in South Hill, Washington. Steven began following Susan around the house with a camera. He would secretly steal her underwear and replace it with duplicates. He also used a small mirror to spy on her when she used the bathroom, read her journals, and even posted love songs online.

Josh and Susan moved into their own apartment. When Steven would visit he'd take Susan's childhood journals and make copies. 

In July of 2003 that Josh and Susan were considering taking a new job in Greeley, Colorado. This news spurred desperation in Steven to confess his love to Susan.

On July 13, 2003, Josh and Susan traveled to a trucking firm in Kent, Washington because Josh was interested in a trucking job. Steve drove to the trucking company as well with camcorder in hand.

Josh practiced driving a semi and Steve offered to give Susan a ride to her parents’ house in South Hill. Susan agreed and pretty soon, Susan and Steve were in his minivan on their way to South Hill. 

Steve placed his camcorder in a bag but accidently left it recording. The picture on the tape was black, but the microphone captured Steve's confession of love.  It also recorded Susan's awkward reply.

"I don’t know where you’re going with this." 

Poor Susan was trapped in a minivan with her deranged father in law that was obsessed with her. 

Susan and Josh relocated to West Valley City, Utah, in 2004. Susan took up a job with Wells Fargo Financial. In Susan's emails she attributed her marital problems both to financial stress brought upon by Joshua's extravagant spending habits and to his "very, very controlling" behavior towards her.

Joshua filed for bankruptcy in 2007, declaring over $200,000 in debts.

By 2008, Susan was expressing fears and frustrations about her marriage to friends.

She recorded a video in July 2009 surveying property damage she attributed to Joshua and wrote a secret will. In the will she said "I want it documented that there is extreme turmoil in our marriage" and, "If I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one."

December 6, 2009, Susan and her two sons, Charles and Braden, attended church services at the Hunter 36th Ward.

A neighbor visited them at home in the afternoon, leaving about 5:00 p.m. The neighbor said that Josh fixed pancakes for dinner and that Susan got very sleepy afterwards and went to bed early.

The entire Powell family were reported missing on December 7 by relatives. Joshua's mother Terrica and sister Jennifer Graves went looking for the family at their house shortly after being informed that the children had not been dropped off at daycare that morning. They called the police when they failed to make contact with Joshua and Susan. The police broke into the house and found no one inside, but noticed two fans blowing on a wet spot on a carpet in the house. Susan did not show up at her job on December 7. Her purse, cell phone, and car were all found at the house.

About 5:00 p.m., Josh returned home with the two boys and was taken to the police station for questioning. He claimed he had left Susan sleeping at home shortly after midnight on December 7. He had taken his boys on a camping trip to Simpson Springs in western Utah, in a snow storm.... Police visited Simpson Springs on December 10, but found no evidence of the campsite that Joshua had described.

Police searched the Powell residence on December 9 and found traces of Susan's blood on the floor.

They also found life insurance policies on Susan for US$1.5 million, and a handwritten letter from Susan expressing fear for her life.

DNA test results, released in 2013, matched one blood sample with Susan, while another sample was determined to have come from an "unknown male contributor".

August 2012, West Valley City police released documents showing that Joshua "did not appear to be concerned about Susan's welfare" He liquidated her retirement accounts, cancelled her regularly scheduled chiropractic sessions; withdrew his children from daycare and spoke to coworkers about how to hide a body in an abandoned mineshaft in the western Utah desert.

Police interviewed the eldest son, Charlie. He confirmed that the camping trip Joshua described took place. Unlike his father, he stated that Susan had gone with them and she did not return. A teacher reported that Charlie had claimed that his mother was dead. Susan's parents claimed that, while at daycare, Braden drew a picture of a van with three people in it, and said that "Mommy was in the trunk".

Investigators informed the media that they planned to question Joshua again, and subpoenaed all footage and interviews of Joshua from local television stations. December 14, Joshua retained an attorney. Police said that he grew increasingly uncooperative. He took his sons to his hometown of Puyallup, Washington, to stay with his father Steven for the holidays. December 24, Joshua was considered a person of interest in the investigation. January 6, he returned with his brother Michael to pack the family's belongings.

Soon afterwards, the website SusanPowell.org was established.

The site's anonymous entries defended Joshua as the victim of a smear campaign by Susan's family, his sister Jennifer, and the LDS Church. Posts also speculated that Susan's disappearance was connected to that of Steven Koecher, a Salt Lake Tribune journalist who vanished the same week as Susan. The posts claimed that the two had run off to Brazil together. 2010, both men claimed that Susan had abandoned her family due to mental illness and that she had left with another man. Susan's family rejected these claims as being "unsupported" by any evidence

Investigators' learned that Joshua's father, Steven "Steve" Powell, had been obsessively infatuated with his son's wife.

Computer images seized from Steven's house in 2010 turned up 4,500 images of Susan taken without her knowledge, including close-ups of specific body parts.

September 14, 2011, Utah authorities discovered a possible gravesite while searching Topaz Mountain, that Joshua had frequented as a campsite.

There were signs of recent soil disturbance and shoveling.

After digging a few feet down, police were unable to find any remains, in spite of careful sifting of the soil. Federal anthropologists ruled out the possibility of the site being an ancient burial ground. Authorities said they were following a scent detected by their sniffer dogs.

After a police raid in their home in 2011, both Joshua and Steven spoke to major news outlets regarding journals that Susan had allegedly written about the relationship between Steven and herself. Steven claimed that he and Susan had been falling in love prior to her disappearance.

He cited the content of the journals, that were written when Susan was a teenager, as evidence to support his theory that she was mentally unstable and could have run away with another man. A judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding Joshua and Steven from publishing any material from Susan's journals. The judge ordered the pair to either return or destroy any journals already published.

September 22, Steven was arrested on charges of voyeurism and child pornography.

Police found evidence that he had secretly videotaped numerous women and young girls, including Susan. John Long, assistant Attorney General for Washington State, said that Joshua was a "subject" in the child porn investigation. A friend of Steven claimed that he was preoccupied with pornography and "was hung up on Susan sexually". Charles "Chuck" Cox, Susan's father, filed for custody of her children the day after Steven was arrested. Cox eventually was granted temporary custody of the boys. The court ruled that Joshua would have to move out of his father's home if he wanted to regain custody, even though he is a person of interest in his wife's disappearance. Josh rented a house in Graham, Washington. Authorities later alleged that he had never actually moved into that house. He just made it appear as if he had satisfied the court's instructions while continuing to live at his father's home.

September 2011, Joshua's sister Jennifer stated that she believed Joshua was "responsible for his wife Susan Powell's disappearance".

She worked with police and went undercover to try to get some answers in Susan's disappearance. She even went so far as to ask Josh point blank, while she was wearing a wire, if and what he did to Susan.

His other sister Alina had also been suspicious of him as well, but later she said withdrew her suspicions and felt that Joshua had been unduly harassed by the investigation. September 28, Mayor Mike  Winder stated, "We feel that we are getting to that tipping point where we have more hot evidence than we have had in the past two years", and that the case was moving forward.

2011, Joshua underwent a series of court-ordered evaluations.

The evaluations determined that Joshua had adequate parenting skills, a steady employment history and no criminal record or history of domestic violence. They also raised issues concerning the ongoing criminal investigations, Joshua's failure to admit normal personal shortcomings, his overbearing behavior with his sons, and his persistent defensiveness and paranoia. The initial recommendation was for Joshua to have visitation with his sons several times a week, supervised by a social worker.

January 2012, Utah police discovered about 400 images of simulated child pornography, bestiality and incest on Joshua's computer. The images, were not illegal due to their being in a hand-drawn, or cartoonish 3-D format. They were cause for "great concern", particularly given Joshua's earlier denial of possessing any such material. Joshua was recommended to receive a more thorough psychosexual evaluation and polygraph test, but no change was suggested in the visitation schedule with the Powell boys despite everything...

There has to be something wrong with the system when a man like this can still have visitation and in his own house..

Chuck Cox told child protective services and other authorities that he felt that if Josh felt cornered or pushed, that he might do something terrible to the boys.

Michael established a Google Sites page which claimed that Susan's parents were abusing and neglecting the boys in collusion with child welfare authorities. He also posted that West Valley Utah police had both mishandled the investigation into Susan's disappearance and were harassing Joshua. Lawyers for the Cox family disputed the allegations, and Google removed the site after a few days due to terms of use violations.

February 5, 2012, a social worker called 9-1-1 after bringing Charlie and Braden to a supervised visit at the house Josh rented. The woman, who was supposed to monitor the visit between Joshua and the boys, said he grabbed them and would not let her in the door.

She said she beat on the door and yelled to be let in to no avail. She went back to her car to call her supervisor. The house exploded, killing Joshua and the two children. Local authorities treated the case as a double murder-suicide, saying that the act appeared to have been deliberate.

Authorities notified Steven, who was in jail. Supposedly he "didn't seem very upset by the news, but was angry towards authorities who notified him". Steven invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions about the Susan Powell case. Cox and others have stated they believe that Steven knows what actually happened to Susan. Steven was convicted of voyeurism charges in May 2012 in a trial.

Officials confirmed that the explosion had been deliberately planned.

The cause of death for Joshua and the two boys was carbon monoxide poisoning. The coroner also noted that both children had significant chopping injuries on the head and neck. A hatchet was recovered near Joshua's body. He had attacked the boys with it before being overwhelmed by smoke and fumes. There was also found two five-gallon cans of gasoline, as well as evidence that gasoline had been spread throughout the house.

Friends and relatives of Joshua told authorities that he had contacted them by email minutes before. Some of them, received instructions about finding his money and shutting off his utilities. Records showed that he had withdrawn $7,000 from his bank account and had donated his children's toys and books to local charities the day before. Joshua named Michael as the main beneficiary of his life insurance policy.

Charles and Braden are buried at Woodbine Cemetery, which also contains a memorial for Susan. Later police believe they have another person of interest in Susan's disappearance, Josh's brother Michael. Police questioned Michael several times in 2012, after discovering that he had abandoned his car in a junkyard in Oregon several weeks after Susan's disappearance

Michael was "evasive". Utah authorities have since said they believe that Joshua and Michael were accomplices in the murder of Susan

February 11, 2013, Michael took his own life in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He jumped from the roof of a parking garage.

May 21, 2013, West Valley City police announced that they had closed the active investigation into Susan's disappearance.

After, the handwritten will, written by Susan, was found in a safety deposit box. It instructed the reader not to show her husband the will.

That is where the video she made in 2009 was kept as well.

March 2015, Cox won a court battle over the control of Susan's  estate. Joshua's mother, Terrica, and his sister, Alina, sought to have Susan declared legally dead to collect life insurance. The Cox ultimately gained full control of the estate.

Steven was released from prison on July 11, 2017. He had served a total of seven years following his voyeurism and child pornography convictions. Steven passed away of natural causes on Monday, July 23, 2018 in Tacoma, Washington. And with his passing he took whatever secrets he had about Susan's disappearance with him to his grave.