Just minutes before authorities say he set fire to his home, killing himself and his two young sons days after he was denied custody and ordered to undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation, Powell sent an e-mail to his attorney.
“I’m sorry, goodbye,” he wrote.
The Sunday blaze at Powell’s home brought yet another twist in the very public scandal that began when Susan Powell vanished in 2009. The case had since spiraled into a salacious saga of finger-pointing and accusations of sex and lies -- and now the unthinkable loss of two young lives caught in the crossfire.
A social worker brought the two boys to Josh Powell’s home Sunday for what was to be a supervised visit, and Powell let his sons inside -- but then blocked the social worker from entering, Graham Fire and Rescue Chief Gary Franz told the Associated Press.
The social worker called her supervisors to report that she could smell gas. Moments later, the home burst into flames, igniting an inferno that neighbors said rattled their houses.
Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ed Troyer said it appeared some sort of accelerant was used to make the house burn faster.
He said e-mails Powell sent just prior to the explosion that authorities were made aware of seemed to confirm that Powell planned the deadly blast. Troyer didn’t elaborate on the content of the e-mails.
Jeffrey Bassett, who represented Powell in the custody case, said he received an ominous e-mail from his client just minutes before the blast.
“I’m sorry, goodbye,” it read.
Susan Powell, a pretty 28-year-old mother of two, was reported missing Dec. 7, 2009, after she failed to show up for her stockbroker job in Utah.
Authorities in the couple’s hometown of West Valley City, about 10 miles outside Salt Lake City, quickly turned their attention to Josh Powell. He’s been the only “person of interest” in the case, but had repeatedly denied any involvement in her disappearance.
“I would never even hurt her,” a tearful, red-eyed Josh Powell told CBS’ Early Show in August. “People who know me know that I could never hurt Susan.”
About a month later, police spent 12 days in the remote central Utah desert looking for clues, and Josh Powell and his father, Steven, quickly disappeared from the limelight. The search area around Topaz Mountain, a popular spot for rock and gem hunters, was about 30 miles south of where Josh told police he went camping with his two children in the hours before his wife’s disappearance -- his steadfast alibi.
On Sunday, the lawyer for Susan Powell’s parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, told the AP the children had started talking to their grandparents about things they remembered from the night their mother vanished.
“They were beginning to verbalize more,” said attorney Steve Downing, whose clients had custody of the children. “The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that Mommy was in the trunk. Mom and Dad got out of the car and Mom disappeared.”
Police turned up no clues in their desert search, but a day before ending it, Steven Powell, 61, was arrested at his Washington state home and accused of secretly videotaping his daughter-in-law, other women, and young girls taking baths and sitting on the toilet in neighborhood homes.
The elder Powell is now jailed and facing child porn and voyeurism charges. He claimed in previous television interviews that he and Susan Powell were falling in love and even implied a sexual relationship had occurred.
“Susan was very sexual with me,” Steven Powell said in one interview at the time. “We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that.”
Susan’s father denied the allegations and said Steven Powell had been initiating unwanted sexual advances, and that his daughter had no interest in her father-in-law.
The children, 5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charles, were ordered by a judge to then go live with Susan’s parents as the parallel cases were investigated.
The custody matter got so heated that at one point a court commissioner in Washington state ordered Chuck Cox and Josh Powell to keep 500 feet apart.
Custody hearings continued, with the latest on Wednesday, during which Josh Powell pleaded with a judge to return his children to him.
“For over four months already, my interactions with my sons and many other aspects of my character have been investigated and documented by” social services, he wrote in an affidavit to the court. “I have proven myself as a fit and loving father who provides a stable home even in the face of great adversity. ... It is time for my sons to come home.”
But the judge ruled against him, ordering the children to remain with Susan Powell’s parents, at least until Josh Powell underwent a psycho-sexual evaluation in light of the explicit material found on computers inside Steven Powell’s home that led to his arrest.
Sherry Hill, a spokeswoman for the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services, said the social worker who was with the children Sunday was not a Child Protective Services employee but a contract worker with a private agency that supervises visits for the state.
“The visit supervisor for this particular agency had taken the children to the home. When she does that, she sits through the visit and might take notes on her observations,” Hill said. “She pulled up in the car, and the kids ran out ahead of her. He closed the door and locked it. She wasn’t able to get in, and that’s when she smelled gas.”
Downing called it “the most horrifying thing you can imagine happening ...The Coxes are absolutely devastated. They were always very fearful of him doing something like this, and he did it.”
Bassett said he represented Powell free of charge because “every parent deserves the right to an attorney.” Powell called or e-mailed him at least once a day, and often more than that, and in their conversations “he never once admitted doing anything regarding Susan. In fact, he denied it.”
Sgt. Mike Powell of the West Valley City Police Department in Utah said it was too soon to say how Josh Powell’s death may impact their probe.
“Quite frankly, this has obviously quickly unfolded up in Washington and we’re obviously just working through the details ourselves here,” said Powell, who is not related to the family. (AP)
<한글 기사>
아내 살해 혐의 받던 남자 두 자식과 분신자살
한 여인의 실종이 결국 가족 전체의 죽음이라는 비극으로 이어졌다.
3년 전 부인 수잔의 실종 이후 용의자로 지목된 남편 조쉬 파월이 어린 자식들과 함께 스스로 목숨을 끊었다고 5일 미국언론들이 전했다.
파월는 이날, 동행한 사회복지사를 따돌리고 아이들을 데리고 집에 들어가 불을 질렀다. 이 과정에서 파월뿐 아니라 각각 7세, 5세인 찰스와 브레이든 역시 목숨을 잃었다.
그는 법원의 결정에 따라 두 아들의 양육권을 박탈당하고 얼마 지나지 않아 이 같은 행동을 했다고 밝혀졌다.
워싱턴 주 피어스 카운티의 보안관 에드 트로이어는 파월이 사건 직전 그의 변호사에게 보낸 “미안합니다. 안녕히 계십시오.”란 이메일 내용으로 미루어 봐서 계획된 행동으로 추정된다고 밝혔다.
AP 통신 등은 부인의 실종 이후 파월이 법원, 검찰 등 당국의 질문 공세와 집중적인 언론보도에 시달려 왔다고 전했다.
비극은 2009년 12월 7일, 파월 가족이 캠핑을 갔다가 수잔이 실종되면서부터 시작되었다. 당국은 즉시 유일한 이해 관계자였던 남편인 조쉬를 용의자로 지목해 조사해왔다.
그러나 조쉬 파월는 계속해서 자신은 부인의 실종과 연관성이 없다며 아이들의 양육권을 돌려 줄 것을 주장했다. 그는 자신이 “온갖 역경에도 불구하고 안정적인 가정을 제공하는 다정한 아버지”임을 입증했다며 절대 부인에게 절대 해를 가하지 않았다고 눈물로 호소했다.
법원은 최소한 파월이 정신감정을 받기 전까지는 아이들을 수잔의 부모인 콕스 부부 관리 하에 두겠다고 선고했다.
콕스 부부는 찰스와 브레이든이 수잔이 실종되던 당시에 대해 조금씩 얘기하기 시작했다고 말했다. 그들은 찰스가 “캠핑을 갔는데 엄마가 트렁크에 있었”다는 것과 “엄마, 아빠가 차에서 내리고, 엄마가 사라졌다”고 말했다고 전했다.
한편, 경찰조사 결과 조쉬 파월의 아버지 스티븐 파월이 그 동안 자신의 며느리를 포함한 다수의 젊은 여성들이 화장실을 이용하는 장면을 몰래 촬영해왔다는 어처구니 없는 사실 역시 밝혀졌다.
그는 그동안 인터뷰를 통해 자신과 수잔이 은밀한 관계였음을 주장해왔다. 수잔의 아버지 척 콕스 씨는 이러한 주장을 전적으로 부인하면서 수잔이 원하지 않았음에도 스티븐이 그녀에게 억지로 다가왔다고 말했다.
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