RedHanded - Episode 265 - Susan Cox Powell: Mormon Murder Mystery - Part 2

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

With a 28-year-old Mormon mum still missing – and her husband and father-in-law behaving increasingly erratically – police edged ever closer to finding their culprit. And a string of shocking discoveries, including hard drives full of hentai, a collection of tampons and a suspicious car accident, only helped their case. What they didn’t know was that before it was all over, in a shocking final act, another four people would end up dead. In the conclusion of our two-part episode, we wrap up the chaotic case of Susan Cox Powell. 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 an incredibly hungover version. Yeah, coming to you from the depths of hell. We had quite the, well, basically... The Queen died. The Queen died. A boy made me sad, so I self-destructed. And Saru and ACD Face did a great job of looking after me.

Yes, if you would like to hear us talk about Miss Elizabeth II, was she? Yeah. Queen Elizabeth II's tragic passing. And you can come listen to that on Under the Duvet. We're not going to talk about it here, but we didn't actually go out and get drunk because the Queen died. We were meant to go to an event.

And then we got, we were in the taxi on the way there, very dressed up to be going to where we were going. And then the people who organized it sent us an email saying, because of today's sad news we're deciding not to do it we're like well we're already here yeah we're here now and they were like but the bar's still going to be open so go nuts and we did and then we were sick so we're recording this with heavy hearts and dry mouths so let's do it shall we i think firstly we need to tell them tell them things tell the children

tell the children listen children hello you probably already know this but guys if you don't have you heard that we are going on tour this october october 2022 we will be next month on tour next month absolutely terrifying so yes we are going to be doing a uk european tour our first ever crossing the english channel to continental lands tour yeah we shall be doing london we're going dublin for the first time which are very excited about as we know you irish spooky bitches are we're doing edinburgh helsinki manchester oslo stockholm and berlin so if you would like to come check us out at any of those cities you don't even have to live in those cities guys did you know that you could just go to those cities and yeah the tickets are available now we know that there have been issues with the

links basically what it is is like people like gigs and tours ticket master etc they only get a certain allocation so if you have checked on those websites seeing that it's sold out they only sold out of their allocation there are still tickets available for last time i checked every single city including dublin because we added a second show which a lot of people didn't even seem to know that we had done so please please please go to redhandedpodcast.com don't google it because gigs and tours have got a better SEO than fucking Liberty Hall Dublin. Go to our website and use the links that are there and you will guarantee get a ticket all at five. So do that please. We want to see you and who knows, maybe I'll be sick. Exactly. But you won't be sick because we will have a fucking hell of a case. We love doing live

shows. It'll be so much fun. There'll be hell of a case. We love doing live shows. It'll be so much fun. There'll be loads of audience participation. There'll be a weird fucked up story and it will just be a really good time. And after the last two years of COVID hell, I think there is nothing better than all of us being in one big room together laughing like a bunch of twats. Exactly. So come on down. It'll be a great time. But for now, we need to revisit Mormon Town. Because welcome back to part two of our series on Susan Powell.

Last week, we talked about Susan's relationship with Josh and also his dad's pretty camera-happy obsession with her. We also promised you secret car crushing, a weird PR move, and the tragic story of how another four people ended up dead. If you haven't listened to part one, this is going to be very confusing, so go back and do that. This episode also involves a catalogue of tampons and a whole load of hentai. So stick around for that. But first, before we get to any of the tampon hentai glory days, we need to start off where we left off.

Susan had been missing for around three days. And Josh Powell, although he wasn't officially yet a person of interest, was already acting like a big suspect. He arrived for his third police interview with his attorney and didn't speak directly to investigators during the entire meeting. However, just as Josh was shutting up, another member of the Powell family started opening right up. His sister, Jennifer. So Stephen Powell, if you'll remember, is of course Josh Powell's father, had five children in total. One was of course Josh, then there's Mike, John, Alina and Jennifer. Mike was Josh's younger brother and was often seen as the Powell who got away. He left home early to pursue a career in the US Army as a signals analyst. Jennifer had also found a way out of the Powell

family through her husband, but Alina had stayed and was often the target of Stephen's vile behaviour. As you can probably figure out from everything we told you last week, Stephen treated his daughters, Alina and Jennifer, very differently to their brothers and as if they were inferior. Finally, there was John. John was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder when he was a kid. He struggled to be present in conversations and was often left puzzled by his family's weird goings-on. Of all of Josh's siblings, the police knew that they had the best chance of getting information out of Jennifer. And when they spoke to her,

a few days after Josh had returned from his mystery 800-mile round trip, she did not disappoint. Jennifer not only told investigators that she'd found Josh cleaning his house and car the day after Susan's disappearance, she also went in on her dad, Stephen. She told investigators that Stephen Powell

was open about his addiction to pornography and that her parents had divorced because her dad, Stephen Powell, decided to push the idea of polygamy onto their relationship. Mormons do do that. Some Mormons do, yes. Some Mormons.

A lot of them obviously distancing themselves from that to, you know, go more mainstream. You know, it'd be very difficult for somebody like, say, Mitt Romney to get to the position he is if he was like, yeah, polygamy, fucking love it. Yeah, true. So I think they are like, yes, polygamy back in the day because we wanted to grow our numbers very quickly. But if we want to hold power in this country, we're probably going to have to stop doing that. And then that's why you obviously have like the FLDS who are like the fundamentalists who are like, no, the founding fathers believed in polygamy, we should stick to that. But everyone else is like, no, stop saying things. We want to be president. Yeah, so he doesn't want to go to temple, doesn't want to do any of the groundwork,

doesn't want to do any of the legwork, but he does want the multiple sexual partners. And even though his wife may not have been into the idea of polygamy, he certainly managed to do some polygaming of his own because he managed to give his wife an STI. So the police had a pretty good idea of the Powell family dynamic, but it didn't mean they were any closer to finding out what had happened to Susan. But luckily for them, Jennifer had one last bombshell to drop on the investigators. She was the first person to tell police that her dad, Stephen Powell, was sexually obsessed with his daughter-in-law, the now-missing Susan. And this revelation was, of course, more than enough for the police to bring Stephen in for a chat.

And it was enough to get a warrant to bug his house, where Josh was also staying with his two boys. So it's kind of a gimme there because they get to bug Stephen and also Josh. And the police interview with Stephen, as none of you will be surprised to hear, was incredibly, predictably bizarre. The police were shocked by how openly he talked about his connection with his daughter-in-law. Stephen also had no problem telling them that he felt this connection was sexual in nature. But as for his muse's current whereabouts, Stephen maintained that he didn't have a clue. And he also had an alibi for the day that Susan went missing. He'd actually been out of town visiting three of his

kids in Washington State. But what about the bug that the police had set up in the house? Well, this did give the police a lot of very suspicious commentary that they picked up. For example, Josh was far more concerned with making sure his kids didn't end up with Susan's parents or his sister Jennifer than he seemed to be about finding his lost wife. Bear in mind, she's only been missing for days at this point. But still, it just wasn't anything that the police could use to warrant an arrest. At this point, the circumstantial evidence was stacking up. But, frustratingly for police, it wasn't leading to any concrete convictions.

Josh's mysterious midnight camping trip on the night of Susan's disappearance was certainly suspicious, but it didn't prove that he was responsible for anything. His frantic cleaning the day after she went missing also didn't look particularly unsuspicious, but again, not much that they could do with it. And Stephen's obsession with Susan only made things more complicated. Then Josh's brother Michael threw himself into the mix. Michael and Alina had both come down to stay with Josh and the boys a few days after Susan had gone missing. They stayed for two weeks and they ran into a spot of bother on their return journey. While driving home to

Puyallup in Washington, Michael's car broke down. He could have fixed it, but rather than take it to a garage, Michael decided that he was just going to scrap the car instead he even decided to pay several hundred dollars to get the car towed closer to their home in washington to somewhere he knew it would be completely destroyed yeah there's nothing you need to do more than make sure your car that you're getting scrapped is totally destroyed yeah unsalvageable there is nothing that is more important than that. I mean, what the fuck? Obviously, it's way more what the fuck as you continue to tell us the next bit. And actually, he phoned ahead to Lindahl's auto salvage specifically to check whether his car would be crushed completely. Suspicious, but it's about to get weirder. Oh, yes, because shortly after Michael got back to Puyallup,

he contacted a high-end satellite imaging company called Apollo Mapping. Guys, this isn't like Google Earth, right? This is the kind of company that estate agents and construction firms might hire to take super high-resolution pictures of like a property or a building site and presumably only high-end high-spec properties or building sites. It's not the kind of place that you ring up and ask for an up-to-date high-res image of a random salvage yard in Pendleton, Oregon. But that's exactly what Michael did. And it rang an entire fucking orchestra of alarm bells for Detective

Ellis Maxwell and the other investigators working the case. And unfortunately for Michael, but very fortunately for Detective Maxwell, Lindell's auto salvage had not yet destroyed Michael's car. They certainly hadn't done it as quickly as he'd hoped or as quickly as he'd paid for. In fact, when investigators arrived at the yard, it was still parked up in one piece. And when cadaver dogs, trained to detect the smell of a decomposing body, were released into the yard, those dogs ran straight to the boot of Michael's car. 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, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. 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+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. At this point, investigators probably thought that they finally had someone banked her rights for Susan's disappearance. But when they opened the trunk, there was no body inside. And though there was a small amount of human DNA found in the boot, the sample was insufficient to make a match to Susan. We can only speculate, but it does seem that at some point while Michael was staying with Josh in Utah, his car boot was used to transport remains. Whether or not Michael deliberately

tampered with his car, forcing a breakdown and using it as an excuse to get it scrapped, well, that's all up for debate. You could argue it both ways, because if he specifically wanted to go to Lindell's or to Salvage because he knew it was closer to his house, etc, etc, why would he put himself through the bother of paying hundreds of dollars to get it towed there? Why would he not have just, you know, cut the brakes or whatever he did outside the Salvage yard. It doesn't really make much sense. Or it just could be a double bluff. Also, you could have just left it parked in your front drive and taken a hammer to the front

and been like, oh, somebody vandalized my car. I'm going to get it scrapped. Faking an automotive, like, vehicular car accident feels unnecessarily scary. I mean, yeah, I guess. I don't know if, I think i would find it i mean it's up and down back to front suspicious anyway but if someone had smashed a windscreen i think it's quite difficult to argue you'd scrap your car for that whereas like or get another car and back it into them yeah right yeah but still i mean we're like we're i was gonna say we're drunk and picking

holes in this none of it none of it makes any fucking sense anyway. And I might still be drunk. Whatever happened, and we don't know what happened, it is a fact that Michael unnecessarily paid for his car to be taken to a specific scrapyard. He could have taken it somewhere else. He could have taken it somewhere closer, cheaper, maybe. He could have made

money from selling the car, but he didn't. And that's quite suspicious. So when you put the unnecessary car scrapping next to the cadaver dog sniffing about, there is quite a lot of evidence, circumstantial, but evidence nonetheless, stacking up against Michael Powell. A week after Michael's road trip gone wrong, Josh made another questionable decision.

Just three weeks after Susan had gone missing, her husband packed up his things, took the kids back to his hometown, and moved in with his dad. He also cancelled all of Susan's upcoming appointments and began the process of cashing her retirement fund. The second one, I can totally see Josh doing that. Cancelling all of her appointments.

This man is the least conscientious man that I can possibly think of coming across. I cannot believe for a second that he made or cancelled an entire appointment in the entire time he was married to Susan. No. But now she's missing, he's very punctually cancelling all of her upcoming appointments. Just sat there going through her diary and like giving everybody a call. But whether you think that's suspicious or not, it clearly tells us one thing.

It clearly tells us that Josh didn't think that his wife was coming home anytime soon. Now, you're probably wondering at this point why all of this heavily shady behaviour isn't leading to any arrests. I mean, there is so much circumstantial evidence at this point. Well, according to lead detective on this case, Ellis Maxwell, the lack of arrests so far was because of another high-profile disappearance in Utah six years beforehand. Now you true crime nerds out there will be screaming this at your podcast players already, I am in no doubt, but it is of course the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart. When 14-year-old Elizabeth was kidnapped in front of

her sister by a knife-wielding maniac from their bedroom in June 2002, the case gripped the nation. And in that case, Elizabeth's parents had been named as suspects in her disappearance, because the story of a kidnapper with a knife breaking into her bedroom and taking her in the middle of the night just seemed too crazy to be true. Then, after an enormous TV campaign, Elizabeth was spotted with the man that her sister had described, and her parents were vindicated. Now because of this, and because of the backlash that the police received, the Utah police didn't want to arrest Josh, Stephen or Michael too soon. Only for Susan to turn up, and for them to end up with egg on their faces again. A month and a half later, with still not much to go on, and the case now stretching across two whole states, investigators into the disappearance of Susan Powell decided

that a change of strategy was in order. And so they turned to Susan's friends and family for help. And firstly, they approached Josh's sister, Jennifer, the only pal who was not under the thumb of the patriarch Stephen. Jennifer offered to go and visit Josh, their dad Stephen, and the boys whilst wearing a wire. The idea being obviously that Josh, in the safety of his own home, might be more likely to spill the beans. And before long, Jennifer arrived at Stephen's house for an unexpected visit. Eventually, after a fair amount of small talk, she managed to get Josh alone in the study and got to work probing him about Susan.

But Josh was evasive and clammed up almost immediately. He very quickly went from talking to Jennifer like a sibling to referring to the instructions of his attorney. Jennifer's attempted interrogation was then stopped in its tracks by Stephen Powell, who came barrelling into the conversation. The night ended with a front door argument. Stephen told Jennifer that she'd, quote, lost touch with reality, and Alina screamed that Susan had been a, quote, lying bitch. Now, obviously, this wasn't the result that anyone wanted. It was frustrating for the police and gutting for Jennifer, who'd put

her whole family relationship on the line for answers about Susan. But Team Susan wasn't giving up just yet, and now it was time for a new player to enter the picture. Susan's dad, Chuck Cox. With the general plan being to keep pressure on Josh and Stephen Powell while keeping Susan in the public consciousness, Chuck Cox held a televised candlelit vigil. Josh unexpectedly arrived at the vigil, although a wall of family members stopped him from getting any contact with Chuck or Susan's mum, Judy. Despite this, the increased TV exposure and the developing narrative in the press that Josh must have been linked to Susan's disappearance definitely definitely had the pals rattled.

Shortly after this vigil, Josh and Stephen gave a series of quite bizarre TV interviews. What is the truth? People who know me know that I'm a good dad. I work hard. I put my sons first. I was a good husband. I took care of my family. And I see you're still wearing your wedding band.

Yeah. You still love her? Yeah. I guess you could say that I still love her. Why take your two young sons camping after midnight, freezing cold temperatures? Well, we just go out and do things that are fun. But it's after midnight. You know, shouldn't your sons be sleeping?

Weren't they sleeping? People who know me know that time is hard for me to keep track of. I tend to be spontaneous. I do things in the spur of the moment. Why not call work the next morning to say, hey, I was out camping, I'm not going to be in today. To be honest Saturday was a blur I was convinced it was still Saturday. Susan was very emotionally abused as a child. Her mother has some very she has a very angry personality. Her father is very manipulative.

She has rocked out the front door in her underwear and started walking down the street. And at the time when all this stuff was happening, it was mortifying to me. I've tried to protect her from doing things that I thought might embarrass her or our family in that respect, you know. Has she ever been unfaithful to you? Never that I know of. Then why do you think that she would just run off with another man? She's a very sexual person. You think she's still alive?

At times. It's a roller coaster. What would you want to say to her she's watching that i miss her that she's that i love her that she's got two boys who love her oh my god i fucking hate josh powell so much i don't even know where to begin there right so much to unpack so much to unpack let's start with how he and as we'll go on to see steven also throw the cox family under the bus talking about her mum and her dad being emotionally abusive physically abusive etc all of that is categorically untrue that's all the pal family that's no semblance of the image we get of the Cox family. Then all the bullshit of like,

oh, I just didn't know what day it is. I didn't call the office. I just love to do spontaneous things. There you go. That's the man who was cancelling appointments for his missing wife. Then you come on to the bit that's the most confusing. The idea that he says that he believes that Susan has run off with another man. But then he says that he doesn't know if she's still alive.

Which is it? Which is it? Because if she's run off with another man, what makes you think that she's dead? Unless you killed her. Also, just like the enormously long pause when they're like, do you still love her? Like, even for you,osh powell not the sharpest tool in the shed obviously the answer to that question is yes quickly yes yes but it's almost like he comes across as somebody who is very affected in his speech right and it's like very like do you love her and it's like yeah yes i do i still her? And it's like, yeah, yes, I do. I still do. Even after she's done this to me, because that's what he's saying.

Oh, I see. He's like, she's the bad person in this. I'm the good person. I'm still here with our boys who I took on a camping trip while she ran off with another man. She's so sexual. But yes, I guess I still do love her. Fuck off. Okay, now I get it.

Yeah. Right. It's like classic, very affected, very manipulative, everything, the way he presents himself and the way he speaks. And it is so cringe-inducing. So it would appear then that Josh's current plan was to peg the whole thing on Susan having mental health issues and walking out of the house naked, etc. Because her parents are scum and because she's run off with another man

who may or may not have murdered her. But think of the children, Susan. Come back. You've got two boys who love you. Shut up. And if that wasn't enough of a dent in the Powell's collective public image, Stephen Powell went on TV.

And that was a shit show. Susan was very, very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious. I mean, I'm her father-in-law, and she would do a lot of things that... I mean, she was just... She did it, I did it. I mean, we interacted in a lot of sexual ways

because Susan enjoys doing that. Do you think a part of you started falling in love with Susan? That's pretty likely, yeah. sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. Do you think a part of you started falling in love with Susan? That's pretty likely, yeah. I mean, yeah, I would say so. And there's no question in my mind that the feelings were mutual. What is this guy doing? What's happening? Like, I don't know, but I want to go home.

It's just so unbelievable that this man, Stephen Powell, remember everything we told you in last week's episode, that all of the pictures, all of the videos, all of the love songs, everything. It would make sense on the face of it if it was all undercover, if all of it was happening without anybody knowing. He's a secret voyeur. He's obsessed with his daughter-in-law, blah, blah, blah. But this man tells everybody he tells the police and now he's telling people on live tv after his daughter-in-law is missing that he thought he had a sexual connection with her hannah what is your best guess as to why stephen powell doesn't stop talking i don't know i think i was going to ask you the same question i thought you might and that's why i'm going to ask you first so that

i've got some time to think about it again because I've been racking my brains and I'm just like I don't get it I don't get why he so openly talks about his feelings for Susan is it just that level of like detachment from reality that level of like narcissistic delusion that he doesn't think there's anything wrong with what he's saying is it that he thinks that it's genuinely true and there's not he has that low level of boundaries that he isn't concerned about how people are going to perceive him I don't know what is it I'm not sure I don't think it's I kind of don't think it's intentional I think he has such a loose grip on how people work like I don't think he's doing it to sort of like freak out the squares or like I think he genuinely doesn't see a

problem with what he's doing and he doesn't think it's weird I don't think he knows how he comes across because if he did know he wouldn't be recording himself again I think that's the thing though it's like she's missing your daughter-in-law is missing and you're saying this on TV. I guess the next question is, why don't you understand how you're coming across? But, you know, we'll never understand. We'll never understand the mind of Stephen Powell. Josh and Stephen, apart from being completely unhinged in those interviews, tried to justify their wild accusations by using extracts from Susan's diary. And they thought that would be their slam dunk. It wasn't. It would actually be these journals that Susan wrote that would lead to Josh and Stephen's downfall. But we'll come back to that later on. Because at the time,

investigators couldn't and didn't act as swiftly as you might have hoped. Despite Josh and Stephen both saying in their TV interviews that they had seen Susan's journals, investigators still felt it wasn't enough to get a search warrant. So again, their plan turned back to just letting them humiliate themselves. And again, Chuck Cox stepped up to the plate. On the 20th of August 2011, Chuck Cox, Susan's dad, along with some of Susan's friends, organised a honking wave. The idea was that they would stand by the side of the road, somewhere that they knew that Stephen or Josh would see them, and by holding up big signs with Susan's face on, they would drum up attention for Susan's case, while simultaneously baiting Josh

or Stephen into causing a public scene. And, unsurprisingly, it worked. Both Josh and Stephen arrived in quick succession to get their side of the story out there for the local TV cameras. And let's have a listen, shall we? Is there any other question that I can answer for anybody? I'm totally open to anything. I mean, we've got a lot of information about the Cox family, about Susan, a lot of it

from her journals, a lot of it from Josh's, you know, he lived with Susan for eight years before she left. He knows a lot that is not in the journals, but the journals confirm what he knows that Susan told him about her family, about her growing up. They are so weird. Stephen Powell is so weird. I mean, the tone with which he's speaking, the way he's speaking, the things that he is saying are so incongruent with, like, the situation. Just turning and being like,

anybody want to talk to me? I've got loads of information about the Cox family and the way in which Susan was... Like, to what end? To what end, Stephen? Like, I can't even do an impression of how fucking weird it is. I can't, I don't, like, I'm really struggling to put my finger on it.

He's just such an odd man. So detached from reality. I think that's it. I also just love the term honk and wave. Like, it's just like a normal set of words to put together. Yeah, love it. A beep and a high five. Try them all. That's for the pedestrians is it you just have to do your own honking with your mouth she just tried to high five me but we're quite far away from each other a meow and a covid safe high five oh yeah remember those

there is nothing i hate more than a high five really yes i i mean look if you're talking to children or you're playing sport high five high fives all you want right even though actually i find high fiving i find it quite cringy and i was like high five to kids i'm like don't patronize him okay playing with dogs getting a dog to high five you and playing sport the only acceptable place is for high fives and i will allow for the meow and high five to raise awareness for various issues social issues you and i'm gonna campaign on and if i don't know if you have a social issue you'd like to take up you may borrow meow and high five but we must approve the social issue first otherwise adults just high fiving i'm not here for it interesting no would you take a fist bump

in what context in the context that it's not a high five yes okay yes see if there's a small child in front of me i will now forever just fist bump them no high five okay no i'm gonna watch you like a hawk come on please do unless i with a dog, I will high five the dog. I high five. There is nothing cuter than a dog high fiving you. It's the only acceptable form of a high five. Anyway, let's move on. Oh, dogs playing sports high fiving.

Oh, love it. Anyway. When I was in Switzerland, we were at the lake. It gets deep really, really quickly. So you're treading water a lot. And one of the girls who was there used to be on a water polo team. So she was, because you're constantly treading water and water polo. So she was amazing at it. And then we were talking about it. We were talking about all the different kinds of polos, water polo, obviously, car polo. And then we realized

that nobody had played polo polo, like on horses. And someone says to me, Hannah, you've played polo, right? And you're probably like a polo person. And I was like, how dare you? I'm not a polo person. I've never poloed. I mean, I barely know what poloing is. But I will allow high fives because it's a sport. Okay, fine. Especially when the horses do it. Ideal.

High hoof. Sorry. Top quality jokes here. Let's get back to it. I'm like sweating alcohol at this point my back is wet so tired so as you just heard in that clip of stephen powell he talks about susan's journals and her diaries very very quickly and the clip that we just played you is kind of the only bit of that tv interview that makes any sense and it doesn't really he does ramble on for ages but we

just can't do that to you the rest of the clip is basically just random accusations about how Chuck and Judy Cox had abused Susan as a child and how Susan was a quote incredibly sexual person. And he also throws in a new claim that Susan had run off with a man named Stephen Coker, a fellow Mormon who had gone missing in Utah a week after Susan had. Staggered disappearances. And there has, unsurprisingly, never ever been any evidence to link these two people together. Only that they're both Mormon and they both live in Utah. Yeah. And they both went missing.

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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 listener, that Chuck Cox, Susan's dad, who was being accused of abusing her when she was a child, is stood next to Stephen Powell the entire time he is spinning this ridiculous, unhinged narrative and also slut-shaming his daughter for about ten minutes. He just stands there with his arms folded. And later he said that he had his arms crossed

to stop himself from attacking his daughter-in-law's disgusting father-in-law. He took the humiliation because he wanted to get anything on camera that could help get justice for Susan. And again, I know we made this point last week, but the difference between the Cox's and the Powell's is never more clear than in that particular video footage of Stephen Powell just rambling. Like, they're so, him and Josh are so emotionally immature. Like, the way they ramble and rant and just, like, yell accusations about. And to see next to him Chuck Cox just standing there solemnly with his mouth shut, lips sealed, arms folded, because he's just like, I will take anything,

because all I want is justice for my daughter. And yeah, they're just saying that he is an abuser, and he still manages to bite his tongue. Now, luckily for Chuck Cox, his incredible self restraint wasn't in vain. Because at some point during Stephen Powell's rant, and this is such a just just a delightful little bit in this story. Because again, it's just further proof. If you keep your mouth shut, you might get away with everything. Because during Stephen Powell's rant, he described Susan's journals as Josh's property. And this was enough for the police to get a search warrant for his house. So five days later, police raided Stephen Powell's home in Puyallup, Washington, and found what has since been described as a house of horrors. Inside, the police found

5,000 pictures of Susan, many of which showed her in various states of undress, and had clearly been taken without her permission. They also found home videos of Stephen masturbating to these pictures that he had taken of Susan. Make it stop. I can't. It's going to get worse. Buckle up. Because on top of this, they also found boxes of Ziploc bags in which Stephen had meticulously catalogued stolen pieces of Susan's underwear. But it gets worse because Hannah and listeners in these Ziploc bags

were also Susan's toenail clippings and her used tampons. I feel so sick. This is not the one right now. But it still wasn't the end because the police also found hundreds of hours of home video footage, not just of Susan Powell, but also of other women from around the neighborhood. And this, this is like some Elliot Rogers shit, right? Because in one of the videos, Stephen Powell can be heard berating a random woman under his breath on video for not giving him enough of a view up her skirt when she got in her car. If you think all that's bad, all of this pales in comparison. Yes, even the used tampons in a Ziploc bag pale in comparison next to what the police also found in that house that was the real nail in Stephen's coffin. Because police also found footage of local children that Stephen had filmed through their windows, either getting changed in their bedrooms or in the bath or in the shower.

Stephen Powell, to me, feels like the classic example of a man who just keeps escalating and escalating and escalating his depravity. And the natural conclusion of where he ends up is children. Because there's no denying he's attracted sexually to adult women. Yeah. But it's like he just crosses every boundary, every taboo, the voyeurism, the stealing of the tampons, all that kind of thing. And then he ends up escalating to a sexual proclivity towards children. And it is just as awful as it sounds. And just like that, the evidence against Stephen Powell was not so circumstantial anymore, and he was arrested.

Susan and Josh's two sons, Charlie and Braden, were immediately taken into protective custody. And once the kids were in state care, it became apparent that nobody had been looking out for their best interests. The boys were unruly and unhappy, and they developed a long list of behavioural issues. They were temporarily given over to Susan's parents, who hadn't seen their grandchildren for almost two years

since their daughter's disappearance. But Josh wasn't going to give up his boys without a fight, and a legal battle soon ensued between the two families. By day, Chuck and Judy Cox had to fight for sole custody of Charlie and Braden, and by night, they were trying desperately to instill some semblance of the loving care and boundaries that the boys desperately needed. For the first time since their mum had left, the boys were being introduced to rules like having a bedtime. And also, not only are they fighting for custody of their grandchildren and also trying to get their grandchildren back into some sort of loving routine,

they're also still having to fucking fight for any sort of justice for their daughter. All of that at the same time. But if we just stick with the custody case for the moment, it was scarily close in family court between who was going to get custody of the children because you have to remember that Josh Powell is their dad and he is still in the picture. And on one hand, in court, it was clear that the Powell family home had not been a safe one for Charlie and Brayden. But on the other hand, it wasn't clear how much Josh had known

about what his father was up to, like all of the video footage of children, etc. Josh Powell was still alleging that he was a good dad, just trying to do right by his kids, and that he was just as shocked as anyone by his father Stephen's actions. However, a stroke of luck for the Cox family came when, as part of the raid on the Powell family home, some of Josh's own computer hard drives were also seized. On these hard drives, police found several images of cartoon pornography, some of which showed scenes including incest and child sex abuse.

So let's clarify exactly what we're talking about with this cartoon pornography. It's hentai. Now, cartoons depicting child sex abuse exist in a bit of a legal grey area in America, and this alone was never going to be enough to put Josh in jail. But it was enough to swing the court in favour of Chuck and Judy Cox, and they were given full custody of Charlie and Brayden. Thank fuck for that. It came with the stipulation, however, that Josh would still be able to have supervised visitation with his kids. And tragically, it would only take this

one act of good faith to allow Josh to have the disastrous final word in the already chaotic events surrounding his wife's disappearance. On Sunday the 5th of February 2012, Elizabeth Griffin Hall, a state social worker, pulled up to a house just down the street from Josh Powell's home. She was there to take Charlie and Brayden for one of their court-ordered supervised visits with their dad. Josh had rented the house during the trial to try and distance himself from his family. Unknown to Elizabeth, Josh had been sending family members emails throughout the morning, talking about getting all of his affairs in order. And shortly before the boys arrived, he left this message for his sister, Alina. I'm going to say goodbye.

I am not able to live without my sons. And I'm not able to go on anymore. I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt. Goodbye. Fuck off, Josh. It's not about the kids at all. Not for a single solitary second. That is the voice and message of a man

who knows that the jig is up, knows that the police are closing in on him and he doesn't know what else he's left behind because he's not Mr. Conscientious, car crushing or no car crushing, courtesy of his brother. And I think it's the classic narcissist's abusive playbook, which is if I can't have these children, then no one will fucking have these children. Because he knows that if he just kills himself, that a lot of people would probably be

pretty happy about that. The cocks is included. And he doesn't want to give them that satisfaction. So he's like, I'm going to go because I can't go to jail. But I'm going to take these two kids with me so that I leave as much pain and suffering behind as I possibly can. No one can be happy once I've gone. And I think that's 100% what it is. Elizabeth, the social worker, walked up to the front door of the rented house. Charlie and Brayden ran ahead of her because they were excited to see their dad. And as they got closer to the house, Josh opened the door.

He told the boys that he had a surprise for them inside. The boys ran into the house and through to their playroom, which was filled with new toys, and Josh slammed the door behind them. And soon, Elizabeth, the social worker, made this horrifying 911 call. Hey, I'm on a supervised visitation for a court-ordered visit, and something really weird has happened. The kids went into the house, and the biological parent, whose name is Josh Powell, will not let me in the door. What should I do?

What's the address? It's 8119, and I think it's 89th. I don't know what the address is. Okay. That's pretty important for me to know. Nothing like this has ever happened before at these visitations, so I'm really shocked. And I could hear one of the kids crying, but he still wouldn't let me in. You can't find me by GPS?

No. But I think I need help right away. He's on a very short lease with CSHS, and CPS has been involved. And this is the craziest thing. He looked right at me and closed the door. Are you there? Yes, ma'am. I'm just waiting to know where you are.

Okay. It's 8-1-1-9-1-8-9-Street-Court-East-2-Alloc-9-8-3-7-5. And I'd like to pull out of the driveway because I smell gasoline and he won't let me in. You want to pull out of the driveway because you smell gasoline but he won't let you... I smell... He won't let me in. He won't let you out of the driveway? He won't let me in the house.

Whose house is it? He's got the kids in the house and he won't let me in. It's a supervised visit. I understand. Whose house is it? He's got the kids in the house and he won't let me in. It's a supervised visit. I understand. Whose house is it? Josh Powell. Okay, so you don't live there, right? No, I don't, no, I'm contracted to the state to provide supervised visitation. I see. Okay. And who is there to exercise their visitation? I am. And the visit is with Josh Powell. And who's supervised? And he is the husband that I supervise. So you supervise and you're doing the visit? Yeah, I supervise you. You're supervising yourself? I supervise myself. I'm the supervisor here. Wait a minute. If it's a supervised visit, you can't supervise yourself. If you're the visitor... I do supervise myself. I'm the supervisor for the supervised visit, you can't supervise yourself. I do supervise myself. I'm the supervisor for the supervised visit. Okay, well, aren't you the one making the visit? Or is there

another parent that you're supervising? No, I'm the one that supervises. I pick up the kids with their grandparents. Yes. And then who visits with the children? Josh Powell. Okay, so you're supposed to be there to supervise Josh Powell's visit with the children. Yes, that's correct. And he's the husband of missing Susan Powell. This is a high-profile case. How did he gain access to the children before you got there? I was one step in back of them.

Okay, so they went into the house and then he locked you out? Yes, he shut the door right in my face. All right, now it's clear. Your last name? My name is Elizabeth Griffin Hall, and the kids have been in there by now approximately 10 minutes. And he knows this is a supervised visit, too. Brayden is 5 and Charlie is 7.

Are you in a vehicle now or on foot? I'm in a vehicle. I'm in a 2010 Prius with the doors locked. But he hasn't opened the door. I rang the doorbell and everything. What color is it? I begged him to let me in. Elizabeth, please listen to my questions.

What color is the Toyota Prius? Gray, dark gray. And the license number? All right, we'll have somebody look for you there. Okay, how long will it be? I don't know, ma'am. They have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first. The first available deputy is responding.

Well, this could be life-threatening. He went to court on Wednesday and he, he was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car.

He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. He was in the car. I don't know, ma'am. They have to respond to emergency, life-threatening situations first. The first available deputy... Well, this could be life-threatening. He went to court on Wednesday, and he didn't get his kids back. And this is really... I'm afraid for their lives. Okay. Has he threatened the lives of the children previously? I have no idea. All right. We'll have the first available deputy contact you. Thank you.

Bye. It's not often that I have a rage stroke. A rage stroke. Because that's how I feel right now. I mean, no, I have rage strokes quite often. It is not often, however, that I will chat shit about an emergency responder. No. But that guy needs to go to jail.

What is happening? And maybe people will think that we're being unfair but probably not by the end of this episode when you hear what happens next because Elizabeth Griffin Hall is completely right when she says that she's scared for the lives of Charlie and Brayden and the fact that she is saying she can smell petrol the fact that she is saying he is the husband of missing woman Susan Powell

who at the time was an incredibly high profile case that there is no way that emergency dispatcher wouldn't have recognized that name and she's told him he just lost custody of the kids yesterday is meant to be a fucking supervisor and he'd locked her out of the house and she could smell gasoline that was nightmarish to listen to my god so as we all just heard together through our rage strokes, social worker Elizabeth is desperately trying to get the unhelpful dispatcher to send some police to Josh's house. But help didn't arrive anywhere near quick enough. By the time the police showed up, it was far too late. out from the fumes of the fire and he and his two sons were consumed by the flames. Chuck Cox,

who'd been told about the fire by friends and family, rushed to the house but when he got there he knew that things were too late. The man who dedicated the last two years to saving his two grandchildren knew there was nothing he could do to get them out alive. When firefighters eventually dealt with the blaze and entered the property, there was almost nothing left inside. However, from what investigators could piece together, Charlie and Brayden died inside their playroom, holding hands, surrounded by toys, as their dad attacked them with an axe.

This sheer brutality of the killing left locals horrified, with Paul Pastor, the local county sheriff, saying the following, This is a horrible murder. Let's not call it a tragedy to distance ourselves from it. Let's not sanitise it. Let's call it what it is. It's something terrible. It's something wrong. It's something evil. The fact that he even attacked his children with a hatchet after he had set the house on fire shows how much he wasn't even just like willing to let them die peacefully i'm not saying any of this is obviously okay but typically in a fire like that you would hopefully pass out from the smoke inhalation before the flames touched you the fact that he

was like i don't even give a fuck what i need more than anything is to know that there is no coming back there's no way anyone can save them god man. I like haven't felt this rageful about a case in a very long time. A month after Charlie and Brayden's deaths, Stephen Powell went on trial and he entered a plea of not guilty for 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography. How are you pleading not guilty? I have absolutely no idea. There's a fucking bag of tampons in the court. Fuck me. He just doesn't live here. No.

He doesn't live with the rest of us. Jesus. During the trial, Stephen and his attorney argued that because Susan was unable to represent herself on the fact that she was dead, sorry, missing, allegedly, there was no evidence to suggest that the videos had been non-consensual right hold on let my brain catch up with what i just said but also there's loads of video footage of other people from the neighborhood other women from the neighborhood other children from the neighborhood you can prove using all of them that it was non-consensual i mean i don't envy his lawyer at all it's clutching at straws at best. And they keep on clutching. Another

argument that was made by Stephen's defence was that his son John, who was in the house at the time, the one who had been diagnosed with bipolar and schizophrenia as a child, because he was around, they said that the films could have been taken by him. Wow. There is no level that this man will not stoop to. He cannot take any responsibility for anything. And even faced with all of this, he's happy to throw his son, who is already dealing with severe mental health issues, under the bus for this heinous series of crimes that he has committed. What are we saying that John wrote the songs and did all of that and did all of the like set up for the masturbation that Stephen is seen in those videos doing how is this even making any fucking sense none of it makes sense so is he just like oh my son might have done it but maybe I just found it

and then feel myself masturbating to it or I found some lyrics that he had written and I just sang them and recorded it what What is he talking about? Nobody knows. Jennifer doesn't know either. She takes a stand against her father. And she also revealed that John had been kicked out of the house. So even though their argument was ridiculous in the first place, it was also not even remotely based in reality because John wasn't there. Stephen refused to make any comment on Susan's disappearance, pleading the fifth. But he did say, quote, You can't plead not guilty in the billiard. Oh, yeah, no, I did do that, though.

And I feel for anyone who had to sit through that absolute farce of a trial, but in the end, Stephen was found guilty, and he received a 10-year sentence for the child pornography charge. On the 12th of February 2013, Michael Powell, remember that's Josh's brother, the one whose car had been the sticking point in Susan's disappearance, threw himself off a multi-storey car park, taking his own life. This story is just fucking batshit. And the day that he did it was a year, almost to the day that the boys were killed. I mean,

we can only cast aspersions here because we don't know, but it seems very interesting that he did it basically on the anniversary of his nephew's death. Five years later, Stephen Powell was released from jail and died of a heart attack in a halfway house in Washington state. After his death, entries to his journal from the day that Susan Cox disappeared were revealed to the public and they said the following. Josh's life with Susan was utterly miserable. Evidently, this tragedy is my answer for why Josh hung on. He wanted to do it The stupidity never ends. Really, really, truly never ends. It's just so unsatisfying. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? No, it's the worst. It's the worst. Susan's disappeared. We will never find, they've never found her body. They've never found where she is or what happened to her.

And both of her fucking kids were murdered by her piece of shit husband. And all fucking Stephen Powell got was a few years in prison and then just died of a heart attack. Yeah, man. This case is the definition of unsatisfactory. I am so upset. Yes, I am a child of rage.

So there we go, guys. That is it. That's fucking it. I don't want to talk about any of these awful, awful people anymore. The only people I want to say I have so much love for are the Cox's oh yeah just Chuck Cox Judy Cox top Cox's and uh top tier Cox's top tier Cox's I'm going to a wedding next oh you are going to top tier Cox's and um and the wedding is of my friend but I'm obviously friends with the groom as well now and his surname is Cox and the hashtag at her hem

party that I was at was hashtag same Cox forever I saw that and it was so funny I was like whoever thought of that congratulations it was very dying out on it for the rest of your life so there you go we'll leave you on that high note and also on the note of ticket buying go go go go get your tickets redhandedpodcast.com redhandedpodcast.com don't go anywhere else to get them go there buy them and we will see you on the road my friend hey goodbye you Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors 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. When TV producer Roy

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