by Ann Rule
* * *
The time had finally come. Patrol cars parked along the street near the Powells’ tan and white house shortly after 11 P.M. on September 22. It was dark out and there were no whirling blue lights or wailing of sirens to announce the presence of law enforcement officers outside.
Gary Sanders asked one unmarked patrol unit to drive by the Powells’ house to see if there were vehicles in the driveway. They made three passes and noted only two cars, but they weren’t the ones driven by Steven Powell. On the fourth pass, the patrol officers saw Steven Powell pull into the driveway and emerge from his Department of Corrections state-owned van.
At 11:14 P.M. on September 22, 2011, Steven Powell was arrested on a Pierce County Superior Court warrant. He was booked into the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma twenty minutes later. He was arraigned the next morning and charged with fourteen counts of voyeurism for the photographs he’d furtively taken of young girls, and one count of possession of child pornography. Bail was set at two hundred thousand dollars.
He did not comment or protest his arrest.
Back at the house he owned, John, Michael, Alina, Josh, Charlie, and Braden now lived for the first time in years without the man who had wielded absolute authority over them.
Chapter Eleven
Chuck and Judy Cox were worried sick about their grandsons. They had had virtually no contact with Charlie and Braden for months, and they wondered what was going to happen next. They wanted very much to have Susan’s little boys with them, where they could be sure they were safe.
Within days of Steven Powell’s arrest, workers from the Department of Social and Health Services removed Charlie and Braden from the house they had been living in since a few weeks after their mother disappeared. Everyone—except for the Powell family, including, of course, Josh—was concerned about what the secrecy, probable brainwashing by their father, the police presence, and the loss of their mother were doing to the boys. Charlie was now six, and Braden, four.
Judy and Chuck Cox received many emails, letters, and calls from people who wanted to help them keep the boys safe.
“I got a call from a marine officer,” Judy recalled. “He said he had six children himself, and he offered to ‘take Josh out’ if we said the word. Of course I told him that we didn’t want that—that we would never be part of anything violent. But I thanked him for his consideration.”
Shortly after Steven Powell’s arrest, Braden and Charlie were temporarily placed in a foster home while their situation was assessed.
Josh wanted them back, but Chuck and Judy Cox intervened, asking to have the boys stay with them. Luckily, their grandsons spent very little time in the foster home before Pierce County Superior Court judge Kathryn J. Nelson ordered that they be placed with the Coxes until the best place for them to be was determined.
For the time being, Josh Powell would have three-hour supervised visits with them every Sunday morning. That meant an observer, approved by Child Protective Services, would have to be present during the entire time Charlie and Braden were at his house. Josh was not pleased, and could not understand how anyone had the right to take his children away from him, or to criticize him as a parent.
Judy Cox remembers that reuniting with Charlie and Braden was not a completely joyous occasion. The boys had been through so much, and they were very cautious. Clearly, they had been programmed by their father, and probably their grandfather. They had been told how terrible the “Mormon Police” were, and that “the bad Mormons” were trying to take them away from their dad.
“They were robotic,” Judy says. “I don’t know what all they had been told about us, but we knew that Josh and Steven Powell never hid what they thought from Charlie and Braden, even if it upset them. They discussed everything in front of the boys.”
In the past two years, Susan’s little boys had been through constant change and upheaval. Their mother was gone, and they had left the only home they knew back in Utah and come to live with their dad’s father, brothers, and sister. And now they had been moved once again, to their mom’s family.
It wasn’t surprising that they didn’t know whom to trust, or if they could trust anyone. Josh hadn’t made the change of custody easy; as far as he was concerned his sons belonged to him. He owned them, and he had done everything he could to turn them away from the Coxes. He seemed unable to comprehend what his sons were going through, and he hadn’t made their lives any more secure.
Chuck, Judy, Chuck’s sister, Pam, Denise, and their friend Laurie Nielsen took Charlie and Braden to Chuck E. Cheese, the beach, a nearby park, and an amusement park on several different jaunts. They hoped the boys would have fun, and they seemed to.
And yet, when a social worker assigned to the boys’ case asked them what they had been doing at their grandparents’ house, the little boys said, “Nothing . . .”
Judy reminded them of the places they had all gone, and the boys nodded carefully. They were tiptoeing on eggshells, afraid that they wouldn’t get to go back to their father if they said they were happy with their maternal grandparents.
“They finally told their caseworker that they did have fun with us,” Judy recalls. “We all understood how confused they were. And we tried to put them at ease whenever we could.”
The Coxes live in a big house in the country on acreage. They grow vegetables and flowers and their place is sheltered by a ring of cottonwood and evergreen trees. There was plenty of room for two little boys to run, and Charlie and Braden were showered with love, not only by their grandparents, but also by their aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Gradually they began to relax. But there were setbacks. One that broke Judy Cox’s heart occurred when Charlie was playing with his aunt Denise’s son.
“They were tossing an ‘eight-ball’ back and forth, and Charlie threw it at his cousin too hard. Before we stopped to think, one of us shouted at him not to do that.”
Charlie had almost stopped being worried, but he was shocked when he was reprimanded.
“He walked over to the glass door in the lower level,” Laurie Nielsen remembers. “And he started to cry. He kind of looked up at the sky and said, ‘Mommy, Mommy, where are you? I need you!’
“We felt like crying, too. He hadn’t forgotten Susan at all, and he couldn’t understand why she had left him. His emotions were so fragile.”
Still, as the weeks—and then months—went by, the boys were feeling safer all the time. Josh’s sister Jennifer and her husband, Kirk, sided with Susan’s family and felt the boys were much safer with them than with Josh. Because Chuck and Judy were in their mid-fifties, the two families decided that it should be Jennifer and Kirk who eventually raised Charlie and Braden, along with their own children.
But it was much too soon for that. Steven Powell was in jail throughout the fall of 2011, awaiting trial. His children, all but Jennifer, visited him faithfully, and none of them would talk to the media as Steven’s trial dates were delayed again and again.
In an effort to have his sons returned to him, Josh Powell grudgingly agreed to undergo a psychological evaluation. He met with Dr. James Manley on October 27.
Dr. Manley’s report was couched in “tactful” psychology terms that were maddening to those who loved Susan. He wrote of Josh’s “parenting skills,” and of his devotion to his sons, blaming Josh’s tirades about the Mormons and Susan’s family on his stress because he was a murder suspect.
That was, of course, a given—even if you weren’t a licensed psychologist. Josh Powell was stressed; police agencies and the general public considered Josh a prime suspect. The circumstantial evidence that continued to be uncovered made him look more and more guilty.
Manley, a psychologist—not a psychiatrist—was concerned that Josh drifted off the subject of his sons too often as he spoke about what he was going through. Even so, Manley’s remarks were reminiscent of homicide detectives who sometimes refer to violent criminals as “this gentleman” in their reports when they really shoul
d say “the defendant” or “the convicted man/woman.”
Most killers aren’t “gentlemen.”
“Across his supervised visits,” Manley wrote, “Mr. Powell has demonstrated a strong foundation of parenting skills and an unwavering desire to parent his sons. His demonstrated inability to curb his inappropriate commentary about the ‘Mormon Police’ and the Cox family during a recent family therapy session is concerning.”
Dr. Manley waffled, however, in his evaluation of Josh. He suggested that Josh have counseling to help him deal with the disappearance of his wife, giving the impression that Manley felt his subject had nothing to do with whatever had happened to Susan.
Manley’s opinion of Josh Powell was that his “stability is not secure . . . Once these matters have been resolved, when he is no longer a subject of investigation, when he can amend his communication style and address other identified parenting concerns, father’s reunification with his sons may be warranted.”
* * *
Christmas 2011 came and went. No one had stepped forward to bail Steven Powell out of jail, so he spent the holiday locked up, awaiting trial. Charlie and Braden had their scheduled visits with their father, and their observers noted that they were obviously very attached to Josh. Child protective authorities, however, were still troubled by the strange incestuous cartoons found on Josh’s computers in the week after Susan vanished.
For some reason, Dr. Manley had not seen the four hundred images on Josh’s computers with Dennis the Menace, Rugrats, SpongeBob SquarePants, et al. in roles where the story line featured children having sex with their parents. When he finally had access to them in January 2012, he took a firmer stand and suggested that Josh Powell should undergo a psychosexual examination before any decision was made about custody of Charlie and Braden.
* * *
Chuck and Judy Cox were also worried about what sexual fantasies Josh might be hiding, particularly after his father’s arrest for voyeurism and child pornography. They didn’t know why their grandsons preferred to run around naked, even when it seemed inappropriate.
“We were playing with the boys one afternoon, taking pictures of them—with their clothes on, of course—and being silly,” Judy recalled. “Charlie was jumping up and down on his bed, and I lifted my camera. All of a sudden, he said, ‘No—no—we need to have the lights out.’ I began to wonder who had taken after-dark photos of him and Braden.”
They took a lot of photographs and videos of the boys. Laurie Nielsen still has a video on her cell phone where Braden stands in a pile of leaves and Charlie runs around tossing golden maple leaves in the air. Braden clearly believes that Laurie is using a still camera, while Charlie knows he is in a “movie.” After a few minutes without moving, Braden says to Laurie, “Take the picture!”
At first Susan’s sons lived in a small bedroom in their grandparents’ house, but Chuck worked on plans he had drawn up to expand his house so that they would have their own large room. He began to add a wing on to their house, with a basement apartment for his mother, Anne Cox, who had recently been widowed when Chuck’s father died. They ordered bunk beds for the boys.
It wasn’t always easy, looking after two energetic little boys, but Chuck and Judy knew Susan would want Charlie and Braden to be with them. There had been no leads that might help the West Valley City police detectives find her, but her children were safe.
Chuck Cox did much of the carpentry work himself and had a lot next to the house partially excavated to make a pond.
“Charlie said I had to put a little island in the middle,” Chuck remembers. “He said that the ducks that swam in the pond would need a safe place to be—where nothing could get them. So I piled up some dirt to make the island.”
The first thing in the morning, the boys ran to the window of the big room that would soon be theirs to check on their ducks.
Charlie was quite an accomplished artist, and he drew pictures and gave them to his grandparents, aunts, and friends. But he always asked to have them back. That was part of his cautiousness. After a little over four months with Chuck and Judy, the two boys were much more relaxed than when they first moved in, but they still looked forward to Sundays with their father.
Caseworkers who accompanied those visits observed Josh’s interactions with his sons. He cooked breakfast or lunch with them—usually tacos or enchiladas—and was careful to let them participate, even though the result was sometimes a little messy. They played games and built simple projects. Charlie and Braden seemed to enjoy themselves, although the Child Protective Services caseworkers noted that Josh seemed to be putting on a show for their benefit.
He also became flustered when the boys didn’t obey his instructions instantly.
* * *
Charlie still asked for his drawings back, and his mother’s family members quickly handed them over. It seemed to make him feel safe to keep his little collection.
On Thursday, February 3, 2012, Josh Powell appeared before Pierce County Superior Court judge Kathryn J. Nelson for a hearing involving his sons’ custody.
“I have proven myself as a fit and loving father,” Josh told the Court, “who provides a stable home even in the face of great adversity . . . It is time for my sons to come home!”
With Steven Powell in jail on charges of voyeurism and child pornography and with the disturbing findings in Josh’s computer of cartoon characters engaged in sordid incestuous activities, authorities were very concerned about Josh having full custody of his sons, or even of allowing him nonsupervised visits with them.
Josh continued to fight hard against Chuck and Judy Cox. He wanted his sons back, and he was outraged that his in-laws had even temporary custody of them. He had been without them for four months; they belonged to him and he wanted them back. Now.
Judge Nelson ruled that Josh Powell would have to undergo a psychosexual examination before she could make a judgment on whether he would have Charlie and Braden returned to his custody. She would not consider his arguments if he didn’t agree to the examination.
In any case, she said the two little boys would remain with the Coxes until at least late July 2012. Josh would retain his rights to supervised visits with his sons.
A psychosexual evaluation is one of the more intrusive examinations anyone can undergo. It is a tool used by psychologists and psychiatrists to evaluate the possible risks inherent in the test subjects. Most often it is used to winnow out imprisoned sex offenders to decide which of them might be safe to move back into society, or if they are even ready to be paroled to halfway houses or less strict programs. But there are many reasons to ask for psychosexual evaluations. When children are involved in a case, every effort is made to protect them.
The professionals who had studied the Powell situation for two years were very concerned with the salacious cartoons on Josh’s computers, and with Josh’s inability to modify—or just plain lack of interest in modifying—his behavior and remarks when Charlie and Braden were present. He resented most of the world, felt people were ganging up on him, and refused to accept criticism for anything he did.
Psychosexual evaluations include delving into police reports, children’s protective agencies’ records, criminal and correction histories, interviews with the subject and his or her family, his or her sexual patterns and history, alcohol and drug use, stress level, use of pornography, employment, education, medical history, and myriad other very personal areas.
Sometimes a device—the penile plethysmograph—is attached to a male subject’s penis to chart if he becomes erect while viewing certain videos or photographs.
A kind of genital lie detector.
The plethysmograph is used in this country in 58 percent of psychosexual evaluations; in Washington State it is a standard part of the examination—although not always required.
For Josh Powell, who appeared to have lived with sexual secrets for most of his life, such an evaluation would be devastating—and humiliating. And yet when two small boys
’ safety was concerned, it had to be done.
Josh left Judge Nelson’s courtroom angry, perhaps angrier than he had ever appeared in public before.
The evaluation was scheduled for the week of February 7 to 11, 2012. He would still have his regular Sunday morning time with Charlie and Braden, including a visit on February 6.
Chapter Twelve
On Saturday evening, February 5, 2012, Charlie Powell was working on an art project. He asked Laurie Nielsen, who was like a member of the family to him, to help him find some pictures of vegetables.
“He needed three different kinds,” Laurie remembers. “I think it was a tomato, an ear of corn, and peas or string beans. I suggested that he draw and color them himself because he was such a good artist. And he did a really good job. When he was finished, he brought his drawings over to me, and, of course, I admired them.
“When I started to hand them back—because he always wanted his projects back—he said, ‘No.’ I asked him why, and he told me they were for me. He grinned and said I could keep them! I know it doesn’t sound like a huge move forward—but, for Charlie, it was. He finally felt safe enough to share.”
The boys’ great-aunt Pam, Chuck’s sister, read to them before they were tucked in. Everything seemed more normal than it had been for a long time.
Sunday turned out to be an uncommonly sunny day for western Washington in February, especially since there had been blizzards and power outages earlier in the week in the mountains. Usually, Charlie and Braden were eager to go to Josh’s house, but, for some reason, this time they weren’t.
It was a relatively new place for them; Josh Powell had told authorities that he’d moved out of his father’s house in Puyallup and into a rental in Graham, Washington. It would be just for him and his boys.