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Episode 22 - Susan, Charlie and Braden Powell Part Two

• Clare Laxton

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In December 2009 wife and mother Susan Powell disappeared, seemingly having vanished overnight. Her husband Josh came home from a camping trip with their two young sons the next day to a cacophony of concerned police, family and friends. Despite claiming he had no idea where his wife was Josh was the one and only suspect in her disappearance and presumed murder.  

The police never had enough to arrest and charge Josh though and sadly that isn’t the end. Three years after his wife disappeared Josh killed both his sons, Charlie and Braden, before taking his own life.  

This is Part Two of the story of Susan, Charlie and Braden Powell.  

A familicide in slow motion.  

Information and support  

 

References  

Susan Cox Powell Foundation – Hope Pray Help Believe 

Season 1 - Cold Podcast (thecoldpodcast.com) 

MURDERED: The Powell Family | Crime Junkie Podcast 

A Light In Dark Places: Amazon.co.uk: Graves, Jennifer, Clawson, Emily: 9781490426112: Books

Susan Powell // Episode 10 - Going West (goingwestpod.com) 

Coercive control - Women’s Aid (womensaid.org.uk) 

Disappearance of Susan Powell - Wikipedia 

Washington State found negligent in deaths of Powell boys (fox13now.com) 

How Josh & Susan Powell's Kids Died (heavy.com) 

Cold Case Western Australia
They're the crimes that continue to haunt grieving family members and the wider...

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Speaker 1:

Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Lachstern. Welcome to episode 22 of Killer in the Family podcast, and this is part 2 of Susan, charlie and Braden Powell's story. Before we start, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone for your support in nominating Killer in the Family for the True Crime Awards. I'll put the link in the episode notes again, and thank you again for just being a brilliant listener. But let's get straight into this. This is going to be a very tough lesson.

Speaker 1:

In December 2009, wife and mother, susan Powell, disappeared, seemingly having vanished overnight. Her husband, josh, came home from a camping trip with their two young sons the next day to a cacophony of concerned police, family and friends. Despite claiming he had no idea where his wife was, josh was the one and only suspect in her disappearance and presumed murder. The police never had quite enough to arrest and charge Josh, though, and sadly, that isn't the end. Three years after his wife disappeared, josh killed both his sons, charlie and Braden, before taking his own life. This is part 2 of the story of Susan Charlie and Braden Powell, familiar side in slow motion. So when we left the story of Susan, charlie and Braden. Susan had disappeared overnight while her controlling husband, josh, had taken their boys, charlie and Braden, on a camping trip. Coming back to find his wife missing, josh didn't really seem too concerned and definitely wasn't helpful in his first two interviews with the police, and I'm really sorry to say that we're nowhere near the end of this story and there are many more tragic twists and turns to talk through. So let's go back to today, two days after Susan was last seen, and the end of the second interview with Josh Powell.

Speaker 1:

After this second police interview, detective Ellis Maxwell served two search warrants One was for Josh's minivan and one for Josh and Susan's house. As we talked about in part one, josh had already had a chance to clean the minivan, so when police searched it, there wasn't too much in there. What they did find, though, was Susan's pink Motorola cell phone, which was in the central console of the car. Josh had apparently forgotten to hide it. What they found in the house was very different, though, and, as you'll remember, police, when they initially went into the house searching for the whole family who everyone was worried about, there were a couple of fans pointing at the sofa, which was a bit weird. Now, going back in with the search warrant. The police focused on the sofa area and they did find blood on the sofa back and small spots of blood on the floor next to the sofa. Now, the blood was tested and it came back as Susan's, but it wasn't enough to suggest something like she'd been stabbed or, you know, had like a traumatic accident on that sofa. It was sort of spots of blood and, as Susan documented in her video journal of assets that we talked about in part one, the police also found loads of computers, hard drives, memory sticks, as well as lots and lots of power tools Some more on that later.

Speaker 1:

While these searches were going on, and unbeknownst to the police, josh left the police station where he was waiting to pick up his minivan after it researched, took a taxi to the airport and rented a car. Over the next day or so he put 800 miles on the rental car, but to this day we have no idea where he went or what he did. This is such a frustrating aspect of what happened, as the police were putting a tracker on Josh's minivan to see if he might go back to where he left. Susan, if Josh had stuck around for a bit longer, he would have been in his minivan and police could have traced him as it was. They knew how far he travelled but no idea where he went or what he did. And for Pilates, josh was the one and only suspect they had in the disappearance and probably murder of Susan. They just didn't have quite enough evidence to charge and arrest him. They thought that he'd probably killed Susan, but without finding her. It was hard for them to prove and Dave Cooley from the Cold Podcast that I've used as reference for this episode actually has a theory on what Josh did to Susan, and this is based on his investigation and the evidence.

Speaker 1:

So, as I said, in the searches of Josh's house, police obviously found loads and loads of power tools. They also found some burnt plaster board, as well as a pharic extinguisher and some gasoline. Now, on that plaster board, on that burnt plaster board, was bits of burnt metal, sort of like chunks and hunks of metal, and it has proved impossible for police to put the burnt metal together to sort of see what it was before. But knowing that Josh had bought a cordless impact driver, because he detailed all of his tool purchases in a spreadsheet, and I think so, having looked at what an impact driver is. It's like sort of drill bit. My husband, who works at construction, is going to not enjoy me trying to describe this. It's like big drill bit but without the you know driver or sort of screw attached to it. Sorry, that's a really terrible description. Please do Google. Impact driver. But Josh had had bought one of these because he detailed it in a spreadsheet that he kept all of his tool purchases in. The police didn't find it in any of their searches. Now Dave Cooley actually bought the same impact driver and took a cutting flame to it. The searches of Josh's house had shown that he had the same cutting flame and what was left when he did that was something that looked very similar to the metal shards that they found in Josh's house. It's just so frustrating that the police just couldn't get all that evidence together to arrest and charge Josh, and it's obviously really difficult without finding Susan. But just so frustrating as I don't actually think Josh was that clever. I just think he was lucky and you know, police did not stop searching for Susan.

Speaker 1:

They enlisted the help of many, many experts over many years to search the areas where Josh went camping that night. They took the 800 miles that Josh had put on the rental car and worked out all the possible areas that he could have driven to and from. They searched old mine shafts, desert areas, the towpads mines where Josh, susan, charlie and Braden were camping once. They did not give up so huge props to the police here. They did continue searching and trying to find Susan, but they didn't find her, and actually a couple of years ago some trousers and other clothing and bones were found and tested, but sadly it didn't match Susan.

Speaker 1:

In January 2010, just a month after his wife went missing, josh actually moved out of their Sarah Circle house in Utah and took his kids back to Washington State to live with his dad, steve. So this is another aspect of his behaviour which we talked a lot about in part, one that just screams guilty. If my partner went missing, I would never leave the house that we shared together. I would stay there in case they came back, as many partners and parents of missing people do Also. I'm just thinking of Charlie and Braden, who just keep having any stability pulled out from under them. So, having settled with Steve, charlie and Braden started attending local schools and clubs, and people soon found out who Josh was and sometimes worried about the kids. There are a few occasions that teachers talked about, where Charlie talked about his mom being dead or him drawing what looked like a car boot with someone in it. Again, this is not hard evidence. It's not something the police can use to arrest Josh, but it's just, to me, more indication of his guilt.

Speaker 1:

Now, as we know from discussing in part one, steve Howell, Josh's dad, was obsessed with Susan, and the police investigated him to see if he had any knowledge or involvement in her disappearance. In one such search of his house in September 2011, they actually found videotapes thousands of videotapes of women being secretly filmed. The tapes also included Susan, and the police also found child sex abuse images, which were cartoons, but still arrestable. So Steve was immediately arrested and the day after that, chuck Cox, susan's dad, filed for temporary custody of Charlie and Braden Because of Steven's arrest and that Josh and the boys were living with him. The court granted Chuck and Judy, susan's mom, temporary custody of the boys and ruled that Josh would have to move out of Steve's home if he wanted to regain custody. Now I just want to say here how glad I am that the courts did this. I'm sure that Chuck hated the boys being with Josh and as soon as Steve was arrested, it made sense for him to file for custody. Who knew what sort of household the boys were growing up in. Well, actually we do know, if Josh's childhood sent anything to go by.

Speaker 1:

Josh, chuck and Judy continue to fight for custody over Charlie and Braden. In the next few months, and after Charlie and Braden had been placed with Chuck and Judy, they went about trying to support sort of re-parent them, as they said On the cold podcast, chuck talked about how the boys would grab for food at dinner table at the dinner table, not being fed regularly at Josh's. They also talked about how they wouldn't go to bed until 11pm or midnight, which definitely wasn't okay for such young kids. The boys also told Chuck that they often slept in the nude, sometimes with their dad, so Jennifer, who was Josh's estranged sister, and the cops suspected sexual abuse there.

Speaker 1:

Now, at this point, josh was trying to get his boys back. He asked all of his family members to write to the court to profess his suitability for parenting, and they all did, even his mum, terry, who Jennifer, his sister, had tried to persuade not to. And Josh was obviously evaluated by professionals as part of this process. One such professional called James told the cold podcast that he found him really defensive, like in his police interviews. Josh was pretty general and unhelpful and he said that Josh seemed to blame everything that went wrong with his life on Chuck Cox, susan's dad or the Latter-day Saints, the religion that he has sort of stepped away from Now.

Speaker 1:

When they were sort of assessing Josh, they were doing tests and psychological tests as well, and James, who assessed Josh, said that he didn't think Josh was capable of seeing any flaw in himself and that he had traits of narcissism Something that we have seen a lot with the family and idolaters that we've talked about and narcissism is the view of a perfect self. Like, josh didn't have the ability to see himself as flawed and his narcissism meant that that extended to the boy, so he effectively saw his children as Josh one and Josh two, so they were sort of an extension of himself. Now in the cold podcast they did actually talk about how Charlie and Braden went to a precious stone club as they were really interested in rocks, and a woman called Nancy from the club actually wrote to the court and social services and talked about instances where Josh left Braden on his own to cry in a corner for an hour and she said that Josh only seemed to really pay attention to the boys when they were talking to other people and broadly didn't pay attention to them at all. So she wanted to tell the court and social services that she didn't think that he was a good father. Now, in late January 2012, at a hearing where Josh thought he would be given the boys back, court did not award custody back and, in fact, ordered a psychosexual evaluation of Josh to assess his ability to parent his children.

Speaker 1:

On the 5th of February 2012, charlie and Braden Powell were looking forward to seeing their dad for one of their regular supervised visits. A social worker called Elizabeth Griffin picked the boys up from Chuck and Judy's and took them to the house that Josh was apparently living in. He had moved from Steve's house. Apparently it was actually Super Bowl Sunday and lots of people were looking forward to watching the game with family and friends. When they got out of the car, the kids ran up to the house and threw the open door their dad, josh, had opened for them, and when Elizabeth walked up to come in and supervise the visit, josh Powell slammed the door in her face with a smirk. Now Elizabeth obviously tried to get inside the house. She knocked on the door. It just wasn't happening. So she actually immediately called 911 to report the incident and that Josh wasn't supposed to be alone with the children.

Speaker 1:

Now what followed? It was a really frustrating conversation with a 911 dispatcher, 911 operator, and you can hear some of it on the cold podcast in episode 14. So this operator thought, initially thought that it was Elizabeth that was having the visit with the children and that she was being supervised. And it took a really long time, many, many minutes, for the operator to finally understand what was happening. Josh was the children's father. He had court ordered supervised visit and was not allowed to be alone with the children. And at this point Elizabeth was getting increasingly panicked and told the operator that she could smell gasoline. While she was still on the phone to 911, the house suddenly exploded. Firefighters arrived but it was too late.

Speaker 1:

Inside the house they found the dead bodies of Josh, 7 year old Charlie and 5 year old Braden. This is going to be a really tough listen team. Although their cause of death was from the fire, there was evidence that Josh had tried to kill Charlie and Braden before setting the house alight with 10 gallons of gasoline he poured all over the house Before they died. Josh had tried to kill the boys with a hatchet, with injuries found on their body when authorities were able to get in the house From the evidence that was found at the house. Unlike all family annihilators we have discussed before, josh planned to murder his children. He actually gave away boxes of their toys and clothes to charity in the days before he killed them. He also sent emails to people like his pastor, his sister, his lawyer, before he killed his children and himself. Some of those emails to his sister, alina, talked about some financial things, and he also sent emails to the people who rented his and Susan's old house detailing how to look after their property. Some of the emails said that he couldn't live without his sons and that he was sorry. Alina also had a voicemail on her phone from Josh saying something similar.

Speaker 1:

As I said, episode 14 of the Cold Podcast goes into detail about what happened on this day and if you're interested to find out more, it's well worth a listen. Like many family annihilators before and since, josh Powell had decided that if he couldn't have his children, then no one could. The one final fatal act of control over his boys. Now, as if this whole story isn't awful enough, there is a final distressing chapter that concerns Josh's younger brother, michael. We haven't really talked much about Michael in these episodes, but he's the younger brother of Josh and was very close to him and his dad, steve.

Speaker 1:

Now, in 2010, just after Susan had gone missing, police were looking at Michael in connection with his car, ford Taurus, which was in a salvage yard in Oregon and had been there since Susan disappeared. Michael had apparently ordered satellite images of the yard, which seemed really suspicious to the police. They found the car in this yard and a cadaver dog alerted on the boot immediately, but unfortunately, dna tests to the car were inconclusive. So another frustrating period where there's potential evidence there that meant that police could charge and arrest Josh, but unfortunately, it just didn't happen. Now, michael remained a staunch defender of his brother, josh and his dad, steve. He also set up a Google sites page in 2011, which claimed Susan's parents were abusing and neglecting Charlie and Braden and that the West Valley police were harassing Josh. The site was taken down pretty soon, but it was clear that Michael had drank the powl kool-aid and was colluding with Josh and Stephen to distract the police from any investigation. The West Valley police have stated that they do believe that Michael was some sort of an accomplice in the murder of Susan Powell and they continued along that line of investigation. Now, presumably feeling the pressure of the investigation, a year after Josh had killed his children, michael Powell actually took his own life in February 2013 by jumping from a parking garage in Minneapolis, with Steve Powell dying in 2018 from natural causes. It seems that the horrific harm that the Powell family men were causing was finally over.

Speaker 1:

Since the disappearance of Susan, chuck and Judy Cox set up the Susan Cox Power Foundation in 2010. This was before the murders of Charlie and Braden. I've linked to the Foundation's website in the episode notes and the mission of the Foundation is, quote to assist families of missing persons by providing no cost-strategic media consulting services to ensure that their loved ones' face and name remain in the public eye as long as possible. To research and catalogue resources across the United States that may be helpful to families of missing persons in an effort to create a resource for other families to use in their time of crisis and to support domestic violence prevention efforts. And to participate in community and school-based education about domestic violence prevention, with a special emphasis on recognising the early signs of abuse. Now, after the murders of Charlie and Braden, on the Foundation website, it said quote that they partnered with the Tears Foundation, who have established the Charlie and Braden Project. They'll now accept donations and provide assistance in Washington state to parents of families losing a child between the ages of one and twelve by helping to pay some of the cost of the burial, a burden faced by parents already trying to deal with such a powerful loss. And it feels like this foundation and all the work of Chuck and Judy is such an important and powerful legacy for Susan, charlie and Braden, and something I have no doubt that Susan would have been proud of. Now.

Speaker 1:

Chuck and Judy also sued the Washington state's Department of Social and Health Services over the murders of Charlie and Braden Powell. They allege that the state didn't take adequate steps to protect Charlie and Braden from their father, and in July 2020, so pretty recently Jury found Washington state negligent in the deaths of Charlie and Braden. They awarded the Cox family 98.5 million dollars. In a statement on the Foundation's website in response to the settlement, they said quote what happened to Charlie and Braden was tragic. This fight was not just for them. This fight was for all children who have or could meet similar fate due to negligence from the state. This is the system we've all been told to trust. The lives of children are at stake. The system has failed many times in the past, as indicated by their own records of deaths of children in dependency. Now that many of the mistakes have been identified, we want the agency to change their culture, do their jobs and protect children. We're trying to make sure that the DSHS and other agencies across the nation put kids first. Charlie and Braden Powell are buried in Woodbine Cemetery in Washington. Chuck and Judy Cox also installed a memorial statue near them. It's a healing place for anyone who's lost a child. They hold a vigil there every year on December the 6th, the day when Susan disappeared.

Speaker 1:

Here we come to the end of a horrific story, a familiar side and slow motion, as I said at the start of the episode, and I think a question so many people will be asking is whether any of this could have prevented and honestly, when I think about the childhood that Josh Powell endured, particularly at the hands of his father, steve, I wonder whether the die was already cast. Not necessarily that Josh would kill his wife and children, but probably that he would be an abusive and controlling husband and partner. As his aunt said in the divorce papers of Terry and Steve Powell, powell brothers had no respect for authority or women and they seemed to have a very narcissistic view of themselves. To me, this is a recipe for abuse and a very dangerous man, and Susan obviously knew that Josh was dangerous, which is why she prepared so many papers and journals and talked about focusing on Josh. If something happened to her Whether it could have been prevented I think that's harder to say. Many people might say she should have left him, but, as we know, the point of leaving is the most dangerous time for women and children if they have a controlling and abusive partner. So actually leaving Josh may have seen the same fate.

Speaker 1:

What I do think was preventable was the murder of Charlie and Brayden. Josh had already shown himself to be a father who posed a risk to his children, something new. Authorities had seen and therefore awarded temporary custody to Chuck and Judy A week before the boys were killed and Josh was told he wasn't getting custody back and that he'd have to undergo further assessments. That would have been a time in which he was outraged at losing control and being told that and at this point Chuck and Judy felt more confident that they, or maybe Josh's estranged sister, jennifer, would be awarded full custody of Charlie and Brayden, and while Josh had supervised visits with the boys, my question remains of why, why? Why were those visits allowed to happen at his house? And apparently, according to the cold podcast, those visits had been happening at like a child's contact centre, which is like a neutral location. But some of the other parents had complained about Josh being there because they knew who he was. But to me it's not a good enough reason to move them to his house, and particularly for this visit, which had happened just after Josh had told he wasn't getting custody. As I said, for someone who's all about control, this would have been infuriating and he would be looking for a way to regain that control completely. And I do genuinely think that the murders of Charlie and Brayden could have been prevented if coercive control was understood a bit better by all of these professionals. And this brings to mind a campaign and a new law that we've talked about on the podcast before Jade's Law. It aims to prevent parents who kill their spouse and their children's other parent from having parental responsibility and rights over those children, and the government has committed to making that change, which is a good thing. Protecting children from their parents who've committed murder can only be the right thing to do. One thing we do know If those children were better protected, they might still be alive today.

Speaker 1:

This episode is dedicated to Susan Powell, her two sons, charlie and Brayden, for the lives they led, happiness they brought to their friends and families. This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Lachston, with music from the brilliant Tom Box and Pixar Bay. I'll be back next week with another episode, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to nominate Killer in the Family podcast for the True Crime Awards and follow me on social media at Killer in the Family pod, and let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Until then, I've been Claire Lachston. This is Killer in the Family podcast. Until next time, take care, number Big.

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