If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (30 page)

A Utah judge had specified that eight people were permitted to see the images that had been found on Josh’s computer; in addition to Dr. Manley and Detective Sanders, Assistant District Attorney John Long, and a CPS social worker viewed the toon porn.

Josh’s attorney, Jeffrey Bassett, wasn’t there because he wasn’t told of the viewing until after the fact. Neither was Steve Downing—the Coxes’ attorney in the custody case—who wasn’t notified until February 9 that he could have seen the images. If he had, he said he might have asked to change the terms of Josh’s supervised visitations with his sons, so that the visits would return to the FCRN offices or another public office.

Using what he had seen, as well as what he knew about Josh—from Josh’s parents’ divorce records and from Josh’s psychological evaluation—Dr. Manley recommended that Josh undergo a psychosexual evaluation, the “peter meter” test. He also advised giving Josh a polygraph.

No one expected those requirements to be met with much enthusiasm.

*   *   *

Aside from his letter to his brother Mike notifying him of the change of life insurance beneficiary, there were no signs that Josh was contemplating making a life-or-death decision.

On the supervised visit of Sunday, January 29, Charlie and Braden jumped out of the car and ran to greet their dad, beating Griffin-Hall to the front door as they liked to do. It was to be a four-hour visit, extra-long to make up for the visitation that had been cancelled because of snow the week before. Griffin-Hall noted that the house was tidy as ever, with a classical music station playing in the background.

Both boys said “I love you” to their father.

Braden was limping slightly from the hot-water burn on his foot that he’d gotten at the Coxes’ home.

With Josh doing his best to teach and engage them, Charlie and Braden ate some of the candy used to decorate a gingerbread house they had assembled on a previous visit. Then they played with remote-controlled cars for a while, and Josh gave them guidance on how to better work the controls. They also drew flowers and animals with crayons and watched a Leap Frog learning video about outer space. For snacks, Josh gave them hot dogs and breakfast sandwiches.

Then it was over.

“I love you,” Josh said. “I’ll see you as soon as I can. Be happy and have a good time.”

That night, Josh called Tim Atkins. Josh admitted to Tim that some questionable images that might be considered child pornography had been found on his computer. But Josh was feeling optimistic. He didn’t think Chuck and Judy would ever give up their custody fight, but he felt the state was leaning to restoring custody to him. He was thinking of extending an olive branch to the Coxes.

“Tim, can you just tell Chuck and Judy that I want things to be different?”

Tim felt some progress was in the offing.
Finally.

“You need to go into that courtroom and you need to show them you want to be different, in the way you respond,” Tim said.

As Tim saw it, Josh had it in his mind that if he didn’t put up a really strong fight that somehow he would communicate to the world that he didn’t want his boys back.

Fighting proved he was a good father.

Tim told him he was wrong. “No, Josh, you’re showing them that you want to fight. Do what they want you to do and be the dad.”

Two days later, on January 31, Josh had his last scheduled visit with his sons at the Atkinses’ home in Steve’s Country Hollow neighborhood. Josh was certain he was going to get his sons back that week. He and Tim talked about the long-awaited hearing the next day.

Charlie and Braden played with Tim’s four children and they all had a snack. Josh sat on the couch and read a book to the boys, and helped Charlie read a book about different kinds of insects. They all sat on the floor and played with blocks, and Josh asked Tim to take some photos before they knocked down the blocks.

They ate a Tater Tot casserole. Then Tim broke some news to Josh: He and Brenda had decided they needed to stop helping Josh with his supervised visits. Not only had some of Tim’s parishioners complained, but for months DSHS had implied that there was something the Atkinses didn’t know. As Tim later recounted, “They would say, ‘Well, Mr. Atkins, there are things we can’t talk about in this case.’ And I always told Josh, ‘Josh, they know something they’re not telling you and they’re not telling me.’”

In an e-mail to Josh’s social worker, Forest Jacobson, Tim wrote that it was clear the police were “actively building a criminal case against Josh.”

Josh would still have two visitations a week with his sons. Both would take place at the rental house in Graham and not at the Atkinses’. Tim insists that Josh wasn’t upset that the only people to befriend him since Susan’s disappearance—the minister, his wife, and their four children—had decided to limit their contact with him.

43

Having demonstrated my fitness as a parent, it is time for my sons to come home.

—JOSH POWELL, IN AN AFFIDAVIT, FEBRUARY 1, 2012

On February 1, 2012, the child custody hearing originally scheduled for November, and then for January—postponed because of a rare Pacific Northwest snowstorm—commenced in the Tacoma courtroom of Superior Court Judge Kathryn Nelson.

Chuck and Judy Cox were sitting near the back. Their attorney in the custody case, Steve Downing, was in an observational role only. This hearing was between the State of Washington and Josh Powell.

Josh, who was all smiles, walked Griffin-Hall and her supervisor, Lyn Okarski, from an elevator to the courtroom, then went to meet with his attorney. He had told the two women that he “expected to take the kids home that day.” Josh was confident. Josh’s attorney was confident.

Suddenly there was a wail and raised voices from outside the courtroom.

Judy turned to see where it was coming from; so did Griffin-Hall and Okarski. It seemed to be in an alcove adjoining the courtroom.

It was Josh, being warned by his attorney that he was not going to get custody of the boys. He already knew that Dr. Manley was suggesting further psychological testing. He hadn’t known, however, that the testing would delay the custody proceedings for months, possibly forever.

Despite the news, Josh argued that he should regain custody of his children. In an affidavit filed that day, Josh wrote that he missed his wife, and would remain strong for the boys.

A lesser person would fall under the intense scrutiny I am facing, but apparently my inherent resilience as a person makes it increasingly difficult for them to pursue their agendas. I am standing tall for my sons, but it deeply hurts to face such ridicule and abuse. I know my own heart is free of any guilt regardless of what people claim.

The incestuous images were mentioned briefly in court but not discussed in depth. John Long argued that a psychosexual evaluation was necessary because of those images, as well as the pornography found at Steve Powell’s house when Josh was living there with his sons.

Judge Nelson agreed. Despite a plea from Josh’s attorney that such a test was “intrusive” and that Josh hadn’t been charged with any crime, the judge would not consider giving Josh custody unless he underwent the exam. She did not change his visitation schedule, which included the supervised Sunday and Wednesday visits. Charlie and Braden, who had recently had birthdays and were now seven and five years old, respectively, would remain with the Coxes for the foreseeable future.

Chuck and Judy Cox sat behind Josh and could see that he was angry.

“I wanted to ask why are they still letting him have visitation if they have all these concerns?” Chuck said. “It crossed my mind, ‘Hey, this is really tightening the screws on Josh.’”

The Coxes were worried about how he would react to the increasing stress.

*   *   *

The hearing was the tipping point for Josh. If he refused to participate in the psychosexual evaluation, he would lose custody of the boys. If he participated in the test, he would still lose custody of the boys, because it was more than likely that he would not pass it. And for the first time, he would have been asked during a polygraph exam about what had happened to Susan.

*   *   *

Josh would have been subjected to a penile plethysmograph, or PPG, an exam that measures the blood flow to the penis. The PPG is administered with a strain gauge, which is a kind of cuff worn at the base of the penis that tests a man’s arousal while he is shown photographs and videos of normal sexual behavior as well as deviant acts. The PPG exam takes about two hours; there is also a two-hour evaluation that covers the individual’s sexual history and the sexual behavior of his family when he was a child and adolescent. Penile plethysmographs are commonly used in criminal proceedings when judges need to assess how likely a defendant is to reoffend, but they can also be ordered in civil matters. As it had been for Josh.

*   *   *

Josh spoke briefly with Tim Atkins. They made plans for Sunday, February 5. Josh would see his sons, go to church in the evening, then go over to the Atkinses’ house. “That would be great,” Tim said.

On the night of the pivotal hearing, the Coxes put Charlie and Braden to bed. Susan’s portrait—the same image the public would hold in their minds of the missing mom—was propped up next to the fireplace. Susan wasn’t there, but the boys still remembered her.

That night was a calm one. There was no fighting or acting out.

Even so, Judy had been uneasy. She had been worried since the court hearing—more worried than usual.

Chuck felt his wife’s anxiety. They had been together long enough to know what each other was thinking, even when no words were shared.

Judy was afraid that the court ruling had backed Josh into a corner.

“You’re right. The court put him in a spot,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I wonder what he’s going to do next.”

Chuck didn’t know. In fact, Chuck Cox could never have dredged up a scenario as dark as what was to come.

Not in a million years.

44

I remember Chuck made a comment to me … “Wow, this is the first visitation after that court date.” We felt he was going to do something, but we had no idea.

—JUDY COX, SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Those who knew the family always considered Mike Powell the one that “got away.” While it was true that Jennifer, too, had escaped the toxic household, she’d been able to leave because she was of age when the family imploded. But Mike was a kid. He had to bide his time. The young man, who looked like a younger version of his father—or a healthier version of Josh—found a roadmap out of Puyallup by serving in the army for five years and then going to college, where he majored in International Studies at the University of Washington. Mike was different from his brother. His ambitions were met with follow-through, though not always to the degree he’d hoped. In 2008 he ran unsuccessfully for state office, but the setback didn’t stop him. He still managed to be one of nine delegates to represent Washington State at the National Democratic Convention in Denver.

And yet, like Josh and Alina, Mike always sided with his father, no matter what. His mother had been an outsider since he had moved into his father’s house at the age of ten. When Steve disowned Jennifer, Mike did, too.

As tenuous as relationships can be when bound by fear and paranoia, Mike and Josh appeared steadfast. In Puyallup, before Josh married Susan, the brothers even shared a bedroom. They were as close as anyone in the Powell family. When Josh needed help, it made sense that his first calls would be to his father and to Mike. Steve, though absent from work, didn’t go to help out in Utah. Mike and Alina did. Mike helped Josh in ways no one knew.

Josh knew whom he could count on. He knew who had his back. He’d changed his beneficiary to Mike in early December. Now, one day after the hearing ordering the psychosexual evaluation, Josh wrote Mike again. In a letter dated February 2, 2012, Josh named Mike the rights holder for any and all the intellectual property pertaining to his life. He specifically called it “life rights” as though he was certain there would be money to be had from a movie or TV film about his story.

And then Josh was gone. It was only later that those closest to him would realize that they hadn’t heard from him for a few days. Josh had called Mike on Friday, but his brother didn’t have time to talk. Alina didn’t see Josh on Saturday, which was unusual.

There were people who did see him, but they were strangers.

*   *   *

Josh Powell was just another single father doing errands on Saturday, February 4, 2012, the day before Super Bowl Sunday. Only Josh wasn’t shopping for beer or soda or Doritos. Instead, he had a checklist of errands that would culminate in a surprise he had planned for Charlie and Braden the following day.

At 11:19
A.M.
, he went to the Bank of America at 175th Street and Meridian and withdrew $7,000 in hundred-dollar bills, leaving $4,500 in his account. The bank’s security camera captured a haggard-looking Josh, but he had looked like that for a long time. The teller didn’t ask him why he was withdrawing that much money, but he called a bank manager over to approve the transaction.

Josh also visited his storage unit, #141 at Western Self Storage in Sumner, a few miles from Puyallup. He packed some toys and books into plastic bins, but left other items, including a comforter with a blood-like stain.

Next, he returned to Puyallup and the South Hill Fred Meyer parking lot—the location of the honk and wave that had made national news when his father and Chuck Cox got into it over Susan’s disappearance. He dropped off the toys and books at a Salvation Army donation center. One of the books had his name in it and said “Testament” on the cover. Other books were gifts to Susan from friends.

The local recycling center was the next stop. Josh arrived there in the afternoon and left a hymnal, a book on calculus, and a map of Utah. A book titled
Footprints
was inscribed and dated May 31, 2000.