by Gregg Olsen
* * *
Kiirsi and John Hellewell first met the new neighbors soon after Josh and Susan bought the house on W. Sarah Circle in 2004. John was an IT professional, and Kiirsi homeschooled their children. Josh and Susan were just starting out, and the couples became close. They spent a lot of time together playing board games, watching movies, and going on picnics and bike rides. Both families were active in the church. Josh and John were paired as “home teachers,” visiting families in the ward once a month to give a short spiritual lesson, offer a blessing, and to see if there was anything needed.
Josh was different from anyone the Hellewells had ever met before. It was almost like he had a traveling soapbox and at any moment he would stand up on it and ramble on about something he was doing. It didn’t matter if anyone else had any input, Josh didn’t seem to care.
“When they first moved here it was all about their house, because they were fixing it up,” Kiirsi later recalled. “They were putting in the world’s most amazing drip sprinkler system, and the garden, and this and that, and on and on and on about the sprinkler system and the garden for probably two or three months. We got so sick of hearing about it. We came to find out later Susan did most of the work but he’d take the credit for it.”
Early in their friendship Susan told Kiirsi the real reason behind the move to Utah.
“It was because of Josh’s father,” she said, gauging her friend’s reaction. “We had to get away from him.”
This time, Susan didn’t use the same old line about needing a fresh start when explaining the move, as she had told others. She told Kiirsi that to save money for a house early in their marriage, she and Josh had moved in with Steve. They’d slept in a dining room with a curtain hung for privacy. Then something had happened with Steve.
“I don’t know how to say this exactly,” she continued, “but I started to feel uncomfortable. Steve was always there. Always watching me. One time I caught him trying to watch me get dressed.”
“You didn’t,” Kiirsi said, her eyes widening.
Susan nodded. “There’s more. One time Steve tried to kiss me. After that, I told Josh that we had to move out.”
“No,” Kiirsi said.
If Susan had dropped a bomb, this next one was a cruise missile. “Yes. One time after we moved here Steve sent me a package, an envelope with what I thought were pictures of my favorite actor, Mel Gibson. You know what he did?”
Kiirsi had no idea. How could she? She’d never heard of a father-in-law hitting on his son’s wife. It was disgusting and vile. It was wrong in every way imaginable.
“Tucked into the photos were a bunch of other naked pictures,” Susan said pausing a moment for emphasis. They weren’t of Mel Gibson.
This was too much. Kiirsi found the whole idea of it crazy, revolting. As she listened to Susan, it was clear that Susan had slammed the door shut on any relationship with Josh’s father. Susan thought Steve was a creepy, sleazy, nasty man.
The Coxes had also heard bits and pieces of the story about Steve and the reason behind the move.
“What do you mean he made advances at you?” Judy asked when Susan announced they were moving away.
“I don’t want to go into it,” Susan said. She didn’t tell her parents, but in 2003, when Steve professed his love for her, he had tried to kiss her and touch her.
Judy pressed her daughter for details. “Susan, you should report it to the police.”
Susan couldn’t bring herself to do that. “This is my father-in-law we’re talking about.”
“I don’t care,” Judy said. She saw her daughter as the kind of person who would stand up for herself, someone who would right the wrongs. Why was Susan protecting Steve?
“What if he’s doing it to other people?” Judy asked. “You need to be one of those who step forward.”
Her father had similar advice.
“Call the police,” Chuck said. “Make a report. Do whatever you need to do. And certainly get away from him.”
The truth was Susan and her parents didn’t know the half of it. No one did. Since 2002, when Josh and Susan temporarily lived at his house, Steve Powell had been sexually obsessed with his daughter-in-law. At the time he was fifty-three and Susan was twenty-one. Over the years he wrote more than 2,330 pages in seventeen notebooks about how he was “crazy with desire” for her, and how falling in love with her was both his “greatest problem” and his “greatest pleasure.” It could sound romantic—except it wasn’t. Not only was it unrequited, even Steve called his actions “sociopathic.” He chronicled what he admitted were his “sick” sexual urges about Susan, including secretly videotaping her and masturbating while he watched the tapes. According to his journals, he would masturbate every morning and every evening to pictures of Susan. It didn’t take much to turn him on. He had taken hundreds of photos of Susan—many without her knowledge—partially dressed, putting on makeup, eating a bowl of cereal, inserting a tampon, shopping at Costco.
It was in 2003 that Steve finally confessed to Susan—and to his journal—that he was in love with her.
I am in so much pain right now. I don’t know where to turn with it. I spoke to Alina, who has been very supportive of my infatuation or obsession. Her advice was to accept that Susan is a “player,” and that is what players do. They lead guys on.
Susan refused to speak to Steve, She told Josh about his father’s declaration of love and insisted he break off contact with his father.
Steve seemed heartbroken about the young couple’s escape to Utah. He made mention of it in his journal several months later.
Today has been an emotionally sick day, knowing that Susan will not be coming here, maybe never again.
* * *
Certainly in the beginning, living in Utah accomplished what it was meant to do: put nine hundred miles between Susan and her father-in-law. Josh had been briefly angry at his father for coming on to Susan back in Puyallup and, despite their close relationship, he retreated from him. That didn’t mean that the pair didn’t talk occasionally. Josh had idolized his father. Communication was only when needed.
Susan’s pregnancy with Charlie in the summer of 2004 was a reason to make the obligatory call.
On July 5, Steve wrote in his journal that Josh had telephoned with the news. Steve was miffed because he’d likely been the last to be notified. He was also disappointed that Susan herself had not made the call.
I am not unhappy that she is pregnant. I am unhappy that she did not share it with me.… I kind of feel like an outsider.
The move to Utah did little to stem Steve’s obsession and lust for Susan. He turned to songwriting in order to express his feelings for her. At a keyboard in his bedroom, Steve wrote and recorded some fifty songs about his daughter-in-law, then put them on his Web site where he called himself Steve Chantrey. One was titled “I Said, I Love You”:
I said, “I love you.” Is that a crime?
… I love you, so put me in jail.
* * *
Some Mormons believe that no professional or personal success compensates for a failure in the home. When a couple is married in a holy temple, as Josh and Susan were, the marriage is sealed. They promise to stay together for eternity, on earth and in heaven after they die. As time went on and the mood darkened in the house on W. Sarah Circle, Susan began to tell friends that she was having trouble imagining eternity with Josh. He changed after his sons were born. Josh used to be affectionate, but now he was cold, distant, and found every way he could to control Susan, including cutting off access to the money she earned.
Susan spent the early years of their marriage trying to help Josh pay off his mid-six-figure school loans—loans that had never quite added up to a college degree, although he claimed to have completed one. But Josh’s inability to keep a job more than a couple of weeks at a time caught up with them. Susan seemed stressed and friends suggested that she leave Josh, who they called “very, very controlling” and “emotionally abusive.”
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* * *
Josh and Susan began marriage counseling offered by their church and, after fasting and praying, Susan decided to keep working on the marriage. Early on, they had both embraced their religion and the expectations of family life and marriage. On the surface, they seemed to be succeeding. They met and married in the church. They started a family. Josh shared his interests in woodworking, radio-controlled cars, and gardening and landscaping with his boys. Susan was active in the Women’s Relief Society at her ward and the family walked to church together. She learned to garden, can, bake, and crochet and made friends with other young wives and mothers. Susan loved being a mother. She was less happy being Josh’s wife and often being the only steady income earner in the family.
Susan was disappointed when Josh stopped going to marriage counseling and refused medication. Josh often exhibited paranoia. He said he was worried that if psychological counseling and medication for manic-depression appeared on his employment records it could be used against him if, for example, they ever wanted to buy life insurance.
Despite a deep faith that put family first, Susan’s friends felt she should leave Josh. Susan told them that if her marriage didn’t turn around by their wedding anniversary in the spring of 2008 she would file for divorce. She later gave Josh new deadlines: April 2009, then April 2010. She gave him a hundred second chances, not so much because she loved him—although she did—but because she didn’t know what he’d do to her or her boys if she left him.
She was held captive by love, fear, and the church’s promise that if she prayed harder, everything would get better.
6
Yesterday I helped him organize/clean his office and the loose papers (another one of his excuses/stalling tactics) and as I was soundlessly crying myself to sleep last night I told him kind of desperately, “now is the time you can say nice things to me” so he said in a tired/bored voice “thanks for helping me clean my office and stuff” and that was all … then he kind of bumped me and I said as a hopeful suggestion “are you trying to hold my hand?” and he muttered something not audible and then a little bit later I held his hand for a while until he pulled away.
—SUSAN POWELL E-MAIL, JULY 11, 2008
Being a Mormon in Utah is different from being a Mormon anywhere else. The faithful who live there are at the center of the universe. Temple Square in Salt Lake City is to Mormons what the Vatican is to Catholics, what Mecca is to Muslims. In Utah, the local church or ward is the focus of a couple’s life. And while obligations to the ward are large and time-consuming, nothing is more crucial than maintaining a happy, peaceful home. Husbands are the breadwinners and heads of household. Women are the nurturers and homemakers and are generally submissive to their husbands, as indicated by scripture.
When the Powells joined the Hunter 36th Ward, everyone there immediately loved Susan. They put up with Josh for her sake. He seemed selfish and immature. Susan was the opposite. She never met a stranger. She never saw a baby that she didn’t want to hold.
Josh, raised in a troubled family, with parents in a volatile marriage, had never had a positive role model. When they moved into the house on W. Sarah Circle, Josh seemed to do his best to emulate what others were doing. He talked about raising a family, about planting a large vegetable garden, about making sure that he could bring in a decent income.
For a brief time, the Powells were the embodiment of the ideal young Mormon couple—in a place where they needed to be.
* * *
In the first years after the couple’s move, Chuck and Judy Cox felt more optimistic about Josh and Susan’s marriage. The Coxes didn’t like the idea of Susan being so far from home, but the incident involving Steve had made the departure necessary. Susan didn’t tell her parents the details, how Steve had confessed that he loved her, had tried to kiss her and had spied on her.
Without knowing the particulars about why Susan wanted to leave Washington, Chuck reminded Judy that all couples need to build their own lives. In Utah, Susan and Josh had the support of the church, as well as Josh’s sister Jennifer, and her husband, Kirk.
Both of them immediately got jobs with Fidelity Investments, Susan in the phone bank and Josh in the IT department. Then—at Josh’s urging—Susan got her broker’s license, required to climb the ladder at Fidelity.
After just two weeks on the job, Josh—who’d never had a job he thought was his equal—was being Josh.
“How is the job going?” Chuck asked his son-in-law.
Josh started to grumble and complain about Fidelity and his manager.
“Terrible. They’ve got some really old computers and they have bad procedures and they really need to make some changes.”
Chuck sighed. He’d heard that before. Josh always considered himself the smartest guy in the room. His over-the-top assessment of his value and abilities got him fired from the assisted living jobs in Yakima and Olympia.
“Josh, Josh, get along,” Chuck said. “Do what you need to do to keep your job. They don’t want to hear all that from you on your second week. Try and get along, you can’t control everything.”
Shortly after father and son-in-law spoke, Fidelity “phased out” Josh’s job and he was let go. Josh always thought he knew more than his employer. His track record as a furniture installer, working in Internet sales for a car dealership, training to get a commercial driver’s license, and managing assisted living facilities, was short and spotty. And then there were his grand plans, including becoming a lawyer—without bothering to attend law school—a real estate developer and builder, and a professional photographer.
Josh had a habit of making life messy. When he was fired, or laid off, or disgruntled, he routinely threatened lawsuits, made a beeline to the head of the human resources department, and never accepted that he might be the source of the trouble.
During the brief time Josh worked at Fidelity, the Powells qualified to buy a three-bedroom house that had been repossessed by a bank. They were able to close the deal on the home on W. Sarah Circle before the mortgage lender knew Josh had been fired.
Susan felt uncomfortable about the deception, but Josh explained away the ethics.
Susan gamely kept doing double duty. She was the breadwinner and ran the household. Josh was always too busy on his computers to lift a finger. When she returned home from working all day, Susan was expected to cook the meal. No matter that he’d been home all day doing whatever it was on one of his computers. Susan suspected Josh was looking at pornography and she and a friend examined his computer to find out. But he had put up all sorts of firewalls to prevent snooping.
Around that time, Steve Powell wrote in his journal that he thought Josh would leave Susan if there were not a financial incentive for him to stay in the marriage. It was almost as if he was wishing for the breakup so that Susan would be free—free to be with him. And he commented on their arguments.
Theirs is truly a marriage made in hell. It’s hard to believe that two people could be so nasty to each other … in public they look like the loveliest couple, but in private they have no respect for each other, and little love.
* * *
In time there were noticeable fractures in the perfect life they presented. As his sister Jennifer and others noticed, Josh appeared to be spiraling downward. When Tim and Rachel Marini visited Josh and Susan in West Valley City in the summer of 2005 the guys took the living room couch and floor, and Susan and Rachel took the bedroom. The women stayed up most of the night talking, while Charlie slept.
Susan was very concerned about Josh and the direction of their marriage.
“It’s not the same,” she confided to her friend.
“How?” Rachel asked, knowing that she’d seen marked changes in Josh’s personality, too.
“He is so controlling,” Susan said. “He controls everything I do. He won’t let me spend money on meat. On anything. He has to have an accounting of every dime.”
Rachel was glad her husband wasn’t like that. T
heir marriage was a loving partnership. She felt bad for Susan living with that kind of situation. But Josh wasn’t just a tightwad, with a control-freak personality. There was a side to Josh that only his wife could have known.
He used sex—or the lack of it—as a weapon.
“If I do anything he thinks is wrong, he punishes me. He says, ‘I can’t believe you did that. No more sex for three months!’” Susan told her. Since the year before, when she’d been pregnant with Charlie, Josh acted as if she repulsed him.
Susan also told Rachel about Steve Powell sending her the photos of Mel Gibson, seemingly all a ruse to get her to open the envelope and find photos of other men. She added a detail she hadn’t told anyone else: at least one of the pictures was of Steve, leering at the camera in a way that was presumably supposed to excite Susan. Instead, it made her skin crawl. It was so disgusting and embarrassing, she hadn’t told Kiirsi.
On the car ride home, Rachel told Tim what Susan had said during the marathon conversation in the Powell’s bedroom. Tim was blown away.
“That’s not the Josh we knew in Washington,” he said.
Rachel nodded. They were in complete agreement.
“Right. This is a very different Josh.”
Later, Tim tried to talk to his best friend about his increasingly weird behavior. It was the kind of awkward conversation that close male friends seldom attempt. But Tim was fond of Josh. And he had long adored Susan, first as a would-be suitor and now as a good friend. He believed that Josh and Susan’s marriage couldn’t survive unless Josh made some changes.
“He didn’t have any kind of answer,” Tim remembered about confronting Josh that day. “It was a kind of a ‘What do you mean? I’m fine.’ I don’t know if he knew he was different. It was very strange.”