If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children (15 page)

It was a bizarre mix of self-aggrandizement and hate. As time passed, Josh or Steve or Alina added subject headings such as “Mormons Mobilize Against Susan Powell and Family,” and “False Claims About Josh
and
Susan Powell.” It was tantamount to a smear campaign targeted at a missing mom. Instead of the lovely photos of Susan that had circulated in the local and national press, the team behind
SusanPowell.org
seemed to use the most unflattering images they could find. Josh said it was to show that Susan wasn’t “perfect.”

There was more that made Kiirsi’s blood boil. The site was more about Josh than Susan. It read like a dating profile.

Josh … enjoys gardening, woodworking, and building construction projects. He knows a few songs on the piano and guitar. And he has been known to sing a song when the mood hits.… Josh is very involved in his children’s lives and every day he includes the children in many hobbies, educational events, and outdoor activities.

While Josh continued to drop in at the Hellewells, Kiirsi didn’t ask many questions.

“I was afraid he would run and not come talk to us again,” she said later. “And I was hoping and hoping that he would tell us something. I even asked the police, ‘Should I put on a hysterical crying show?’ And they said, ‘Well, if you think it will help. I really don’t think he’s gonna tell you anything.’ So I did. And it wasn’t hard to work up real tears—the anguish of missing Susan was always there, just under the surface. I was crying really hard and I said to Josh, ‘I miss her so much. I just don’t know what could have happened to her.’ And he was just kind of looking down and not saying anything and he started crying, too. And I said, ‘Josh, when Elizabeth Smart went missing her dad was accused, and he hated it, but he cooperated with the police in every possible way because he knew that the faster his name was cleared, the faster they could find out who took his daughter.’ I said, ‘If you’re innocent and have nothing to hide, what do you have against cooperating with the police? Why won’t you go talk to them and fill them in?’ He wouldn’t answer me. He just stared at the ground.

“It was a huge change from how he used to be, bragging and talking at the top of his voice, talking over you and arguing. He did break down and cry several times at my house but wouldn’t say why. And to me, it wasn’t like ‘My wife is gone. I’m so sad, help me find her.’ It was kind of like, ‘I’ve done a horrible thing and now I’m feeling … whatever.’”

*   *   *

As they stood in the kitchen of the half-empty house on W. Sarah Circle, Josh surveyed the scene and asked Kiirsi to pack the kitchen things for the move to Puyallup.

“Could I pack her clothes instead?” she asked, adding that she wanted to do something more personal for her friend than boxing up dishes and utensils. There were others who didn’t know Susan all that well helping out, too.

“They can do the kitchen stuff,” Kiirsi said. “I don’t want strangers touching her personal things.”

Josh looked around and shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter to him what anyone did, as long as everything got done and he could leave town. Kiirsi started to retreat down the hall to the bedroom, stepping past the half-filled boxes that were a sad reminder that Susan was absent.

Kiirsi wanted to gauge Josh’s reaction to Susan’s personal belongings. Did he care about them? Did he have something to hide?

She turned and caught his eye. “You know, we can store her things at my house so you don’t have to haul them to Washington.”

Josh hesitated. “No, I’ll take them with me,” he said. “She might come back … or something.”

Josh busied himself with the Christmas tree which had not been fully decorated that season. He packed up the tree lights and the ornaments Susan loved, and eight years of married life, while Kiirsi sorted Susan’s belongings in the master bedroom.

In a very real way, it was like packing up after someone’s death. Things of little value carry great importance, reminders of the person missing from the scene. Kiirsi could remember when she had last seen Susan in a favorite top, or wearing special earrings that now rested in her jewelry box, or even one of those old wolf T-shirts she loved so much. Each item was more than just a garment or an adornment, they were bits and pieces of Susan. The bags of yarn in particular flooded Kiirsi with emotion. She could visualize Susan sitting in the living room laughing and crocheting, making a blanket for one of her boys or for a new baby at church.

Lost in these memories for only a moment, Kiirsi picked up Susan’s favorite blue slippers. They were in sad shape from constant wear, but Susan loved them so much that she refused to throw them out.

As Kiirsi started to put them in the box, it suddenly occurred to her that Josh and his father might have stashed Susan somewhere and were in the midst of brainwashing her or beating her down by telling her that no one was ever going to find her or come for her. Telling her over and over that she was nothing and she had to submit to their will. Making her believe that her family, her friends, and her boys no longer loved or cared about her.

Kiirsi thought that if Josh had hidden Susan, he might need to bring her some clothes. She knew that he was too cheap to buy her anything new.

She set down the slippers and took a breath to listen. Josh was somewhere else in the house.

She would write Susan a note. It would give Susan some hope. And since she had only one pair of slippers, that might be a good place to hide it.

Kiirsi took a notepad and pen from Susan’s bedside table. She found some paper with crayon scribbles on one side. Susan had identified that little masterpiece as Braden’s artwork and written his name beside it. It was perfect. Not only could Kiirsi use the paper to send a message to Susan, the flipside would be a reminder of one of her babies.

She wrote Susan that everyone loved her, was missing her, and was searching for her. She ended her note with something she needed Susan to know.

I’ve remembered everything you told me and have told it all to the police.

She hurried because she was afraid Josh would walk in on her.

She folded the note as small as she could and wedged it up inside the toe of a slipper. Josh and Steve wouldn’t think to look for a note, but Susan would find it when—and if—she put her foot in there and felt something.

“I knew it was a huge long shot and she was probably dead,” Kiirsi said years later. “But I couldn’t pass up this opportunity, just on the million-to-one chance she might be alive somewhere, demoralized, scared, and alone.”

*   *   *

In addition to Josh’s brother Mike, some members of the ward helped Josh pack up both a U-Haul truck and a U-Haul trailer. There was also a small contingent of pro-Josh friends. One, a young woman, in a show of solidarity with Josh, dropped her pants and mooned a TV news camera. She made the evening news.

One friend who helped with the packing later told the police of an incident that had horrified him. After making a trip out to the U-Haul, Josh laughingly called out, “I just loaded Susan’s head into the truck!” as if pieces of her had been in his garage all along. He said Josh also joked that ordinary floor stains were blood and seemed secretive about a cellar.

One friend who didn’t help with the move was Tim Peterson. Although he had seen Josh a couple of times since Susan’s disappearance, he became suspicious when Josh decided to move away. Tim wanted a swing set back that he had given Susan and the boys. After a scuffle between Tim and Mike, the police were called. Josh wisely stayed in the house and the police never saw him. The dispute ended with Tim taking the swing set. His last words to Mike that night were colder than a hurled snowball.

“Susan is gone … did you happen to notice Susan is gone? Because I don’t see you guys doing anything about it.”

18

If Josh did something to Susan or not I’ve always said this: his soul was in mega-agony, because if he did something he knew his damnation. He had been to the temple, and we get a lot of instruction in the temple, and it is a lot about the eternities and what is to come.

—MICHELE ORENO, MARCH 20, 2012

Josh’s out-and-out battle with the Coxes began the week he packed up his things in Utah to move to Washington. Josh could be stubborn and defiant, especially when backed up against a wall. He would not be pushed around. The first salvo of the war came innocently enough, however, from Chuck Cox. Susan’s father had asked Josh’s sister, Jennifer, and her husband, Kirk, to go to W. Sarah Circle to retrieve the photo albums that Judy had painstakingly made to document her daughter’s life, her babies, and her marriage to Josh. When Josh, who had promised to return the albums—in his own time—found out about the plan, he blew up.

“They will
never
get those photo albums
,
not
ever,
and that I’ll make sure of it,” he told Michele Oreno, who’d never really seen that type of personal outrage coming from her friend and neighbor.

“From that point on,” Michele said, “he was against Chuck.”

*   *   *

While few had managed to do so, somehow Michele had forged a bond with Josh. It had started at their first dinner when he and Susan argued about Steve for hours at Michele’s home, and she may have talked to Josh more than anyone else during the first weeks after Susan disappeared. Michele saw Josh just after he returned from his 800-mile trip in the rental car—although she had no idea he’d been gone for nearly twenty-four hours. Like Tim Peterson, she noticed the chapped and red appearance of Josh’s hands.

Michele asked him about this. “What did you do with your hands?”

Josh, who had been applying gobs of lotion, shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Just being out in the weather.”

Michelle had lived through many Utah winters and she’d never seen anything as bad as those red, raw hands just from being outside.

What had Josh been doing?
she wondered.

Another time, before he left town for good, Josh went over to return some of Brent Oreno’s tools. Brent wasn’t home. Michele was never afraid of confronting Josh Powell—or anyone else—whenever the circumstances required a direct approach. She decided it was now or never. She was going to use her encounter with Josh to laser in on what had happened to Susan. She was conflicted, however. There was no denying that part of her cared about Josh. Twenty years older than he, it was partly the mother in her. And yet it went beyond that. It was also Michele’s deep belief that everyone is worthy of forgiveness and redemption.

Inside, Michele also hoped that maybe, just maybe, he’d blurt out the truth.

She hurled question after question as they sat in her comfortable kitchen. For his part, Josh, his eyes downcast, seldom met Michele’s gaze.

“Why are you moving, Josh?”

“I can’t take care of the boys on my own,” he said.

She knew that was true.

“Who’s going to watch them?” she asked.

“Alina will.”

Michele knew that solution wasn’t ideal. She thought Steve Powell was a class-A creep. Alina
lived
with Steve. In fact, as far as Michele knew all the grown Powell kids, with the exception of Jennifer, lived with their father.

“Why are you moving in with your dad?” she asked. “You know as well as I do Susan’s feelings about him. There is no way on this earth that she would want her babies to be in that house.”

Josh defended his father.

“My dad’s changed,” he said. “He’s really a good guy. He’s doing things differently.”

“Josh, don’t lie to me.”

“He’s changed. He has.”

Michele went in for the kill. She felt that she had nothing to lose. She loved Josh, but she was increasingly feeling that Josh had done something so evil, so despicable with Susan that soft-pedaling was not the way to deal with him.

“Josh, what is this you’re telling people about how you lost track of time? You don’t lose track of time. You knew darn well it was Sunday. Give me a break.”

“That’s what happened,” he repeated a couple of times.

Michele evoked Susan’s name, carefully so.

“Josh, what happened to Susan?” she asked, searching his face for some glimpse of something behind his facade.

He bowed his head. “I can’t say. I can’t say.”

“Do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe she is still alive?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. I want to, I really want to.”

They talked for at least two hours, with Michele desperately trying to find out something about Susan’s whereabouts, hoping to trip up Josh, but she got nowhere. It was as if she were talking to a cardboard cutout of a human being. Josh Powell seemed to have absolutely nothing inside. No sorrow for his missing wife. No concern about where she might be.

Or if she was even alive.

“You need help, Josh,” Michele finally said, taking a different tack when it became clear that the ambush interrogation was getting her nowhere. “You need counseling. The boys need it, too.”

Josh, his eyes landing anywhere but on Michele’s, appeared to acknowledge that he knew he was in trouble.

“I feel empty inside,” he said.

Michele wasn’t sure what to think. She was sympathetic, but only to a point.

“I always thought he knew what happened to Susan,” she said later. “I didn’t know if he
did
it, but I knew he knew.”

Michele wasn’t done with her quest for the truth. She tried to reach out to Josh and e-mailed him three times after he moved away.

He never answered.

And she never forgot his answer to her most important question: What happened to Susan?

I can’t say.

Not “I don’t know.”

I can’t say.

*   *   *

Just before the new year, the still-smoldering body of a woman was found under a freeway overpass in Box Elder County, northwest of Salt Lake City. The remains were too badly burned to identify right away, but the police in Utah notified Chuck and Judy Cox. They didn’t want the Coxes blindsided by the media. Later, the Coxes would learn that it was not their daughter, but a fifty-five-year-old woman who had committed suicide by dousing herself with a flammable liquid and igniting it with a cigarette lighter.