If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children

by Gregg Olsen

* * *

  The rift between Josh and his father continued for most of 2005, but with the icy November wind change was in the air.

  Steve wrote on November 10 that he and Josh had talked on the telephone for two hours.

  That was the first time I have spoken with him since the baby was born, which was, I think, last February.

  He was wrong on the date—it was January—but the entry made in his diary was important.

  Steve had somehow managed to wriggle his way back into Josh’s life. They patched up their toxic relationship. If Susan knew about it then, she never mentioned it to any of her Mormon sisters or her family in Washington.

  7

  … my bottom line is he WILL DO COUNSELING at least. I expect by our anniversary next april (8 yrs) we will both be in counseling and FINALLY FIXING the marriage OR somewhere in mediation/divorce court … sad, but simple as that.

  —SUSAN POWELL E-MAIL, JULY 28, 2008

  It had been forty-eight hours since Susan was last seen when Josh walked out of the police department. Charlie and Braden were with his mother and his sister Jennifer, so he was free to do whatever he needed to do.

  He took a cab to the Salt Lake City International Airport and at 10:26 P.M. on Tuesday, December 8, he paid $79.61 and rented a 2009 Ford Focus from the Hertz counter. Over the next forty-five hours he drove 807 miles, but most of the mileage occurred over a sixteen-hour period after he picked up the car and before he got a new cell phone. The phone was activated at 4:20 P.M. on Wednesday at Tremonton, about seventy-four miles north of Salt Lake City and eighty-six miles north of West Valley City.

  The location of the phone activation gave Chuck Cox and others pause when they learned of it. Why had Josh gone there? Presumably, he was on a mission associated with Susan’s disappearance. But Tremonton is hundreds of miles from Simpson Springs, where Josh said he’d gone camping three days earlier. North of Tremonton, Interstate 84 crosses the Idaho border and leads to nearly two million acres of national forest and 50,000 acres of national grassland. I-84 cuts through Oregon and meets up with I-82—the route home to Puyallup, Washington.

  At the same time that Josh rented the car, his father Steve called in sick for two days, December 8 and 9, from his job as a salesman delivering office furniture made by prison inmates. His daughter Alina explained later that her father was on “bereavement” leave from work because Susan was missing.

  No one could pin down exactly where Steve had been during those two days, though many—Chuck Cox and the police among them—had a pretty good idea. They thought he was helping Josh move Susan’s body. No one thought about where Josh’s younger brother, Michael, might be. As Susan often said, he was the “sane” brother in the Powell family.

  * * *

  The West Valley City Police Department wouldn’t learn of Michael’s potential involvement in Susan’s disappearance for a year and a half. Chuck and Judy Cox wouldn’t know about it for more than three years.

  Michael, Josh’s younger brother, was an Army veteran and college graduate but like all his siblings—except for Jennifer—always seemed to make his way back to his father’s house. The week Susan went missing, Michael and his 1997 Ford Taurus were, too. But from Friday, December 4, to Saturday, December 12, he wasn’t seen or heard from by anyone outside the family.

  * * *

  Josh returned to the West Valley City area on Wednesday, December 9, but didn’t return the rental car until the 10th. The only person to see Josh on the 9th was a neighbor, Tim Peterson. Tim was surprised that Josh had been out of town and wouldn’t say where. Josh seemed to be missing the big picture, that his wife had vanished. Instead, he complained to his neighbor that the police had torn his house apart and taken his computer and a comforter.

  “Now I’ll have to go to Walmart and get a new blanket,” he said, bitterly.

  Josh appeared to be fretful about his hands—they were red and raw and he kept applying lotion to soothe them. When Tim asked about their condition, Josh said it was just from the cold weather.

  Things had been a little tense between the men before that night. Josh thought that Tim had a crush on Susan. Tim looked at Susan as a friend. She had told him about her marital problems.

  Later, when Tim’s wife Crystal asked where Susan was, Josh snapped at her.

  “It’s not like I stabbed her,” he said.

  Josh had telephoned Jennifer to say he would pick up Charlie and Braden on the evening of the 9th, but he never showed up.

  The next day, Thursday, the 10th, Josh drove the rented Ford Focus to Jennifer’s house in West Jordan. He was picking up his mother so that she could help him return the car and retrieve his minivan from the police. Chris Jones, a reporter from KUTV, the Salt Lake City CBS affiliate, and a cameraman approached Josh the moment he pulled up. For six minutes Josh haltingly and politely answered questions.

  About his boys:

  “They’re doing good … as far as I can tell.”

  How he was feeling:

  “You know, people have been really helpful and supportive, so it’s been really hard, but you know you just keep going.”

  How suspicion normally falls on the husband:

  “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know where she’s at. I don’t even know where to start looking.”

  And then he excused himself and went into Jennifer’s house. Josh told his mother and his sister that he had spent the previous two days just driving around, since he couldn’t go home. He said he had driven by Jennifer’s one night but the house was dark. Jennifer didn’t buy it. As Jennifer’s husband, Kirk, pointed out when they talked about it later, Josh was never considerate, so why hadn’t he knocked on the door?

  She begged Josh to leave Charlie and Braden with her, so they would have at least a little stability in their lives, but he refused.

  Before he left to return the rental car he needed one more favor from his sister. He asked to borrow a candle and some matches. He planned on attending a vigil for Susan that evening.

  When Josh went to the police department to get his van, he was told to return Monday for another interview and a polygraph test.

  While Josh had been absent—the police didn’t know yet that he had rented a car and left the area—they had gone over his van more thoroughly. They found a trash bag stuffed with burned metal, wires, and sheetrock. It wasn’t there on December 7. Josh must have burned the stuff that night, when neighbors saw him coming and going from the garage. He had left it in his car, not knowing police would take the keys on the 8th. Investigators concluded the burned items indicated an “attempt to destroy something using high heat.”

  * * *

  Kiirsi Hellewell knew she had to do something. There weren’t the organized massive searches for Susan that some communities held for missing women. The West Valley City police wanted to handle things themselves and Susan’s family and friends accepted that—for now. So Susan’s best friend turned to Facebook, the tool that had helped her and Susan and their friends keep in touch while they juggled their family and church responsibilities.

  Her first post on Facebook about Susan was at 12:02 A.M. on December 8:

  For some of you who may be out of the loop (co-workers, etc.) … Josh and his kids returned home Monday night. Police talked to him. Susan is nowhere to be found.… We are all praying for her like crazy.

  Next, she created a Facebook group she named Friends and Family of Susan Powell. Within a couple of days 1,200 people had joined. Kiirsi didn’t stop there. Over the next few days and weeks with the help of an army of volunteers, Kiirsi helped create a major social media blitz. Kiirsi also started Service for Susan, a blog focused on a national “week of service” in Susan’s name, encouraging people in the arts and crafts community to make projects for organizations that benefit women and children. The donations supported shelters for women escaping domestic violence.

  8

  Josh reiterated this week that he refuses to touch her. She has told Alina that she does
n’t love him anymore.

  —STEVE POWELL’S JOURNAL, JUNE 26, 2008

  Josh might have underestimated Susan’s tight circle of friends. They were young Mormon couples, neighbors who saw one another a few times each week. In private, the women sometimes addressed each other, as Mormon women sometimes do, as “Sister.” They worshipped at the same ward every Sunday morning, they visited while doing craft activities a couple of times a month, and they talked at church choir practice. They were at the ward for Christmas breakfasts and for family Halloween parties.

  Susan and some of her friends shared the same day-care provider, Debbie Caldwell. JoVonna Owings, the last person to see Susan, was related by marriage to Barbara Anderson. Susan went to Barbara’s house to do her hair and give her pedicures since Barbara had muscular dystrophy and was confined to a wheelchair. JoVonna’s landlord was Mike Khalaji, a real estate agent who had worked with the Powells. Michele Oreno was older and a mature voice of reason who could speak bluntly to Josh. Kiirsi lived down the street and her husband spent many hours teaching Josh computer programming. Rachel Marini was married to Josh’s best friend, Tim, and their friendship predated all the others.

  Josh could not have predicted their fierce determination to find out what had happened to his wife.

  * * *

  On Thursday night, Kiirsi organized a candlelight vigil at a local park. More than two dozen friends and church members braved the ten-degree weather to pray for Susan.

  About halfway through the vigil, Josh and the boys arrived. It was the first time Kiirsi had seen him since Susan went missing.

  “He was very standoffish, acted like he didn’t trust us,” Kiirsi remembered later. “We tried to be really friendly, because my thought was, if I turned on Josh and refused to have anything to do with him, I’d have zero chance of getting him to tell me anything.”

  The vigil was also the first time that Debbie Caldwell had seen Josh since Susan disappeared.

  She was consoling Charlie when Josh came over and picked him up and started to walk away.

  “Wait, Josh. I was just talking with Charlie,” Debbie said.

  Josh cut her off. “We have to go.”

  “You haven’t called me, Josh.”

  “We’re not going to be coming back to day care,” he said curtly, edging away. He was angry at Debbie for bringing the family’s absence to the attention of the police three days before.

  “Why not?”

  Josh shrugged it away. “With everything going on…”

  “But you have to work, you have to make a living, and the boys will need a place to go,” she said, trying to persuade him.

  “We won’t have any money to pay you,” Josh said.

  Debbie didn’t care about that. The boys needed looking after.

  “We can figure something out,” she said.

  Josh wouldn’t budge. “No, no, no. I’m just going to have my family take care of them,” he said.

  Before she could say anything else, he turned and walked away with Charlie. It had been just two days since Charlie told police that his mommy went camping with them but did not come back home.

  * * *

  Kiirsi had invited Josh and the boys to come over after the vigil. The boys were freezing and hungry and literally scrounging the floor of Josh’s minivan for any cookie crumbs, so she made hot chocolate and toast.

  Like Chuck and Judy Cox, she decided to pretend to be sympathetic to Josh. Maybe he’d let down his guard. Maybe he’d open up. But he didn’t. He sat glumly in the living room.

  Kiirsi kept Charlie company as he played quietly in a downstairs room with some building blocks scattered on the carpet. The boy suddenly blurted out, “I hate my dad!”

  Kiirsi saw a crack, a chance to probe and ask the little boy why he hated his father. Did he hate him because he’d seen him hurt his mommy?

  But Kiirsi didn’t ask. She was fearful that a confrontation like that might set Josh off. Since Kiirsi and her husband John had broken the ice with Josh, he came to their house a few more times the week Susan vanished.

  “He said the police had taken all his computers and he wanted to use our computer to put up a Web site for Susan. And I thought, ‘Finally, he is showing some desire to do something to help her.’ So my husband let him use his laptop and he sat on the couch for a couple of hours.”

  Later, Josh and friends stood outside the Jazz basketball game in downtown Salt Lake City and handed out missing person’s flyers to fans arriving for the game.

  But that was it. The Web site he had claimed to be working on became an anti-Mormon, anti-Cox, anti–Jennifer Graves, anti–Utah police manifesto. He never lifted another finger to help find his missing wife.

  9

  Biking is good, no more accidents. We are going to look into getting a better bike—you know, with actual working gears!!!, it takes only 40 minutes in the morning, about 50+ on the way home b/c its hot, I’m tired, and there is a mile long hill at the very end, so I’m told I look like I’m dying when I get near the top.

  —SUSAN POWELL E-MAIL, JUNE 30, 2008

  On the day of the vigil, West Valley City Police Department (WVCPD) search teams went out to the desert where Josh said he and Charlie and Braden had spent the night in their minivan. Even in summertime Simpson Springs is a solitary place to camp, with spotty cell phone service and only a few picnic tables and fire rings. No matter the season, campers are advised to carry spare tires, food, and extra water. Authorities encourage Simpson Spring campers to let someone know where they’re going, when they plan to return, and to be prepared for severe weather.

  A marker near Simpson Springs indicates that the road was part of the Pony Express Trail across the western Utah desert in 1860 and 1861. The site adjoins the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, an area where the military tested chemicals and biological agents and where hazardous conditions may still exist, according to the military.

  In winter, it is especially bleak, with thousands of acres of flat terrain, brush, and snow, the horizon broken only by the occasional tracks—or skeleton—of an antelope or coyote.

  As for the allure of camping there in the coldest time of the year, a Web site promoting winter sports sponsored by a Provo newspaper put it this way:

  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the only person on the Earth? Some people may ask what it would be like if only a handful of people were left on the planet. You can get close to that answer by going camping during the winter.

  As Josh explained to investigators working Susan’s case, people don’t go camping at a place like Simpson Springs in the hot summer. People go there in winter.

  When asked if he could remember seeing or talking to anyone who could back up his story, Josh shook his head. He and the boys were there alone. Then Josh remembered they had seen a sheepherder early on the morning of December 7.

  Police could never corroborate the actual camping trip, complete with s’mores, but they did find two sheepherders who remembered a silver van on the lonely road early that morning.

  After the search, West Valley City police captain Tom McLachlan told reporters that fresh snow hid any potential evidence. They couldn’t prove or disprove that Josh had been there. Josh was “cooperative and not a suspect, nor a person of interest,” he reiterated.

  “It could take years, if ever, to identify his campsite,” Assistant Police Chief Craig Black said. “We would really like to go on a two-hour road trip with Josh.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t exactly the trip they imagined, but the next day, Friday, December 11, the police put a tracking device on Josh’s car. They followed him as he drove from West Valley City to the parking lot of a strip club in Nevada. The name of the club was American Bush. It’s closed now, but in 2009 it was a storefront in West Wendover, a town of about 4,000 just across the Nevada border from Utah. It’s a straight shot west from Salt Lake City on I-80, which continues to California. Other roads out of West Wendover lead to Las Vegas,
366 miles south.

  American Bush offered topless dancers and private lap dance rooms. Someone who worked in the casino end of the business told police Josh visited a few times, would lose money, and get angry.

  Josh had his two sons with him on December 11 and he knew he was being followed. He tried to evade police surveillance by driving in circles, repeatedly taking on-ramps and off-ramps and sometimes going east and then cutting back and heading west. In response, police called in aerial surveillance to follow the van.

  Was Josh playing with the police? Probably.

  On the way back to West Valley City they followed him to a gravel pit where he stayed for two hours. Police searched it after he left but found nothing.

  The WVCPD still wanted to take Josh on a road trip, one where they would share a police car and he would take them to the exact spot he and the boys had camped.

  Wasn’t it time he helped search for Susan?

  10

  … Fast for me this Sunday. I’ve got family and friends doing that for me. My parents are ready to help pay any lawyer fees/mediator (since I think its required) and if I am supposed to divorce him, I will know with assurance and somehow the divorce won’t be as ugly as I fear (like him kidnapping the kids and taking me for broke…).

  —SUSAN POWELL E-MAIL, NOVEMBER 31, 2008

  Chuck Cox wiped tears from his eyes as he spoke to more than a hundred of Susan’s friends and neighbors at the Hunter 36th Ward. It was Saturday, December 12, six days since his daughter had gone missing. Chuck had flown in from Seattle the day before to meet with police investigators and to attend this special gathering of people who knew and loved Susan. He was running on adrenaline and the hope that things wouldn’t end up with the worst possible conclusion. He hadn’t wanted to leave Judy, who was terribly worried about their missing daughter, but he made sure there was a friend or family member with her night and day. Judy had turned fifty-five years old the day Susan was reported missing—there was no celebration.