RedHanded - Episode 264 - Susan Cox Powell: Mormon Murder Mystery - Part 1

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

On the 6th of December, 2009, when Susan Cox Powell disappeared while her husband Josh was away on a “spontaneous camping trip”, their community was sent reeling.  This Mormon family had long had its issues, but with the revelation of major debts, rampant psychological abuse, and an obsessive and disturbing father-in-law who filmed Susan’s every move, everyone suspected the worst. Yet a decade later, nobody is behind bars… 2022 LIVE SHOW TICKET LINKS: >>https://redhandedpodcast.com<< See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Hooded. Welcome, Bienvenue. Willkommen. Other words in languages because we're going to different countries. Yes. Queen of the Segway. We are.

It has nothing to worry about because I'm still here. Our tour tickets. If you are having trouble with the links, we understand there have been problems. Problems? There have been problems. There have been troubles and problems at the same time which is problems go straight to the venues there are still tickets for every show except the Dublin show which has sold out but because we are so nice and because I will go to Ireland for literally any reason at all we have added an extra Dublin

date so make sure you get your tickets I believe it's on the 19th of October which I think is a Wednesday please go and get your tickets in the UK we are playing the Albert Hall in Manchester the London Palladium which is an absolute barn and we really need your help to fill it so please go and get your tickets you can find them on our website you can check them out in the link in the episode description below on our social medias or you could just google it yes absolutely we'll try to make it really simple there is a link tree link in the episode description follow that and it's got all of the links for all of the venues there is no excuse guys buy your tickets come see us this autumn and it's going to be a lot of fun so there is no segue there is no segue from that into what we're about to talk about so i'm just gonna move on over because this week we are covering one of the biggest unsolved

mysteries in modern true crime. It's one of those cases that true crime nerds have pored over for years and inevitably it is one that a lot of people get a lot of things wrong about. This story today starts with a missing woman and ends with five people dead, a man in prison for child sex abuse, and more weird video footage of a man in his vest talking about foot rubs than anyone has time for. This week we are of course discussing missing Mormon mum, Susan Cox Powell, the sad set of circumstances that led up to her disappearance, and the mayhem and murder that followed it. Now we've covered the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the LDS Church or the Mormons quite a bit on this show so we aren't going to go all the way back to the 1820s when

a 12 year old boy called Joseph Smith was visited by an angel in the woods and given some gold plates that would go on to cause quite a bit of controversy. For that and any other Mormon-y red-handed deep dives that your heart may desire, go and listen to our many episodes on it, including Laurie Vallow and the Kirtland Cult, where we go into it in a great amount of depth. We'll leave those episodes linked below so you can check them out. And it definitely, definitely all 100% happened. and ancient Jews built boats and they sailed to America upon which they built the Garden of Eden. We're not making it up folks. Whenever we talk about Mormons I always

remind people some affirmations that we have here at Red Handed HQ which is if the Mormons can believe in all of that shit you can believe in yourself for five minutes. Hannah. This is what I say to myself all the time. Hey, words to live by. Exactly.

For this episode, we are going to be doing some simplifying, and we're going to start that simplification with these two images that most people have in their mind when they think Mormon. On the one hand, a lot of people imagine members of the LDS church to be small C conservatives with strong Christian values and insular community the romneys is what you you would think of yes people imagine these insular communities headed by the romneys etc to be grounded in kindness companionship and traditional values on the

other hand there is another image that people have of the church of jesus christ of last day saints and that image is often associated with words like misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia, religious revisionism, all of those things describing words, elements. Anyway, if you had a spider diagram of Mormonism in the middle, I think all of those things would be spider legs. Yes, I think much like any religion, all of those, apart from the strong Christian values, insert other religion into there, they can all fit around any religion. And that is inherently the problem with religion is that there is obviously the good side and then there's the fucking batshit awful side. And this case is kind of the perfect reflection of both of those things. People might think of an overarching and controlling

religious community obsessed with maintaining outdated social structures and values. Where in the world could you spot one of those in this day and age? And this strain of LDS members also have a reputation for often well-meaning but very much white saviour-esque missionaries going abroad and doing charity work in developing countries one of the ladies when i got accosted by those grannies on that train up to edinburgh which is entirely my fault because i missed the one i was supposed to be on anyway they were very sweet but one of them was a missionary oh yeah what time i don't think she was a morm no i think she was a lutheran oh maybe a calvinist she was scottish i don't know that's just my more what I assume Scottish people are. But yeah, no, she was very nice. But yep, she was like, oh, well, when I was on my mission.

Wow. Ah, I can't escape. Wow. Yeah, I mean, obviously we talked about this a lot when we did our shorthand on Chow. Yeah, North Sentinel Island. On North Sentinel Island. Yeah, it's just, yeah, maybe just don't do that. Maybe just leave it alone.

How about that? The Mormons, they're big into it. I would say more than any other modern day current religio, they feel like the biggins in the missionary world. Them and the Jehovah's. Yes. Did I actually see a Morm on the tube the other day? I did.

And I knew she was a Morm because she had a badge on that said, Sister Edna, wasn't it? Sister Edna. And then it said Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They've got a big HQ down by the Albert Hall that's been there for quite some time. But you don't really see them in the wild that often. No, you never see them in the wild. That was my first.

Your first live one. My first like, I know it's a morm. I know she's a morm. I'm looking at a morm on the tube. And I really had to try and not stare because I was like, fucking Alistair, like, just let her live her life, obviously. I'm not here to make you feel uncomfortable, but I was like, I was having a little look over my paper and I was like, oh, look at her shoes. Look at her badge. Yeah, man.

She seemed very harmless. But then again, you never know. So in this episode, we are going to talk about both sides of that slippery LDS coin. On one side, we have a close loving family who took their faith very seriously and tried their best to do well by their children and by their community. And whatever you want to believe, who could say that any of those things are bad things? And this side of the LDS coin is the Cox's, aka team good vibes only. And on the other side of that coin, the LDS coin, we have a marriage that fell apart, a loss of faith, and even alleged child abuse.

And these are the Powell's, aka team bad vibes for life. These two families, and they're very different images, interpretations, understanding, practising of what the LDS Church teaches would eventually end up welded together. Firstly through love, family and faith, but eventually through loss, pain, grief and death. And as we have already hinted towards, Josh Powell did not have a small-c conservative upbringing that you may imagine. He was also not the same Josh Powell that won two NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and made this episode more difficult to research than you would imagine.

The Josh Powell we are talking about today, that we are teaching you, all about, my friends, my Romans, my countrymen, he would end up taking his own life in a fiery blaze in South Hill, Washington, and would ultimately contribute to the deaths of five people, including that of himself. And this Joshua Powell was born on the 20th of January, 1976, in the city of Puyallup, Washington. What a name. There's a lot of stonking names in this episode, actually. Yes, there are.

And I'm going to give you one now. Joshua's parents were called terica and steven you don't hear terica enough i don't think i've ever heard no and by enough i mean ever there was a girl i used to know who's american who everyone called trina but her name was latrina like latrina like toilet oh and i was like what oh that's something quite something i need two danicas growing up there you go there you go let's just chuck all the names in my cousin used to work at the cinema right in northampton where she's from and because her mates used to keep coming in and asking her for stuff she changed her name badge to say donata. So like if anyone was like, oh, Eve, can you get me this?

She's like, who? So there you go. If you need a good fake name, anyone listening, Terika or Stephen, it's your choice. And Terika and Stephen were not only Joshua Powell's parents. They were big time mormy moms, or at least they were when they met each other. But once they had kids and settled into married life, Stephen Powell had started to distance himself from the LDS church. Why, you may be asking. Was it because of all the sexism and misogyny?

No, don't be ridiculous. It seemed a lot more likely that Stephen Powell just didn't really like being told what to do very much. That's why I'm not into religion. So you know what, Stephen? Yeah. Up until the end of that sentence, I'm like, all right, fair enough. But it gets worse for Stephen because... You're like, misogyny, fantastic, can of that sentence, I'm like, all right, fair enough. But it gets worse for Stephen because...

You're like, misogyny, fantastic. Can't get enough. I'm like, that's a given. That obviously is in every religion. Every religion. But I'm like, the reason for the season of me not being into religion is I just inherently don't like being told what to do. I also think that's...

Especially by people I think are not as intelligent as me. And that's what I think of these people. And maybe that's just showing my contempt off far too much. But I did go to a school where I was beaten by nuns as a child. So let me have it. Let me have it. I'm also convinced that my complete inability to be told what to do is why I didn't become an actor in the end.

Well, there you go. And now I can write my own shows and no one can tell me shit. So it all works out. I'm Jake Warren. And in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul,

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Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. So Stephen didn't just like not being told what to do. He really didn't like it when his sons were told what to do either. Unless, of course, it was him doing the telling. So Stephen gave Josh and his brothers, Michael and John, pretty much free reign around their house. They were never disciplined, and the boys very quickly picked up their father's disdain for their mother. As a result, Josh developed an early and deep

rooted lack of respect for the women in his life, and his behaviour quickly spiralled out of control. Allegedly, as a teenager, Josh even threatened his mother with a knife and killed his sister's gerbil, both with absolutely no repercussions from his father. Yikes. And perhaps this completely ungrounded and unstable childhood contributed to Josh attempting to actually take his own life before he'd even left home. So as a teenager. We can't of course be sure, but we do know that that happened. After this, Josh's mother, Terica, shocked her local LDS community when she filed for divorce in 1992. I know.

Gasp. And in her divorce papers, Terica scandalised the church further still by alleging that her ex-husband, Stephen, had regularly exposed their children to hardcore pornography when they were young kids. Age 22, Josh Powell moved out of Puyallup to Seattle and attended the University of Washington. And there he met his first partner, Catherine Everett. Their relationship blossomed quickly and within a few months they'd moved into an apartment together. But as quickly as their life together developed, Josh's weird attitude towards relationships and women

began to reveal itself too. Josh quickly took control of Catherine's entire life, when she could go out, who she could spend time with, and especially how and when she could see her family. But Catherine was not having it. A few months after they'd moved in together, she left without warning to visit a friend out of state and then broke up with Josh over the phone.

Yeah, I mean, Catherine Everett, much like any budding abuser, he's her practice. He's figuring it out. He's figuring out what he can do. And it's, you know, it's the classic, almost intuitive actions of an abuser that we see time and time again. Controlling her life and starting to try and isolate her from the other people in her life. It just so happens that with Catherine it didn't work. Yeah, which is not a comment on anyone being unintelligent or anything.

It's about getting the right person at the right time using the quote-unquote right abuse tactics. Back in Puyallup, Washington, we come back to the other side of that LDS coin with another Mormon family living a very different life to the one that the Powell's had had.

Susan Cox had moved into town with her family when she was 13 years old. She'd grown up with three sisters and a brother raised by her mum Judy and her dad Chuck. Their family was a close-knit, supportive unit,

and Susan thrived, becoming an ambitious young woman. According to her family, she had two main aspirations. Firstly, she wanted to become a beautician, and secondly, Susan desperately wanted to start a family. And sadly, it would be that maternal familial instinct that would lead to the happy Coxes and the dysfunctional Powells becoming permanently intertwined. Given that Josh was back from university living his best life, where do we all imagine that these two met? Did their eyes meet across a crowded bar? Or maybe across the sticky

living room floor of a frat house? Of course not. In November 2000, Josh and Susan became classmates through the local LDS Institute of Religion course. I've never really understood why people who are super inter-religion, right? And if you're Mormon, you're not just going to temple once a week, you're going all the time. Why then are you doing essentially an alpha course on top of that i was thinking about this during the the research for this case and when i was going over the script just before we started recording and i think it's because when you are a member of a church that is as involved and as insular as the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints aka you're a mormon i think a lot of your socializing a lot of your life a lot

of your family a lot of everything that you do through and through is tied to the church and i do think also and obviously i've never been to a mormon church i'm just speculating kind of in a culty vibe i think that there is an element of nobody else outside can really understand it because your views are so extreme, even for the mainstream, maybe not so much in America, but definitely elsewhere. I think it probably just feels easier to socialize with people that have the same faith as you. And so I think probably going to these other random additional courses and stuff like that is probably just a way of meeting other people and having something to do and I also think that if you do have views that extreme you probably are really and I don't mean

fanatical in like a you're gonna murder people kind of way I just mean like you probably really do fucking believe it and think that it's a good way to spend your time yeah I suppose it is a good way to meet those sweet hot honeys that's definitely why I went to catholic youth group see I think that your whole life just revolves around the church. Yeah, I think you're right. And in the same way that you or I might, I don't know, take up a pottery class. They're like, that's a waste of time. I'm going to go to whatever the fuck that course you just said was, the Institutes of

Religious course. And I feel like that probably just feels like time well spent or time better spent to a mom. And I feel like that probably just feels like time well spent or time better spent to a morm. So Susan and Josh had actually kind of crossed paths before, which I imagine in the Mormon church happens quite a lot. They'd gone to the same high school, but their five year age gap meant that they'd never actually seen each other before. Josh ended up throwing a dinner party for young Mormon singles, to which Susan was invited. The pair got chatting over a mutual love of parrots, and things went from there. Did you know that Napoleon had a parrot that could say Bonaparte?

No, I did not. I learned that listening to Real Dictators this morning. Well, you know what? That is... It's a banger show. Yeah, it's a banging show. If you haven't listened to Real Dictators by Noisa, go listen to it. Well, there you go. The man had many a talent. He did, and many a parrot. Almost immediately after Susan and Josh got together, they were engaged. By the 6th of April 2001, just six months after they first met, they were married. It's safe to say that Susan's friends and family weren't Josh's biggest fans.

They found him self-absorbed and arrogant. And a few of them told Susan that at 19, she should be out dating, having fun and meeting new people, not settling for the first guy who showed her some attention. Which I am surprised that anybody said that to her because she's a Mormon. Like, I thought this is what they did. And I do think that we do have to contextualize this situation because obviously looking at it from everything we've just told you about Susan and Josh, their relationship has red flags flying about everywhere. Because you've got Josh Powell brought up by a misogynistic and abusive father with absolutely no discipline in his childhood. And by this point that he met Susan, he has a well-established and awful opinion of women

and a, let's say and awful opinion of women and a let's say a history of controlling behavior and then you've got Susan a woman driven by her desire to start a family with a loving bordering on sheltered we do have to say upbringing and a faith that doesn't love divorce but we can't really blame Susan for not seeing the warning signs. I mean, we wouldn't blame Susan for not seeing the warning signs even if she wasn't a member of the LDS church because the whole point of a would-be abuser is that they are blinding you to their abusive ways until it's too late.

The other things we have to take into consideration with Susan is, though, that in the LDS community, things do do move fast so it wouldn't have been that weird that the two had gone from just meeting to married in the space of six months. Secondly like we just said Josh wasn't at this point showing his true colours. Very similar to a case like Emil Silius for example who we covered a few months ago you remember the parachute man just like him Josh showed Susan a huge amount of affection when they first got together he was attentive he was kind and he liked to buy lavish gifts for her classic it's all that love bombing that we've talked about many many times before that is obviously this pattern of behavior

that is encapsulated by a partner who's showing you so many positives like compliments and gifts and affection and attention and time, etc. That it becomes almost impossible for the intended victim to be able to see the negatives in that relationship. And the other thing that people who are love bombers do is that they also rush the relationship forward, whether it's physically, whether it's emotionally, whether it's whatever. So I think all of those things coupled together, on top of which you've got Susan, who's a woman of faith, and the LDS church being definitely one in which people get married very quickly. It's kind of the perfect storm. Yeah, I, as you said, like I, I'm amazed that anyone warned her off it at all. I think it seems pretty standard procedure. And I think the only reason maybe anyone did warn her off it

is because they didn't like Josh. Not because they thought she was actually moving too quickly. Right, right, right. So like a lot of love bombers, once Josh got his claws into Susan and they were married, his attitude of affection and love and compliments etc all very quickly changed. Once the pair had tied the knot Susan moved into Josh's apartment and they began living their newlywed life. Just like he'd done with his first partner Josh quickly started to

become controlling. Cooking, cleaning, housework and keeping the cupboards all stocked were quickly assumed to be Susan's only functions. Josh saw himself as their breadwinner and expected to come home to a clean house and a cooked meal. We're not going to tell you how to run a relationship and those are pretty standard, pretty Mormon ideals. The issue with Josh's expectations for his hashtag tradwife was that he wasn't the breadwinner of their relationship.

Susan was. This is the thing that is so irritating. I have no issues at all with a couple mutually deciding that they want to have traditional gender roles. That works. It's worked for a very long time. That's peachy. Great. Go for it. Absolutely. But he's not the fucking breadwinner. He's not the fucking breadwinner.

So she has to be the breadwinner and the fucking bread maker. And he's just there. Fuck off. Susan was the one with the full time job. Josh spent most of his time unemployed, bumming around the house and spending their money. Well, Susan's money, he's not earning any money at all. In fact, Josh's spending was also becoming an increasing strain on their relationship. About eight months after they'd moved in together, the couple got into a dispute with their landlord, and they were evicted. Susan wrote in her journal that they were going to move in with Josh's dad, Stephen, while they paid off Josh's debts,

and he improved his credit rating enough to buy a house. Obviously, this put a whole lot of pressure on their relationship. But once they moved in with Josh's dad, Obviously, this put a whole lot of pressure on their relationship. But once they moved in with Josh's dad, an even bigger problem began to develop. That's enough of that. So, as you can tell, that was unmistakably a love song. Obviously, it's not very good, but that's not important. What's important is that that love song was written for Susan. And what's even more important is who wrote it.

Was it an ex? Was it a friend of Susan's? A friend of Josh's? Josh's brother? Well, unfortunately, it's none of those. That was the dulcet tones of Stephen Chantrey, aka Stephen Powell, aka Josh's dad. And if you do want to listen to the entire song, we will, of course, leave the link to the YouTube video in the episode description. And it's called I Said I Love You by Steven Chantre. Even the name of the song is quite aggressive. I said I love you. And the artwork on the video is called The Light of Seattle by Steven steven chandra i don't know if that's the whole album i think so so there you go it makes me think of if you listen to under the duvet you

will know that i am currently re-watching all of malcolm in the middle and how familiar are you with the malcolm in the middle canon um remind me so lois works in lucky aid right which is like the pound shop is my understanding and someone who works there is called craig and he has a monkey butler one episode in the monkey butler tries to kill him anyway craig is in love with lois and he writes songs like this for lois and that's what it makes me think of i see i see okay but obviously we cannot ignore that she's married to his son and that is a lot worse. Susan, not Lois. Well, who knows.

Yes, absolutely. Just in case we need to hammer it home one more time, the person that wrote that love song about Susan was her father-in-law, who she now lives with with her husband, Stephen Powell. Even when we consider what we already know about Stephen Powell, the whole love story situation is a bit of a shocker. Unknown to Susan in the year that she'd known Josh's family, Stephen had become infatuated with her and those feelings only exaggerated once Susan and Josh

moved in with Stephen, the multi-instrumentalist. I mean, there are so many narcissists in this story that it feels reductive to even keep saying that they are. Because can you imagine what sort of man would write love songs to his son's wife? Yep. Whether Stephen was obsessed with Susan specifically or just the idea of sleeping with his son's wife is anyone's guess. But as well as his obsession, Stephen Powell was open about his addiction to pornography and showed signs of what some people call memory hoarding. Memory hoarding is a subsection of the more widely recognised obsessive compulsive disorder. It's categorised, memory hoarding that is, by a compulsive need to catalogue memories or

moments either because of an anxiety around forgetting them or because of a fear that the memories may become important later on. Ah, so like putting plastic tags on your beanie baby. Yeah, yeah, just in case. They're so valuable. For Stephen Powell, his obsession was focused on physically recording things, whether it was via video or taking pictures or audio recordings even. And this, you might think, is similar to voyeurism, but it's a bit different. Stephen's obsessed with cataloguing the astoundingly mundane, things like showering, brushing his teeth and getting changed. And that fits with someone who has anxiety around memories being lost. It's not particularly exciting most of the time. No. And it's also, I would say, voyeurism is when you're obsessed with pursuing somebody else

through recording them and spying on them, etc. And we do see that he does that. We'll get on to that. But he also just obsessively records himself doing mundane things, which is what makes it seem like it's something else. But when Susan came into the picture and into his house, Stephen's lens was only focused on her. He and his camera followed Susan around the house constantly. He filmed her doing her makeup, doing the laundry and even shaving her legs. And this is a really key part of the story because Stephen Powell recorded Susan a lot when

she didn't know about it. So he would secretly film her when she was doing things like getting changed and he would subtly aim his camera to like film up her skirt. He would also do really just fucking crazy shit, like her and josh around when they were hanging out just the two of them but he also filmed susan openly just openly around the house when she's sort of out and about so it's not a secret that's the key part of this story it is not a secret they all know that he is filming Susan and filming Susan only. And clearly from all of the video footage that is out there, Stephen Powell's interest in his son's wife was truly an obsession. It's not just like when your dad gets a new video camera and spends a month like

taking pictures of everything. He is fucking obsessed with her. And unlike his adventures into brushing his own teeth, it's clear that Stephen Powell wasn't just content with keeping a record of Susan. That wasn't his key motivator, like we said before with the memory hoarding. Stephen Powell was consumed by the idea of their sexual chemistry. Stephen even went as far as to video log himself talking about Susan and his erotic experiences. We're going to play you this now. We're going to play you a monologue. Just remember as you're listening to this, if you're married, maybe, that this is your father-in-law saying this. I just had what is probably the most erotic experience I've had in my entire life.

I just hate to say it, I mean of course, I haven't had that many experiences, but Susan has been feeling ill, she had a cold, and I offered to rub her feet, to rub her toes to give her some stimulation. That went on. I probably rubbed her feet. Her toes are beautiful feet. She has such pretty feet. Of course everything about her is pretty beautiful. And I know she felt it. I mean I know she felt it. I mean, I know she couldn't have missed it. She's not naive either, I know from what I've read in her journals. That girl is not naive. When I started massaging her legs, I would have loved to go all the way up her legs, but I did do her calves because her feet were resting in my crotch so I sort of rubbed her calves. She didn't seem to

mind at all having me that close. I mean I was close. I was touching her with my crotch. It's hard to remember everything I did. And I love that woman. She she is so beautiful I can't even get enough of her can't get enough of looking at her she's so so pretty yuck as this is an audio format I do feel obliged to inform our listeners about three quarters of the way through that he just reappears in a tank top for no reason he's wearing like a gray t-shirt and then it just like these weird cuts and he's sitting like in exactly the same place he's obviously just like taking bits out and then he just decided he was too hot apparently after his erotic experience no all i can imagine that makes it even worse it's like he stopped filming halfway through to go fucking touch himself

and he just can't you can't say it makes it true oh my god I'm horrified. Also, can we just establish what the medical link is between having a cold and getting your feet rubbed and touched and your calves stroked by your father-in-law? Oh, Hannah, I've got such a bad cough. Could you just rub my feet for me? What is happening? I don't know. Sinead briefly trained as a reflectologist

and she will touch anyone's feet. Your friend. Yeah. Just for people who are like, who are you talking about? Yeah, give me your feet, bitch. So let's leave feet to one side for a moment. That monologue also brings us onto another really important point. Stephen repeatedly suggests in that video and in others that Susan was reciprocating his advances. He says stuff like, well, she didn't really seem to mind. And something that is included in the home videos but is not brought up in many of the documentaries on this case is how Susan responded to his inappropriate sexual behaviour. In a lot of the videos, Susan seems unbothered by the camera and in some, she does appear to go along with Stephen's weirdness or playing up to it maybe. In one

video, for instance, she playfully flashes her cle up to it maybe. In one video for instance she playfully flashes her cleavage for Stephen. In another where she's shaving her legs she tells him to show Josh the video when he gets home. Yeah and it is hard to ignore those moments when that is happening because sometimes it is secret like we said but a lot of the time it is out in the open and she's aware that he's filming her. I think that we do have to again maybe contextualize this into the way in which Susan was brought up because these videos and even Susan going along with Stephen's weird requests or allowing him to video her etc aren't necessarily proof of Susan being interested in her father-in-law, Stephen Powell. In fact, they could be evidence that she was being groomed. As we've spoken about before, grooming behaviour becomes normalised over time.

In fact, in video footage from the beginning of Susan and Josh's relationship, it is clear that Susan does give Stephen Powell a wide berth, especially when he's being creepy. But it seems that maybe over time, her tolerance for her father-in-law increased, especially because her husband wasn't throwing up any kind of objection. Remember, they're all living in the house together and Josh basically never says anything.

Eventually, Susan may have got to the point where Stephen was being so outrageously inappropriate and Josh was being so placid about it. The flashing her cleavage for her father-in-law's ever-present video camera could have seemed like a normal part of her day-to-day life, especially when he would openly talk to her about images he'd taken in secret when there were other people around. And again, nobody seems to have said anything. And I do think coming back to the contextualisation of this and how it fits into Susan's upbringing and her faith,

maybe this is a leap. But I do also think that, A, Susan was brought up in a very sheltered way. And secondly, when you are in very prescriptive religions, like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are often repeatedly told that your elders know best, that they're the ones you should listen to, especially men. And so maybe it just got to a point where Susan has been indoctrinated with that message since she was a child, would just go along with what her older male father-in-law, a position of authority, is asking of her. And also

is it a church that we fucking know cover up sex abuse of children left right and fucking center yeah and it's also entirely possible that she was just too afraid of him because he's got their life in their hands they can't move anywhere else they've got massive amounts of debt if he kicks them out where are they gonna go that's very true and steven powell only records the bits that he seems to be okay with other people seeing, weirdly enough. We don't see all of the threats, possibly, that if she doesn't play along, that they're going to find themselves homeless pretty quickly. And then there's this clip. I was really meaning to talk to you about this.

I was extremely aroused. I think you were somewhat aroused. At least I thought maybe I'm getting the wrong signals from you. Maybe I'm interpreting something that I shouldn't be interpreting. Married to your son and it should just be the daughter-in-law. I know. That's the step that you're going to tell her. What you just heard is Stephen Powell declaring his love for Susan at the start of 2003. As we all heard just then, Susan is confused, appalled even. And then she says that she's been feeling uncomfortable with some of Stephen's actions. Understandably, shortly after this declaration of Stephen's love for Susan, the couple moved out, into their own house in West Valley, Utah. From there, things bobbed along more or less, as Susan would have hoped, and finally she got to live in the domestic bliss she was looking for.

Obviously, Josh Powell was still his same arrogant and manipulative self, but Susan managed to land a job with a stockbroker, and Josh got a job in IT. And quickly, they made friends within the local LDS community, which in Utah will not take you very long. The only thing left was for Susan to complete the Mormon mom dream and have a baby. The first of many, generally, is what Mormons want to do. They love popping them out.

They do indeed. Fastest way to grow that religion. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the

most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Thank you. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So just over a year later in 2005, Susan's Mormon mum dream came true when she gave birth to the couple's first son, Charlie.

And then again, two years later, she gave birth to their second son, Braden. But as we've seen time and time again, babies are not relationship duct tape. While their family expanded, Josh Powell was still Josh Powell. And their marriage was still falling apart. Despite everything that had happened, Josh was still in regular contact with his dad. Given the fact that they have moved out of his parents' house when they were so much in debt that they couldn't live anywhere else, and his dad told his wife that he was in love with her, and did everything else we just said, the fact that he still speaks to him shows you the kind of man that Stephen Powell is.

Yeah, absolutely. And if his own son and kids can't stand up to him, what chance did Susan have going into that house as an outsider? As an outsider with her hat in her hand as well. So yes, Josh is still talking to his dad. And his dad is still making advances on Susan. And Josh's lack of backbone when it came to his dad was starting to put even more pressure on his and Susan's marriage. The

more Josh allowed his dad's weird behaviour, rightfully, the more Susan became frustrated and the more Josh became repressed and embarrassed. And by this point, Josh had also stopped attending LDS church services, almost certainly because the whole community knew that his dad was trying to steal his wife. But remember, his dad, Stephen, doesn't give a fuck because he doesn't go to church anyway. Because he didn't like being told what to do. And while not going to church might not sound like a deal-breaker for some of us, to Susan, Josh pulling away from the LDS church was a big issue.

Because their shared faith was a huge deal to her. It played a significant factor in their early relationship, because at the time, at least Susan felt like God was pulling them together. So the more Josh turned his back on God, the less, in Susan's mind, God validated their dysfunctional relationship. And I think that is so important a point. Oh, totally. Because I think, and again, I don't know exactly what Mormons believe, but if you are very religious and you do believe in things like preordained destiny and like this is fate and this person was meant to be and God brought him into my life, etc.

I'm guessing that you're willing to put up with a few more shit things because it's all like, you know, God only gives you what you can handle and I'm being tested or it's about my patience and we are meant to be together. But if then your shithouse husband also turns his back on God, it's very hard to keep rationalising it through religion. Yeah, totally. And if they are straying from the flock, you have all the licence in the world to cut them off. Yeah. And on a more practical note, the issue josh pulling away from the lds church had on susan and the wider family was that you can only enter an lds temple if you're in good faith with the church so this means going to things like weddings funerals social events sermons everything they'll cut you off completely and so the more josh refused to attend regular service

the more the entire family became cut off socially. And I think, again, this comes back to that kind of cult-like nature of the church entering every crevice of your life, whether it's through social engagements and everything, because it's like a cult. We've taken away everything else that you had. So if you leave us, you have nothing. However, all of the things that you've just heard pale in comparison to the biggest pressure on Josh and Susan. And that's every narcissist's favourite vice, debt. Josh Powell was hemorrhaging money. He spent it on gadgets, computers and gym equipment that he

neither needed nor used. And at the same time, he was becoming increasingly controlling over what Susan spent too. He gave her strict instructions on how much she could spend on food and clothes for herself and the kids, while happily burning cash on his own snacks, gadgets and other indulgences. There is nothing more unappealing

than a grown man who thinks gadgets are cool. Grow up. Especially a grown man who is in massive amounts of debt. Yeah, right. And not supporting his wife and family, but you know, has a train set. Fabulous. Eventually, all of these gadgets and snacks led the couple to bankruptcy. They filed in 2007, just months after their second son, Braden, was born. Despite attempting to rein in Josh's finances after they married, the pair were now $200,000 in debt. At this point, even if her faith was pro-staying together, Susan was becoming increasingly pro-getting the fuck away from Josh. According to friends and family, throughout 2008,

Susan had started mentioning the idea of divorcing him. Then, in July 2008, she made this now infamous video. This is me. July 29th, 2008. It is 12.33. Mountain time. Covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us, that our assets are documented.

Hope everything works out and we're all happy and live happily ever after as much as that's possible. Charlie, say hi. Charlie Say hi Today is Tuesday July 29th 2008 And we are in the 6254 Wester Circle House This is me

Hi, sorry And it is Can you see that? 1144 AM. And I am documenting all our assets just in case of any emergencies, fire, flood, damage, disputes. And we have two Samsung monitors. This is Josh's computer, and there's some type of backup device and speakers. Here's the kind of pimping out stuff he's done to his computer. He built it himself. I think there's like five hard drives.

So yeah, as you just heard, on July the 29th, on the advice of her attorney, because that's how far she'd gone, Susan made that video, documenting all of the family's possessions and, as she said, covering her bases. Around the same time, Susan also made a will, which she locked in a safety deposit box. But more on that later. For the next year and a half, Susan and Josh's relationship carried on as unhappily as you would imagine. The pair were in debt, Josh was still overspending, and Josh's dad was still relentlessly trying to start a sexual relationship with Susan. I mean, financial reasons are apparently the key reason that couples get forced right money so they've got that they've got 200 grand's worth of debt an eye-watering sum by anybody's imagination but the bit that

obviously nobody talks about in any marriage counseling or marriage fucking self-help book is when your fucking father-in-law is trying to seduce you the entire time and your husband knows and he doesn't give a shit i mean mean, there is no guidebook for that. No. I'd be concerned if there was one, to be honest. There is no Esther Perel podcast that you can just like find

and have a little listen to. Honestly, canonise that woman. As one of Susan's friends explains in an interview that you can watch on this case, she and their other friends had realised pretty quickly that they just had to tolerate Josh

if they wanted to spend any time with Susan. And tolerating Josh was exactly what her friend, Giovanna, owning, had been expecting to do all afternoon on December the 6th, 2009. Once Susan, Charlie and Brayden had come home from church, Giovanna had popped over to spend some time with Susan. But that afternoon, Josh wasn't as unbearable as he usually was. Giovanna noticed that Josh was actually being quite loving and caring towards Susan, which wasn't like him at all. He was tucking her up in a blanket and even made her pancakes. And this was a real shock for Giovanna, who'd never seen Josh cook a meal, let alone show anyone that he had a caring side. At around 5pm, Susan said that she was feeling tired and went upstairs to bed.

So Giovanna left, with the surprising sight of Josh washing up etched into her memory. Little did Giovanna know, she would be the last person, outside of the Powell family that is, to see Susan alive. The next day, the 7th of December 2009, at 9.53am, Josh's mum Terica made the following call. My son and his wife and their two children haven't responded to anything this morning. They normally would go to work and take their children to the daycare two or two and a half hours ago. And they're not responding to calls, they're not responding to people pounding on their door, and there's no tracks coming out of their driveway.

Or there wasn't this morning, a little while ago when the daycare lady went over there. Are they out of town? I haven't had anything from them saying that they would be out of town and it's not like them to not call their daycare ladies. They're very dependable. They both work. Shortly before making this call that you guys just heard, Terica had been contacted by Charlie and Brayden's nanny, a woman named Debbie Caldwell.

Debbie was close to the family and was shocked that Susan hadn't arrived that morning to drop off the kids. So, as we just heard, Terica called the police, who arrived shortly after 10am. They, along with Josh's mum and sister, so Terica and Jennifer, tried in vain to get a response from inside Josh and Susan's house. Eventually, the West Valley police officers asked permission to break a window and enter the house. The family followed them in. And once they were inside, it was clear that things

were not right. The first thing the officers noticed was two big fans pointed at a wet, seemingly freshly cleansed sofa. And although Susan, Josh, Charlie and Brayden were all missing, Susan had left her purse and her keys in the house. At this point, the beat cops realised that they were in way above their pay grade and they called in Detective Ellis Maxwell. Do you think if your name is Maxwell, you just have to be a detective? It's a great name. Detective Ellis Maxwell. Love it. Maxwell's initial reaction was fury that Josh's family had been allowed to trample through the house and fumble with valuable pieces of evidence. But that fury quickly turned into confusion when a woman knocked on his car window and informed him that she'd just spoken to Josh. That woman was Giovanna Ownings, the last woman to see Susan alive.

She had told Josh on the phone that Susan was missing and he needed to get back ASAP. He wasn't too fussed by this news. He told Giovanna that Susan was probably just at work. So once Detective Maxwell was aware that Josh was apparently now taking calls, he too managed to get hold of him. Maxwell told Josh that his wife was definitely missing and hadn't arrived at work and also that she hadn't dropped the kids off at the nanny. And Maxwell reiterated what Giovanna had told Josh that he needed to get back home quickly. At this point, Josh hung up the phone with the detective and then called Susan. And when his missing wife didn't answer, Josh left a message on her phone.

In that message, he told Susan that he and the kids were on their way back and that he hoped she'd got to work okay. I mean, it's a bit of an odd move by a man who's just been specifically told that his wife did not get to work okay. It's not that weird that he calls her, obviously. He's like, maybe she's not answering the phone to any of you. But when he's like, I hope you got to work okay after he's just been specifically told that she didn't, is a weird one. But we'll come back to it later. Eventually, almost an hour after speaking to Detective Maxwell,

Josh finally got home, and Maxwell was able to take him to the West Valley Police Station for the first of several fairly bizarre interviews. In his first interview, Josh Powell, who let's not forget has a missing wife, told Maxwell that he'd last seen Susan at around midnight on Sunday. And he also said that shortly after, in the middle of the night, he'd left Susan at home, ill, to take his sons, Charlie and Brayden, on a last-minute camping trip to the West Valley desert in the middle of the night. Detective Maxwell

pointed out that this was quite a weird thing to do because A, it was a Sunday and the kids would have had to go to school in the morning and B, it was December in Utah and there was a snowstorm warning. And also when Giovanna leaves and when she said she was there that Sunday and Josh was being really nice to Susan tucking her up and making her pancakes it's because Susan wasn't well she said that the reason that she went to bed at five is because she wasn't feeling well so you've left your sick wife at home to take your kids camping at midnight in the middle of winter in Utah on a Sunday sure and

not told the nanny that they're not coming to her tomorrow. And that nanny is so out of the loop on this that she calls your mum, who then calls the police. Even your mum didn't know you were taking the kids camping. Sure. And now your wife's also missing. Not to forget that point. And when Josh was questioned about what a bizarre thing it was to do, he didn't really have anything to say for himself

other than that he thought it was a Saturday. After about an hour of not really getting anywhere, Josh said that he just wanted to go home. And so Detective Maxwell obliged and set up a scheduled interview with Josh for the next morning. The next day, Josh's questionable timekeeping came back into play when he arrived for his police interview four hours late. His mum, Terica, and sister, Jennifer, had watched him aghast because rather than leave the house on time to go to the police station, he had spent the morning deep cleaning both the house and his minivan. Come on, man. In front of your mum and sister,

who called the fucking police the day before. What's happening? And, like, obviously, I am not josh powell luckily for you thank fuck i don't think i'd be sleeping and then getting up and cleaning the house i think i'd be cleaning the house the second i get through the fucking door though i think that's exactly what josh powell would do even after he has done whatever he's probably done which we'll get on to he's like it will still be here in the morning i'm just just going to go to bed. He's such a fucking twat. So when Josh Powell did eventually arrive for his interview,

Josh, who at this point is just a man with a missing wife, let's remind everybody, you know, obviously we're hinting heavily at what may have happened and our speculation. But at this point, the only thing that anybody knows is that his wife is missing, was already acting like a pretty big fucking suspect. He didn't seem particularly interested for example in giving any helpful information to detective Maxwell and instead spent most of his time in the interview with his head tilted back acting as though the whole thing was a bit of a drag. During the interview Maxwell brought up a few things that had come up in the past 12 hours. Presumably if he he'd been on time, they wouldn't have had some of this information that they're about to hit him with.

Hoisted by his own fucking lazy petard. By his own J-Cloth. First and foremost, Maxwell hit him with why Josh had made such an effort to call Susan while driving back from his camping trip. When detectives had noticed Susan's phone in the minivan with Josh when he finally got home. He fucking called his wife to leave that message about her getting to work okay and the phone is in his car. Susan's phone is in his fucking car. This guy. Are you fucking kidding me? And it gets worse because on top of that, Josh's phone data showed that he had driven for nearly 20 minutes back towards the West Valley desert where he had allegedly been camping to

make the call. So let me paint you a picture. He's driving along with his kids in the back coming home. Giovanna and Detective Maxwell have called this man and told him that his wife is missing and that he needs to get home quickly. And they told him that she hasn't arrived at work safely. He then stops the car, does a U-turn, drives 20 minutes back in the direction that he came from to phone a phone that's in his minivan to leave a voicemail that makes no sense. And then he drives home. Yeah. When confronted with all of this, Josh, in his typical Josh style, didn't have much in the way of an answer for his bizarre behaviour, other than saying that he'd simply forgotten that he had Susan's phone in the car.

Josh's weird and evasive answers kept on coming, until finally Detective Maxwell, looking for a potential explanation, asked if Susan had any history with depression or suicidal thoughts. At this point, Josh practically leapt out of his chair. He couldn't wait to tell Maxwell all about how Susan did have a history with depression and that it was definitely a possibility that she had taken her own life, while also making sure that it was very clear that this topic was not something they had ever spoken about as a couple. Not long after this, Josh called an end to the interview and the following events are among the most widely speculated parts of this case.

After the interview finished, Josh was told that his car was being searched and that he would have it back within the hour. But after just 15 minutes of waiting, Josh left the police station and took a taxi to the local airport where he rented a car and went off grid for 20 hours. You can't do that when you're under investigation. During those 20 hours, Josh's phone remained inactive, as did that of his father Stephen, despite the fact that the rest of their family was trying to frantically find Susan.

During those hours, Josh logged 806 miles on his rental car, a distance that would have taken him to any number of remote locations around Utah. Utah is fucking massive. From the moment that Josh returned home, he would refuse to speak to Detective Maxwell without a lawyer present, and would effectively no comment with both the police and the local media. However, as one pal kept shtum, another was about to open the floodgates. The more Detective Maxwell looked into Susan's disappearance, the more that Stephen Powell, Josh's dad, was being mentioned. Several of Susan's friends and family had brought up Stephen's obsession with Susan and it quickly became obvious that Detective Ellis Maxwell and Stephen Powell needed to have a chat.

And guys, this story is only getting started. If you want to hear about what happens next, including suspiciously secret car crushings, yet more family members being implicated, and how another four people would end up dead. You know what I'm going to say, you're going to have to tune in next week, where we'll get into some of the weirdest PR moves in true crime history, a catalogue of tampons, and one of the saddest conclusions to a case that we've ever covered. But up until that point, up until this

time next week, go and buy your tour tickets. We are coming to, in no particular order, because I can't remember the order in which we are doing them. We definitely are starting in Dublin though, so I'll start there. Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, London, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, Berlin. Eight cities, eight European hugs for you. Go and get your tickets. You can get them in the link below on our social medias or just go onto our website. There are links there. If you have any trouble with the ticket links,

please try the venues. It's endlessly frustrating, but there's nothing we can do about it. So please, please, please go and buy your tickets. It's the Confessions Tour. Confessions galore. So come, please, please go and buy your tickets. It's the Confessions Tour. Confessions galore. So come, come, come, get your tickets

and we will see you on the road in October. Hooray! So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader.

Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. Aie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall,

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