Voyeur-in-law

The case of missing Utah woman Susan Powell gets "curiouser and curiouser."

Powell disappeared in December, 2009, after her husband, Josh, claimed he and his two young sons had been camping on the coldest night of the year and returned home to find her missing. Within a few weeks Josh closed up their home and moved himself and his children to his father's home in Puyallup, Washington, casting suspicion on himself. As people speculated at the time, "He knows she's not coming home." Josh has also refused to speak with West Valley City, Utah police, or to join in any of the searches for Susan.

Within the past couple of months, with much fanfare and media attention, West Valley City police have investigated some old mines near Ely, Nevada, without results, and a large area near Topaz Mountain in Utah, where cadaver-sniffing dogs indicated a body was buried. Nothing was found but some burned wood chips. Police and volunteers searched for several days but found no human remains.

After the Ely expedition, and before going to Topaz Mountain, West Valley police in conjunction with police in Washington served search warrants at the home of Susan's husband, Josh, and his father, Steve Powell. Steve Powell had been saying some things that made everyone sit up and take notice. He claimed he had a relationship with his daughter-in-law, Susan, that they flirted and she came on to him sexually. Susan's friends and family claimed the opposite, that Steve Powell made Susan uncomfortable, that she and Josh moved to Utah to get away from him. When police seized Steve Powell's computers and other materials they found thousands of pornographic pictures of children, as well as voyeuristic photos he'd taken of neighbor children. Even, according to the story, some of Susan.

You can read more about it in a newspaper article here.

Susan's father-in-law, Steve Powell.

After his computers were seized Powell admitted without elaborating that they contained embarrassing things. He said that he should have gotten rid of them. After viewing the contents of his computer it took until last Friday for the law to move in and arrest him. But police had served a couple of search warrants previously and his computers were left untouched. He probably thought they weren't interested. It was the announcement from Steve and Josh Powell that they were going to publish excerpts from Susan's teenage diaries that galvanized the action against him. The diary entries were supposed to show that Susan was unstable. Susan's parents sued, and a judge agreed: no diary excerpts were to be published.

Josh and Steve's Susan Powell website is full of accusations about Susan's family and friends: link to it here.

Missing from the website since I checked it a few weeks ago was a bizarre timeline which attempted to draw a connection between Susan and another missing Utahn, Steven Koechner, who disappeared at the same time as Susan. Koechner was last seen in Nevada. According to Susan's family, she wasn't capable of running off with another man and leaving her young children. It's an interesting coincidence that they both disappeared at the same time, but so far no evidence it's more than just that, a coincidence. (There's also no direct evidence Susan is dead, either.)

Steve Powell is in jail for the child porn, with bail set for $200,000 cash. He worked for the Washington State Dept. of Corrections and lost his job after his arrest. With these new revelations talk is going around that Steve Powell had something to do with Susan's disappearance. As far as I know, Steve Powell wasn't in Utah when Susan disappeared. Some people have a capacity to put two and two together and come up with five, and it all makes sense to them. My feeling is that no matter what images someone has on his computer, how they felt about someone as Steve admitted feeling about his daughter-in-law, or how creepy the whole situation is it doesn't make him a murderer. That doesn't stop the gossip, though.

Susan's husband, Joshua Powell

Adding this to an already inflammatory situation doesn't help the Powells' case. Today Josh was in juvenile court, attempting to get his children back. At one point he said his father's bail was so high he wouldn't be getting out of jail. The implication is the kids will be safe without the elder Powell in the house. Were they in danger all this year, living in the house with him?

Besides having child porn, Steve allegedly took secret telescopic pictures of his neighbors through their windows. Even if he were to return home I'm sure there wouldn't be a block party with happy neighbors to welcome him back. There might be a party, but it could include a rope, or at least a barrel of bubbling tar and a sack full of feathers.

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