Looking Back: Josh Powell Tried To Kill His Sons Before House Explosion

When Josh Powell decided to kill his children and destroy his house with and explosion and fire, he removed any doubt for most that he was responsible for the disappearance of his wife Susan Cox Powell. Her body has never been found after she vanished Dec. 7, 2009 from West Valley City, Utah.

Investigators discovered a hatchet in the wreckage and found that5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charlie sufferedchop wounds to their necksbefore they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Before the murder-suicide, police suspected Powell, and he was the only person of interest in the case, but without Susan's body and sufficient evidence, the court system decided Powell could see his children at supervised visits.

The supervisor on the children's final day didn't get to the house quickly enough to prevent their deaths.

"He pushed her out. He blocked her out," Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said in 2012 of the woman assigned to watch the parental visit. "The whole thing was planned."

Susan's disappearance onDec. 7, 2009, and the search for her, made headlines across the country. All story after had descended into a web of salacious headlines of sex and lies that included Powell father, accusations and strange twists that eventually left two more innocent victims, these almost unimaginably young. Even Powell's father Steven Powell, who died in 2018, was part of the salacious discoveries.

Susan's parents Judith and Charles Cox wanted the state of Washington to prevent the children's visits with Powell in the first place. They had expressed concern over the safety of the children but they were granted supervised visits several times a week at his home in Puyallup, Washington, where he moved months after his wife vanished.

Neighbors reported an explosion but Troyer said at the time, the home was engulfed by a fast-moving fire, assisted by an accelerant that investigators later said was gasoline.

While Susan's parents did fear for the children's safety, others said they didn't see Powell killing his own children.

"I did not think he would have the nerve to kill his two little boys," Kiirsi Hellewell, one of Susan's closest friends said to the Associated Press at the time of their death."Josh has always been about control. To him, the boys were his possessions. To him it was all about getting control back."

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Jeffrey Bassett, who represented Powell in the custody case, agreed that he didn't think his client would take the deadly steps to end the lives of his children and himself.

He received an email just minutes before Powell and the two boys died. It said.

"I'm sorry, goodbye."

Susan's parents have pursued a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Washington. Court records show that Judge Stanley J. Rumbaugh has scheduled the trial to begin Feb. 10, 2020, in Pierce County Superior Court.