Obsessed: The Susan Powell Case

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's kJ here and I am back for another episode of Unspeakable.

1:02 What are you doing? How the hell are things in your neck of the woods? I hope they're going fantastic. I've had a pretty good day to day. I'm gonna lie. I'm recording this in the afternoon, and I found out today that I was Teacher of the month. Thank you, Beta Club. I'm having a good old time over here, so let that be your inspiration. Guys, it only takes seventeen years. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, but I've had a good seventeen years. But I got to be Teacher of the month for the first time, and I'm pretty excited about it. Now let's do some shout outs. And before I can go anywhere, I have to have everybody in Bush, Louisiana stop what they are doing. You stop right now. You stop people, if you're in traffic, wave them down, tell them to stop, because I have to tell them about Jessica Taylor. Jessica Taylor deserved a shout out last episode, and I jumped right into my episode and I did not even give a shout out to her. What was I thinking? Jessica let me know about it too. She said she had her friends listening.

1:59 And then I did not do shout outs. I owe everybody an apology last episode. I guess I was excited and I just jumped right into it. So, Jessica MF and Taylor, Jessica Taylor in Bush, Louisiana, this shout out is for you. I am so thankful to have you and I'm so glad that you joined my Patreon. I hope that things are going super well for you. Thank you for supporting my show and for your kind words. And please accept my apology, girl, because you're my friend. You are my friend, and I should have done this sooner So, anyway, how is everybody in Bush, Louisiana, Jessica? Tell everybody I said, Hey, pat yourself on the back because you're just awesome and thank you for messaging me. And I can't wait to keep talking to you because we're friends now and we're gonna be talking on Patreon. Now, let's follow up with Hillsboro, Missouri. That's where Trista Odd is. Hey, Trista, how are things over there in Missouri? I have a friend that lives there. Her name's Natasha. She likes it there.

2:49 I've never been to Missouri. I need to add that again to my list. I haven't been to a lot of places. But thank you so much, Trista. And then in round Lake Beach, Illinois. That sounds pretty Round Lake Beach, Illinois. I've got Cherie Carter. How are you, Sarie? You might be my cousin because I have family that's Carter's are you my cousin? Thank you so so much for supporting my show. And then, last but not least, in Jonesville, North Carolina, is Leslie West Hi, Leslie. I hope that you are having a fantastic day, and I want to just again, thank you so much. For supporting the show and making my dreams come true, because I really could not do this without you. I'm going to be doing this full time soon and I can't wait. I'm so excited now. The case I'm doing today, I have been wanting to do this one for a long time and I use it in my classroom lectures, and so I finally sat down and I started putting pen to paper after I got a few requests for it as well.

3:44 So if you're one of those people that reached out and said, hey, will you do this one, look here it is. I wasn'tlying to you. I've been wanting to do it, and I've got a good hold on this case and it's mind blowing. So the reason I'm telling you that is it will take me two episodes to do this one. And it's not because I'm trying to lead you on. It's because there is so much shit in this one that it's going to take me two episodes. So y'all come with me to Utah. It's two thousand and nine and Susan and Josh Powell are a happily married couple who met in college, started this romance and then it blossomed into a lifelong commitment of marriage. Susan was one of four daughters to Chuck and Judy Cox, and they grew up in a traditional Mormon family. She loved animals and horseback riding. She was a girl's girl.

4:33 She liked to get her nails done and get her hair done, and on occasion, as a teen, she would try to be rebellious, and it never really worked out. If we're being honest about it, she wasn't very good at being rebellious. She just was too good hearted. So she might try to be bad, but she really wasn't good at it. And on occasion she would step out of her comfort zone and she would try new things, but for the most part, she stayed reined in and was a good girl. She loved going to church. She was fond of going to school and had lots of friends there. She was well liked, and she also sang into sang in the choir. She tried cosmetology school after graduation, but it just didn't really pan out and it wasn't something that she continued to chase. But that's when she met Josh. She was eighteen years old and their meeting was all because of the church So this church that they were a part of held these social events for young single Mormons to come and meet one another that were similar and obviously of the same faith. So they met there. She was eighteen, Josh was in his early twenties. Now, I obviously am not an expert in the Mormon Church, so I don't want anyone coming at me, But I did look this up to kind of verify where I was going with this, and I found that the Mormon Church encourages marriage to other Mormons. And I don't think that that's strange. I think Christians like to marry Christians, and so on and so forth. They put on a lot of these events for these young singles so that

6:05 they could find people that were of similar faith or the same faith, and that they could raise children and get married and all those good things. Josh and Susan were smitten with one another, and their relationship seemed to move pretty fast. They newly met in October, but by December they were engaged. Not a little too quick for my speed, but hey, everyone's different, and maybe they just knew, and they knew that they wanted to marry one another, so it went by super super quick. Now, Susan was not a huge person. She was five foot four, she was one hundred and thirty pounds. I would describe her as having she has pretty full lips. Her lips were very pretty, and she had these big, bright, beautiful blue eyes.

6:49 It's probably her feature that I'm drawn to most when I look at her, brown, auburnish hair, just a pretty girl. Her weight would fluctuate back and forth like we all do, but it doesn't matter that this was just a beautiful, beautiful woman. Josh he was a little different from her. He was tall, and he was skinny, and if you look at his pictures, he's kind of got this boyish look to him. Even if he has facial hair, he still looks young. He looks boyish. Something about him doesn't doesn't seem to mature and very unassuming with that youthful face that you see. He's got chubby cheeks. His face is thin and and he's narrow, but those cheeks are just kind of chubby, and his lips powed out a little bit. Very confident and comfortable with with girls, although most people would probably describe him as dorky. So he's one of those people that maybe if you just saw a picture of him, you didn't get it. But then once he started talking people, you know, girls go oh, I get it. And if you're a woman right now, you probably understand what I'm saying. But the personality when he was young just really drew people. I guess to him he was ambitious but nerdy, and he reminds me of Ferris Bueller. You remember that Farris Bueller's day out, but without the swag or the charm. He just kind of looks like Ferris bueller Ish to me in a strange way. But Susan found him attractive either way. She thought he was cute and confidence goes a long way in terms of how you look. Josh definitely outkicked his coverage in my opinion, but kudos to him for snagging

8:20 a pretty girl. But they got married in April of two thousand and one. So when they got married, it was a super traditional wedding. She wore a tasteful white gown, nothing over the top. Her hair was just in a neat, sweet little bob. The reception wasn't one of dancing and singing and all of that. It was just a room with tables and cake and kind of like just a reception, you know, sit and eat reception, very low key atmosphere, extremely traditional. But she looked lovely and he seemed happy, and they were excited to start their new life together. Now, Josh did go to school for business, but he seemed to kind of wave in an out of what he wanted to do with his life. Susan was the breadwinner in their young marriage while Josh continued to be in and out of work. He was trying to find his way professionally. Nothing out of the ordinary, just young and not necessarily sure which way he wanted to go in what direction he wanted to take to become a professional.

9:18 So they decided to move to West Valley City, Utah, because they felt like there were more job opportunities in that area. So that's where they bought their home, and they really quickly started to build their family. They would have two baby boys who made their lives complete. Charles who they called Charlie. He was four at the time that I'm telling this story, and Brayden would be two. And look, not all dads are the same. And while Josh definitely loved his boys, he did not take to the role of father naturally. He seemed to be a little detached in his parenting style. He was proud of the kids. He certainly wanted to show the boys off to people whenever they were out and about, but it kind of felt like it if there wasn't a spotlight on it, and it wasn't him being lauded as this father that he just kind of fell off in involvement unless other people were there. He didn't change dirty diapers, he didn't jump to go feeding the boys. Susan was their main caregiver. But that was just the arrangement in the way things were in their household. And I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying that's how things came across to other people. So the boys, however, I'll tell you the boys were everything that a mom could want. These are the cutest little dudes. Charlie was the oldest of the boys. Like I told you, he had dark hair and dark brown eyes, and he looked just like his daddy.

10:43 He was so precious, those big chubby cheeks and just a handsome dude. He loved nature and insects, and he was known to sneak a caterpillar or a worm into his pocket whenever he was going places, and when he was caught, he would say, okay, you got me. But his thing was he would bring that animal or that bug or whatever it was outside and he would make sure that that animal was safe and released into its natural environment before he would go about his business. He really cared about the animals. And he was looking forward to getting his first pair of glasses, which was awesome. He thought he was gonna look cool as just cool as I'll get out, because he wanted to wear those glasses while he wrote. Because he liked to write. He hoped that one day as he grew up, that he could write a book and someone would buy it. That was his jam. Now Braden, he looked a little bit different.

11:36 He had blonde hair, but those same cute cheeks that I keep talking about. You want to pinch those little cheeks. And he was a perfect mix of his parents. The thing here is I want to impress upon you that Susan always wanted to be a mother and her little boys were her world. She adored them. Everything she did was for them, and they loved their mommy and they loved their daddy with everything that they had. Now, Susan's day started like a lot of hours. She got up early and she would arrive for work around seven am or so, and the boys would go to daycare. So Debbie called Well, that's her name. She was the caregiver of the two boys daily and she would talk about how Susan and the boys were always very prompt about making it on time to daycare. Susan was on time, she was punctual, and she was very structured person. So if the boys were sick or they weren't going to be a daycare for whatever reason that day. She also Susan was very good at calling in and saying, hey, we're not going to be there and just giving a heads up to Debbie so that she would know what to expect. So on Monday, this is going to be a Monday. In December of two thousand and nine, the boys were a no call, no show, and that just was not standard. That wasn't the way that Susan operated.

12:54 So Debbie immediately thought, this is kind of strange. So she picked up the phone and she tried to call both Susan and Josh, but there was no answer from either of the phones. That's not I guess the hugest thing in the world. People get sick or oversleep or whatever. But the good news is that Susan and Debbie they were kind of close with each other, and the daycare where the boys went to was really nearby the house. So she just jumped in the van and she drove to go check on Susan and the boys. And she noticed that when she pulled into the driveway there was no tire marks in the driveway. And you're probably like, what do you mean there's no tire marks. Well, there was snow. There was fresh snow on the ground, and so she would have expected to see the tracks in the snow if someone had come or gone from the house, but it was just a blanket of snow in the driveway and no car had obviously driven up and down the driveway in any recent time. So she got out of the car. She went, She knocked on the door and there was no answer. She knocks again. Nobody. She didn't hear any sound, no movement, no nothing. So she did call the emergency contact for the boys that she had on file, and that was Josh's sister her she had well, the sister and the mother, they were both in emergency contact, so they all in discussion came to the conclusion that none of them had really spoken to Susan that morning and didn't really have any cummings or goings or anything or any contact with them, and that none of them were able to contact them or getting touched through the phone. So they all kind of went, Oh, my god, what if it was carbon monoxide? What if

14:26 they're all still in the house and nobody's answering because something got the whole family. So they call the policegency. My son and his wife and that you kill they're not responding to calls, so they're not responding to people panning on their door, and there's no trucks coming out. Of their driveway. I'm worried that maybe gas left sun or something like that. So the police get there, they look around. They obviously don't see any any foul play either. There doesn't look to be any disturbances at the house. So the police make an offer to the family. They're like, look, if you're okay with us breaking this window, will break it, but we're not responsible for paying for it. If you want us to go in and check, and the family's like, hell, yeah, do what you gotta do. We need to make sure that they're okay, So they break this big window. I have pictures of all this too, I'll put on Patreon.

15:13 But they break the big entry window right there on the porch, and then they go inside. Well, the family wasn't there, but there was something that seemed odd. There were box fans, and there were several big box fans all around the living room area, kind of just sitting on the carpet, and Josh's sister looks around and says, no, these aren't normally here. I don't know, I don't know what that's about. And their blue mini van wasn't there either. The garage was empty when they went and they checked, so the car had obviously left, but it hadn't left any time recent because there was no tracks in the in the in the driveway. Susan's purse was still there, her keys, everything that she would need was still there in the house, her wallet, her id, I mean, all of the things that you would certainly take with you if you were going somewhere. We're still in the house.

16:03 The house, by the way, wasn't immaculate. You could tell people live there, but it wasn't like a disgusting mess. It was just a lived in house. There were toys, you know about the rooms very typical. The beds weren't made, the children's beds had no sheets on them, and other than that, overall, it was an orderly home with no obvious disturbance or anything. The family was missing. The whole family was missing, and nobody had any clue where they were. So words started getting around and Susan's friends and family, as well as Josh's were beyond concerned. Well, Susan's best friend, her name was Jovanna. She went to church with Susan.

16:44 She comes forward and says, well, look, I had dinner with both Josh and Susan and the boys the night before they apparently went missing. This would have been Sunday, December sixth of two thousand and nine, so wondering kind of how what all went on during dinner. Jo i'na kind of describe the fact that Susan and her both liked to crochet. That was something that they were into and kind of interesting. Jovanna is older than Susan. When I was looking at some interviews, I mean, she's she seemed to be twenty thirty years older than Susan. But it was just kind of cute. They liked to crochet together, but they were working on a blanket and they were just chit chatting and sit on the couch when Josh came in and he offered to make dinner for everyone and he said, look, I'm making pancakes. Would y'all like me to make y'all some pancakes? And pleasantly surprised, Susan kind of perked up and was like, Okay, yeah, that'd be awesome because Josh normally did not cook and it wasn't a normal gesture for him to offer to cook.

17:39 But how cute. She has a friend over and he says, I'm going to take care of it. So he made everybody a plate. All the plates were made separately, and the ladies ate in the living room while Josh and the boys sat and ate at the kitchen table. Well. Later on, after dinner, Susan started to feel bad, like bad enough that she said, I'm sorry, Javannah, you know I'm not well. I think we need to wrap it up for the night. So Jovannah left so Susan could rest, and Josh said, well, while you rest, i'm gonna go take the boys and we're gonna go out sledding for a little while. So Jovanna and Josh walked out together with the boys and they all left about five pm. That was the last anyone had seen of anybody in this family. But then literally out of nowhere, all of a sudden, Josh's sister's cell phone rings and it's Josh Alive right there, calling a sister and he's just having this conversation with her, and she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where have y'all been? You've been missing for like twenty four hours. We haven't been able to get in touch with anybody. Well, she was relieved, you know that he that he called her, But she's kind of like, hey, where are the kids? Where Susan are y'all? Okay? Did you break down? What happened? And she's throwing out all these questions at him, and Josh comes across as rather confused and says, what do you mean, what do you mean?

18:59 Where are we? The caking kids are with me. We're on our way home from our camping trip. And she's the sister questions, Okay, well where is Susan And he's like, I don't know. She was at home. He said she went to go laid under rest. She wasn't feel good after we had dinner a day ago, and so I decided to take the boys and we were going to go sledding. And I took them out and we went and did a little camping trip together. Well, this obviously started to panic them because they both now realize that Susan wasn't home. And so Josh became so panicked by this that he and the boys rushed home. They jumped in the car and they started rushing home. But he did go to a place called Point of the Mountain and he placed a phone call to Susan from that point where he had good service, and he left her a voicemail.

19:46 I thought, we are on our way back, and. I can't believe that sometime my brain missed the day. I talked today with Sunday. So that was really really stupid. Right, I'll talk to La. So we've all been listen to these stories long enough to know that when you said my brain missed a day, that was really stupid. It kind of sounded strange. That's kind of odd. How does your brain miss a day? But whatever, a little over an hour later, Josh made it back home and there he met with the police and they were like, we need to talk to you. We've got to figure out what's going on here, and he said, no problem, and he went down to the substation to answer questions with the police. But he insisted on bringing his boys with him rather than letting someone else watch the boys. And so while this question and answer is going on, he would absolutely answer the questions when the police would pose them, but nothing that he said was of great certainty. It was almost kind of evasive and very like, you know what y'all do. Oh, we went out camping and that was about it. Okay, well where did you go. Oh we set up a campsite. Okay, where was your campsite?

20:48 Oh? It was by these trees, by a Just nothing seemed to be of great certainty. And while the police were trying to kind of hone him in and get more direct answers, it always really seemed to be a distraction for Josh during the interview. And so they would want a drink, or they would be hungry or want a snack and doing what kids do, but Josh would constantly stop to fix that or help them, and it didn't seem like he was really focusing in on the questions from the police. But what the police did find was that he had driven down a place. It was called the Pony Express. He had driven down the Pony Express and he said that he went about twenty miles to a place called Simpson Springs and he said, that's where we set up camp, he said, They said, tell us specifically what you did there. He so, I set up a heater. I lit a fire for the camp. Once I got everything unloaded. It was a good fire, and so we sat down. We had some moars, Me and the boys cooked those by the fire. We had fun, and then we just snuggled in for the night after we had our dessert. So if that was the case, then obviously there should be supplies in the car, right, That's what we would all go to check. So the police asked him, Hey, can we go look at your van?

22:00 Josh readily said sure, no problem, And so they go out there, and first I'll tell you, these people are just like us. Susan and Josh are just like us. The interior of their van is exactly what you would expect. The interior has crumbs from snacks and trash from the kids thrown on the ground, and you can just tell that it's a well loved, well lived in vehicle. There's a car seat in there. It's gray with these black and blue straps on it or stripes on it. And when they got to the back and they searched the back, sure enough there was all the camping gear, just like Josh had said. There also, to be specific, was the some Moor's supplies that was opened and used. There were tarps, there was a shovel. They searched all the interior of the vehicle. They found in the center console just some coins and things like that. They did also find a cell phone there which was identified as Susan's, but it wasn't quite clear if this was her current cell phone or if this was an old one that she didn't use anymore. So they did log that into evidence. But everything in the vehicle went along with what Josh had claimed had happened. So it was now December ninth, and the police started searching the Powell residence for any clues that my could lead them in a direction at least to investigate for Susan's whereabouts. But when I tell you nothing, I'm telling you zero zilch nada, there was literally nothing to even send them in a direction to go check where Susan might be. The next day, December the tenth,

23:32 the police decided to drive out and they wanted to search that area where Josh had said that he was camping. Now, in their notes, I will tell you they were unable to locate the specific site of the camp site, but they did drive out there to where Josh said in the general area that he had camped. So some more days went by, no one has heard from Susan specifically, five days went by and the police were literally no closer checking things out. They were doing everything that they could, but nothing. And Josh did agree that he would come in an interview with them again, but he also decided to retain an attorney at this point. I know a lot of people right there would go, well, why do you need an attorney. I'm gonna tell you something right now, if you think for some for an instant that you're a suspect in something that might be big, I don't blame him for retaining an attorney. That seems like a very reasonable thing for me, especially in today's times, whenever you're uncertain about maybe what's going on, it does look weird, but I don't blame him for retaining an attorney. After he retained the attorney. This is where my nose kind of squnched up. He had agreed to do the interview after he retained the attorney, though he was a no call, no show for that follow up interview. This could have been on the advice of his attorney, but I personally doubt it. Maybe wanting your attorney present would be advised, but I don't know a defense attorney alive. That would just be like, no call, no show, no nothing, because

25:04 that certainly doesn't look good. The West Valley City Police were frustrated by this, and they decided at this point that they were going to just switch and go on the offensive, and so they started to. They just announced it out to the public because it had been days and they're like, look, Josh Powell has now failed to show up for an interview that we had scheduled, and because of that, we kind of feel like this might be a development. And they put that out there in the news, I think, to kind of stoke the flames there and see what Josh would do. But it didn't really drum up exactly what they thought it would so changing tactics. The police decided to see what the kids may could tell them, and so they set up what's called a forensic interview now a forensic interview if you're not familiar. This is an intricate, specialized process, which is great.

25:53 I'm a fan of these forensic interviews. I think they're incredible, and the conversations that are set up because it's a child that you are interviewing, they are structured with a purpose, and they are conducted by a specially trained professional to do this. So it's not just your random detective that just comes in and says, all right, well, let me just talk to this four year old or this six year old or this seven year old. They really decided a long time ago that there needed to be a process to this because they're children. The ultimate goal here is to gather reliable information, number one, and because you're speaking to a child, sometimes that can be iffy. So the second thing is that it's set up not only to protect the kids from receiving leading questions like oh, did your mom hurt your dad? That'd be way more to leading in that instance. It's set up more in a comfortable atmosphere so it doesn't scare the kids. And so the goal is to minimize trauma and to use developmentally appropriate questioning in the techniques to keep the child comfortable and to keep them talking. So what is the typical setup? Like I wanted to tell you a little bit about it if you've never seen something like this.

27:12 The room is designed to look like a comfy living room. It is the polar opposite of an interrogation room that an adult might be put in that's very cold, and you know, a chair and a table and that's it. No, this is like you're in your mama's living room and there's couches, stuffed animals, a lamp on the table. They have papers and colors for the kid to drop be downd color if they want to. There's a rug, there's blankets, very cozy, very comfy. And because children could be possibly influenced or kind of concerned about the reactions of people they love or that are in control of them, because they might be concerned about that, the worry here is that it would affect a child's response during the interview.

27:58 So in order to avoid this, usually only the interviewer and the child are present in the interview. The interview room, no parent or guardian would be in there for this now before if that makes you kind of jump back, the interview is filmed and recorded the entire time, so there are no secrets while the child is in the room with the interviewer, and the interviewer also may be working with a team of investigators which are in another room, and the interviewer with the child would wear an earpiece and the investigator can ask questions that to the interviewer that that interviewer can then mold to be appropriate for the child that they're gonna question about that information. And if you're interested in this more, I do want to tell you I'm putting a link in the show notes so you can see everything that's involved because I'm being kind of brief in the overview and I have a lot of college students that reach out to me and say, hey, I'm writing a paper on this, or hey, can you help me with that. Go look in the show notes, look at that link. It's a good document for you to go. Learn a whole lot about how this is done.

28:57 So when they set this up, Charlie would talk. He was a talkative little boy. Brayden not so much. He didn't have much to say, but Charlie said a few things, just a few that were just curious. It really did make you kind of go, hmm, what do you mean by that? What were you camping with? My dad, my mom and my Nami Dragger? But he clearly says that his mama was there and he was camping with mama and dad and brother. You heard him, He's very clear about that. But was maybe he mistaken mom was in the van according to him. But y'all, he's just four years old. He's just a little fella. So some things he says, while that seems very clear, some other things that he says don't make sense throughout the interview, Like at one point he said that you saw an airplane park while they were camping. Well, obviously that didn't happen.

29:55 And so looking further into this whole type of interview, you'll realize that kids tend to confuse times and reality when they're little and they're doing they're telling a story of what happened. They may combine experiences or say things that they did that actually they may have just watched on TV. And so it's really hard to decipher and you would need a professional to kind of give their opinion on what they meant. But he also said something along the lines of his mom stayed at the park with the crystals, so that was kind of eyebrow raising the crystals. Did he mean snow did he mean icicles?

30:37 Did he mean snowflakes? The police were never really able to narrow down or clarify what he meant by that, so the police decided to confront Josh with what the kids had said about Susan going camping with them, and when they did, Josh was immediately offended. He was over the top offended that they would even imply that, and he ended the interrogation. He didn't want to talk because he was so just hurt by the fact that they would imply that he had brought his wife and lied about it. And I know, I know that it can seem offensive for a spouse to hear harsh questions and quite frankly pointed ones when their spouse is missing, But this is an unfortunate reality that has to be done when you're trying to figure out a missing person. And we all know that we look at spouses first. Come on, So when Josh leaves from that interview, he basically disappears for the next eighteen hours. The police are unable to find him during this time, so they had put a tracker, unbeknownst to Josh, on his van because they were thinking, okay, when he gets in the van. A lot of times if someone did something to somebody, they go back to the site to make sure it's not disturbed something along those lines. Well, here comes Josh with his strange way of going about things. Because the van never moved, So the police are like, whoa, why is the tracker broken?

32:05 What happened? Well, guess what. The van was still parked because Josh went and rented a Ford Focus. Now it took the police some time to figure this out, but they did so. Whenever he returned the rental, the police were right there, swooped on in and they wanted to go see where he went, and they found that he traveled a distance of eight hundred and seven miles on the car. That's a lot of miles. But because there was no tracker on this car, no GPS or anything like that, the police were never able to figure out where he had gone. But again, weird as hell. So Susan's family and friends had been out this entire time.

32:45 They were placing flyers. They were trying to get the word out to anybody that would listen. Their thoughts were, if she stranded, or if she's somewhere she doesn't want to be, let's at least plaster everywhere we can with her face so people would recognize her. News the local news channels, they updated the status of her missing person case almost nightly. Locally. Everybody knew that Susan was missing. The progress was just slow. There was not much to go to go on at this point. But December the sixteenth, police were really in the mood to designate Josh as their only person of interest. They weren't yet willing to say he was a suspect, but they really were on the edge here of saying, you're pretty much who we have to focus on right now. So Chuck Cox, that was Susan's daddy, Chuck Cox, told the media on December the seventeenth that he was saddened but not surprised that Josh was named a person of interest in his daughter's disappearance.

33:47 So he felt like Josh wasn't saying enough, and that's his baby girl, So it wasn't really a shock to him because he felt like Josh should have been doing more. On December the twentieth, just a few days later, vigils were set up and organized and they were being held in Susan's name. Her friends and some of her family had organized these vigils topped off with purple ribbons for people to wear to remember her and to try to remember to look for her and help us. But as the days passed, y'all know, this hope is really starting to fade as the days go on. Reporters were there at the vigil, though. Reporters with cameras were at the vigil, and when they started filming, Josh got upset and he left.

34:34 And his whole argument was that he didn't want the attention on him and the kids. He didn't want his kids exposed to all this media attention. And again I can understand that he would though speak to them briefly at one point, but he really didn't have much to say to the cameras other than just sadness as he spoke to them. I've been trying to figure out. What I can do so I don't sit idle. I'm dealing with this repeatedly. So after talking to the media and showing up at the vigil, more days would go by and Susan again nothing heard or seen from. That's when Josh decided that he was going to move away from Utah altogether. So January eighth, josh Is officially moved from Utah to puallup Washington.

35:25 And why did he go there? Well, I wanted to know a little bit about that, so I'm gonna tell you. This is where he and Susan had both grown up, and he obviously took the kids with him whenever he went there. And I want you to remember, Susan had been the breadwinner in their marriage. So I'm assuming that the reason that he moved there was a financial decision rather than just a distance one. He moved into a house with his own dad whenever he moved, so once he moves in with his dad, his dad started talking more about Susan publicly, but so did Josh. I don't know if the comfort of having a parent around made him want to talk more or what, but he started to open up, and this included that he was saying Susan was struggling with mental illness and he thought that maybe that was why she had left. There was also another man that Josh mentioned, and this man's name was Stephen Kosher from Saint George, Utah, who disappeared right at the same time that Susan did, and Josh felt like maybe she had run off with him after a romantic rendezvous.

36:34 So a little bit about this Stephen guy. Stephen was active in his church and he was active in his home life in Saint George. He had been gone though, for a few days, and that was when the hoa of the Anthem neighborhood in Henderson, Nevada, contacted his parents about an abandoned car that they had found. They identified it as his car, and they said that it was parked at the end of a cul de sac in their neighbors. It was about that time because this was not near where he lived or his parents. His parents said, oh my god, you know, we haven't talked to him in days. Where could he be? And so they reported him missing. No one knew why he would have been in Vegas. First of all, because he had gone through Vegas.

37:16 They did know that he was looking for a new job. But police also were able to verify not only had he gone through Vegas, but that he had stopped to eat lunch with his ex girlfriend's parents at one point, and then that's whenever he ultimately parked the car. So police investigated this vehicle, and they went around to the houses nearby and they looked at all the home security cameras and that's where they determined that he himself had been the one that parked the car. There he got out, he turned back shortly thereafter to go get something out of the car, you couldn't really tell what it was, and then he walked away out of frame, never to be seen or heard from again. Like to this day, y'all, he is never been heard or seen since this happened.

38:04 There was some activity on his cell phone over the next seventy two hours, but then nothing, it stops ever again, nothing ever again, has ever been heard about him or seen. So Josh opened up to the Salt Lake Tribune and he explained a little bit more about Susan's mental state at that time, and he explained that she had felt immense pressure from her family because they had expectations of perfection from her, and that it had been that way for a long long time. So he also attempting to be proactive, Josh and his dad, who by the way, was also named Stephen, they set up a website that was aimed to help find Susan, and it went in depth, like really really deep about these discussions of why they felt that there was a connection between Susan's disappearance and Stephen Kosher's disappearance. Now, this website was Susan Powell dot and I want to caution you real quick, if you're curious, please do not go to that website, because I did and someone has taken it over and you will get a virus. So don't go to that website. I learned that one the hard way, but I was able to do some sleuthing and I did find the actual website where it was archived, and I've got that from my people on Patreon. I'll post it so y'all can go see it, but I'm warning you, please don't do that on your computer. You're gonna mess it up. So the actual website is covered in photos of Susan smiling, and it even has photos that of what looks to be

39:34 it's a heart with an arrow through it, and it's got Susan's signature underneath it. And it looks like they took a picture from a card maybe that she signed or something, and it's got that posted on there. But the website and I went through it and I read all of it. The website goes on and on about the family of Susan and how their followers have been less than kind to Josh. So when I'm saying Susan's family, I mean her parents and her siblings and her friends. The whole website was set up to supposedly help find Susan, but really it just seems like it's this this expose written by It always says we feel like so I'm guessing Josh and his dad, But it really is more like knocks at Susan's family for being mean to Josh more than it is finding Susan. And then there's a tab that explains the similarities between Susan and Steven, So both of them disappeared to the same week December of two thousand and nine. They both share important beliefs, as it said, quote unquote, and the same personality traits, including their faith in the Mormon religion. And then it said that Susan really enjoyed her colleagues and that she enjoyed her financial independence. I was not quite sure what that was supposed to prove to me. Between Susan and Stephen, I wasn't quite I didn't really that didn't tell me much about her and Steven maybe possibly knowing one another.

41:05 And then in a strange thing here there's a comparison of both of their work histories. And the thing is, again I went through it, and the comparison it shows doesn't amount to much of anything. I'm not sure what was trying to be proven, but it fell really short. In whatever it was, it basically lists how Susan was a call center rep for Fidelity Investments and then became a stay at home mom before she was rehired, and then she became a stay at home mom again, and then she went back to work for to be a call rep for Wells Fargo. And then it lists how Steven's work history was that he worked as an intern for the Utah Governor's office, and then he went and he worked for the Salt Lake Tribune Online before he moved to Salt Lake City working as a sales rep for a company, and then he disappears. So whatever the quote unquote link was between all of that. I guess I'm dense because I couldn't tell what he was trying to tell me.

42:00 There. The personality link was another tab that you could click, and it claimed that there were so many similarities between them, this is probably why they ran off together. Things like they were around the same age, that they both liked to be outdoorsy, they both liked music. Well, shit, that's everybody I know. We go outside, we listen to music. It didn't really ring as this definitive proof of anything. But it then says that they both suffered emotional problems, specifically according to sources close to Stephen Kosher. Again, this is written on the website. I'm not saying people that know Stephen said this. I'm saying the website says this.

42:41 He was taking medications for a social disorder. Kosher was apparently also angry with his father when he left in December of two thousand and nine. Then there's a column for Susan Powell that says that she's always struggled with emotional issues and anger management problems, and then it gets specific, saying this is documented as early as November seventeenth, nineteen ninety two, when she was eleven years old because as a child, Susan went to a psychologist because her mom, Judy, wanted her to go. And then there's this sentence that says, we love Susan and we know she does the best she can after what she's been through with her parents. So again it kind of seems like a backhanded statement and it's it kind of attacks the Cox family there. Interestingly, it also outlines how Stephen was single, but that there was also a secret double life for Susan, which her own father supposedly confirmed. The website claims that Susan had a secret plan to divorce her husband on their next wedding anniversary, so it kind of gave a date. So according to friends and family. I will tell you that the website I don't believe actually spoke to any friends or family. It's just like he's saying this and writing it because he said, according to friends and family, Susan was being pressed to divorce her husband because Josh Powell was a quote unquote lukewarm Mormon. It then adds that the writer of the website believes Susan set this date in order to put off the family and friends because

44:13 they were pressuring her to divorce her husband because she wanted to try to be happy in spite of the monumental pressure that she was feeling with in herself and others. But the main thing again that you notice if you look at this web page, which again I'm going to post for you, is that it seems like Josh wrote every single word in it, and it panders to his own victimization and everything. It never really addresses the issue of the missing wife and that the mother of your children has not been seen or heard from in a long time. Something else, though, that had been happening was that someone else had been doing some writing, and the words in these letters that would come to light would be eye opening. That someone was Susan Powell, and what what she had written is painful to me to read.

45:04 As a I like to think I'm a woman's woman. Okay. I support women, and I want women to be happy and healthy, and I want women to support other women and not be a part of the mean girl world that we have out there. And when I'm looking at the writings that Susan did through the lens of a friend, my heart would hurt for her. If we were personal friends. I have some direct quotes from her writings because I didn't want to put words in her mouth. But I've shortened them for clarification's sake so that I can just kind of get to the point. But she wrote, I want my marriage to work out. I told my husband he's depressed and that he has issues, and that we, as a family of four, are not happy, and we are not showing our children how a husband and a wife should interact. We are messing up our children. You can tell that she puts these boys first and foremost, no matter what their problem were. She wanted her boys to have a good example of what parents should be, and then she wrote, if I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one. Take care of my boys. I want my parents, Judy and Chuck Cox, very involved and in charge of their lives.

46:17 If they aren't there, my sister can hopefully be responsible. I love my boys, I live for them, and I choose not to cheat or do drugs because I wouldn't want to risk losing them. I love you, Charlie and Braden, and I'm sorry you've seen how wrong and messed up our marriages. I will never leave you, so imagine feeling so lost and distant from your spouse that you felt the need to say your death might not be an accident, and then to put the words on paper, I will never leave you to your babies. Ugh. That makes my heart, my mama heart ache to be thinking that way, and then you do actually go missing on top of that coincidence, I think not so. Susan had been very open with her friends before her disappearance about all the troubles that they were having in their marriage.

47:11 Josh managed all of the money and he was beyond frugal. Nothing she did seemed to be of his liking. It didn't matter what she did. She even wrote that in one of her writings, she said that he doesn't want to do counseling and says that if I buy groceries only for cheap sale prices, would he be happy with a well purchased bargain deal of a meal in his stomach? And he also said that would solve their marital problems and that the only reason he was mean to her. You're gonna like this, he says. The only reason that he was mean to her is because quote of the Republicans end quote and then He mentioned something about how terrible the economy is because of the quote Republicans, and if that were fixed, then they wouldn't have the marital problems that they're having. That is so weird to me.

48:00 He wanted her to go find food at certain price points that were completely unreasonable. Okay, the price points because of just the cost of living were unreasonable, but that's what he wanted her to fix, And then he said their marriage would be okay. How fucking dumb is that you can't be happy because of the cost of your groceries, like bra There are bigger things to fight over in the world. Not to mention that Josh had no problem spending money on the things he felt were important, you know, like building himself a really cool, big and fancy supercomputer. He had no problem spending his money on that. But the groceries, h hmm, those better be cheap. Talk about like suck the fun out of your life. At the same time as he's being very controlling over the money, he started withdrawing in terms of affection became a super touch me not He did not want Susan to be around him, and he was very withdrawn. Also in the bedroom, most people at this point would go Okay, well, if he's withdrawn and all of that, then obviously he was having an affair and he was getting his pleasure elsewhere.

49:04 But I'm gonna mix that right now. There was no affair going on. I know that there wasn't, so what was it. The fights were escalating and Susan was wanting out, but she wanted more for her babies than she did want to get out, you know, for herself. One argument, she even pushed him because they got so angry. She pushed him and he turned around and said, if you ever touch me again, I'm gonna hit you. Now. There's no proof for a report or anything that ever happened, that he hit her, but the story was one that she had told her friends, and it really just kind of rocked her world that he would even say that. So she went to a divorce lawyer for a free consultation that was being offered, and she never actually filed for divorce, but she did entertain the idea and on the advice of that attorney from that free counseling session, he said that she should go and film everything from inside their home. I'm assuming this was for a property settlement should things go that way in a divorce proceeding.

50:00 I want you to listen to her. This is her in a recording she made, and it's a portion of her filming her asset. This is me July twenty nine, two thousand and eight, covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us, that our assets are documented and here is are safe. Got all sorts of files, financial information, speakers, five point one star around sound, broke this and through all my DVDs and made a minute. There's a hole in that wall. A full diamond necklace. My mom bought jade. That's a family heirloon, not worth thousands of dollars. But I have assets, so. I may not know much, I guess, but I do know the sound of a woman who is tired, and she sounds like she's over it. She doesn't want to do this anymore. She may have been getting close to being ready to take the leap, but she certainly hadn't gone over the edge yet. If Josh would have participated in the marriage, it probably wouldn't have come to this.

50:55 But he just was too far withdrawn at this side and she was doing everything she could to save them marriage, but she couldn't do it one sided. She did bring it up, though, and Josh threatened her and said, if you try to divorce me, you will never see your babies again. He would fight her tooth and nail for custody and he would win, and she believed him because he was, after all, the leader of their household. Now, outside looking in, it seems obvious that that wouldn't happen that way. But when you're a woman who feels real fear of consequences of losing your children, possibly I could see why she would believe that that was a possibility. But Susan wasn't a fool, and due to these threats, she had gone and opened a safety deposit box at the bank that Josh was unaware of. And when the police realized this, they went and they looked at the contents of that secret deposit box and lo and behold, there were DVDs of her recordings inside, as well as some savings, bonds and some other things. But there was also a handwritten will and testament on loose leaf. It was written in blue ink and when I tell you written top to bottom, left to right, full on back and forth on both sides. I'm not exaggerating. And on the front of the letter it read for the family and friends of Susan Powell, all except Josh Powell my husband.

52:18 I don't trust him. And it was dated Saturday, June twenty eighth, two thousand and eight. So by now you can imagine, with all of this going on, Susan's parents wanted answers. It had been months their daughter was nowhere to be found, and they wanted to know why the hell Josh hadn't been arrested yet, or any of y'all wondering this, Like there's a lot going on. Well, circumstantial evidence just isn't enough. And whenever the police went to the DA to try to get him arrested, they said, you have to wait twelve months with nobody. We're not going to proceed without charges, with charges if we don't have a body. And so again we're looking at just circumstantial evidence here. But Josh whenn't closed all of their bank accounts. He even cashed out Susan's retirement fund, Like what the fuck? Why would you cash out her retirement fund.

53:04 Josh's own sister was like, oh, hell no. So she went to the police and she said, look, I'll wear a wire. I will go undercover for you and I'll see if I can get my brother to confess about where Susan is. And this was in January of twenty ten. So she does. They wire her up. This sister's a freaking beast y'all. They wire her up and she goes into the house. So you can listen to this audio, and she's kind of playing the game, just small talk and chatting with the kids. Charlie is super excited because of his upcoming birthday, and you know, she kind of plays the game, but eventually she just cuts to the chase. She pulls her brother into a bathroom and point Blake asks him about Susan. Here's a little bit of audio from that wire that she was wearing. I want you to know it's a bit grainy because it's a hidden wire and it's not in the studio, of course, but go ahead and give this a listen. I'm trying to tell her.

53:55 To that where is Susan? It stop anymore. I can see You're right, they're still there. You're wrong. I think you just to confess now, don't be ridiculous. I know what I've done, and I haven't done anything. I've been told to every stat I'm not going to violate my. Attorney, violate your attorney's directions. It's your sister, bro, it's your sister in the privacy of your own home, and your wife is missing, and you're going to say, on your attorney's instructions you don't want to talk to her.

54:37 It's your sister, it's your wife. Why would you not do anything or say anything? But I get it. He wants to close his mouth. So Josh then turns and runs to their daddy and tells him about the pressure that his sister is putting on him, and that on that same wire, when Josh runs to his daddy, the dad then Steven, the dad comes running in and he calls Jennifer a goddamn fucking bitch for talking about her brother and then promptly kicks her out of the house. It is the strangest chain of events that I've heard on a wire in a while. So police are still a little loss. They continue to check every avenue possible, and they even questioned Josh's former coworkers, and they brought to the police's attention a comment that Josh had made in the past that was just kind of off putting to them, and that was specifically that Josh had told them that if he wanted to get rid of a body, he would throw it down and abandon mind shaft. So in light of this, they go and the police search all these minds and these desolate areas of desert looking for Susan. I mean, it had been months and they still had nothing to show for this, but of course the media wasn't giving up. And Josh is now living at his dad's house. Well, his dad really took the reins at this point, and he kind of runs interference between Josh and the He'll only crack the door if anyone goes up there and they want to ask questions. Well, Susan's parents, they're done playing games at this point. They

56:07 go to TV anybody that would listen. This includes Doctor Phil y'all if you want to go watch the Doctor Phil episode, I'll link it in my Patreon. They went to national media, local media, anybody that would listen, and they called Josh out. They were done being polite with him. They even took out a whole ass billboard right outside of the neighborhood where Josh was living, asking for any information about the whereabouts. They offered a reward, but it had been eighteen months and Josh now he wasn't saying anything to anyone. Well, on August the twentieth of twenty eleven, the Coxes decided to set up what they called a Honkin' wave and they thought that this might put pressure on Josh. So they're standing out there basically on this corner in front of a gas station. They have these huge signs with Susan's face on it, and they're asking people to hank and basically honk and support of Susan being fanned. And they're waving the sign said remember me, and it had a ten thousand dollars reward on it.

57:04 It got a lot of attention, and the news showed up. Well, when the news showed up and all these people were honking, guess who pulled up in their car and jumped out none other than Josh's dad. Now, Josh's dad is wearing blue jeans and this black tucked in shirt with a belt, and he approaches the Cox family on camera and he is pissed. Listen to what he tells the parents of his missing daughter in law when he's speaking to Komo News for this is. A story that I shop at. The only place is where they've passed out flyers about Susan, the only place where they've put up billboards, the only place where they've duct taped flyers to light pulse.

57:46 How is you coming here helping to find Susan? It isn't helping to find Susan. How is your standing at our neighborhood market helping define Susan? What in the hell is that about? Rather than feeling pleased that Susan hasn't been forgotten, he's feeling horrazed, bizarre. We all know that this is strange, and I get it. You're protecting your son, but damn, Susan's missing. Your children haven't seen their mother in eighteen months. Like, what are you doing? Bro? You need to figure something out. If that's not bad enough, then a van comes screeching up and guess who jumps out. Josh, the very guy that says he wants to shield his children from the media. He comes screeching up, jumps out. He's got cameras filming the other cameras as if that's doing something and the whole time is children are in the van sitting there looking out while the cameras are filming his children. So it just made no sense. But what it did do was evolve into Josh agreeing to do an interview and sit down, and y'all are not gonna believe where this goes before that would end up happening though, just three days later, after this whole blow up, on August the twenty third, Josh went down to the courthouse and made a big stink saying that the Coxes were stalking him and that they had threatened him in the chill. And so this whole discord between the two families is just at an all time high. So two days later, on August twenty fifth, Josh would sit down for that media interview and he does answer questions on camera.

59:11 I'm gonna tell you, he looks frail, he looks sick, he looks tired, and he's in this maroon polo, just sitting there on camera, and while he's answering the questions, his dad is in the background, almost like a manager in a weird way, but he's it's like he's somewhat overseeing the process. But he would constantly insert and interject, and the reporter at the time kind of felt like, why are you wanting to be so involved in this interview so much? Why are you wanting the spotlight on you? Is kind of what it seems like. And eventually Steven, the dad, just kind of intervenes and they end up putting him on camera where he drops a bombshell that no one is prepared for. Basically, once he even was miked up and had the camera on him, he was chomping at the bit, chomping at the bit to make the claim that he and Susan, his daughter in law, were involved sexually. Wait what you're saying? You were messing around with Susan and he was, That's what he says was going on. He adds that he was basically falling in love with her. And while he's giving all of this just what the hell information, Josh doesn't have much to say in response at all, And any man, I feel like would have his pride hurt at minimum with

1:00:42 his own dad saying he's messing around with his wife. But Josh just literally sits there silent, doesn't really have much to add. Stephen says that, oh yeah, me and Susan. We were very flirtatious and sexual with each other, and things were just really, you know, just kind of hot and heavy between the two of us. And he even goes into detail telling about this one story of an interaction of them together at the park. I want you to hear him say it. I don't want to repeat it to you. Listen to Josh's dad talk about his sexual relationship with his son's daughter. Susan was very very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious.

1:01:23 I mean, she was just she did it. I did. I mean we interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. One day we were at an animal park. I was holding Braden in my arms and I had my hands like this. The part I remember is that Susan came over to take him from me, and instead of just reaching out and grabbing him, she pressed her breasts against my hands tightly and she wouldn't let my hands out. And that's nice. It was a cold day, so it was a nice warm feeling. Are you hearing what I'm hearing? Because he sounds like a schoolboy in like a fantasy. But the police still were like, okay, I guess we're going down that avenue and they had to investigate it. So whenever they went and started talking to Susan's friends and asking about Steven, one hundred percent of the friends, without fail, all immediately just scoffed at that idea, like you got it's what You've got to be kidding me. And they all knew for a fact that Susan found her father in law Steve then nothing short of a creeper. She did not care for him. She had voiced on multiple occasions how uncomfortable he made her whenever she was around him, and it was not a secret. So why would Steven be claiming this And did he think that somehow this is gonna help find her? Like why would you bring this up to the news. So then part of you was kind of like, well, is he bringing this up in

1:02:55 some strange attempt to draw the heat away from his son, because that's really bizarre. But I'm gonna tell you, if your creep factor isn't waving this red flag right now high as hell, then maybe this last snippet I'm about to put in here of a song that Steven wrote about Susan, his daughter in law, sang and then published online about the same time. Maybe this will get your juices flowing. Okay, because this is not cool. I can love you in a secret way. I can love you each ada every day. Is your jaw down after hearing that short little insert because mine was on the floor. What is happening in our world today? And I'm sure you can't believe this, but I am just getting started with this case. I promise you this is not a false teaser or something like that. I'm gonna have to cut it off at this point. Like I told you, it's gonna take me two episodes. You are going to flip out next episode when I finished telling you where this goes. You cannot foresee where this is going, So stay tuned for next week's conclusion. And trust me when I say I am unimpressed with Stephen, you won't be very impressed either. We can all tell that he's trying to woo Susan with his songs, but from where I'm sitting, the only thing he's seducing is fear.