If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (24 page)

Charlie and Braden, in their pajamas, were placed in a police car. The boys went as though they were off to a friend’s for a night’s stay, not two little boys being dragged from their home.

Josh didn’t come out of the house—not when his father was arrested, and not when the boys were taken into protective custody. Alina, however, was agitated and loud in her protestations about what was happening. The police asked Johnny to get his brother, and Josh finally emerged from the house. To the observers in the neighborhood, it did not appear that Josh was upset by his father’s arrest. Even stranger, he didn’t seem bothered by the police taking his sons.

Josh did not ask to hug Charlie or Braden or even tell them good-bye.

When the police left, the neighbors watched Alina and Josh stand in the driveway. And then, for the next half hour, they watched Josh repeatedly kick his van.

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Josh hates her so much he even wishes she were dead. He even talks about it occasionally, fantasizing that she might have an accident. That worries me too, since couples who die in murder-suicide are not that rare.

—STEVE POWELL’S JOURNAL, JULY 1, 2008

Alina stood transfixed while her brother took out his frustration on the vehicle. To many of her neighbors, Alina was a tragic figure, a kind of overweight Wendy to a band of Lost Boys, which included her dad. She was there to do whatever it was they needed. And she did so with a sullen expression and fierce loyalty.

Josh paid Alina 800 to 900 dollars a month to watch Charlie and Braden, a little more when she added piano lessons. Sometimes Josh had jobs for a few weeks here or there, but often he did not work. He could afford to pay Alina and cover incidentals because he had closed the bank accounts in Utah and he had cashed out Susan’s IRA.

Alina had her own mind, though many thought she was completely under the sway of her father. After Susan went missing, Alina wondered if her brother was responsible for her disappearance. In time, however, she rejected that outright. She became his great defender, joining Josh in his belief that the West Valley City police were harassing him and that the Coxes were telling lies about her family.

That she would side with the men in her family was no surprise to any who knew her background.

*   *   *

Alina was born into emotional chaos. Terri Powell was pregnant with Alina when she learned of Steve’s fantasies about another woman. It made her ill and her doctor ordered bed rest. Terri waffled on her plans and desires for a divorce and by the time of Alina’s birth, Terri decided Steve had “changed.”

The couple stayed together for seven years more. Terri finally gave up and filed for divorce. It was a nasty one, lasting a grueling two years and having a devastating effect on the five children. Jennifer, the eldest, was working and saving to attend junior college. The two older boys, Josh and Johnny, were already influenced by their father in ways that had observers worried. Mike, ten, and Alina, just seven, were caught in the middle of the mess. Terri held nothing back. She was desperate to protect her youngest child from her brothers and father. According to letters from family members and Terri’s own statements in the Powells’ 1992 divorce records, the older boys regularly tormented Alina, one time resulting in bruised ribs. The environment was hostile in every way, and that hostility manifested itself in the ways it often does. Alina gained a lot of weight, and began to act insecure and “clingy.” Terri, who filed for custody, said that Alina was “afraid to be left with Steve and the boys.” Terri wrote that Josh and Johnny had “examined” Alina with her panties off when she was four.

Steve’s influence on his kids didn’t weaken after he finally moved out. Terri was horrified to learn that Mike was sleeping in Steve’s bed. By age ten, according to divorce papers, Alina was hiding her father’s pornography in embarrassment when she visited his house. Steve made her sleep in his room and Alina confided to her mother that she was afraid of taking a bath there.

In an affidavit, Terri wrote that Alina had said:

Mama, I know that Daddy and the boys really don’t hate me. They just act like they hate me. I know that in their hearts they really love me. Someday they’ll act like they love me.

In trying to win custody of her two youngest, Terri wrote that Steve

… made many promises, telling her [Alina] that she would never be lonely, and that she would have far more freedom with him.

While Terri prevailed and retained custody of her daughter, it was only short-lived. There were too many rules at her mother’s house, and it was emotionally hard for both Alina and Terri when the girl went back and forth to her father’s on weekends. Eventually, Terri gave in and let Alina go live with her father and her brothers. Later, like Mike and Josh, Alina attended college. And, like her brothers, she always moved back home.

Now, she was in her mid-twenties, caring for her young nephews, watching over schizophrenic/bipolar Johnny, and living at her father’s house.

Still waiting to feel loved and still hoping not to feel lonely.

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He’s got a pretty sick problem there.

—JENNIFER GRAVES ON HER FATHER’S ARREST,
SEPTEMBER 22, 2011, TO THE
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

None of the Utah contingent was surprised that someone at Fort Powell had been picked up by the police. Kiirsi had heard from a Facebook friend in Canada that someone—no one knew who—had been arrested at Steve’s house. Kiirsi held her breath, hoping it was Josh. When a Salt Lake City television station phoned her for a comment, the producers said it was Steve who had been led away in handcuffs.

Kiirsi was glad that at least one of the Powells had been arrested for
something.
Susan’s close friend hoped that with Steve in jail, Josh would “crumble and talk.”

At least the children would be safe, Kiirsi and others thought when they found out the reason behind the arrest. Thankfully, Steve’s stash of sordid, voyeuristic photographs had been cause enough to remove Charlie and Braden from the home. The boys were placed in foster care with plans to reunite them with Chuck and Judy.

Soon after the arrest, however, Josh had a visit with his sons. He wasn’t about to let go so easily.

A state social worker observed father and sons and wrote about that first visit:

When they came out from the visit room, Charlie was crying, but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Braden did not cry at all and did not show separation anxiety … foster dad reported that the boys did not want to go into the visit …

Until his arrest, the police had urged Susan’s friends not to talk about Steve Powell, although there was plenty they could have said. Susan had given them an earful. Now that he was sitting in jail, they were given the go-ahead by the police, via Chuck, to tell what Susan had disclosed over the years. For the first time, they went public. Debbie Caldwell described how Susan had said that she refused to sleep in the same house as her father-in-law and didn’t want her children in his house. Debbie also knew about the time Steve suggested that he and Josh “share her” and how that “freaked her out.” Susan’s friends knew that she had insisted they move to Utah to get away from her creepy father-in-law.

Now that they were free to talk about Steve, Kiirsi explained on her blog that Susan’s dad had asked them to be careful about pointing fingers at Josh, and to keep the focus on finding Susan. Kiirsi wrote how the only thing Chuck had ever accused Josh of was not cooperating with the police:

I have done the same. Josh was my friend, too. I have never said he is “guilty” or that he “made Susan disappear” or anything like that. I have only said, “Josh, if you are innocent, PLEASE TALK TO POLICE and clear your name!”

*   *   *

As Debbie, Kiirsi, and others began to talk about Steve and the sickness that followed him like a shadow, Alina Powell took shots at each of their claims. And although Alina was never close to Susan, she called her “the daughter that Jennifer Graves never was” to her dad.

As for Jennifer, she said she wasn’t astounded to hear about her father’s arrest. She had known since she was a girl that he kept a sizable stash of pornography. What she’d seen disgusted and haunted her. She’d vowed never to leave her own children alone with him.

And she never, ever did.

*   *   *

A smirking Steve Powell was transported in handcuffs to the South Hill precinct, not far from Country Hollow. The sixty-one-year-old wore a light jacket, a black shirt, khakis, and running shoes. But he wasn’t going anywhere. The handcuffs were removed, then he was read his rights again, and asked if he would answer some questions. When he declined, he was moved to the Pierce County jail in Tacoma where he was booked. The police report made note of a “mocking grin” on his face.

The next day, detectives checked the jail’s phone system to see if Steve had made or received any calls. Steve had, in fact, called home. Inmate conversations are routinely taped so police listened to the recording. Steve talked to Alina and Mike but spoke the longest with Josh, who repeatedly told his father not to say anything without an attorney present and to be aware that they were being recorded.

Josh, it appeared, had been reading up on inmates’ rights.

*   *   *

Cox attorney Anne Bremner called it “hell week” for the Powells, but most of it really happened all in one day. Hearings related to Susan’s disappearance were held in three courtrooms in the County-City Building in downtown Tacoma.

On September 23, 2011, Bremner served a temporary restraining order on Josh, stopping the Powells from publishing Susan’s diaries. Next came the child custody hearing, which seemed to go in the Coxes’ favor. Then Steve was arraigned on pornography and voyeurism charges. He pleaded not guilty to multiple counts and was held on $200,000 cash-only bail. His children did not have the money to spring him and they did not try to raise it.

Bremner had learned about Steve’s arrest the night before from a jubilant Chuck when he texted:

STEVE HAS BEEN ARRESTED! YAY!

While there was cause for celebration, there were still many unanswered questions.

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I know she is comfortable with me physically by her body language, and I think she would enjoy letting me see her all, but she has some mores that prevent that.

—STEVE POWELL’S JOURNAL, MAY 3, 2003

Sometimes the diarist is a liar and a big one at that. With her beloved orange and white cats at her feet, Cox family attorney Anne Bremner looked down at the journal entries logged by Steve Powell and shook her head. In a legal career that had spanned nearly three decades and put her on the frontlines of tabloid TV as an expert on outrageous crimes, she thought she’d seen it all. Steve’s dark fantasies and misguided attempts at literary redemption were too, too much. She looked out the window next to her desk as the sky around Seattle’s Space Needle turned dark. It fit her mood just then.

In fact, she felt a wave of nausea. Every image, every word on her computer screen made her ill.

Bremner flipped through the journals that detectives had seized in the raid on Steve’s house. It didn’t take her long to see that Steve was in a league all by himself, a Perv with a capital
P.

Shortly after Susan’s disappearance Steve may have stopped his incessant journaling about Susan’s unmatched beauty and his deep desires for her. Anne found it interesting that Steve’s journal was mysteriously missing the months just before, during, and after Susan went missing. Or maybe the police had kept those key months. Anne thought his yearnings and ramblings fell somewhere between a schoolboy crush and the worst possible pervert—the kind that ends up with a “peter meter” attached to his private parts by criminal and mental health professionals to gauge what excites him most. Who knew what sick images Steve would respond to?

… A picture of a naked boy?

… The image of a dog in heat?

… A little girl on a swing set?

There were all kinds of deviants out there. Bremner knew that. She also knew that sometimes deviants don’t look the part. A lot of women would have found Steve Powell attractive. He wasn’t necessarily the creep in the trench coat. He had gray hair with a trendy spike, a slender build, and blue eyes. He’d have fit right in at the CPA’s office just down from her law practice. He appeared harmless. But how he looked didn’t matter. Looks never did. Bremner had once defended police officers in a civil lawsuit surrounding the fallout of Seattle’s infamous schoolteacher and convicted child rapist, Mary Kay Letourneau. Letourneau was a pretty blonde with big eyes and a sweet smile. She served seven years for child rape.

When Steve resumed writing his journal in March 2010, three months after Susan disappeared, he began to leave a trail about what could have happened to Susan in the pages of his Office Depot 3-Subject notebook.

He would sit in his car and write during breaks from his job. He wrote one entry in Steilacoom—a Washington town southwest of Tacoma, famous as the location of Western State mental hospital—and another at the landing to McNeil Island, the site of one of the state’s most notorious prisons, both places where he conducted business as an employee of the Department of Corrections, selling furniture made by inmates to schools and offices. As the light reflected off the gray sheen of Puget Sound, Steve wrote how Josh and the boys had taken a trip to Mount St. Helens, the volcano that had blown its top exactly three decades before. He pondered why Susan had fled.

… if she is running due to criminal activity she may have settled into a comfortable assurance that she’s committed a “perfect crime.” Now whatever she did may prove her undoing.

He went on to ruminate about how the FBI and U.S. Marshal had cleared Josh. It was only a matter of time before Josh would be “vindicated.”

As Bremner read on, she saw the journal entries post-Susan’s disappearance as a bread-crumb trail to Steve’s vision of the truth, yet oddly juxtaposed with masturbatory fantasies.