The Disappearance of Susan Powell

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
And they didn't have a lot of money, so for
him to get in nice new cars a big deal.
But he gives it to her when he knows that
she's drinking with her friend. So they take it to
a party. And as they're coming back, and no one
knows anything about this fucking party. No one knows who's there.
They've interviewed friends and they're like, we don't know who.
We can't remember anyone who was there. Yeah, it's very odd.
So no one knows exactly what that was about. But

(00:21):
on their way home, she gotten in a drunk driving accident.
Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel, and welcome to
another true crime video. Man, this one is very highly requested.
I feel like I've been just like busting out the
highly requested ones lately. I'm just trying to catch up

(00:42):
on my inbox. But yes, this one has been in
there so many times. And wow, I can't believe I
had never heard of this case, like never heard of
it before I started doing research, And once I read
about it and learned about what this case entails, I
was really shocked and pretty depressed. Honestly, this story is
very upsetting. I feel like I should warn you guys

(01:03):
in advance. It's definitely one that is not for.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
The faint of heart.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
But it is very interesting how this all happened, and
it's definitely something that should be remembered. Today we're talking
about the Powell family from Utah, and I've had so
many people from Utah asked me to cover this case
because this just really struck that community. So I'm going
to tell you about the case in a second, but
before we get started, I wanted to thank our sponsor, Audible.

(01:27):
You guys know I love Audible. I've talked about it
so many times on my channel, and I love working
with Audible because I'm an Audible customer. I pay for
my subscription every month and have for a really long time.
I've been using audio books forever because I have learning
disabilities and I struggle hardcore with reading, so listening to
an audiobook is always better for me because I'm able
to comprehend the information and enjoy it more. I listen

(01:49):
to audiobooks on a wide variety of topics, specifically.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Crime ones I love.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I listen to them in the car, on planes, while
I shower, while I do the dishes, I listen to
them whenever I have a free chance, I can throw
it on, like while I do my makeup or something,
and I feel like I'm educating myself and reading while
doing other things. It makes multitasking really easy. Today, I
specifically want to tell you about a book called If
I Can't Have You. This book is about Susan Powell

(02:14):
and her family and what happened to them.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It has really great reviews.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I haven't listened to it myself, but I plan to,
and it's supposed to go even more in depth into
this case. So if you find that during this video
you have more questions, because you probably will, it might
be a good time to check out Audible, and not
to mention, they are offering you guys a free thirty
day trial. When you start your thirty day trial, you
also get a free audio book. All you have to
do is go to audible dot com slash Kendl Ray

(02:39):
and they will hook you up with that free book.
Or if you prefer, you can text Kendl Ray at
two five hundred five hundred and they will get you
started that way. For any of you guys who are
in school, I highly recommend Audible. You can use it
in so many ways for school. It's insane. I know
that's that time of year that a bunch of you
just started high school college. If you have a book
on Audible, take advantage. It will make your life so

(02:59):
much easier and you will literally understand it better. And
they have an unreal selection of books, like tons and
tons of books, so there's something for everyone. And if
you didn't like your book, you can actually swap it
for something else. No questions asked, So again, to start
that free trial, you just head over to audible dot
com slash Kendall Ray. Okay, so let's get into our
story today. This is Susan Cox Powell. She was born

(03:20):
on October sixteenth of nineteen eighty one in the.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
State of Oregon.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
She was described as being a really warm and loving person,
very friendly, sweet, and a really great mother. People always
said that she would do anything for anyone, was very
selfless and very fun to be around.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
And this is Josh Powell.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Josh was born on January twentieth of nineteen seventy six
in Oregon. However, Josh's childhood is a bit disturbing. Stephen,
who is his father, was very abusive to joshuen growing
up In court documents from Josh's previous divorce, it described
Stephen being abusive to Josh and Josh was suffering emotionally
because of it. Apparently Stephen was showing very inappropriate things.

(03:58):
I'm sure you can imagine what they were to his
son at a very young age, which is really disturbing,
and his childhood was definitely tumultuous. At one point he
tried to commit suicide, he didn't, and then another time
he actually took out a butcher knife and tried to
attack his mom with it because she.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Asked him to do the dishes.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
So this isn't just like any person we're talking about here.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
He's got a lot of issues.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
But Josh ended up working in web design and real estate.
And Susan and Josh were actually both Mormons, which is
a very strict religion, as many of you who have
experienced with it know, and it's all about commitments and
you know, marriage being a sacred thing, so a lot
of them get married really young. They actually met at
a church function when Susan was only nineteen years old.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
However, she was confident.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
That her and Josh were meant to be together, and
they quickly tied the knot, and it kind of shocked
all her family. It was like very sudden, very fast,
and she was really young. In April of two thousand
and one, they officially tied the knot, and for the
first few years they were actually thought of to be
the perfect couple. They were, you know, this young, beautiful
couple with their whole life ahead of them, ready to
start a family.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Eventually, they decided to leave Oregon and move.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
To Utah, specifically West Valley City, Utah, and on January
nineteenth of two thousand and five, Susan and Josh had
their first son. His name was Charles, and two years later,
on January second of two thousand and seven, they had
their other son, Braiden. Charlie was said to have loved bugs, science,
and nature. He also loved to write and wanted to
write books. One day, Braden was said to have loved

(05:26):
trains and cars, and they said that he also loved transformers.
Their family was thought to be a perfect, little, close
knit family. However, you soon find out that this was
not the case. One of Susan's friends that she had
been friends with since she was a child, Susan started
to tell her that their relationship wasn't so perfect and
there was a lot going on behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
She claims that Susan told her that Josh was very abusive.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
She said that Josh owned her and she had to
do whatever he wanted her to do. And Darlene also
said that whenever Susan would try to talk to Josh
about leaving him, he would threaten her and say those
boys are his and that's not going to change if
she leaves, basically saying that if she leaves, she won't
see her boys. Darlene said that if all the stuff
about Josh's childhood was true, then Susan did a good

(06:10):
job of hiding it or possibly didn't even know about
it because she never told Darlene and she trusted Darlene
with most things. Darlene said apparently at one point Josh
also withdrew.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Affection and love from her.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Supposedly she even knew the exact date of conception of
her son because they never did it. And in addition
to this abusive relationship that is clearly derailing and very unhealthy,
they were also really struggling financially. Now, this story is
probably going to remind a lot of you of the
very recent Chris Watts case. So yeah, Oftentimes when people

(06:42):
are having financial problems in their marriage, it ends up
so much stress, blame each other.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
And they end up hating each other.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
In April of two thousand and seven, Josh declared bankruptcy.
Another very strange thing is that Susan took this very
odd video all play it for you guys of herself
filming her belongings. I guess it's not that weird considering
what happened to her. It feels weird, but I guess it's.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Kind of smart to do.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
She basically filmed their whole house so that they had
record of what they owned in case there was a
flood of fire or something like that.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
This is me, July twenty nine, two thousand and eight.
It is twelve thirty three Mountain time, covering all my bases,
making sure that something happens to me or my family
or all of us, that our assets are documented. I
hope everything works out and we're all happy and live

(07:40):
happily ever after, as much as that's possible. Charlie, say, Hi,
this is Josh's computer, and there's some type of backup device.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
You built it himself.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
I think there's like five hard dried something about raids.
Josh locked this, but this is all of his files.

Speaker 5 (08:04):
He locked.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Those are his files, and he bought expensive stuff like
these are. I think this was like a couple of
thousand dollars of like sys graphic design templates by stock
layouts or something like that. This is all stuff bought
in a year or less through home depot on my credit.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Josh bought a lot of stuff.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
And then he had to bankrupt it, and then he
bought a little bit more on my credit. And I
had necklaces too. All of those are shot in a rage,
as you can see. And broke this. There's duds and
pearls and opals in there. Broke this and threw all
my DVD's and made him as because he was angry

(08:49):
at me. It was about a year or two back.
There's a wedding picture. This remode, I guess is like
three hundred dollars. Speakers five point one starround sound.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Be quiet, Charlie.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
This is a can organizer that josh Is and I
made and to help him all through the way. He
doesn't do projects by himself. More supplies, little freezer. Josh
did have this before me.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Tablesaw, but a lot of people speculate that maybe she
was doing it in case something happened with Josh. And
in this video she kind of like dogs on Josh
a few times. I mean, nothing like intense, but she's like, oh,
he didn't help me with this, or he doesn't do
this or whatever, and she doesn't seem too thrilled with him.
So that video is definitely a little eerie to watch.
So moving forward in time here to December sixth, two

(09:42):
thousand and nine.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
So that morning, Susan and the two.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Boys, Bryden and Charles, who were four and two, went
to church. They came back from church, and then later
on that day a neighbor came and visited them. Apparently
she left around five pm. However, the next morning, Monday,
December seventh, Susan was supposed to drop her boys off
the daycare and never showed up. And I can't believe
they didn't do this in the Cooper Harris case.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's so odd. But the daycare luckily called.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Josh's sister, she was their emergency contact, and she told
her that she never showed up that day. So Jennifer
actually went over to their house to check on them.
When she got there, she knocked on the door repeatedly
and there was no answer, and she actually started getting
worried that maybe someone in the family was hurt from
carbon monoxide poisoning. She called police, and the police actually
made the decision to break into the house, and when

(10:30):
they got in there, all they found was Susan's purse
and her phone, but she wasn't there. None of them were,
so why would she leave without her purson phone.

Speaker 6 (10:37):
They tried to knock on the door, and when we
couldn't get anybody, we called the police.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
And they also found two big box fans pointed at
the carpet like trying to dry it, and she basically
described seeing carpet that had just been washed that someone
was trying to quickly dry.

Speaker 6 (10:56):
There were two great, big box fans pointed right at
the car in the living room, and it looked like
somebody had washed the carpet.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Josh claimed that he and his sons had just returned
from a spontaneous camping trip that they had left for
the previous night. They said that Susan was not with them,
so they had no idea where she was. He didn't
leave his house until midnight. Now, if you have been camping.
I have been camping many times in my life living
in Colorado, you do not leave at midnight like that,
especially with two kids.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Got hey if christ Johnson and how I am?

Speaker 7 (11:31):
Okay? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:33):
How you doing? I know this has been difficult for
you on your mind today?

Speaker 8 (11:39):
Well, I've been trying to figure out what I can do,
so I don't sit idle.

Speaker 7 (11:46):
I was just going to go in and get my
kids because.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
You know they're how are they? How are they doing?

Speaker 7 (11:55):
They've been doing good as far as I can ll.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
How about you? I mean, I know this is difficult
on you. How are you doing? I mean, this is
such it's gonna be a lot of emotions going on
for you.

Speaker 8 (12:07):
You know, people have been really helpful and supportive. So
it's been it's been really hard, but you know, you
just keep going.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
What can you tell us about that night? I mean,
from what we understand, you went camping and then came home.
Tell us what would happened that night?

Speaker 9 (12:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (12:31):
I just I A lot of times I just go
camping with my boys, you know, not anything big. I'll
just go overnight and here we do s'mores and stuff
like that, and so I just went with the boys.
I was planning to do some smores in the morning

(12:52):
and in the day, and then when we got home, well,
on the way home, I found out that people were
worried about us.

Speaker 7 (13:02):
And the report is is.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
That neither you nor your wife called in sick, and
they said that that's not usual. What are your thoughts
on that?

Speaker 7 (13:13):
No, it's it's not usual. I I guess why didn't
Yukon sick? You know, I didn't. I was somehow thinking
that it was Sunday.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
And what time did you go camping? Would you say? I?

Speaker 8 (13:35):
You know, I got out to a late start, nine
inh something.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
It was later and it is cold this time of year.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
But he claims that he took the kids to Simpson
Springs in West Utah. Police actually visited the camp site
later on on December tenth, but found no evidence of
any type of crime. Why take your two young sons
camping after midnight freezing cold temperatures?

Speaker 7 (14:04):
Well, we just go out and do things in her
fund Now.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
One of the weirdest things about this case is that
it took Josh two days to alert Susan's family that
she had gone missing, and they claim that when he
did tell them, he didn't seem concerned about her, didn't
seem like he was proactive about looking for her, and
seemed to have no clue where she went.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
She's basically up and vanished.

Speaker 10 (14:27):
A West Valley family hasn't heard from her for days.

Speaker 9 (14:30):
Police found the husband and two kids today, but where
is the wife and mom, Susan Powell.

Speaker 11 (14:36):
You can see there are two different West Valley City
Forensic Unit trucks that just did just pull up on
seeing it. Addition several different police trucks. Neighbors and investigators
all saying it.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
It's strange that he came home with the kids and
not her.

Speaker 11 (14:48):
There's something strange and mysterious, but we're.

Speaker 12 (14:51):
Not getting the information that we need to determine where
she was at when she left, who she left with,
if anybody.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
But this quickly became a really big case in Utah,
and it wasn't long until it was national news. At
this point, police had no sort of leads about where
Susan was, and Josh at this point was just a
person of interest, not an official suspect. There just was
no evidence for them to make the move on Josh,
and it was a big mistake. Only a month after
Susan went missing, Josh decided to randomly up and move.

(15:20):
And this looked really shady to pretty much everyone. I mean,
you randomly decide to move a month after your wife
goes missing, like you'd think if your wife was missing,
you'd stay put so she could come back to you,
or you could be around the area to help look.
But no, Josh and his boys decided to move to
Washington and all three of them moved in with Steven,
Josh's father. And at this point, Josh was still maintaining

(15:42):
that he had nothing to do with Susan's disappearance. So
later on, in summer of twenty ten, yes, all this
time has gone by, no one knows where Susan is.
They can't do anything about Josh. The boys are at
a summer camp and while they were there, Brayden drew
a very disturbing picture. He drew a mini van and
he drew himself in it, his brother in it, and

(16:02):
his father, but not his mother. And when he was
asked where his mother was, he said that she was
in the trunk. He then continued to say that he
remembers his mom and dad getting out of the car
and then only his dad coming back. The older brother, Charlie,
also said the same thing.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
One time.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
He even told his teacher that his mommy was dead.
And even after these events happened, the police still did
not see a reason for arresting Josh. So people were
starting to get really sketched out of the general public
just starting to think like, obviously, this guy seems like he's.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
Involved with it.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
He's being very sketch. He did interviews that were just weird.
So Josh kind of felt the heat on him and
at this point he brought in his father, Steven.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
To help him.

Speaker 10 (16:44):
First words were like fireworks, John. These two dads, they
haven't spoken face to face since their kids moved on
to Utah. Now it got even more surreal when Josh
Powell showed up to.

Speaker 13 (16:55):
This rally here.

Speaker 10 (16:56):
He showed up agitated and emotional, but he like never before.

Speaker 14 (17:03):
Thank you for just asking the public to remember her.

Speaker 9 (17:07):
Thank you.

Speaker 13 (17:08):
A simple roadside rally to keep Susan Powell's disappearance in
the spotline.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
We were just handing out flyers and all of a
sudden he comes approaching with cameras.

Speaker 13 (17:15):
Instead became a flashpoint between families. If I had a
strainer or right here?

Speaker 5 (17:20):
Would you like to read it?

Speaker 13 (17:21):
Oh no, that's okay. Chuck Cox, a missing woman's father,
squared off with Susan Powell's father in law at a
fred Meyer parking lot in Kelo.

Speaker 10 (17:28):
How is you coming here helping define Susan? It isn't
helping define Susan.

Speaker 12 (17:33):
How is your standing at our neighborhood market helping define Susan? Chuckle?

Speaker 13 (17:37):
Steve Powell says Cox is spreading misinformation about his son
and harassing his family by staging events where they shop
and live in your neighborhood.

Speaker 12 (17:45):
The day the newspaper were there, I wasn't in your
neighborhood at all. Chuck is a liar, evident that he
Chuck is lying.

Speaker 13 (17:52):
The heated clash took a turn when Susan's husband, Josh,
pulled up and made a teary eyed claim.

Speaker 15 (17:58):
Chuck Cox uses my son, says, pawns in the media
to drive whatever message he is trying to drive.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
So they decided to make it seem like Susan was
mentally ill, but in an interview, Josh also says that.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Susan could have been cheating on him.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
They believe it could have been thirty year old journalist
named Stephen Coacher. Stephen disappeared just a few days after Susan,
and the problem with this claim is that there's literally
no connection to him and Susan other than the fact
that he went missing right before sheeting. Problem number two
is Stephen actually disappeared from Las Vegas, about four hundred
miles from where Susan was. So this was just a

(18:32):
ridiculous claim out of nowhere. And then his dad started
to act like the creep of all creeps. He did
an interview where he said that Susan was very sexual
towards him. Now, this is not Josh, this is his father, Steven.

Speaker 12 (18:45):
And she would bend over my lap to let me
smell her hair, or she would come in and say,
I just waxed my legs, feel my thighs. How smooth
are Seriously, this is the kind of thing that Susan
seemed to enjoy doing.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
And this creep even wrote a song about her and
posted it to his website.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's called Secretly.

Speaker 12 (19:05):
I Can Love You in a scene I Can Love
You Ancient.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
It's so creepy.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Susan's friends and family felt like these claims were complete bs.
They felt like they were just making it up and
he's just some sicko. I mean, he was definitely known
for doing some weird things with Josh when he was
a kid. They said that Susan was actually very.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Afraid of him. He creeped her out.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
He would stick his hand up the back of her shirt. Apparently,
the reason they even moved in the first place to
Utah was to get away from Stephen because he creeped
her out so much. So investigators started to think that
something was weird about Steven and they decided to search
his home, and they found a bunch of shit. Police
removed at least three computers and four boxes of material
from the house. They found four five hundred pictures of

(19:50):
Susan that was taken without her knowing, including close ups
of her body parts. On September twenty second, Stephen was
arrested for child pornography and voyeurism, which is watching someone
without their knowledge. He claimed that he was not guilty,
and once the visiators found out about this, both of
the boys were taken from Josh and put in foster care.
Susan's parents immediately tried to file for custody of the kids.

(20:11):
They started to get really worried that maybe he would
harm the kids, that they knew something or they witnessed
something while they were on that camping trip, and that
he would try to get rid of them.

Speaker 15 (20:21):
I love my sons. Yesterday I had a visit with
my sons. They ran and played and they repeatedly jumped
on my lap.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
In September of twenty eleven, the judge did grant custody
to the grandparents.

Speaker 5 (20:40):
We're happy to have them with us. When wanted the
best for the kids, and the.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Judge said that if he moved out of his dad's house,
they could do supervised visits. Josha greed, and he ended
up moving to Graham, Washington, and at first he was
only allowed to see his kids in a secure facility. However,
soon they made the decision to let Josh do in
home supervised visits. So someone still in the house watching,
but it's in your house, not at some facility. Now

(21:05):
this ended up being a huge mistake. So this is
Elizabeth Hall. She was a caseworker who was assigned to
assist the home visitations between the boys of Josh and
Elizabeth said that her and the boys became very close.
On February first of twenty twelve, Josh actually had a
court date scheduled as part of his attempt to get
his son's back and get his custody back. However, when

(21:25):
he was in court, the judge brought up a completely
new discovery. Police discovered really disturbing cartoons that were very sexual.
Because these were just drawings and not actual pictures that
he took, they couldn't arrest him. However, the judge actually
ruled that the boys would remain with their grandparents until
Josh received a psycho sexual evaluation.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
And Josh did not take this news.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Well after he got this news, investigators believed he started
concocting to the evil plan. Josh went and withdrew seven
thousand dollars out of his bank account. I think he
then went and bought a ton of gas from the
gas station, filled up at least a couple five gallon takes,
then went to a first store and donated all of
his son's toys and then February fifth, twenty twelve, that morning,

(22:09):
the boys were actually telling their grandparents how they didn't
want to go see their dad, although caseworkers did say
that when they were together everything seemed great and they
seemed really happy to be with him. His grandma reassured
him that everything was going to be fine and that
his dad had fun things for them to do and
was excited.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
To see him.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Elizabeth picked up the boys and drove them ten minutes
from the grandparents house to Josh's new house, and as
they were on their way, Josh actually wrote an.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Email to his family members.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
All it said was I'm sorry, goodbye, and then he
left a very distraught message for his.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Family without.

Speaker 8 (22:46):
And I'm not able to go on anymore.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
I'm sorry to everyone on Kurt good bye.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Josh's sister heard the boy's mail and got insanely were
and called nine one one.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
I think.

Speaker 7 (23:00):
In trouble. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
The media.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
She tried to call her brother several times, but there
was no answer. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and the boys pulled up
in the driveway, and as soon as they did, the boys.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Jumped out of the car and ran up to the
front door.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Elizabeth said, this is something that they pretty much always did,
so she didn't think anything of it, and she started
getting out of her car and walking towards the front door.
And as she was walking up to the door. He
gave her this really weird look, kind of shrugged at her,
and slammed the door in her face before she could
get inside. So the boys were in and she was not.
Elizabeth started screaming at Josh to open the door, banging

(23:43):
on the door, and then she heard Josh say, Charlie,
I have a big surprise for you, and then she
heard Brayden start crying out. We found out that at
this point Josh was attacking his sons with a hatchet.
Then Elizabeth started to smell Gasolene.

Speaker 14 (23:57):
Hey, I'm want to hips ordered visit, and something really
weird has happened. The kids went into the house and
the parents the biological parents, and came as Josh Powell
will not let me in the door. What should I do?
What's because it's eight one one nine and I I
think it's eighty ninth. I I don't know what the

(24:18):
address is.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
Okay, that's pretty important for me to know.

Speaker 14 (24:22):
I'm so I can't just gonna let me get my
car and see if I can if I can find it.
Nothing like this has ever happened before, uh, these didacations.
So I'm really shocked and I could hear one of
the kids crying, but he still would.

Speaker 5 (24:38):
Let me in.

Speaker 14 (24:39):
Okay, it is uh, you can't find me by GPS.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Nope, but I can't. I need help right away.

Speaker 14 (24:45):
He kids on a very comfort reas to pfahs and
CPS has then involved. And this is the pasiest thing.
He looks dry up me and closed the door. Are
you there?

Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah, no, I'm just waiting to know where you are. Okay.

Speaker 14 (24:58):
It's eight one one nine, one eighty nine State Courts
two hour of nine eight three seven five. And I'd
like to pull out of the driveway because they smell gasoline, and.

Speaker 5 (25:07):
He won't let me in. You wanna pull out of
the driveway because you smell gasoline, but he won't let.

Speaker 7 (25:11):
Me do well, he won't let me in.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
He won't let you out of the driveway. He won't
let me in the house. The kids in the house,
and he won't let.

Speaker 14 (25:18):
Me in if the supervised isn't How did he gain
access to the children before you got I was one
step in back of them. I walked you out, yeah,
and he hut the door right in my face. Okay,
how long will it be?

Speaker 5 (25:32):
I don't know, Ma'm they have to respond to emergency
life threatening situations. First, the first available.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Deputy could be life threatening.

Speaker 14 (25:40):
He watched court on Wednesday and he's he didn't get
his kids back. And this is really I'm a I'm
astaitful their lives.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
Okay, has he driateaten the lives of the children previously?
I have no idea. All right, well, I'm the first available.
If the deputy contact you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
And oh my god, it hiss me off they acted.
I mean, I get mad at dispatch calls all the time.
A lot of them are really great and are really
good at their job, but some of them are just
so disrespectful, and they did not understand the severity of
this emergency at all. But by the time that anyone
would get there, it'd be way too late. After several minutes,
Elizabeth tried her best to convince them to come as

(26:18):
soon as she got off the phone. Then though, she
turned around, and Josh's house completely exploded. No one survived
the explosion other than Elizabeth, who was outside.

Speaker 14 (26:39):
Okay, if the one one night and I okay, and
you up, anyone's.

Speaker 5 (26:49):
In the hell?

Speaker 14 (26:50):
Yeah, I dropped up the kilken and he wouldn't let
me in the doorkay, I'm gonna get.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
Them on the line, not hang out.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
I dropped it.

Speaker 5 (27:15):
Yet.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I mean, this was so terrible. The community was so shook.

Speaker 9 (27:21):
Or two overwhelming emotions out here this morning, deep deep
sadness and also anger. Anger that these two little boys
couldn't somehow be protected from their father, a man that
so many people feared was a killer. The fire and
apparent explosion was so powerful it shook neighbors homes and
sent bits of insulation from the house raining down on

(27:43):
the neighborhood.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
All of a sudden, the house shook and I ran
outside and you can see this black smoke.

Speaker 13 (27:50):
This wasn't tragic, This was deeply wrong.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
This was evil.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
You do not kill little kids.

Speaker 9 (27:56):
Police found three bodies in the center of the rubble,
to children and an adult. They say there was no
doubt that Josh Powell wanted to end his life and
take his little boys with him, and say an accelerant
was used to make the house burn quickly, because.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
In family of Susan are starting to think, oh, yeah,
one percent, Josh must have done something to Susan. When
Josh's father, Stephen, was notified about the incident, he didn't
even seem to care. Susan's family thinks that Stephen probably
knows something about this, but he has decided to plead
the fifth when it comes to Susan's case, and in
twenty fifteen, he finally made a statement about the case
in court. Josh's sister, Jennifer, the one who came up

(28:32):
to the house, fully believes that Josh killed his wife
and kids. She said she actually had a feeling that
he did something to Susan from like day one. Stephen
was actually released from prison on July eleventh of twenty seventeen.
He had served a total of seven years, and he
actually passed away on July twenty third of the following year,
twenty eighteen, So this last summer, the official death for

(28:53):
Josh and the two boys was carbon monoxide poisoning, and
in August of twenty twelve, the police actually released more
interesting things about Josh. Apparently, prior to her disappearance, joshuadrew
his kids from daycare, canceled Susan's regular chiropractic appointment, got
rid of her retirement account, and talked to a coworker
about how to hide a body, and he specifically talked

(29:15):
about getting rid of a body in an abandoned mind
shaft in Utah. February eleventh of twenty twelve, there was
a funeral held for the boys. The reason I didn't
make this video into like aware is Susan Powell is
because we're pretty sure Susan is not alive. Her family
is actually trying to get her legally presumed dead. So
before Josh died, he named his brother Michael as the
main beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Police had actually

(29:38):
questioned his friend Michael several times in twenty twelve, and
that's because they discovered that two years after Susan went missing,
he got rid of his car an abandoned junkyard in Oregon.
Utah authorities have actually stated that they believe that Josh
and Michael worked together in the disappearance of Susan. On
February eleventh of twenty thirteen, Michael actually took his own life.
Soon after that they closed the investigtion. But shortly after

(30:01):
that they found a handwritten will that's assumed to be Susan's,
and it said if I die, it may not be
an accident, even if it looks like one, and it
instructed the reader to not show her husband.

Speaker 7 (30:11):
Now.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
There is a lot more about this story in that book,
If I Can't Have You. There's a lot about alleged
sexual misconduct between Josh and his kids, but we're not
sure about it. There's so many questions and not many
answers because they're all gone. The book even mentions that
Josh possibly could have even starved his kids, not giving
them food, and possibly.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Could have even done this to Susan.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Turns out the relationship could have been way more abusive
than we even thought. Susan's family ended up having to
go through court battle with Josh's family, who was trying
to get her estate. They were trying to have her
legally announced as dead, but finally in March twenty fifteen,
her family got full control of her estate as it
should be, and in December of twenty seventeen, they asked
the ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals to let a

(30:53):
jury decide if Washington's Child Welfare agency is liable for
the deaths of their grandchildren, Charlie and Braiden. One of
their andes argued that the missing wife should have been
a red flag and that they never should have allowed
the kids into the house, which I completely agree with.
They knew that they were talking about their mom being
in the back of a truck. Very recently, September seventh,
a federal court announced that they were going to wait

(31:14):
on the ruling of the lawsuit against the Washington State
Welfare Services. So at this point, we're still kind of
waiting to see what happens with that. But I'm very
interested to see if they will hold them responsible. Do
you think they should be responsible? Do you think they
will be held responsible or there'll be.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Some justice for this.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
It's hard because you know those agencies are trying their best,
but oftentimes a lot of these kids end up in
such shitty situations that could have been prevented because of
mistakes like this.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
So I'm very.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Curious about your guys' opinions on this. I know this
story is so sad. I have like no happy ending.
My heart goes out to anyone personally connected to the family.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
In any way.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I just cannot imagine going through this. What a terrible,
terrible tragedy. But that's it for me today. Guys, definitely
let me know your thoughts on the case. Be sure
to hit the thumbs up button if you like. This video,
and don't forget to subsc ribes so you don't miss
any more of my content.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Hit the notification bell too. But that's it for me today.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Guys, stay safe and I will see.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
You this time.

Speaker 11 (32:07):
Bye, where your go