Speaker 1: Wait, the Lucky land slopts. You can get lucky just
Speaker 1: about anywhere.
Speaker 2: This's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the
Speaker 2: weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a
Speaker 2: while and get lucky. Oh no, nothing like that. It's
Speaker 2: just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest
Speaker 2: you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and
Speaker 2: start getting lucky.
Speaker 1: Play for free at Lucky landslips dot com. Are you
Speaker 1: feeling lucky?
Speaker 3: No purchase necessary void, We're prohibited by Law eighteen plus.
Speaker 3: Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Speaker 4: Judy was boring Hello. Then Judy discovered chumpacasino dot com.
Speaker 1: It's my little escape.
Speaker 4: Now Judy's the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Oh baby mama is bringing home the bacon.
Speaker 4: WHOA, Take it easy, Judy. Jump The chumb of life
Speaker 4: is for everybody. So go to chumpacasino dot com and
Speaker 4: play over one hundred casino style games. Join today and
Speaker 4: play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prices.
Speaker 4: Jump chumpacasino dot com. Noe's necessary, We won't hitt my
Speaker 4: Law eighteen plus terms and conditions to play?
Speaker 2: What's every details?
Speaker 1: Wait the Lucky land slots you can get lucky just
Speaker 1: about anywhere.
Speaker 2: It's your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the
Speaker 2: weather's fine, but we're just gonna circle up here a
Speaker 2: while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's
Speaker 2: just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest
Speaker 2: you sit back, keep your trade table up right, and
Speaker 2: start getting lucky.
Speaker 3: Play for free at lucky Landslots dot com. Are you
Speaker 3: feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void. We're prohibited by Law
Speaker 3: eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Speaker 5: Hey guys, it is a Ryan. I'm not sure if
Speaker 5: you know this about me, but I'm a bit of
Speaker 5: a fun fanatic when I can. I like to work,
Speaker 5: but I like fun too. It's a thing. And now
Speaker 5: the truth is out there, I can tell you about
Speaker 5: my favorite place to have fun, Chumba Casino. They have
Speaker 5: hundreds of social casino style games to choose from, with
Speaker 5: new games released each week. You can play for free, anytime, anywhere,
Speaker 5: and each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses.
Speaker 5: So join me and the fun. Sign up now at
Speaker 5: Chumba Casino dot com.
Speaker 6: NOBE don't have them where every lost the term conditions
Speaker 6: eating class.
Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 7: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 8: Good Evening. Every once in a great while, a genuine
Speaker 8: murder mystery unfolds before the public size such is the
Speaker 8: tragic case is Susan Powell and her murdered boys, Charlie
Speaker 8: and Braden. When the pretty Utah mother went missing in
Speaker 8: December of two thousand and nine, the media was swept
Speaker 8: up in the story, with lenses and microphones trained on
Speaker 8: Susan's husband, Josh. He said he had no idea what
Speaker 8: happened to Susan, and that he and the boys had
Speaker 8: been camping in the middle of a snowstorm. It was
Speaker 8: hard to know what or who to believe. Over the
Speaker 8: next three years, bombshell by bombshell, a world of secrets
Speaker 8: about the Powell family came to light. Josh's father, Steve,
Speaker 8: who was sexually obsessed with Susan, would ultimately be convicted
Speaker 8: of unspeakable perversion, Josh's brother Michael would commit suicide, and
Speaker 8: in the most stunning event of them all, Josh Paul
Speaker 8: would murder his two little boys before killing himself. Why
Speaker 8: did he do it? What really happened to Susan? This
Speaker 8: is the shocking true story of the Powell family that
Speaker 8: no reader will soon forget. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 8: this evening is If I Can't Have You, Susan Powell,
Speaker 8: her mysterious disappearance and the murder of her children, with
Speaker 8: my special guest, journalist and author Rebecca Morris. Welcome back
Speaker 8: to the program, and thank you very much for a
Speaker 8: green In his interview, Rebecca Morris.
Speaker 6: Hi, Dan, thank you so much for having me again.
Speaker 9: It's always nice.
Speaker 6: Talking to you.
Speaker 8: It's always a pleasure. And this is one heck of
Speaker 8: a story. If I Can't Have You, let's talk about
Speaker 8: why you came to want to write this book, how
Speaker 8: you came to be in a physician to write this
Speaker 8: incredible book.
Speaker 6: Well, and I wrote this with my co author, Greg Olson,
Speaker 6: my sometimes co author. We write some nonfiction, some true
Speaker 6: crime together, and he also writes a lot of fiction.
Speaker 6: But in we started following this case pretty much as
Speaker 6: soon as Susan disappeared in two thousand and nine. And
Speaker 6: as you and I have talked about Dan, a publisher
Speaker 6: is like a case adjudicated and has an ending. So
Speaker 6: there are a lot of cases where we just kind
Speaker 6: of watched to see what happens and saw this unfold.
Speaker 6: And uh, I had begun in two thousand eleven, so
Speaker 6: basically a year and a half after Susan disappeared, actually
Speaker 6: you know, putting together some research and and uh towards
Speaker 6: towards doing a book. And then when Josh killed his
Speaker 6: sons and himself on February fifth of two thousand twelve,
Speaker 6: you know it, we just jumped into high gear because
Speaker 6: it looked like that was you know, the ending of
Speaker 6: Susan hadn't been found and uh still has not been found.
Speaker 6: But uh we we then jumped on it, and UH
Speaker 6: and I spent the next uh you know, a couple
Speaker 6: of years, UH talking to Susan's friends and family. You
Speaker 6: can't really do a book like this without uh to
Speaker 6: this extent, without family involvement. And her parents, Chuck and
Speaker 6: Judy Cox, were very open with us and really wanted
Speaker 6: to keep her name and face out there and so
Speaker 6: they spent you know, many hours with us. I went
Speaker 6: to Utah twice to get to know her, her friends,
Speaker 6: and and to you know, drive to the area of
Speaker 6: that that desert where Josh said that he and the
Speaker 6: boys had gone camping. So then this became the first
Speaker 6: and only you know, full length uh book. Uh D.
Speaker 6: One of Josh's sisters has written kind of a memoir
Speaker 6: of life in the family, but uh this is you know,
Speaker 6: it's just a incredibly sad story. And I just realized
Speaker 6: we're coming up on the anniversary. You'd be uh nine
Speaker 6: years this December sixth uh.
Speaker 8: Since she uh disappeared, absolutely and very close to the
Speaker 8: dating question that this horror story began, and that was
Speaker 8: December seventh, two thousand and nine. And you take us
Speaker 8: to a neighbor friend dead be called well. And before
Speaker 8: that you introduce West Valley City, which is a suburb
Speaker 8: of Salt Lake City, and also the subject of Salt
Speaker 8: Lake City obviously is as you write, a mecca for
Speaker 8: lack of a better word, for Mormons. And so tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about this Mormon and its connection
Speaker 8: to this story and these people, and a little bit
Speaker 8: about West Valley City outside of Salt Lake City.
Speaker 6: Well that's one reason I spent a lot of time
Speaker 6: there because I'm not Mormon, but I wanted to learn
Speaker 6: as much as I could, and I wanted to as
Speaker 6: much as an author can step into that world. So
Speaker 6: all of Susan's you know, closest friends, uh were Mormon,
Speaker 6: and her life, you know, her family very active in
Speaker 6: the Mormon Church in Puel Up, Washington. Josh's family had
Speaker 6: been Mormon, and his father, Steve, had even gone on
Speaker 6: a on on the assignment once as they do when
Speaker 6: they're when they're college age. But his father and siblings
Speaker 6: had gradually left the church, and in fact, part of
Speaker 6: their vendetta Steve and Josh is against Susan, you know,
Speaker 6: creating these stories that she'd just run off or run
Speaker 6: off with a with another man or something. Then they
Speaker 6: they turned on the on the church and and blamed
Speaker 6: the church. But West Valley City is a it's a suburb.
Speaker 6: It's a kind of a very sprawling, you know a
Speaker 6: lot of a lot of malls and I got lost
Speaker 6: a lot. Uh Yeah, I think it's really people probably
Speaker 6: know this, but all the address is around the Salt
Speaker 6: Lake City area pertained to the their distance from the temple,
Speaker 6: and so a lot of places have actually two addresses.
Speaker 6: But uh, her neighborhood, you know, were all her Mormon friends.
Speaker 6: They attended the same ward, which is the local place
Speaker 6: of worship in a in a community, and you know,
Speaker 6: it was a just a very close group they you know,
Speaker 6: her Mormon friends were her daycare provider, they were the
Speaker 6: people she worked with at at Wells Fargo. Uh, they
Speaker 6: were you know, they walked to church together on Sundays
Speaker 6: in the neighborhood and just a a very close knit community.
Speaker 6: And Susan was very open with these friends. So we
Speaker 6: have her you know, uh Facebook posts and her journals
Speaker 6: and some of her letters and and you know, they
Speaker 6: they knew that the the problems between Josh and Susan
Speaker 6: were we're growing over the years.
Speaker 8: Now you introduce and again you have mentioned that without
Speaker 8: this cooperation and this information, you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 8: write this incredible book with this access. And so that's
Speaker 8: Chuck and Judy Cox, Susan's parents, and at the time,
Speaker 8: Susan is twenty eight at the time of the story
Speaker 8: and Josh is thirty three years old. Then they have children,
Speaker 8: Brayden and Charlie, and they're one's five and one's three.
Speaker 8: I believe that's their agency.
Speaker 6: Tell us a little when she appeared, but their birthdays
Speaker 6: are both in February, so it's a little you know,
Speaker 6: a little close there. But I think there were two
Speaker 6: and four.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about Susan's life growing up
Speaker 8: and with Chuck, and what's chuck Chuck's background, because Chuck's
Speaker 8: background is important to this story as well, So tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about life with Chuck and Judy
Speaker 8: and and his background.
Speaker 6: Well, it was it was, you know, a a a
Speaker 6: really close family. Chuck and Judy had four daughters. Susan
Speaker 6: was I believe the third of the fourth, and the
Speaker 6: girls were close. They haven't necessarily stayed as close to
Speaker 6: the church as their parents have, uh, but Susan and
Speaker 6: her sister Deniece were uh particularly uh close uh all
Speaker 6: through growing up in their young adulthood. So the the
Speaker 6: the the thing is with in the Mormon Church is
Speaker 6: that the reason young couples kind of date a short
Speaker 6: time and Mary is they're not supposed to have any
Speaker 6: you know, intimacy before marriage, and so you know, uh,
Speaker 6: Josh and Susan dated. I think It was just eight
Speaker 6: months before they were engaged and got married. They had
Speaker 6: me at at there are a lot of social activities
Speaker 6: for young Mormons so that they can meet each other
Speaker 6: and and date and Mary and Uh Susan had met
Speaker 6: Josh at at one of these young people's UH events.
Speaker 6: Susan at the time was in attending a UH hairstyling
Speaker 6: school and UH Josh was finishing at the University of Washington,
Speaker 6: I believe, and uh they had both you know, dated.
Speaker 8: Some but.
Speaker 6: Uh d U Susan assumed, you know, she she and
Speaker 6: her fam new family, her family would be would be Mormons.
Speaker 6: They'd they'd stay probably in Washington State, and you know,
Speaker 6: she'd have children. That was the most important, you know
Speaker 6: thing for her, and you know, m We know they
Speaker 6: they actually moved to Utah because Josh's father was so
Speaker 6: obsessed with Susan and she just wanted to get away
Speaker 6: from him.
Speaker 8: Now, tell us a little bit about Josh and it's complicated,
Speaker 8: but you alluded to this that there was problems. She
Speaker 8: believed that she was she knew she was Mormon, but
Speaker 8: she believed that that he would come around, at least
Speaker 8: in terms of their common goal of being of having
Speaker 8: this religious pursuit tell us a little bit about Josh's parents,
Speaker 8: and particularly Steve and his attitudes towards the Mormon Church
Speaker 8: and his experiences.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I actually forgot to talk about Chuck. I
Speaker 6: will very quickly. He is You could not invent a
Speaker 6: more interesting character father than he is, you know, so sharp,
Speaker 6: so determined to find Susan and to find out the truth.
Speaker 6: And his background was he'd been in the air and
Speaker 6: uh he had been he was a uh an FAA
Speaker 6: Crisch investigator, so he knew about, you know, the ways
Speaker 6: investigations are conducted, and he'd been to accident sites and
Speaker 6: so all of that would you know, uh, not necessarily
Speaker 6: prepare him for what happened to his daughter, but made
Speaker 6: him a a particularly good ally for his uh missing
Speaker 6: daughter and somebody uh particularly you know, unusually sharp that
Speaker 6: the West Valley City Police Department probably wasn't used to
Speaker 6: to working with Josh's family. His parents had both been
Speaker 6: uh Mormons, and his mother remained Mormon. Uh. What we
Speaker 6: know is we learned a lot about Josh as a
Speaker 6: as a teenager from their divorce documents, and his parents
Speaker 6: divorced when uh, when Josh was a teenager and he
Speaker 6: was one of five children, three girls and two boys.
Speaker 6: And in the divorce documents and when his parents are
Speaker 6: are you know, doing a custody uh battle over the
Speaker 6: five kids. It it was included in the reports that
Speaker 6: Josh had threatened his mother with a knife when he
Speaker 6: was a teenager. You know, he'd killed his sister's gerbil,
Speaker 6: you know, and and there'd been a lot of acting out.
Speaker 6: And Steve Powell, who turned on the Mormon Church, didn't
Speaker 6: just leave it, but really turned on it, had a
Speaker 6: great deal of sway over his children. Uh. Four of
Speaker 6: the five children, uh after the divorce lived with him
Speaker 6: and lived with him well into their adult years and began,
Speaker 6: you know, really believed what he believed, whatever that was,
Speaker 6: whether it was about you know, his views on marriage,
Speaker 6: or his views on the church, or his you know,
Speaker 6: views on Susan and Josh. He just was you know,
Speaker 6: very very controlling. And that is the atmosphere also that
Speaker 6: Josh and Susan's young sons found themselves after she disappeared.
Speaker 8: Now, talk about this atmosphere that she came into and
Speaker 8: she you know, meets Steve and the family and as
Speaker 8: married to Josh, what are some of the events. We
Speaker 8: don't want to give everything away because in this book
Speaker 8: you did that information comes to everybody and including the
Speaker 8: reader in time. But let's talk about what the environment
Speaker 8: was in the home environment that people even from the
Speaker 8: outside knew. People that didn't know everything. What did people,
Speaker 8: including Chuck Cox and Judy Cox, what did they know
Speaker 8: about this relationship?
Speaker 6: Okay, now, are you wondering about the relationship within Steve's
Speaker 6: house or or Josh and Susan Later.
Speaker 8: We're talking about we're talking about Yeah, we're talking about
Speaker 8: Josh and Susan, But we I wanted to have the
Speaker 8: audience understand that that there had been a break between
Speaker 8: Steve and Susan, and there was follows about those events.
Speaker 6: Susan and Josh lived for a while at Steve's and
Speaker 6: you know, they'd had they had they had some various jobs,
Speaker 6: and they were having trouble sort of you know, standing
Speaker 6: financially on their own, and Steve invited them to live
Speaker 6: in his house for a little while. They actually lived
Speaker 6: in I think it was a second bedroom or a
Speaker 6: dan on the main floor that didn't have a door,
Speaker 6: so they they haun curtains. But Susan discovered that Stephen
Speaker 6: was a voyeur and was you know, peeking at her
Speaker 6: and brushing up against her, and he even declared his
Speaker 6: love for her. And we know, uh, we'd found out
Speaker 6: later that he was also taking pictures of her when
Speaker 6: she was in the bathroom and she didn't know it.
Speaker 7: And and but she she.
Speaker 6: Uh, you know, he he had this idea that Susan
Speaker 6: would leave Josh and Steve would marry her and they'd
Speaker 6: raise you know, his his grandkids together. So she told
Speaker 6: uh Josh that you know, this is pretty creepy, and
Speaker 6: he agreed they could move, so they they moved to Utah. Uh,
Speaker 6: so she you know, really fled uh pull up her Uh.
Speaker 6: Her parents, Uh, Chuck and Judy. I don't think they
Speaker 6: knew the details of what was going on Susan, you know,
Speaker 6: pretty much all along the way protected them in some ways.
Speaker 6: They they weren't people that she you know, turned to
Speaker 6: when things weren't their worst with Josh, and she had
Speaker 6: friends that she turned to, but I think there was
Speaker 6: a lot her parents uh didn't know. Because of course,
Speaker 6: one of the important things and and the Mormon faith
Speaker 6: is that you stay married and you do whatever you
Speaker 6: have to can you do to stay married. And Uh,
Speaker 6: Susan did go to UH counseling with a Mormon counselor
Speaker 6: and Josh I think went went once and that was it.
Speaker 6: But UH, she most likely was encouraged to to work
Speaker 6: things out. So what her friends knew at the time
Speaker 6: of her disappearance was that Josh wasn't working Susan was.
Speaker 6: Josh c controlled the money. Josh sometimes didn't give Susan
Speaker 6: enough money to buy groceries for the kids. Susan sometimes
Speaker 6: called a neighbor to see, if, you know, if they
Speaker 6: had a couple extra hot dogs or something she could
Speaker 6: feed her boys. Josh should turn. He was always kind
Speaker 6: of quirky, but the people around Susan, you know, began
Speaker 6: to pick up on he was just, you know, becoming
Speaker 6: becoming mean and controlling, and they were very worried about her.
Speaker 8: It's interesting too that you talk about not having enough
Speaker 8: food and she was the breadwinner, but also that at
Speaker 8: the same time he was depriving her of things and
Speaker 8: the children of food. He didn't deprive himself of anything,
Speaker 8: did he.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, his garage when he packed up to
Speaker 6: after Susan went missing, you know, within within a week
Speaker 6: or two. He was packing up to leave, and uh,
Speaker 6: he had spent he had you know, two three four
Speaker 6: of everything in the house, whether computers, cameras, gardening equipment. Ah,
Speaker 6: he just had and just boxes and boxes of things
Speaker 6: and duplicate things that he'd bought. So he you know,
Speaker 6: treated himself to whatever. You know, I the more I
Speaker 6: found out about this story, Dan, the more it became.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a it's a story of domestic violence.
Speaker 6: They were not known to the West Valley City Police
Speaker 6: before she disappeared. It it wasn't that Josh you know,
Speaker 6: beat her and had been called to the house. Uh,
Speaker 6: and the police have been called to the house numerous times.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of domestic violence that isn't It doesn't
Speaker 6: fall into that what we think of domestic violence. It's
Speaker 6: it's very controlling, and you know, they did shove each other,
Speaker 6: you know, once somewhere along the way. But you know,
Speaker 6: I discovered that Josh had actually been planning for a
Speaker 6: couple of years too. You know, he didn't want to
Speaker 6: be married. He didn't want to be a father either,
Speaker 6: but which was surprising because he you know, fought tooth
Speaker 6: and nail for custody of the kids later, but he
Speaker 6: didn't really want to be a father, He didn't really
Speaker 6: want to be a husband.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about the children before we talk about December seventh,
Speaker 8: two thousand and nine, and the crime scene itself. That's very,
Speaker 8: very mysterious and has more questions and answers. Let's talk
Speaker 8: about the four year old and two year old Charlie
Speaker 8: and Braden, and just a little bit when those children
Speaker 8: arrived and how happy was Susan, And also some talk
Speaker 8: of a little bit later that not everybody, especially Chuck
Speaker 8: and Judy by that time, thought it was unusual for
Speaker 8: her to have another child. Tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, Susan was just uh elated when she
Speaker 6: found out that she was uh pregnant.
Speaker 4: With uh.
Speaker 6: Charlie was the first son and one of the strangest
Speaker 6: stories in UH in the book, and yes, Dan is
Speaker 6: just the the story of the day that she was
Speaker 6: to give birth and her parents had come down from
Speaker 6: pew wallup to West Valley City to be with her,
Speaker 6: and you know, her water broke at home and Josh
Speaker 6: was downstairs on his computer and couldn't kind of be
Speaker 6: bothered to to step up her p Her parents drove
Speaker 6: her to the hospital.
Speaker 8: Yes, and.
Speaker 6: While she was in labor, you know, Josh finally showed
Speaker 6: up and he was had his laptop with him and
Speaker 6: was sitting across the room on his laptop, and you know,
Speaker 6: her parents are holding her hand, and finally Chuck goes
Speaker 6: over and sort of, you know, grabs his arm and says,
Speaker 6: you've got to come, you know, speak to Susan. And
Speaker 6: it's just one of the one of the strange things
Speaker 6: I've i've ever heard of. Yeah, and she she wanted
Speaker 6: more children, and and Brydon came along a couple of
Speaker 6: years later, and she was hoping for more. There's a
Speaker 6: slight chance that she'd been pregnant and in miscarriage just before, uh,
Speaker 6: just before she disappeared. Her friend's thought that perhaps, uh,
Speaker 6: that had happened, but she hadn't really uh uh shared
Speaker 6: that news with anybody. And once people knew the kind
Speaker 6: of father that Josh was, you know, people had doubts
Speaker 6: about her doing this by herself, but she did want
Speaker 6: more children.
Speaker 8: Wh talk about December seventh, two thousand and nine. It's
Speaker 8: a fresh snow outside of Salt Lake City. There's a storm.
Speaker 8: You write that there's a three day winter storm yeah,
Speaker 8: and Debbie called, well, is her daycare provider and her
Speaker 8: friend and her neighbor. So what happens that morning.
Speaker 6: Well, the morning of December seventh, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 6: which was Monday, Josh or Susan didn't show up at
Speaker 6: Debbie's house with the boys. And Debbie was a licensed
Speaker 6: childcare provider and you know, one of their closest friends.
Speaker 6: And so she had six or eight other children and
Speaker 6: she piled them in her van and drove to Susan
Speaker 6: and Josh's house. She was you know, Susan was extremely responsible.
Speaker 6: Susan would have called and checked in or let Debbie
Speaker 6: know if their plans had changed. When she couldn't reach
Speaker 6: them on either of their cell phones. She drove to
Speaker 6: their house and there had been snow overnight and she
Speaker 6: could tell from being outside the house that, uh, the
Speaker 6: no car had been you know, been down the driveway
Speaker 6: or up the driveway, and there were no footsteps in
Speaker 6: and out of the house. She still couldn't reach somebody.
Speaker 6: She called, uh, Josh's oldest sister, Jennifer, who came to
Speaker 6: the house, and then they called the police, and Jennifer
Speaker 6: gave them permission to break a window and and go
Speaker 6: into the house. Uh, and there was just no sign
Speaker 6: of the family. Uh. In fact, Susan's purse and was
Speaker 6: on the bedside table. And you know, we we know
Speaker 6: now then there was some some blood blood spatter in
Speaker 6: the living room. So they finally our later reached Josh
Speaker 6: on his cell phone, and you know, and he says,
Speaker 6: you know, he took the boys the night before camping
Speaker 6: and where they'd gone. And and basically, uh, Jennifer and
Speaker 6: uh and the police a c you know, come to
Speaker 6: the house right now, come come right now. And he
Speaker 6: spends a couple more hours, you know, putting the car
Speaker 6: through a car wash and dawdling around. And and meanwhile
Speaker 6: the police have discovered that Susan hasn't been seen since
Speaker 6: Sunday afternoon, when she went to church with the boys,
Speaker 6: you know, came back to the house. Her friend Ghovanna
Speaker 6: came over to help Uh Susan with some knitting or crocheting,
Speaker 6: and Josh, who never lifted a hand, you know, uh,
Speaker 6: volunteered to make dinner and had made pancakes and took
Speaker 6: two or three hours making pancakes. And in the meantime,
Speaker 6: he'd called his father and had a long conversation phone. Also,
Speaker 6: so Susan's been Susan hasn't been seen. Susan didn't go
Speaker 6: to work, And the police look through the van window
Speaker 6: of Josh's van once he finally pulls up at the
Speaker 6: house and they can see that there's a second phone
Speaker 6: in the car and it's it's Susan's phone.
Speaker 1: Wait, the Lucky land Slots. You can get lucky just
Speaker 1: about anywhere.
Speaker 2: This is your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and
Speaker 2: the weather's five. But we're just going to circle up
Speaker 2: here a while and get lucky. Oh no, nothing like that.
Speaker 2: It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I
Speaker 2: suggest you sit back, keep your trade table up right,
Speaker 2: and start getting lucky.
Speaker 1: Pay for free at Lucky landslots dot com.
Speaker 3: Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary void. We're prohibited
Speaker 3: by Law eighteen plus. Terms and conditions apply. See website
Speaker 3: for details.
Speaker 5: Hello, it is Ryan and we could all use an
Speaker 5: extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we just to
Speaker 5: make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes,
Speaker 5: counting your steps, you know, all the mundane stuff. That
Speaker 5: is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino.
Speaker 5: Chumbuck Casino has all your favorite social casino style games
Speaker 5: you can play for free anytime anywhere with daily bonuses.
Speaker 5: That's you brighten your day alone actually a lot, So
Speaker 5: sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com. That's Chumbuck
Speaker 5: Casino dot com. No necessary Dalyoid where every by lost
Speaker 5: in terms conditions eighteen plus.
Speaker 8: Right now with this, all these friends that are concerned
Speaker 8: you talk about Jovanna, you talk about to be called well,
Speaker 8: and of course it's their own family as well. You
Speaker 8: just talked about this fresh snow police are eventually called.
Speaker 8: What happens? How does this proceed? What do people think
Speaker 8: has happened? And regardless of what they think, how do
Speaker 8: they act, especially towards Josh?
Speaker 6: Yes, well right away. I mean I can't think of
Speaker 6: a family member friend of Susan's that didn't think to themselves,
Speaker 6: what have you done? Josh? And a couple of them
Speaker 6: expressed that to Josh, what have you done? And course
Speaker 6: he just said, you know, he'd she didn't wanna go
Speaker 6: camping with them, and this really ridiculous story that he
Speaker 6: confused the days he f he thought he thought that
Speaker 6: they were going camping on a Saturday night and they'd
Speaker 6: come home Sunday. Well, you know, no, they came home
Speaker 6: on on Monday, and he cut he hadn't called out
Speaker 6: he was working by them, and uh, he hadn't called
Speaker 6: his job to say he wasn't going to be there.
Speaker 6: So a people immediately think that that Josh is somehow responsible.
Speaker 6: But what they do is they just play nice because
Speaker 6: they think there's more chance that they'll find out what
Speaker 6: happened to Susan if they're not accusatory.
Speaker 9: Josh.
Speaker 6: And uh, Josh has taken to to the police station
Speaker 6: that evening, so Monday evening, and he's interviewed, you know,
Speaker 6: by the police, and then they let him go home,
Speaker 6: and they let him go home in his van, and
Speaker 6: he spends all of Monday night cleaning his van. The
Speaker 6: neighbors can see him, you know, going back and forth
Speaker 6: to the van and the garage and and he cleans
Speaker 6: a the house and he cleans the garage and I'm
Speaker 6: sorry of the car. And then he's supposed to go
Speaker 6: back to the police department the next day, and he
Speaker 6: stalls and stalls and stalls, and finally he is called
Speaker 6: Susan's father. Uh so this is now she's been missing,
Speaker 6: you know, more than forty eight hours, and that's his
Speaker 6: first you know contact with with her father and jaw
Speaker 6: and u uh, Chuck prompts, you know, Chuck, Chuck encourages him,
Speaker 6: Josh are supposed to be at the police department. You've
Speaker 6: missed your appointment. So finally Josh goes down to the
Speaker 6: police department and they take his car to keep it
Speaker 6: and go through it, and he walks out of the
Speaker 6: police department and gets a ride to the Salt Lake
Speaker 6: City Airport and then goes missing for two days, which
Speaker 6: is and his censor with his sister. So, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, clearly something is going on, and the police
Speaker 6: haven't really been They don't watch him, they don't follow him,
Speaker 6: they don't seize his car immediately, and they kind of
Speaker 6: got off the whole investigation got off on the wrong foot.
Speaker 8: How do Chuck and Judy proceed here being the grandparents
Speaker 8: and worrying and being concerned about these grandkids and also
Speaker 8: obviously their daughter, how do they proceed? And we talked
Speaker 8: about him being an investigator at heart, so what does
Speaker 8: he do? And especially you just mentioned that the police
Speaker 8: probably aren't responding as fast as Chuck would like, what
Speaker 8: does he do?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, within a few days, I believe by the
Speaker 6: next weekend, he's come to West Valley City and there
Speaker 6: is a you know gathering at the family's ward and
Speaker 6: you know, not a memorial service. Nobody knows that where
Speaker 6: Susan is or or that she's deceased, but but there's
Speaker 6: there's kind of a gathering. But the first thing Chuck did,
Speaker 6: which I think was really fascinating, is that he called
Speaker 6: Ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart, who had been
Speaker 6: you know, kidnapped out of her home and you know,
Speaker 6: tortured and assaulted for several months before she was found.
Speaker 6: And course UH and the Smarts were Mormon, and Chuck
Speaker 6: called him and said what do I do? And Ed
Speaker 6: Smart said, you do whatever you have to do to
Speaker 6: keep Susan's face and name in front of the media.
Speaker 6: So Chuck and Judy, you know, within a few days
Speaker 6: they had a uh a news conference in UH pullup
Speaker 6: UH with with the media to to talk about Susan
Speaker 6: and very emotional UH news conference. And then he you know,
Speaker 6: went to West Valley City to talk to the police
Speaker 6: and to UH to talk to Josh and UH. They
Speaker 6: didn't really have a long sit down talk. He saw
Speaker 6: Josh at this at this kind of service at the
Speaker 6: at the ward for Susan. But but that was uh
Speaker 6: about it. Jo. There were some candlelight vigils that that
Speaker 6: Josh uh went to and took the boys too, and
Speaker 6: there were also visuals in Puyallup. But Josh did not,
Speaker 6: you know, like we see a lot of spouses both
Speaker 6: sincerely and insincerely speaking to the media when their spouses
Speaker 6: is missing. Josh, you know, didn't do that. He was
Speaker 6: he was caught by television reporter as a time or
Speaker 6: two and mumbled something, but he didn't, you know, he
Speaker 6: didn't get out there and and you know, put a
Speaker 6: face on this and plead, you know, for help from
Speaker 6: from the public. He retreated to his father's house.
Speaker 8: Right now, you write about all of the people that
Speaker 8: are friends, people that are involved in the church, but
Speaker 8: also people that work with her. And it's interesting that
Speaker 8: that she's always in the family knows this. Chuck and
Speaker 8: Judy know that she's always journals since she was a kid.
Speaker 8: But there's also a diary or journal that was found
Speaker 8: by a coworker, and the coworker knew about it. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about this journal or diary and
Speaker 8: its contents.
Speaker 6: Well she left, she loved a couple of things. One is,
Speaker 6: her coworker found at I believe, in her desk at
Speaker 6: Wells Fargo a letter that said, if something happens to me,
Speaker 6: look at Josh. And then it also directed them to
Speaker 6: a safe deposit box where Susan had handwritten out a
Speaker 6: will and you know, mentioned her children and also mentioned
Speaker 6: if something had happened to her, you know, look at Josh.
Speaker 6: The other thing Susan made was just just a couple
Speaker 6: of months before she disappeared, she made a video recording
Speaker 6: of herself walking through the house and talking about the
Speaker 6: the their belongings and Josh's you know, the things he'd
Speaker 6: spent money on. And I think that was really for
Speaker 6: two purposes. One was if they divorced and separated, she
Speaker 6: wanted an accounting of you know, what they owned. But
Speaker 6: the other thought that must have been in her mind
Speaker 6: because she says on the video that if something happens
Speaker 6: to me, or you know, if if I'm gone missing,
Speaker 6: you know, she wanted this this uh video of of
Speaker 6: what you know, what was where, what was where in
Speaker 6: the house and and what was going on in the house,
Speaker 6: and so it's quite but she, you know, first, for
Speaker 6: a number of years, she had given herself deadlines to
Speaker 6: UH pursue UH divorce, and usually every April leading up
Speaker 6: to every April when they're wedding UH anniversary was she'd say,
Speaker 6: okay me, you know this this April this spring, i'll
Speaker 6: I'll talk about divorce. And she did talk about divorce
Speaker 6: to Josh, and he basically threatened her and said he
Speaker 6: would he would take the children and she'd never see
Speaker 6: the children again. And UH was as intimidating as he
Speaker 6: possibly could be.
Speaker 8: The police as well discover at least it looks like
Speaker 8: to everyone that she had this plan, that she had
Speaker 8: had enough, and she documented the her frustration in this marriage,
Speaker 8: but as a Mormon, she wanted to honor that marriage
Speaker 8: and stay with him. However, she had her limits. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about some of the things she
Speaker 8: says regarding that and that deadline and his behavior that's
Speaker 8: n intolerable to her.
Speaker 6: Well, there was like a lot of psychoge logical UH
Speaker 6: controlling going on. And as I mentioned, she was very
Speaker 6: open with her friends, and I know that they have wondered.
Speaker 6: You know in recent years, if they could have done more,
Speaker 6: if there was any way they could have intervened, but
Speaker 6: you know, they they there was a certain acceptance with
Speaker 6: time of oh, that's just Josh, Josh'll be Josh. And
Speaker 6: you know, no one could've have known, uh, what he was,
Speaker 6: you know, what he was planning, the you know, the
Speaker 6: money and and not having enough money even for for
Speaker 6: diapers for the boys. And you know, none of us
Speaker 6: can explain why Susan tolerated that when she was the one,
Speaker 6: you know, working full time. She did, Uh, she did
Speaker 6: talk to an attorney, uh at some point in the
Speaker 6: last few months of her life, and divorce attorney, and
Speaker 6: on his suggestion, I think that's when she wrote her will.
Speaker 6: And she also opened the bank account that Josh didn't
Speaker 6: know about. But you know, some of the some of
Speaker 6: the tell tale signs that that that we we kind
Speaker 6: of take for granted after somebody disappears is that, you know,
Speaker 6: Josh and Susan were buying large amounts of life insurance.
Speaker 6: Susan knew Josh was was buying this, but it was
Speaker 6: f for for the children and uh, but it was
Speaker 6: just a a bad situation and Susan was doing what
Speaker 6: she thought was best, you know, for the for the boys.
Speaker 6: Not that Josh was a great father, but but uh,
Speaker 6: you know, they they loved him, and uh, it would
Speaker 6: have been avoid without him. But there was this threat
Speaker 6: that he'd you know, take the kids that was hanging
Speaker 6: over her.
Speaker 8: You introduced the character Jovanna, and Jovanna is unique in
Speaker 8: that she really didn't know Josh. She hadn't met Josh
Speaker 8: until thirteen days before Susan's disappearance, so she has this
Speaker 8: unique perspective on who he is at at least this time.
Speaker 8: And there is talk in your book that there's a
Speaker 8: Utah Josh and a Washington Josh and that once he
Speaker 8: had moved to Utah, his character had completely changed for
Speaker 8: some reason. And she's and you talk about that. Around Thanksgiving,
Speaker 8: Jovanna would see Susan Josh in the Boys more than
Speaker 8: six times. However, with that nothing she suld pinpoint. But
Speaker 8: she said that something was off but couldn't say what.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, so she was, you know, somebody pretty new
Speaker 6: in their lives and I I can't remember if if
Speaker 6: Jovanna was new to the neighborhood and they have and uh,
Speaker 6: and they were just getting acquainted, but they found some
Speaker 6: things in common. She and Susan both saying in the
Speaker 6: choir at the ward and they you know, there's a
Speaker 6: one night a week when the the women in the
Speaker 6: ward meet and you know, and do crafts and talk
Speaker 6: and and worship. And so she was getting to know
Speaker 6: a Jovanna in that way. And Jovanna was also uh
Speaker 6: able to to babysit a little bit for Charlie and Brayden.
Speaker 6: So when Josh sort of left Susan uh without a backup, uh,
Speaker 6: she could call it Jovanna and Jovanna's uh children are
Speaker 6: mostly grown by that time, so it was rather unique
Speaker 6: because where where Uh Susan's closest friend, uh Kersey hilliwell,
Speaker 6: who lived on the street, you know, had known Josh,
Speaker 6: you know for years. Uh. Jovanna was seeing this, you know,
Speaker 6: very late stage. Josh, who couldn't seem you know, just
Speaker 6: seems so nice and so helpful and making, you know,
Speaker 6: inviting her to stay for dinner that Sunday and making
Speaker 6: the pancakes when he didn't know how to make uh pancakes,
Speaker 6: but he you know, called his father to get a recipe.
Speaker 6: I mean, who needs a recipe? You know, to make pancakes,
Speaker 6: and she just thought, you know, he was you know,
Speaker 6: a pretty a pretty good husband. But she also saw
Speaker 6: his you know, his his quirks, and and then Jovanna,
Speaker 6: you know, she was the last person to see Susan.
Speaker 6: So this this new friend becomes, you know, the very
Speaker 6: last person to see Josh and Susan. And it's it's
Speaker 6: kind of mind boggling, really.
Speaker 8: What we see Josh do too, and you write in
Speaker 8: this book is very interesting that he he talks to
Speaker 8: Cursey and her husband, and he has all his laptops.
Speaker 8: At this point, the police have proceeded with this and
Speaker 8: have confiscated his laptops and cell phones, and there's been
Speaker 8: searches on his van. And so he goes to these
Speaker 8: friends that are still there. May be suspicious, but they're
Speaker 8: still acting like his friends and supportive, and he sets
Speaker 8: up a website in dedication to Susan. In reality, tell
Speaker 8: us what that website really look like and the tone
Speaker 8: of that website.
Speaker 6: Well, the website began, and Josh was never shy about
Speaker 6: asking people or demanding people to help him. So, but
Speaker 6: you're right, Carosey and her husband John went along with
Speaker 6: it because they were trying to, you know, be on
Speaker 6: Josh's side. So the website initially was you know, pictures
Speaker 6: of Susan and the boys and just kind of you know,
Speaker 6: remembering her, and it very quickly became something else. And
Speaker 6: I think as soon as Josh made it back to
Speaker 6: puellup at his father's house, they turned that site into
Speaker 6: uh a website that attacked Susan, attacked the Mormon Church,
Speaker 6: uh blamed Susan. There was a uh a man in
Speaker 6: Utah who went missing it about this, just a few
Speaker 6: days before Susan did, who's never been found. They uh
Speaker 6: jumped on that and decided that the two of them
Speaker 6: had run away together. You know, Susan had deserted her boys.
Speaker 6: So the site became very much Josh and Steve against
Speaker 6: Susan and the world, blaming the Coxes, blaming the Mormon Church,
Speaker 6: and UH it just uh you know was uh uh
Speaker 6: a I you know, her her friends were just terribly
Speaker 6: sad to see that that this is what was happening.
Speaker 6: Also about that time, Steve uh let it be known
Speaker 6: that he had Susan's teenage journals had been left in
Speaker 6: his house and in storage. When Josh and Susan had
Speaker 6: moved to Utah, and that became uh something that he
Speaker 6: thought he could leverage, you know, and kind of kind
Speaker 6: of blackmail Susan's family with.
Speaker 8: M M. We have forgotten to talk about the children
Speaker 8: and the two children that were maybe likely witnessed something,
Speaker 8: had information, but they're very young and they are they
Speaker 8: are interviewed by police very very very carefully.
Speaker 6: There In fact, the f the the first night that
Speaker 6: Josh is interviewed at the police station, they they have
Speaker 6: the boys go along and you know, the police by
Speaker 6: the soda and everything like that. The next day when
Speaker 6: Josh is down to the police station and they confiscate
Speaker 6: his van, the children are with uh Josh's sister, Jennifer,
Speaker 6: and they are taken to a very specific uh agency
Speaker 6: that the police department works with where there's a social
Speaker 6: worker to talk to the boys. And even though they're
Speaker 6: two and four years old, they they have information and
Speaker 6: one of the boys says that mommy did go on
Speaker 6: the trip with them. Mommy was in the back of
Speaker 6: the van and Mommy stayed with the crystals that that
Speaker 6: she was left where they'd been looking at rocks or something,
Speaker 6: and uh so, uh, they surprised Josh at that second
Speaker 6: interview with you know, here, here's what your sons are saying.
Speaker 6: And they still, you know, let him walk out of
Speaker 6: the out of the police station and that's when he
Speaker 6: uh goes off and rents a car. So the kids,
Speaker 6: you know, there's such an em it's such a young age.
Speaker 6: But they they were very clear with those couple of
Speaker 6: memories that mommy was in the car, they left mommy
Speaker 6: and Uh. Later we'd find out just how impressionable, you know,
Speaker 6: Josh and Steve were on them, because between the time
Speaker 6: their mother disappeared and they went to live with their grandparents,
Speaker 6: UH and Josh had visitation, they were they were emotionally
Speaker 6: and physically damaged. It was just, you know, m the
Speaker 6: saddest thing about this.
Speaker 8: Absolutely we're gonna talk more about uh, Chuck and Judy
Speaker 8: and they having the custody of the children and their
Speaker 8: behavior after all of this, but we're gonna stop for
Speaker 8: a second to talk about Meason Mesin makes high end
Speaker 8: kitchen knives at are comparable to one hundred and fifty
Speaker 8: dollars knives, but sell them directly to you for a
Speaker 8: fraction of the price. Everyone has a knife in the kitchen.
Speaker 8: Most people have a dull one that doesn't work well anymore.
Speaker 8: You may think, if you're not a great cook or
Speaker 8: don't cook enough, you don't deserve or need a high
Speaker 8: end knife. But everyone needs it, and now with Meason,
Speaker 8: everyone can afford one. Just like any other job, having
Speaker 8: the right tools can make all the difference, and cooking
Speaker 8: is no different. A solid, high end knife is essential
Speaker 8: for any home chef. The problem until now that your
Speaker 8: only options were cheap in low quality or something expensive.
Speaker 8: Until now, by selling directly to you the consumer, Meason
Speaker 8: is able to cut out the middleman and save you
Speaker 8: money free sharpening for life. Even the sharpest knives eventually dull.
Speaker 8: Meason knows how aggravating this can be, so they offer
Speaker 8: free sharpening for life. Just send a knife back when
Speaker 8: it dulls and they'll ship it back good as new.
Speaker 8: I've tried the Meason chef knife and the parent knife,
Speaker 8: and I have no idea how I ever cooked without it.
Speaker 8: Cooking is faster, easier, and actually more fun. And now
Speaker 8: you can also join in the fund in your kitchen.
Speaker 8: My listeners will receive a free pairing knife when you
Speaker 8: purchase their chef's knife simply by going to Meason dot
Speaker 8: co slash murder. That's a thirty five dollars for free.
Speaker 8: That's Meason m I s e n dot com. Pardon me,
Speaker 8: m I s e n dot c slash murder and
Speaker 8: start cooking sharp. Now we talked about and you alluded
Speaker 8: to Chuck and Judy thankfully gaining custody of Braden and Charlie,
Speaker 8: and while Josh remained having visitation. Right from the very beginning,
Speaker 8: there was some odd behavior exhibited by the children. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about what Chuck and.
Speaker 6: Judy saw well, and they never uh, they never actually
Speaker 6: got custody. What they did is they were the the
Speaker 6: boys lived with them, and they were officially foster parents
Speaker 6: when Josh when they had to move out of s
Speaker 6: of Steve's house. So th so the boys spent let's
Speaker 6: see two two years uh living or a year and
Speaker 6: a half, oh year and a half living with Josh
Speaker 6: and Steve. And and I'll just to include a a
Speaker 6: quick step here in this whole story. So Steve had
Speaker 6: Susan's journals from teenage years and was threatening to publish them.
Speaker 6: That let the police gave them reason to go into
Speaker 6: his house and they raided Steve's house and guess what
Speaker 6: they felt that he was a voyeur and had child,
Speaker 6: had pornography and had been taking pictures of neighbor girls
Speaker 6: on the toilet through his through one window. And so
Speaker 6: the boys were removed from Steve's house and after a
Speaker 6: few days they were given to the Coxes, just as
Speaker 6: you know, temporary basically, and uh, well, Josh had to,
Speaker 6: you know, start this ugly custody battle. And what the
Speaker 6: boys uh told you know, their grandparents is that and
Speaker 6: they had been you know, they'd been indoctrinated by Steve
Speaker 6: and Josh that the Mormons killed their mother, that it
Speaker 6: was the Mormon's fall, that they hated Mormons, they wanted
Speaker 6: to kill Mormons, and that uh also that their father
Speaker 6: slept with them naked, and they'd were naked, slept with Josh.
Speaker 6: And then there was an incident at a bathtub. The
Speaker 6: boys are taking a bath together and Chuck here something
Speaker 6: and goes in and the younger boy, Brydon, is holding
Speaker 6: Charlie's head under the water, and Chuck told me it
Speaker 6: just they weren't playing. They weren't playing. Something had had
Speaker 6: just this terrible, you know, terrible effect on them and
Speaker 6: uh so, I I mean it must have been extremely
Speaker 6: disorienting for them. And uh, they you know, went to school,
Speaker 6: and under the guidelines of the you know, Josh trying
Speaker 6: for custody, he was allowed visitation. There was a minister
Speaker 6: that who was a neighbor of Steves that kind of
Speaker 6: befriended Josh, and one of his weekly visits could happen
Speaker 6: at this minister's house. And then Josh, apparently without the
Speaker 6: knowledge of the local police in the Puylop area, rented
Speaker 6: an empty house and you know, put a couple things
Speaker 6: in it and that once a week one of the
Speaker 6: visitations would happened there. And uh, the caseworker who was
Speaker 6: always you know with them on on visits, Uh, I
Speaker 6: think I was for a long time, the only interview
Speaker 6: that that she'd ever given. Uh. The the other families
Speaker 6: who would have visitation down at the you know, the
Speaker 6: office building in Pierce County where people's other children, they
Speaker 6: didn't wanna be around Josh. And so somehow it was
Speaker 6: approved that the boys could go to this empty house.
Speaker 6: And then you know, then February fifth happened and uh,
Speaker 6: Josh shut the door in her face, and and and
Speaker 6: just this this terrible thing happened. So uh, the boys
Speaker 6: were you know, definitely acting out uh at their grandparents, uh,
Speaker 6: because you know, they'd spent their their mother was gone,
Speaker 6: you know, for three years, and they'd spent a year
Speaker 6: and a half two years with their father and grandfather.
Speaker 8: What was revealed in the search of Steve's property Steve
Speaker 8: Powell's property in regards to his obsession with Susan, What
Speaker 8: does he claim in there? It's incredibly disturbing, But tell
Speaker 8: us what he says and believes and has written.
Speaker 6: Well, he he, he, you know, I I read all
Speaker 6: I think it's ten thousand pages of his journal. You know,
Speaker 6: this man couldn't shut up and and h he just
Speaker 6: was obsessed, you know, with himself, very very narcissistic. So
Speaker 6: he really thought that Susan loved him and returned his
Speaker 6: his uh feelings for him, and of course she couldn't
Speaker 6: stand to be around him. I will say one of
Speaker 6: the most interesting things that that I found in his
Speaker 6: journals is that a year or two before Susan went missing, Uh,
Speaker 6: Josh had been visiting his father, and Uh Steve wrote
Speaker 6: that Josh was fantasizing about Susan's death and fantasizing. You know,
Speaker 6: somebody comes to the door and says she'd been killed
Speaker 6: in a car accident or something, and that uh Josh
Speaker 6: really wanted wanted out and it's just uh horrible. But
Speaker 6: what they found when they went into Steve's house was
Speaker 6: they found these photographs he'd taken of the little girl's
Speaker 6: next door and they found uh the pornography and child pornography.
Speaker 6: And so within a couple of days, Steve was arrested
Speaker 6: and charged with pornography and and voyeurism, and then he
Speaker 6: uh you know, eventually uh did serve uh two p
Speaker 6: two different prison terms.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about this. You've talked about the search of
Speaker 8: the vehicle of the van, but there is another vehicle
Speaker 8: that police don't know about and another trip. So let's
Speaker 8: talk about the trip that U s that Josh went
Speaker 8: on that i've uh initially police were not aware of.
Speaker 8: But also the idea about Mike's car eventually being searched
Speaker 8: by police and their interest in that.
Speaker 6: And this wasn't known too, if I can, I can't
Speaker 6: tell you how many times I rewrote this book Van,
Speaker 6: because I mean it was just there were new things
Speaker 6: uh becoming U unknown all the time in so, uh,
Speaker 6: they didn't know where Josh was for those couple of
Speaker 6: days when they seized his van, and incidentally, they found
Speaker 6: all kinds of weird things in the van, you know,
Speaker 6: shovel and garbage bags. And then they found that that
Speaker 6: Thanksgiving weekend, so just a week before Susan disappeared, he'd
Speaker 6: been you know, at some big box stores buying a
Speaker 6: A H A a welding you know, welding equipment and
Speaker 6: all kinds of odd things. But what happened is when
Speaker 6: when Josh went to the Salt Lake City Airport and
Speaker 6: uh rented a car, and I believe he got a
Speaker 6: a temporary uh y, you know, a throwaway cell phone.
Speaker 6: And what we uh found out about t year and
Speaker 6: a half two years later is that he called his
Speaker 6: brother Michael, who was in Kewallup, and he and Michael
Speaker 6: met up. And I don't know that we'll ever know
Speaker 6: for sure where Josh had put Susan's body. He said
Speaker 6: that he and the boys went camping out in an
Speaker 6: area that was southwest of Falt Lake City. There was
Speaker 6: really no verifiable fighting of where they'd gone. Uh. The
Speaker 6: idea was that, well, they're ten thousand abandoned mines in
Speaker 6: in Utah, and that he might've put her down, uh
Speaker 6: a mine, but somewhere she was somewhere temporarily for a
Speaker 6: couple of days because he and Michael met up and
Speaker 6: the Susan's body was put into Michael's car and then
Speaker 6: they took it somewhere. So there's an eight hundred mile
Speaker 6: stretch of road between falt Lake City and pul Up, Washington.
Speaker 6: And again the police only found out later that Josh
Speaker 6: had rented this car and disappeared. And they found out
Speaker 6: later that Michael's car, uh, he basically had abandoned at
Speaker 6: an Oregon a car lot, a junk a junk car lot,
Speaker 6: and a couple of years after Susan went missing. Uh,
Speaker 6: there were dogs, bloodhounds that did alert on Michael's car.
Speaker 6: They didn't necessarily have Susan's DNA in the car, but
Speaker 6: there had been i, you know, human remains in his car.
Speaker 6: So they you know, seized the car wrapped a bubble
Speaker 6: wrap and and you know, took it back to Utah.
Speaker 6: And that's when they began, uh later to then put
Speaker 6: pressure on uh Michael, on Josh's brother. So you know,
Speaker 6: it's just kind of mind boggling that the police weren't
Speaker 6: watching Josh or following him. I I don't know. I
Speaker 6: can't necessarily point to other cases where they where that
Speaker 6: did happen. But uh, you know, he was later he
Speaker 6: was never named a suspect. He was named a person
Speaker 6: of interest eventually. But you know, the other thing that
Speaker 6: this has uh gotten me very interested in is is
Speaker 6: literally what are called no body cases that they can't
Speaker 6: bring charges for. Uh. I mean it's very very rare
Speaker 6: to bring criminal charges before before a body is found.
Speaker 6: And uh when people you know, still on Facebook or
Speaker 6: social media say, you know, why are they just arrest Josh, Well,
Speaker 6: they didn't have anything to arrest him for. They didn't
Speaker 6: think so.
Speaker 8: And you yes, you talk about the anguish that Chuck
Speaker 8: Cox has as a father and all the and also
Speaker 8: an investigator and also someone trying to help the police,
Speaker 8: and he is getting I mean, they're treating him well
Speaker 8: in terms of they can't give him information that's that
Speaker 8: that would indicate what they're y would indicate the relation
Speaker 8: their investigation completely. But they are giving him some hopeful
Speaker 8: uh idea that maybe there'll be some kind of arrest.
Speaker 6: In fact, too much because he was uh, when they
Speaker 6: had when the boys were living with them. So this
Speaker 6: is and A two thousand and eleven and the very
Speaker 6: beginning of twenty twelve, Chuck says, the police told them
Speaker 6: every week, you know, we were there's gonna be an
Speaker 6: arrest and the rest is imminent, you know, any day now.
Speaker 6: And literally they were told that over and over again.
Speaker 6: And I I don't know what the uh police were thinking.
Speaker 6: The man who is the police chief then has since
Speaker 6: retired and and talked a very little bit about the case,
Speaker 6: but of course couldn't at the time. I I think
Speaker 6: they I think the Coxes were misled. Uh perhaps just
Speaker 6: so the the police department would I know that as
Speaker 6: recently as a few months ago, the copses were still
Speaker 6: trying to get a copy of the police report that
Speaker 6: is not redacted. I mean, it's nine years and everybody's dead,
Speaker 6: and I I I think this is a frustration that
Speaker 6: authors and and that families and a lot of people face,
Speaker 6: is why can't they know what else the police department found? Well,
Speaker 6: one reason might be that the the Utah police found something,
Speaker 6: you know, pretty interesting on Josh's computer that they never
Speaker 6: shared with the police. In Washington State, so part of
Speaker 6: this confusing case is that we now have two states involved,
Speaker 6: and they didn't share this news with Washington State, and
Speaker 6: if they had, the boys wouldn't have been living with Josh.
Speaker 8: And what is that in.
Speaker 6: Well, that information is that Josh had what's called tuone
Speaker 6: porn on his computer and they knew that from just
Speaker 6: a couple of days after Susan went missing. That and
Speaker 6: it was ev all of it was very incestuously themed.
Speaker 6: It was incestuous stories. And I I had to look
Speaker 6: up tune porn. I'd never heard of it. And it
Speaker 6: takes somebody's made these these animated films that take well
Speaker 6: known characters like the characters from UH, the Simpsons and
Speaker 6: right and other cartoon characters and put put them in
Speaker 6: uh ancestuous stories. And West Valley City, you know, never
Speaker 6: never let on about that for a couple of years,
Speaker 6: and I think if they, if they had, the boys
Speaker 6: wouldn't have been with the Josh and and maybe he
Speaker 6: wouldn't have been allowed, you know, these private visitations in
Speaker 6: this rental house. You know, I mean, one of one
Speaker 6: of the things that's that's come out of this story
Speaker 6: is that, you know, why should why should family reunification
Speaker 6: always be the goal. Sometimes it's not the right goal
Speaker 6: for the children. Shouldn't the safety of the children come first?
Speaker 6: And why you know, family family custody visitations should be
Speaker 6: in in a in a in a building that with
Speaker 6: security and with you know, people around, and not some
Speaker 6: rental house.
Speaker 8: Right. You also talk about you also talk about that
Speaker 8: there's some striking things that happen with other people interacting
Speaker 8: with these children. And there is a talk about that
Speaker 8: camping trip and something about mummy in a trunk. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about.
Speaker 6: That, incredibly, Well, I don't think there was another vehicle Mommy,
Speaker 6: mommy was in the van with them and Josh's van.
Speaker 6: But were you saying there's a there was a separate.
Speaker 8: Vehicle or well, I just did that there was. There
Speaker 8: was these children saying certain things, and yet they were
Speaker 8: not I mean, I know it's it's sensitive to be
Speaker 8: able to interview these children, but they were not interviewed
Speaker 8: by police, even at the urging of Chuck. Chuck would
Speaker 8: be as you write in a book, there's many times
Speaker 8: when he would call police with new information, he was
Speaker 8: told just hang in there, just hang in there, hanging
Speaker 8: But also there was a very specific warning that he
Speaker 8: had for police. What was that warning and what was
Speaker 8: that fear he had about Josh?
Speaker 6: Well, Chuck all, he always thought Josh was going to
Speaker 6: do something. He always thought Josh was uh going to
Speaker 6: to kill them, and he he did warn the police,
Speaker 6: and course they kept up this, you know, and a
Speaker 6: and arrest is imminent. So the children were interviewed. I
Speaker 6: don't know that they were, Yes, they let's say so
Speaker 6: they were interviewed when Josh was you know, the second
Speaker 6: interview he had with the police when they were the
Speaker 6: social workers. But also they were you know, they had
Speaker 6: pretty extensive physical exams after they when they came into
Speaker 6: the foster care system in Washington State. Uh, I don't
Speaker 6: know that they were ever interviewed again about well they were.
Speaker 6: You know, one of the boys Drew drew the car
Speaker 6: that the van and with the with the the four
Speaker 6: of them in the van, and uh so whenever something
Speaker 6: like that would come about, you know, Chuck with what
Speaker 6: let the police department know? And also one of the
Speaker 6: boys Brew drew a drawing of what was him and
Speaker 6: himself and the words don't play with me or something
Speaker 6: in a big X over the over the picture as
Speaker 6: if he was, you know, trying to tell an adult
Speaker 6: to stop to stop messing with him. M Yeah, but
Speaker 6: Chuck warned them continually, you know, ch Josh's gonna do something, and.
Speaker 8: What I you talk about this incredible investigation that police
Speaker 8: are doing. And then Chuck and Judy and even members
Speaker 8: of of of uh Josh's family are everyone including Susan's
Speaker 8: friends and even friends of Josh have now turned against
Speaker 8: him and believe he is guilty. That everything that he did,
Speaker 8: all his actions, there's a list that there's a list
Speaker 8: of things that people find incredibly disturbing and only draw
Speaker 8: suspicion to him. You also write about instances where Chuck
Speaker 8: and Judy would see the children and Josh would not
Speaker 8: allow these children to see their grandparents.
Speaker 9: Yeah, with this investigation a few months when he's gone
Speaker 9: back to Peuallum with them and they you know, they
Speaker 9: should have been you know, permitted to see their kids.
Speaker 6: And he would occasionally Chuck and Judy would show up
Speaker 6: where they knew, you know, somebody would alert them that
Speaker 6: you know, Josh is at Josh is at home depot,
Speaker 6: Josh is at Costco, and so Chuck and Judy would
Speaker 6: go and hoping to see the boys and they might
Speaker 6: you know, catch a glimpse of them.
Speaker 4: But he.
Speaker 6: Of course wanted to control the situation and it wasn't
Speaker 6: until you know, the house was raided and the boys
Speaker 6: were taken that they were able to spend much time
Speaker 6: with the boys.
Speaker 8: You talk about the investigation and the December camping trip.
Speaker 8: Police are very curious about going back to that area
Speaker 8: and conducting a search. You have mentioned that the idea
Speaker 8: that there was some talk of the thousands of minds
Speaker 8: that potentially could have been where she could have been hidden,
Speaker 8: and there was some talk that Josh had said something
Speaker 8: along those lines. It was a witness to say something
Speaker 8: like that. What was the result of that search by police.
Speaker 6: Well, it's actually a little sketchy to put together how
Speaker 6: much they searched and where they searched. They did the
Speaker 6: police were very controlling of the investigation of the searches.
Speaker 6: You know, there were times where media were allowed to
Speaker 6: kind of go along in the film and they did have, uh,
Speaker 6: they did search some minds. They also at least once
Speaker 6: a fabricated a search to sort of you know, keep
Speaker 6: the media kind of in their hip pocket. The I
Speaker 6: mean l literally there was a search where they never
Speaker 6: intended to be searching, but they just went out for
Speaker 6: a day and let the media know they were going out.
Speaker 6: So that doesn't give them much credibility. At one at
Speaker 6: one site, they found some items that had been burned,
Speaker 6: and uh, at one fire pit, you know this out
Speaker 6: in the middle of nowhere. Uh, a dog alerted on something.
Speaker 6: But UH, I'm not aware that anything ever came from
Speaker 6: those searches, that they ever found anything or even something
Speaker 6: that was burned. I know that to this day, any
Speaker 6: time remains are found in Utah or you know, eastern
Speaker 6: Washington or Nevada, Uh that you know, people wonder, you know,
Speaker 6: if it's going to be uh Susan and it it
Speaker 6: hasn't been to date. But you know, the searches were
Speaker 6: very inconclusive, and you know, they really can't decide. Well,
Speaker 6: once they knew he'd driven the eight hundred miles, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, they stopped u looking out on the desert
Speaker 6: and they they did some searches. They knew that that
Speaker 6: that the day that Josh met up with Michael and
Speaker 6: moved the body, Josh drove four hundred miles in one
Speaker 6: direction and four hundred miles back to the airport, so
Speaker 6: it gives them a little area there. Now, Chuck has
Speaker 6: sort of taken up, you know, the responsibility in the
Speaker 6: mantle for the searches. And and every once in a
Speaker 6: while he and some volunteers, you know, go and look,
Speaker 6: go and look at an area. But it's it's hard
Speaker 6: to say what, you know, where they put her.
Speaker 8: Let's fast forward as you do, to twenty and twelve
Speaker 8: and the child custody hearing and something very very interesting,
Speaker 8: A psycho sexual evaluation is called for or he'll lose
Speaker 8: his lose his custody, and so and tell us a
Speaker 8: little bit about this exam and and the conditions under
Speaker 8: which he is forced to do this, and tell us
Speaker 8: a little bit more about this hearing.
Speaker 6: Well, this is this is uh, you know, the tipping
Speaker 6: point for Josh and and for the whole story in
Speaker 6: that sometime in January of twenty twelve, the information about
Speaker 6: the pornography on Josh's computer is shared with the Washington
Speaker 6: State Court system. And Josh and the Coxes are in
Speaker 6: this in this custody battle. And so when when the
Speaker 6: psychiatrist who who is charged with examining Uh Josh and
Speaker 6: doing an evaluation as far as Josh getting custody back,
Speaker 6: as soon as he learns about this, that that changes
Speaker 6: the nature of what he will be talking to Josh about.
Speaker 6: And the court orders that because of that, that Josh
Speaker 6: undergo this psychosexual exam and what it means is that
Speaker 6: he would uh be uh examined, you know, be shown
Speaker 6: shown photographs to see you know what prompts a reaction
Speaker 6: from Josh. And this would you know, be about about
Speaker 6: sex and and insst sex. But the other thing that
Speaker 6: really tiped Josh is that he would have to undergo
Speaker 6: a polygraph for the very first time. It was mandated,
Speaker 6: and that means he could be asked about Susan. So
Speaker 6: the at about that point, late January, Josh knew the
Speaker 6: handwriting was on the wall. He was going to never
Speaker 6: get custody of the boys.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody could can explain why that was
Speaker 6: so important to him, since he wasn't a very good
Speaker 6: father and and didn't really you know, wanna be a father,
Speaker 6: but it was it was to win was what was
Speaker 6: important to him, and to get back at the Coxes.
Speaker 6: I mean, he really hated them at this point and
Speaker 6: he he wanted to hurt them and so he began
Speaker 6: thinking about, you know, some other way out, uh, when
Speaker 6: he found out he would have to take this exam
Speaker 6: and take a polograph.
Speaker 8: Now you introduce the character Griffin Hall. Tell us who
Speaker 8: Griffin Hall is in their connection to this sad end chapter.
Speaker 6: Oh, well, this is Elizabeth Griffin Hall, who is the
Speaker 6: caseworker assigned to be at custody visits with Josh and
Speaker 6: with the concuses. Uh. Anytime the the boys, you know,
Speaker 6: went back and forth, Uh, she would drive them and
Speaker 6: she also had to be in their presence uh at
Speaker 6: all times. She was uh, just she's an incredible woman.
Speaker 6: You know, she was really highly educated, had a PhD.
Speaker 6: She had the most you know, the difficult, really difficult
Speaker 6: child custody cases, you know, very sensitive ones. She really
Speaker 6: cared about the boys. They got to know her, they
Speaker 6: got to trust her. You know, they'd talk about various
Speaker 6: you know, just lots of different things because she spent
Speaker 6: you know, quite a bit of a time with them.
Speaker 6: And it was that they on February fifth, that she
Speaker 6: pulled up to the rental house and the boys uh
Speaker 6: ran ahead of her, and Josh was at the front door,
Speaker 6: the door open, and the boys ran inside and as
Speaker 6: kids do, and she was coming up behind them, and
Speaker 6: he just grinded her and shut and locked the door,
Speaker 6: and uh, she you know, knocked she she tried to
Speaker 6: get Josh's attention. She right away called both her agents
Speaker 6: who and then as soon as she she could smell
Speaker 6: gasoline and she backed her car out of the driveway
Speaker 6: and she called nine one one, And you can read
Speaker 6: the excruciating interview, Yes, when she's trying to get the
Speaker 6: attention of nine one one and get them to that
Speaker 6: house and trying to explain, you know, uh who Josh
Speaker 6: is and and what's going on. And then uh, the
Speaker 6: house exploded. And I don't think she's ever gone gone
Speaker 6: back to work. It was just a uh a terrible,
Speaker 6: terrible experience for her. And we know that Josh you know,
Speaker 6: hit the boys on the head with a hatchet before
Speaker 6: he blew up the house. I don't know whether he
Speaker 6: was trying to kill them first or just subduing them,
Speaker 6: uh before he he but he had you know, thrown
Speaker 6: gasoline all over the house and and it went up
Speaker 6: pretty quickly. And uh, he had spent the last few days,
Speaker 6: so the days be between the hearing when he found
Speaker 6: out about the cycle. So Uh, so I was a
Speaker 6: sexual exam. He'd he'd gone to the bank, he'd closed
Speaker 6: his accounts, he'd talked to his attorney about something he
Speaker 6: had told his sister about, you know what bills needed
Speaker 6: to be paid, and but waiting until that Sunday morning
Speaker 6: to basically say goodbye in a couple of texts.
Speaker 8: Absolutely. Now, of course, everyone, this is a devastating end
Speaker 8: to this m What did the police find after all
Speaker 8: of this, and as you we talked about it, what
Speaker 8: does to this day? What is Chuck Cox? What is
Speaker 8: his mission?
Speaker 6: Well, the police, Uh, Josh had had a storage area
Speaker 6: and they went through it and basically they just you know,
Speaker 6: found some things of Susan's and and the couples. They
Speaker 6: found that he did have this trail if he'd he'd
Speaker 6: been to the bank. You know, he can see him
Speaker 6: on the camera. He'd bought a couple of you know,
Speaker 6: guests tanks and and filled them with gasoline and uh
Speaker 6: had done some you know preparation. Uh like that, Chuck
Speaker 6: uh uh right away, Well, the the police chief from
Speaker 6: sal from West Valley City, UH came down the next
Speaker 6: day and sat in the car with Chuck and Uh,
Speaker 6: Chuck told me that the police chief cried and said,
Speaker 6: you're you know, you were right, you were right. We
Speaker 6: we just shouldn't have, you know, let him stay out there.
Speaker 6: And so Chuck, there there been a couple of lawsuits
Speaker 6: and so a I and and then of course a
Speaker 6: year after Josh killed the boys, the police were looking
Speaker 6: at Michael because they'd found his car. And then, as
Speaker 6: you mentioned earlier, Mike Michael, who was in graduate school
Speaker 6: in Minnesota, uh, jumped off the building and and killed himself.
Speaker 6: So you know, the dev just this whole family, you know,
Speaker 6: everybody was just gone. Um, Chuck. There there been a
Speaker 6: couple of lawsuits. One was that Josh's mother and two
Speaker 6: sisters and brother wanted you know, part of the life
Speaker 6: insurance that Josh and Susan carried, and so that was
Speaker 6: that was h M you know, involved in coction. And
Speaker 6: they finally they finally settled and and kind of split things.
Speaker 6: But there's also a a lawsuit Chuck and Judy have
Speaker 6: have sued uh a d d SHS in Washington State
Speaker 6: that uh that the children were not protected in the
Speaker 6: way they should have been when they were in frostrct care.
Speaker 6: And that's been that's been denied once and then they're
Speaker 6: appealing that, and I think that's still in the appeal
Speaker 6: process as far as I know. Everybody's still trying to
Speaker 6: crack Josh's UH. One of Josh's computers was so encrypted
Speaker 6: that the FBI couldn't couldn't break through it, and so
Speaker 6: they're wondering, you know what, I I don't know. I
Speaker 6: it's a different computer then the tune porn was on,
Speaker 6: but but they're still working on that. And then everybody thought,
Speaker 6: you know, Steve Powell was the last person alive to
Speaker 6: who might know where Susan was. And he served a
Speaker 6: prison term for the voyeurism of the photos of the
Speaker 6: little girls, and then also uh went to trial finally
Speaker 6: for pornography and served a prison term. He was paroled
Speaker 6: in two thousand seventeen, and this July had a heart
Speaker 6: attack and died. And you know, I've never really bought
Speaker 6: the argument that he knew what his sons had done
Speaker 6: to Susan and where she was. And because he had
Speaker 6: such a such a big mouth, he was just such
Speaker 6: a loose cannon. I don't think they confided in him.
Speaker 6: That's just my little theory of having spent years, you
Speaker 6: know on this case. I I don't think they would
Speaker 6: have confided in him because he he couldn't stop talking
Speaker 6: or write or writing in his journals. I Uh, he
Speaker 6: might've learned eventually what happened, but I don't think he died,
Speaker 6: you know, with this secret and U but they've had
Speaker 6: time to go through his whatever, you know, journals he
Speaker 6: might've kept the last year of his life. And I
Speaker 6: haven't heard that anything was was found at all.
Speaker 8: So despite maybe people thinking to just bad Apple and
Speaker 8: uh bad father in the first place, regardless of that,
Speaker 8: they seem seemed to have completely different motivations regarding Susan.
Speaker 8: And with that they've concluded that they probably didn't work
Speaker 8: in tandem with each other to kill her. Is that well?
Speaker 6: Initially, initially Steve was you know, everybody considered him a
Speaker 6: suspect because he and obsessed with Susan. But the police
Speaker 6: were able to confirm he he was in kewallup uh
Speaker 6: that weekend when when Susan went missing, So he wasn't
Speaker 6: he may not have been, you know, instrumental in it.
Speaker 6: We know Josh talked to him on the phone that
Speaker 6: day for a long time, but you know, and we
Speaker 6: haven't talked about that. They did find some evidence in
Speaker 6: the house. There was some blood spatter and when the
Speaker 6: police first climbed through that window and went into the house,
Speaker 6: there was a wet place on the living room rug
Speaker 6: with a fan pointed at it, you know, going going
Speaker 6: a mile a minute and drying something. But there was
Speaker 6: blood spatter on some tile and still none of that
Speaker 6: was enough to make an arrest.
Speaker 8: Yeah, incredible, And you could see the frustration of Chuckle
Speaker 8: and Judy along the way too, that there was no arrest.
Speaker 8: There wasn't an arrest, and he is trying as hard
Speaker 8: as he can to provide as much information to them,
Speaker 8: knowing what likely what an investigator needs to be able
Speaker 8: to make these kinds of arrests, and that that incredible
Speaker 8: frustration throughout this or the children's safety's daughter's safe for
Speaker 8: the case.
Speaker 6: Who knows about investigations and who whose experience is as
Speaker 6: a lot of families experiences that, you know, you're they're
Speaker 6: gonna be the last to know. In a way, mm
Speaker 6: I families are often the last to know when when
Speaker 6: something is found or some information is found, or what's
Speaker 6: going on with the investigation. And I I can understand.
Speaker 8: Why.
Speaker 6: You know, they talk about the integrity of the investigation
Speaker 6: and uh, but when you have a uh parents like
Speaker 6: Chuck and Judy, who you know, they weren't about to
Speaker 6: go uh sharing it with with people about uh what
Speaker 6: had been found. I think it was just incredibly uh
Speaker 6: frustrating for them. And and then to get you know,
Speaker 6: then the only police report they've ever seen is Redact to.
Speaker 8: M you know.
Speaker 6: I another thing that was thought about in Washington State.
Speaker 6: This did not become law, but one of the one
Speaker 6: of the thoughts that started to go through the legisla
Speaker 6: legislature is, you know, maybe a parent who is even
Speaker 6: at an uh unspecific suspect, just in general a suspect
Speaker 6: not even called a suspect, but let's say, uh a
Speaker 6: parent whose spouse is missing, maybe they shouldn't have custody
Speaker 6: here their children. So that was one of the one
Speaker 6: of the laws that was was looked at. But uh,
Speaker 6: I think the idea that that and we've seen this
Speaker 6: in other cases, that the somebody suffers when when the
Speaker 6: goal is family reunification, often, yeah, it's the children who suffer.
Speaker 6: I mean maybe that's not always the the.
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, it's hard to work on.
Speaker 6: A story not like this and not come up with
Speaker 6: uh you know, uh your own opinion and my you know,
Speaker 6: I I like to write a book that the the
Speaker 6: reader's gonna make up their mind. They're they're smart, they're
Speaker 6: gonna put tune two together and and yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: figure out what was going on here. But it was just,
Speaker 6: uh so, such an incredible tragedy. And I I will
Speaker 6: say also quickly, I like I like stories working on books, Dan,
Speaker 6: that are more about than just the crime. You know,
Speaker 6: the crime is the end of the story. I I
Speaker 6: wanted to know who these people were, and I wanted
Speaker 6: to know, you know, who Josh was, and and found
Speaker 6: I found friends of Josh's who had cared about him,
Speaker 6: you know, before he went over to the dark side
Speaker 6: or whatever you wanna call it. And you know, I
Speaker 6: we got criticism because there's a family portrait on the
Speaker 6: cover of If I Can't Have You and Josh with
Speaker 6: his arm around the boys and Susan. People said, well,
Speaker 6: why should Josh be on the cover, Well, he was
Speaker 6: a member of this family and the book is about
Speaker 6: the family. And I really tried to find out, you know,
Speaker 6: who who is Josh and you know why had people
Speaker 6: you know, liked him early on, and what happened, what
Speaker 6: happened to this family in this community, that a crime
Speaker 6: like this would happen, And that also took me back
Speaker 6: then to Steve Powell's history, as you know, his childhood,
Speaker 6: that there was a long, long history of dysfunction and
Speaker 6: Steve and Josh's family. This this just didn't come out
Speaker 6: of nowhere.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, and really we touched on a few things, but
Speaker 8: there is also included in this interviews with doctor Phil
Speaker 8: with the family, some really profound information was said that
Speaker 8: those those interviews and also October sixteen, twenty ten, on
Speaker 8: Susan's twenty ninth birthday, one hundred and fifty of her
Speaker 8: favorite colored balloons were released, one hundred and fifty purple balloons. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 8: it's incredible.
Speaker 6: Still remember yeah, and she always will be. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is you know it on one level, it remains,
Speaker 6: you know, a mystery. You know, what happened, what happened
Speaker 6: to her? People would like to know, and then the why,
Speaker 6: I think, you know, we'll look at for a long
Speaker 6: long time. You know, what is there to be learned?
Speaker 6: I think there was a lot to be learned from
Speaker 6: a case like this. And from you know, two different
Speaker 6: police departments that really didn't communicate very well.
Speaker 8: Absolutely well, I want to thank you very much, Rebecca
Speaker 8: for coming on and talking about If I can't have you,
Speaker 8: Susan Power, her mysterious disappearance and the murder of her children.
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much for those that
Speaker 8: might want to take a look at other of your
Speaker 8: true crime books another of you work. Do you have
Speaker 8: a website Facebook page? Tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, very much. The website is Rebecca Tmorris dot
Speaker 6: com and I'm on Facebook. And incidentally, there are a
Speaker 6: couple of television documentaries about the Susan Powell case coming
Speaker 6: up in the next few weeks that one of them
Speaker 6: I was involved with. And so I do a lot
Speaker 6: on Investigation Discovery Channel about cases, and so people can
Speaker 6: always check out what's going on on Investigation Discovery too.
Speaker 8: Absolutely again, I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 6: I'm not paid to plug them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, it's just another I think a lot of
Speaker 8: people will take this, They will read the book. They'll
Speaker 8: also look for all kinds and I know this, people
Speaker 8: will look for all kinds of other supplementary information because
Speaker 8: they just can't get enough of this incredible story, and
Speaker 8: you've really spurned their interest in this incredible case.
Speaker 6: And if I can, I think it's a really I'm
Speaker 6: really proud of the book. Of the eight books I've done.
Speaker 6: I think it's just it's you know, pretty up to date,
Speaker 6: except for Steve Powell dying suddenly a couple of months ago,
Speaker 6: but it's it's very solid. And it was you know,
Speaker 6: three years of research and interviews and going to the
Speaker 6: places and talking to everybody, and you know, and driving
Speaker 6: out into the desert all by myself to see, well,
Speaker 6: what's it, what's it like out there? You have to
Speaker 6: go too, You have to go to these places to
Speaker 6: be able to write about them.
Speaker 8: Absolutely well, I'm so sure glad that you did, and
Speaker 8: you did the incredible work that you have. Thank you
Speaker 8: very much for a great interview. I hope to speak
Speaker 8: to you again soon.
Speaker 9: Good night, gave meet by