So Much Information, So Little Information.

The ghastly tale of Susan and Josh Powell, reads like a dense murder-mystery at times, and at others, like a long grocery list.  As you peruse the 30,000 investigation documents released by the West Valley City Police Department, it feels like you're watching a television crime thriller, and conversely like you are glancing at a digital clock as it blinks from 3:31 AM to 3:32 AM.

Many of the pages released are redacted, leaving the reader to scan through reams of black pages, and scores of whitewashed names, but the text is rich with information, some of it engrossing, some of it uncomfortably close, some of it banal.

In a section tabbed photos, you see hundreds, if not thousands of evidence photos, snapped by crime scene investigators.  Many of the images you would expect a cop to take.  Like the out of focus photo of a large bar-b-que tool.  "Could this be a murder weapon?"  A crime scene tech might ask as he or she opens the aperture of the camera and searches for clues in Susan's disappearance.  Or the plastic bag police found hidden in the floor boards of Josh's nondescript Town and Country Mini-van.  The van in which he took his kids on a midnight run, to the frozen desert, the night his wife disappeared.   Inside the white, 13 gallon garbage bag is a two foot by 1 foot section of burnt dry wall.  The frightening possibilities are only outnumbered by the likely, humdrum explanations.

The truth is most of the photos are mundane, a shot of plastic jars of vitamins and supplements from inside the Powell's kitchen cabinets.   A snap shot of a can or concentrated orange juice, a photo of a tin of Altoids.  The tedious documentation by police that shows just how intricately they investigated the frustrating disappearance 

As I flicker through the dearth of images, I remember feeling uncomfortable, as if  I am forced to peer  inside the home of an unsuspecting neighbor as she prepare dinner, or carelessly watch television on her sofa.

There are photos, of Susan's grass stained running shoes and her jewelry.  There are pictures inside her most personal spaces, of her unmade bed, of her toiletries strewn carelessly across her bathroom vanity.  These are places that only Susan had been, things only Susan has worn, and now things and places, at which a dozen police officers, and additionally a dozen reporters are now leering.

Also tucked away inside the puzzle of information stored on a 24 Gig hard drive, are all the crevices in which police have peeked during their search.  Officers, it appears, spent some time tracking down a tip from an unnamed prison inmate, who, looking for reduced jail time, suggested that Josh had had some sort of relationship with a woman, who may have been a stripper and who could potentially have information about Susan's whereabouts   One of the documents includes a list of exotic dancers, their names (redacted) including their stage alias (redacted) and the club at which they danced (redacted).  If I'm correct, it looks like that inmate, acting as a confidential informant for police, called one of his associates on a recorded line, looking for the "real," name of "that b**ch."  His words, not mine.

That inmate makes references to Josh being involved, "with the wrong people," there is also a letter from someone referring to a potential contract taken out on Josh's life.  None of the tips appear to have led to any solid leads, but they are indications of how police walked down every proverbial alley in the labyrinthine tale of Susan Cox Powell.

A transcript of a police interview with one of Susan's co-workers, shows the delicate dance officers did as they attempted to reveal everything about Susan's personality.  The officer asks the male co-worker if knew that Susan had told friends she had had dreams about him, and if the man had ever had a "physical" relationship with the missing woman, "me, no, no."  He responds with surprise.

As you scroll through all the pages, it appears that police have uncovered just about everything regarding Susan and Josh, from the shoes they fastened to their feet, to the vitamins that they put in their mouths.  Everything that is, except the answer to that single, simple, and sadly, it turns out, impossible question.



 

The Ghastly Ghost

Even after his sickening murder-suicide, Josh Powell, continues to thrust himself, zombie-like, into our lives.  Like a reoccurring rash or chronic back pain, Powell's repugnant visage seems to make a return every 6 months or so.

Most recently, he infected the sleepy community of Salem, Oregon.  After a tip from the father of Susan Cox-Powell, the West Valley City Police, packed their bags and made the 13 hours trip to the Pacific Northwest, to root through another open field, poke their heads into more deep, dark craggy holes, and jam their glove covered hands into thistle, thorny rose bushes, and spiky weeds.

Officers didn't find anything, so they slung their backpacks onto another uncomfortable bed, in another nameless motel, and stuffed it carelessly with dob kits, hiking boots and undershirts, then made the 800 mile drive back home to West Valley.  

You likely know the excruciating tale of Susan, Josh, Chuck, Steven and the boys.  Missing woman, suspected husband, brave dad, perverted father, murdered children and fiery suicide.

The last time Josh made an unwelcome appearance was Super Bowl Sunday.  My girlfriend Amanda, who is now my wife and I where prepping snacks for a party when my boss, Jen Dahl called, "Josh Powell killed his children and himself by burning down his house, can you go to Washington?"   After I shook my head, and closed my mouth, I packed a bag for Sea-Tac.

In the airport, as I waited for my plane to depart, I caught a glimpse of  a nondescript play run by the New England Patriots, before hoisting my briefcase onto my shoulder and bouncing around in a line as people scanned their smart phones, talked about Tom Brady, and whispered with hands over mouths about Powell, "he killed his kids too?!"

Before that it was his father's arrest on voyeurism charges, then his dad's weird obsession with Susan, and the interviews,  and the child custody hearings.  

Every 6 months, the chinless Powell, with his spotty goatee and pouting, moist eyes, would saunter into our proverbial eye sight, like an unwelcome house guest, bowling into the living room in nothing but a terry cloth robe, eating the last piece of pizza.

The response to a Powell resurrection is always, exasperatedly, methodically the same.  I have about 10 names in my phone's contact list, under the heading "Powell."  When Josh makes news, the first call is always to Chuck Cox, Susan's father, then to Josh's sister, then the police department.  If you can't get any answers there, your last resort is Cox family attorney Anne Bremner.    Whenever a new Powell revelation pops up, reporters rush down the same worn, and tired path, and usually find the exact same worn and tired answers.  

The Salem lead didn't unveil Susan's whereabouts, so Josh, and the tale of the awfulness he brought to the world is put to bed.  Eventually, we will hear from him again.  I don't know for what or why, but when we do, everyone: reporters, police, Susan's family, will pull themselves out of bed, drag themselves off the sofa, dig their thumbs into their clinched eyes, take a deep breath, and start the tired task of digging in a wheat field or calling Chuck Cox for comment.  

I'm the step-fatherer!

It was about 5:15 when he stumbles up behind the horde of cameras and reporters, his tall Pompadour
balanced on the top of his head, and wiggling back and forth atop his noggin, like a sleepy cowboy, after a long horse back ride.  His hair would waggle, whenever he would emphasis each drunken syllable.  "I was the step-fatherer." He stammers as we interview an animated neighbor who is passionately complaining about all the traffic, and cars speeding down her street. "There's kids here 24-7!"  she shouts, with her fist raised up to her face, drawing tiny circles in the air with them, like an old-timey pugilist.

At about 4 PM, three girls, ages 9,11, and 14 where walking to a nearby swimming pool when a man who police say was texting on his phone hit all three of them.  The girls were all taken to the hospital, but are, as of today, in stable condition.

While Dianna tries, rather incompletely,  to paint the picture of a terrible accident that crashes nearly into her front yard, the Pompadour, inserts his slurry cocktail of disconnected words into the interview, "He weers Texting, when he hut them kidzzz, oh, he's dead!"  Dianna, stammers and stutters a bit, taken aback by the interruption then like a lawnmower with a fresh gallon of gas, she begins revving up her tale again.  The Pompadour, I guess certain that he should be the one in the dim television spotlight, announces loudly, "I'm was the step fatherer in the one of the kidzzz!"

That may have been true, but all the reporters silently and collectively decide that interviewing a dangerously intoxicated man would do little to help advance the sad story, so we simply ignored him.  Which doesn't go over well, "Well F*$k you!"  He spits, "F**k you!"  Dianna, slipping into neighborhood mom mode, figuratively slaps his hand, "you watch your mouth young man!" she blurts, "I'm the step sister...uh...fatherer, of Stacy...so....F**k you!" Dianna, folds her arm, and glares, "what did you say young man," (as an aside, I think it's important to note, that the general consensus among reporters is that Dianna might have been a tad tipsy as well) "I'm the dad, step dader...and F**k you B**tch!"

When I watch the video of the exchange later that night, I catch a glimpse of my face in the corner of the camera's lens.  It is a combination of shock, amusement, and a certain, gleeful curiosity about "where is this going next!"  When the Pompadour, begins slamming his two fists against the aging, rusty, chain link fence,  screaming, "I just wanna, needa, F**king ride, the hosssspitable!" I should have been concerned that this thing might have turn violent, but rather, I was somewhat taken in by the wiggly shelf of hair, bouncing and bobbing on top of his head.  One of the other reporters had had enough, and as I was hypnotized by the follicle ballet, Alex Cabrero from Ch. 5 chimes, in, "hey, what's your problem?"  Things might have gotten ugly if Lt. Justin Hoyal, of the Unified Police Department hadn't intervened and escorted the guy away.

At some point during the melee I had received a call from the station, I click the answer button but don't say anything, as I watch the human house fire burning in front of me.  After Hoyal escorts the man up the street,  I quickly answered the phone, "oh hello, I forgot you were there." On the other end of the line was the producer of the 10 PM news cast, "are you ok?  Do we need to send help?  Did you make someone mad?"  "Oh don't worry about me," I said, "He was just yelling at everyone."