It could have been worse

"The only thing that could make this day any better, is if the truck broke down," Photographer Mike DeBernardo, hisses ironcially after a hard afternoon on the road.  He and I are assigned difficult story about the Vice-Principal of Vernal Middle School accused of sex crimes against a juvenile member of his family.

David Papadakos, accused of sex crimes

In addition to the distasteful subject matter, to do the story, we must drive 173 miles to Uintah County, some 3 hours and 30 minutes away.

As our deadline approaches we are plagued with mechanical and technical issues, all the gizmos in the live truck (I won't pretend to act like I know how they work) keep dying, thanks  to a lack of power.  My computer is also on the fritz, making it difficult to track down the mugshot of the vice principal accused of the crime.

We are able to get our story on the air at 10 PM but, cannot establish our live presence in Vernal.  As we shut down the systems, pack away the lights, and prepare for our long slog home, Mike is peeved by the inability to "make," our live shot, and that's when he utters those now fateful words,  "The only thing that could make this day any better, is if the truck broke down."

When the words float out of his mouth, I say what everyone says when someone utters something like that, "famous last words."

At 11:30 PM those "famous last words," begin to flash before our eyes,  as Mike engages his bright beams, as we barrel down a dark and frigid highway 40 just outside of Duchesne, the scratchy song on the radio, buzzes off.  The gauges begin to spin and whirl wildly, like the dials on a futuristic machine in a sci-fi movie, then relent before keeling over to the left.  According to our dashboard monitors, we are careening across the pavement at zero miles an hour, with zero gallons of gas in our tank, and zero oil pressure to propel us back home. "Are the lights dimming?" I squint into the darkness, as the once brightly illuminated pavement is now just a dull, slight yellow, quickly disappearing before our eyes.
It only takes a handful of minutes for our truck to follow the cue of the dials, and, with engine choked to death, we slowly drift along the gravel shoulder to a silent pause, 10 miles from the nearest town, and 2 hours from home in Salt Lake City.

"Well, you got your wish," I sing to Mike, as we sit, stranded, the temperature, dropping quickly, a he engages the hazard lights.  "Click, clack, click, clack," the ticking, keeping the monotone, heartless beat of our dark isolation.

"It's going to take the tow truck 2 hours to get here," Mike looks at the ceiling of the truck as he silences his phone with a finger tap   "Thank goodness, we have cell service," or we'd be screwed," I add, "I might have been forced to kill and eat you." I joke, "well," Mike interjects as he scrolls Facebook on his smartphone, "it's still early."

It doesn't take long for the temperature to drop inside the cabin of our truck.  It's about 25 degrees along this lonely stretch of highway.  After about 2 hours, we watch our smoky breath, prompted by the fridgid temperatures, float out of our mouths as we begin playing the futile game, I call:  "Oh, there he is, finally!"    Every 10 minutes or so, we spot the tiny flash of headlights in the distance, to which one of us will, say, mostly hoping that our words, will somehow manifest our tow truck, "Oh there he is, finally,"  When the Semi or sleepy traveler  rumbles past us, the second part of the game is to curse the driver and his vehicle for NOT being the tow truck driver.  This goes on for about an hour, and I have to say is a lot of fun, particularly when you get to hurdle obscenities into the night at perfect strangers who have no inkling of your presence.

"Oh there he is, finally!"  I shout, waiting for the payoff, of cursing him as he drives by, but wait, that really IS him."

The  tow truck driver is a waking fire plug, stout and burly with a shaved head.  Despite his gruff exterior, he's actually very kind.  As we watch him jack the heavy white live truck onto the flatbed truck, he encourages, "Go get in the cab, you must be freezing."

After some small talk, (he went to East High, graduated in 1996,) Mike and I both doze off, only to be awaken by the heavy downshift of the truck, as we cascade around a dog leg turn, I open my eyes to see a row of deer, frozen in our path, unable to move as three tons of metal march on them, our driver pumps his breaks, and lays on his horn, within about 5 feet, the startled creatures gather themselves and scamper out of our unstoppable path.  "whoa," I breath, "That was close," "yeah," the driver pants, "that scared me."  I ask, wouldn't we have just shoved them out of the way, to which he answers, "No, this cab is made of fiberglass, We'd of been stranded out here."

Thirty minutes later, my head gently resting against the cold passenger side window, my body is vibrated to attention, and my ears ring with what sounds like a thousand duffle bags being opened one after another with rhythmic succession.  Our exhausted truck driver has drifted to sleep, and the truck has in turn, floated gently across the highway rumple strips.  "As I shoot a look at him, he blurts with eyes wide, "sorry!"

As the truck grinds to a stop in front of my house, at 4 AM, I give both men a weary nod and fumble into the darkness of my warm bedroom.  Despite what seemed at the time , to be a disaster of a night, I click off all the things that COULD have gone wrong but didn't (no cell service, subzero temperatures, plowing into a family of deer, careening off the highway into an icy stream) and I mumble to myself, as I shed my coat, "heck, that wasn't so bad."

In The Cabin

I can see the beehive awaken at the assignment desk, as the 10 PM producer, the assignment editor, and the executive producer, begin to buzz and weave.  "The Desk," as it is known, is similar to NASA's mission control.  Everything goes through it.   Assignment editors listen police scanners farm the fax machine and email, and field calls from viewers.

Greg Peterson with Senator Mike Lee

Just 15 minutes before the 6 PM newscast, someone anonymously calls to say Greg Peterson, a well-known political activist and fundraiser has killed himself.

Peterson is a successful financial planner, with ties to many top Utah lawmakers, as evidenced by the chummy video he shot and narrated of freshman Senator Mike Lee, waking golf balls into the grassy abyss of acreage owned by Peterson in Heber, Utah.

Despite efforts by some politicians to downplay his importance, Peterson $400,000 cabin in Heber was a frequent stop for seekers of higher office looking to raise quick cash.  Pictures show a proud Peterson, microphone in hand, lording over dozens of campaign donors, perched high above them on his elevated porch, speaking confidently about politics, politicians, and power.

Peterson speaks to donors at his Heber cabin

Peterson also counts Mitt Romney as a "friend," and with money influence, and infinite confidence, the smiling power broker is living the proverbial "Life of Riley,"

That "life," begins to unravel, as one woman after another accuses Peterson of raping and sexually assaulting them, often in the same cabin in which he has been raising money for politicians.

Mugshot

In his mugshot taken after his arrest, Peterson wears a smirk swelling with the confidence of a man whose Rolodex is bulging with Utah's power players.  Minutes after he is booked, those power players,   one by one, step quickly away from the man who had helped them raise thousands of dollars for their political campaigns.

Peterson spent months in the Salt Lake County Jail, awaiting his trial, and finally managed to bail out last Friday.

"We're hearing Peterson killed himself," the 10 PM producer utters to me breathless, as she turns and barrels to her desk.  That means "start making calls," which I do.

"Hello," Cara Tangaro breaths wearily into her cell phone, Tangaro, is Peterson's tough, outspoken attorney.  "This is Chris Jones from 2 News, Cara how are you?"  I say urgently, "I've been better," she answers, "we'll be issuing  a statement soon," she interjects without allowing a question.  

She thinks I know that Peterson has taken his own life, but all I have is an anonymous tip, and with 10 minutes to airtime, I need to hear the words from her mouth, before we can report anything.  "So is Greg dead?" I ask bluntly.  Not wanting to be the person who confirms the sad news,  she back tracks, "I can't say anything about that."  She sternly bucks up and walks away from her previous comments.  "Was his body found in his cabin?  That is what we are hearing,"  I press.  "I can't confirm or deny that," she says briskly. "When will you issue the statement?" I ask..."hello"...silence...she's hung up, I am likely the first media call she's received and doesn't want to have her name attached to confirming her clients death.

While I talk to Tangaro, assignment editor Mehul Asher is doing the same with the Wasatch County Sheriff, and fellow reporter Kristina Flores is trying to get in contact with the man who brought many of the rape charges against Peterson, District Attorney Sim Gill, but he  doesn't answer his phone.

I finally contact Gill, who confirms,  that Peterson is dead, and has likely killed himself with a single gunshot to the head.  Suicide, just days after his release from jail.  Found dead in the same cabin that housed his proudest moments, and possibly his darkest, now revealed secrets.

big screen, big risks

We've got 1 minute!" the frantic director bellows into the mic on his headset.  "we're gonna float!"  "floating," is a no-no, "floating," is industry jargon meaning your story is not going to make it on air on time, and for reporters and photographers, "we're gonna float," means you have sinned against the news gods.  If you "float," you must hang your head in shame as members of the production crew, the producer, other reporters and the boss shoot sharp glances your way as you make the humiliating trudge back to your desk.

Aside from getting the fact straight, there are few things more important than making your "slot."

On this night, the night of the second Presidential Debate, something warns me that the evening is going to be a pressure cooker, only compounded by the fact that I have tossed out the idea of using a brand new gizmo obtained by the TV station.

2News has recently added a new, massive, interactive big screen to our coverage. It allows reporters to manipulate the gleaming glass like a gargantuan smart phone, to do tasks like pull up data by touching the screen and displaying it to the audience,  we can also draw on the surface and bring attention to certain issues.  You've likely seen something similar to this on CNN during election coverage.    It is a breathtaking new technology, but if you don't touch the right part of the plasma screen you might find yourself dragging a long yellow line across a graphic instead of pushing the colorful statistic out of the way.  In short getting it right takes practice.

Other than photographer and editors using the Telestrator to draw glasses and mustaches on the head shots of reporters during their down time, the screen has not yet been utilized by any on-air types, and certainly not been used on television.  I for some reason have volunteered myself as the proverbial test rat.

My task is to analyze data provided to us by Google.  The company keeps track of everything users search and they will do so during the presidential debate.  The search term, "binders full of women," increased by 435% after Mitt Romney mentioned it during the presidential face-off.

The Google guy, says expect the data to be posted 30 minutes after the debate, "an hour tops," he adds a chipper yet ominous warning.  In the final analysis, more like an hour and a half, and that means the data drops at 9:30, half an hour before news time.

So all I have to do, is cull the data (9:40), pick the best bits (9:43), write a script, talk to the fellas in graphics, (9:47) who have to import the data, create a graphic, transfer to a hard drive(9:49), transfer the graphic from the hard drive to the big screen.  (9:50) Now grab a photographer, have him shoot my presentation on the big board (9:55), run to the editors have them piece it all together (9:57), Jay wraps that up at 9:59, just in time for us to hear, "we're gonna float!"

Usually the editors must take that file and drop it into some other file that goes into the news program, but that process takes about 2 minutes, unfortunately we only have one.  "We'll have to roll it from here," shouts the editor.  That means instead of letting the sophisticated computer do all the work, Jay will have to listen to the anchor, and push the buttons himself to make the story end up on TV. "are we gonna make it!?"  the producer's voice quivers the question at me on my cell phone, "Yes!" I pop into the receiver   "Now Google tracks all this data," I hear anchor Mark Koelbel over a nearby monitor, calmly and pleasantly telling viewers, "Chris Jones has been looking over the data, Chris," Mark recites, "go!" blasts the director, and that is exactly what Jay does, and there I am, on TV, to the viewers at home it was seamless, to our crew behind the scenes it was utter chaos.  No "floating" tonight, as I take my pulse, and collapse in my chair.

"I'm a Hooker."

Seeing her rush into my small office was perplexing, like glancing out a car window only to see an SUV resting on the roof of a house after a hurricane.   I'd seen her before, walking sadly and suggestively down Jackson Avenue in Pascagoula, Ms. late at night.  She was among a small cadre of prostitutes who prowl the 2 lane road,  book ended on either side, by a long-closed auto parts store to the north, and a questionable massage parlor to the south.

"I'm a hooker," she announces without fear of judgement as tears flow from her eyes, her thick, wet steams marbled with black mascara.  Inside the small office, she glances frantically, at the door she had just entered.  "I Just got out a jail," she roots nervously through her fatigued, faux-leather bag, I assume for a tissue, or a cigarette.   

Her dress is pretty, and modest.  It is blue with splashes of red and white flowers.  I can envision her sitting comfortably in a church pew in that ensemble,  but this is her work uniform, and she likely wears it most every day.  The blue and red, less brilliant than the day she received it, worn by the hot, Mississippi sun and faded by rainstorms that pepper the summer afternoons.  The shoes are even more telling.  The Dr. Scholl's are streaked with deep black scuff marks, and the flat wooden sole are rounded at the toe in heel, overworked grooves pressed away by hours and miles of endless walking. 

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my time in Pascagoula is my first job in television news, and everyday, it seems is a new, mind blowing experience.  Like a man, blind at birth, given his vision well into old age, and this day in 1995, is no exception.

"The police just let me go," she cries dragging the back of her hand across her wet, runny nose, "but they spent all night raping me."  She quickly grabs at her bra strap placing it firmly on her shoulder, as if the memory alone had forced it to leap back to her bicep.  "What?  What happened?"  I'm  trying to comprehend what I'm hearing, "I gotta go," she digs both thumbs into each of her eyes, then pirouettes and bolt out the glass office door, "hold on!" I follow her a few feet, as she darts down an alley, jogs around a corner, and is gone. 

"I honestly don't even know if we arrested anyone for prostitution last night Chris," the shift captain will announce to me in his friendly, easy southern drawl, "and if we did Chris, man, I don't know how much stock you can put in them claims," he says as he tries to dismantle her charge, "ya say she said she was a prostitute huh?" he chimes trying to reinforce her credibility issues, as he tugs at his jowly chin,  "It seemed like she wasn't lying," I insist, "I wonder why she would make a charge like that and just run off?" he lifts his beefy paw from his chin and stroking the back of his head.  "I'll look into it for ya, OK?"  But I can't promise anything."  I will never hear another word from the captain on the allegation.  

On my way home from work, I will take the long way past Jackson Avenue, trying to locate her again.  I never do.

Several months later, my beeper buzzes alive, as I am summoned to a broken part of Pascagoula, populated by listing wooden fences, packs of meandering feral dogs, and houses topped with corrugated steel instead of shingles.  

Police have found the murdered remains of a prostitute inside one of the exhausted shacks.  I don't know if it is the woman who pleads with me for help that blazing August afternoon, but the description is similar. Either way, I think often about that day she charged into my office, how broken and helpless she seemed, and how futile my efforts were to do anything about it.

And...Begin!

The clicks and clacks bounce and echo off the tile floor and composite doors inside the airy, bright atrium of the Utah Highway Patrol's field office, as television photographers extend tripods and un-clip gear.

Major Michael Rapich, stands pleasantly and orderly at attention as 11 journalists buzz around him, perching lights nearby, clicking on cameras and phoning their stations with the latest information. 

Major Mike Rapich (Courtesy: Salt Lake Tribune)

In about 3 minutes, Major Rapich will be peppered relentlessly, aggressively, and in some cases, angrily with questions about one of his own.   His department's integrity will be questioned, the word "cover-up," will surface, and his management style will be harangued, but for now, it's time for light pleasantries.

"How are you?" I chirp as I clip a microphone to his thin brown tie," "I'm good!" he beams, "good to see you again," he retorts happily as the army of camera's form a claustrophobic half circle around him.

"Ok, are we ready?" the public relations officer for UHP, bobs his head into the scrum of reporters, checks each nodding head, "then we can start," he blurts as he dodges his body out of the way like a referee after he yanks, scratches and pulls two boxers out of a sweaty, tired, brutal hug. 

"Why hasn't Trooper Steed been fired given her checkered past?" I bolt out the first question.  Rapich will spent the next 20 minutes on his heels, as he searches for the right words, without saying too much.  Reporters will rat-tat-tat questions at him like machine gun fire, and the career trooper will field them all, but vaguely answer but a few.  

Rapich is from central casting.  The kind of man, the UHP might print on a recruiting poster.  He is slender and tall, his wide brimmed campaign hat (think Royal Canadian Mounties) is precisely perched upon his distinguished head of grey hair.  Rapich appears to be a man who joined the UHP, not with the intent of scribbling tickets, on a dark and desolate rural Utah highway in the freezing drizzle, but rather to lead those ticket writers.  He is charming, confident and poised, and you can imagine him at the Trooper's Ball, in his dress blues, shaking hands with the governor, and chit-chatting with ease with the top brass of the Department of Public Safety.  Although he is polished, his hardscrabble roots emerge occasionally in his vernacular  "I seen that," he will pronounce periodically.  He appears to be one part lawman, two parts politician, and at this press conference he is 100 percent of the latter, in the first 7 minutes of the press availability, Rapich will repeat, "I can't comment on that," 9 times.

Trooper Lisa Steed

"Are you asking me if I want to be standing here answering these questions, the answer is "No." he says  with firm conviction, unfortunately  it has come to this.  He is forced to face the horde, because one of his troopers just can't stay out of trouble

Trooper Lisa Steed's was once the pride of the Utah Highway Patrol.  in 2007 she is named "Trooper of the year," after making more than 200 arrests in a single year, that is a national record.  A record that the UHP's longest serving trooper says, is impossible unless you're doing something wrong. Martin Luther Turner is just the latest in a ever expanding laundry list of critics.

Here is the Cliff Notes on her notorious career in no particular order: 

1) Judges call her "not credible," 

2) Salt Lake District Attorney investigates her. 

3) She admits to lying on the stand. 

4) Shoots a man with a Tazer as he sits in his car. 

5) Davis County DA refuses to prosecute her cases. 

6) arrest a man on a bike for DUI for taking his Epilepsy medication. 

7) In Memo boss says 11 of the 20 people she arrest for DUI during one period of time are actually sober.

8) Same officer says, she pulls over a driver and claims his pupils are dilated, and he is moving uncontrollably, a sign of impairment, her boss who accompanies her during the arrest says neither assessment is true.

The major's head swivels from one reporter to the next as he is verbally accosted from the left, then center then right, then back to the left.

As the flood of questions begin to slow to a trickle, Rapich scans his adversaries awaiting another assault, I approach him, un-clip the mic from his tie, shake his hand, "so good to see you again I grin, "you too!" he squeezes my palm firmly and smiles.  As my photographer Nick slings the tri-pod over his shoulder and I shove my notepad in my back pocket, I hear Rapich exchange some jaunty patter with my colleagues  "that was a good question!" he says to one with awe, as he plucks his hat off his head, and retreats.  The match is over, both sides return to their corners. 

   

I'd be glad NOT To Talk To You

Tick, Tick, Tick.  I can almost hear the clock literally ticking in my head.  In my business, particularly when your job is to produce news content for the 10 PM newscast, unlike most, the closer you get to 6 PM is NOT an enviable mark of time when you have yet to pin down a story for the day.

Katie Weddington  seems eager to talk about a pretty horrible experience.  She works as a satanic clown at a haunted house in Salt Lake City (Utah inexplicably loves haunted houses, that is another story altogether) On Saturday, a man shuffling through the eerie walls of plywood coated in black paint, with teenagers slathered in latex makeup, synthetic blood, and wielding unchained, chainsaws, allegedly rears back and cracks Katie in the mouth with his fist.  According to charging documents, he turns to his girlfriend and laughs hysterically.  Police say he isn't angry or frightened by Katie's horrifying portrayal of every child's nightmare, a clown barring long, yellow fangs, but rather that he just thought it would be "funny."

I track down Katie's home address and find her affable dad sipping a Natural Ice beer with an equally affable buddy.  He gives me a warm smile, a hearty handshake, and reenacts to me the lively story of his daughter's assault.  He dials up cell phone picture of his baby girl's bashed in teeth, while his wife, calls Katie, and sets up an interview for us near the haunted house where she was assaulted.

Parked in the haunted parking lot, with the second hand moving briskly around the face of my watch, I get a spooky sense that Katie is beginning to waver.  The first call to he mobile rings several times then lands unanswered in her voice mail.  The second call clicks directly to her digital answering service. 

I've seen this before, Katie, might be pondering the affects of being remembered as the gal who got socked in a clown outfit, or perhaps, her bosses, excoriate her that discussing an assault at their place of business for thousands to see is not good for business   To that point, few viewers hold business owners responsible for bad things that happen at their establishments, that are beyond their control.  If a wild-eyes crook steals someones purse when she steps away from her cart that is judged differently than if an elderly man slips in a puddle of water that has been left unattended for hours.

I send her a text message, "Hi Katie, we are here, we can meet you near the pink restaurant "  After a maddening 10 minute wait, my lifeless cell buzzes awake.  "I'm not really interested, I've started my shift," and with that, poof!  End, literally, of story.  I don't blame her, and  don't hold a grudge (Much) I've seen my share of interview success (see last blog) and interview fail (see three blogs ago) so you can't pound your fist for too, long, because frankly you haven't the time.  It's already 6:30, the news will go on as scheduled, and you better begin culling your sources and court records for something meaningful to report.

Six Minutes.

"Is that him?" I peer through the window or our news car, eyes squinting to shade the blinding glare of the sun refracting off the stark white snow, "It is.  That's Josh!"  The sun crashes into my pupils, unprotected by eyes popped open with utter surprise.

Josh Powell

Josh Powell's car, or rented car as it turns out, is crunching through the cold, dry, icy snow on this unseasonably frigid December day, and parking in front of his sister's West Jordan home.  The man every journalist wants to talk to, is about to do an infamous 6 minute interview with me, that will provide essential evidence to police, send other news crews scrambling, and will cause Internet sleuths from around the world, to analyze every word, tug of the cap, and hesitation.

After all these tragic, perplexing, twisting years, you likely don't need a primmer on the sad mystery of Susan Powell, but I'll give you the thumbnail sketch.

The West Valley, Utah mom of two little boys disappears December of 2009.
Her husband Josh, inexplicably says he and the boys went camping in unbearable subfreezing temperatures, at midnight the night before, and when he returns his wife is gone.  Everyone suspected him of having something to do with Susan Powell's disappearance  the police (although he was always officially just a person of interest) his neighbors, and eventually, even members of his own family.

Susan Cox-Powell

Susan has never been found, and last year, on Super Bowl Sunday, Josh, hacked his boys with a hatchet and burned his home to the foundation, killing himself, and snuffing out the lives of those two little guys.

On December 10th, 2009, when I meet a meek Josh Powell, in his blue cap and long out-of-style black leather jacket, I can't begin to fathom, that this story will erupt like a volcano into the nation's most tragically twisted tale of mystery and death.

Back in 2009, the story of Susan Powell is in it's infancy.  We know very little, simply that there is a woman from West Valley City, who hadn't been seen in a few hours.  Although things seemed odd, there is a conventional wisdom, based strictly upon conjecture, that Powell might have galloped off with an old flame, perhaps dozed off on a girlfriend's chaise lounge, or simply needs a breather from the pressures of marriage, work, and children.  All of these explanations seem reasonable, since as a member of the media, I've witnessed all three scenarios, and them some, play out in the past.

I am among those who assume Susan might wander home by the cold open and theme music of the 10 PM newscast.

As my colleagues and I discuss the case in our afternoon editorial meeting, questions are asked, and personal theories casually tossed out, but a laundry list of other stories need attention as well, and after some wrangling I insist that I should at least head to West Valley, and "check it out," I get feigning approval, couched with the caveat that, "if something bigger comes along we might move you."

"She would never just walk away from her kids, unless something was wrong," pleads Kiirsi Hellewell, one of Susan's Friends.

Kiirsi Hellewell

Hellewell, continues, off the record, that Josh and Susan are struggling with marital strife and in an aside, tips her glasses downward and confesses, that Josh's father has "problems."

Hellewell convinces me that Susan is not "OK," and she intimates that Josh might be responsible.

It turns out police are already focusing their attention on Powell, and are beginning to think, as you might expect, that Josh might have know more than he is telling police.  Which, as we will later learn, is nearly nothing.

"a small plane has crashed in Utah County," barks executive producer Jeremy Laird, as I click the "answer" button on my cell phone, minutes after stepping out of Hellewell's modest, kid evident, living room.  "You're the closest, we need to get you there immediately!" he demands.

"I don't know about that," I question, " I think I need to stay on this,"  Not willing to debate, and watching the clock, Jeremy, presses as he raises his voice, something he has rarely done with me in the past, "You're the only one, right now!  We need to get you on the road!"  his patience is thinning.  "Jeremy, this is going to be a big story, and if we miss it today, we will be playing catch up tomorrow, caught with our pants down, I guarantee it!"  I snap into my cell.  "Alright!" his voice, cutting through the airwaves, "we'll send Fields Moseley!"  He isn't happy, and is likely wishing he is jousting with me on a traditional land line so he can drive the clunky plastic receiver loudly down into  it's base.

As more suspicions mount in the collecting hours, and days and local TV stations are beginning to dedicate more resources to the story, and national media outlets, are noodling the idea, in their news meetings, of ginning up, the cranking, creaking national media machine, and book a flight to Utah.

Most of the proverbial bases are covered, with the exception of Josh, no one had talked to, or even seen Susan's husband since she disappeared.

There are hushed conversations in the neighborhood, and in news rooms about his audacious silence. "If it was me," I remember one colleague suggesting, "I'd be shouting from the rooftops for help finding my wife."  It was time to find Josh.

My photographer and I do a round-robin of possible places Powell might be tucked away. his home, the West Valley police station, his sister's house.  I recall the monotonous circle we travel this day.  Powell home, Police, sister, Powell home, police, sister, Powell home police, sister, for hours.  As we roll up on the sister's home one last time, a nondescript Chevy rounds in front of the house and comes to rest.  I squint and see a face that resembles the pictures I'd been looking at of Susan's husband, smiling with their two boys, holding a plate of food, or wrestling with his kids in the couple's back yard.

"Start rolling," I command in a low voice, "Hi, Josh?" I walk softly toward him.  Josh stares at me, caught flat-footed in the cold Utah snow. "Hey, I'm Chris Jones from 2 News, How are ya?"  "OK?" he sputters reluctantly, and lifts his hand to meet mine and shakes it.  as I ask him how he's doing, he nervously glances over his shoulder, like a riverboat gambler, whose just cheated a couple of desperadoes out of a weeks wages.

Despite his reticence, he begins to answer my questions, and I can recall, the beat of my heart, pounding deeply enough that I can hear and feel it in my ears as I walk a proverbial mental tightrope.

To date, Powell has met only once with police, and on the advice of his attorney, given a physical description of his wife, and a vague laundry list of the items she might have been wearing, but remains silent as a stone, about where he was that night, and particularly where his wife might be right now.

I know I must be placid, I don't want to spook him, if I do he will potentially vanish into his sister's home, and likely disappear from the public eye forever, just like his now missing wife.

I keep my tenor low and attempt to level my energy with his.  I start by setting him at ease with a question about his kids, and his own well-being.

then I transition genially to a line of questioning about what happened the night his wife vanished, why he didn't call in sick to work, and suggest that people think he might have hurt his wife, it is the query that elicits the response that will be repeated on TV sets, radios, the Internet and newspapers across the country.   "I didn't do anything, I mean, I don't know where she's at.  I don't even know where to start looking," he utters pensively.

I begin to pepper him blandly with more pointed questions, as he tugs on his cap, shuffles from one foot to the next, and averts his gaze to the home in which he desperately wants to be.  I realize, he is wavering, "Basically I need to figure out what to do, get into my kids," he interrupts as he transitions  towards the door of safety. Then I ask: "Where do you go camping?" I'm not certain, but I'm told some time later, that his answer of, near "the Pony Express Trail," will send a team of officers combing the frozen deserts of Southern Utah.

This ends up being the most comprehensive interview with Powell, until he finally speaks to national media outlets two years later.


A few weeks after my interview, an investigator on the case, spots me at a movie theater as I patiently wait for my film to begin.   He grabs my hand shaking it vigorously, "thank you," he smiles, "That interview, with Powell, really helped us,"  "oh," I say gently, trying to level my energy with his so as not to spook him,  "how so?" I ask in dulcet tones.   He laughs, chomps his popcorn with gusto, and wanders off chuckling, to his movie.