Speaker 1: Climb Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius x M Triumph
Speaker 1: Channel one thirty two. Susan Cox Powell vanished from her
Speaker 1: West Valley City home in December two thousand nine. Her husband,
Speaker 1: Josh was suspected in her disappearance. He killed himself and
Speaker 1: their children in two thousand twelve. Susan has never been found.
Speaker 1: This case is still being actively investigated. A private investigator
Speaker 1: working for Susan Cox Powell's family tells me they've made
Speaker 1: significant progress in cracking a computer owned by Josh Powell.
Speaker 1: If they can get into it, they think this could
Speaker 1: be a big breakthrough in the missing person's case. No one,
Speaker 1: especially in two thousand nine, we put that kind of
Speaker 1: encryption on their computer unless they were turning to hide stuff.
Speaker 1: Where we would really like to find on that car
Speaker 1: drive is any kind of information that leads us to
Speaker 1: a body. This is the most hopeful lead we've had
Speaker 1: yet in the process of trying to find Susan. As
Speaker 1: long as I live, I will never forget when Susan
Speaker 1: Cox Powell did appeared. As long as I live. This
Speaker 1: beautiful young I think she was a stockbroker and investment banker.
Speaker 1: But what always sticks out in my mind is that
Speaker 1: she was devoutly religious and a mother of two beautiful
Speaker 1: baby boys. Beautiful. I've listened over and over and over
Speaker 1: to her friends and neighbors that said she had such
Speaker 1: a happy marriage to her husband Josh. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: see that at all when I first heard that Susan
Speaker 1: was missing, and that the day she goes missing, she
Speaker 1: had a lady over at the house, and I've I've
Speaker 1: listened to what the lady has to say, who was
Speaker 1: working on a quilt or some project for the church
Speaker 1: that afternoon until about five thirty, and Susan was tired
Speaker 1: and she took a nap, and so the woman was
Speaker 1: there until five thirty. Everything was fine. Then we learned
Speaker 1: that night, at about midnight, her husband, Josh Powell, decides
Speaker 1: to take the boys camping, repeat camping. I think there
Speaker 1: were two and four at that age, or four and six,
Speaker 1: and it was sub freezing weather. It's like fourteen degrees
Speaker 1: out and he gets in the car and takes the
Speaker 1: boys camping at midnight on a Sunday night with a
Speaker 1: work day the next morning. That's when I knew something
Speaker 1: was horribly wrong. I'm talking about the disappearance of Susan
Speaker 1: Cox Powell and to this day I sware it then
Speaker 1: and I swear it now. I'm not letting go of
Speaker 1: this case until we know the truth. I Nancy Grace,
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 1: I want to go straight out to a very special guest.
Speaker 1: Um with me is Rose Winquist, the Susan Cox family
Speaker 1: private investigator, high profile lawyer, the Cox family lawyer. And
Speaker 1: Bremner my personal friend, my friend ben levitant telecommunications expert,
Speaker 1: tech expert, and boy do we need him today. And
Speaker 1: Denise Cox Ernst. This is Susan's sister that I think
Speaker 1: a great deal of. Denise. It's wonderful to hear your
Speaker 1: voice again, and I only wish I knew you under
Speaker 1: other circumstances. That's what I wish, Denise. Before I get
Speaker 1: to what I perceived, a big development in the case,
Speaker 1: and that is Rose Winquest possibly being able to to
Speaker 1: crack a highly encrypted computer belonging to the husband, Josh,
Speaker 1: can you tell us set the scene for this discussion
Speaker 1: The day that Susan goes missing, Denise, I had talked
Speaker 1: to her about a week before. She was planning to
Speaker 1: come out to Washington a little early to spend some
Speaker 1: time with my children. And we were planning on you know,
Speaker 1: her favorite show was Friends, and we were planning on
Speaker 1: doing a friend day and she likes to do my
Speaker 1: kids hare and you know, everything was fine when we go.
Speaker 1: You were going to watch Friends all day? Is that
Speaker 1: what you're gonna? Okay? Because I'm planning a Harry Potter weekend.
Speaker 1: As soon as the children get out of and have
Speaker 1: skill friend, We're gonna just lay around and watch Harry
Speaker 1: Potter and and Narnia. That's what We're just gonna watch
Speaker 1: it and watch it and watch it until I just
Speaker 1: can't watch it anymore. So she likes the show Friends.
Speaker 1: That was our favorite. You know what I like hearing
Speaker 1: this about her. So she loved Friends. So y'all were
Speaker 1: gonna banjon Friends and do here? Right? Sounds fun? Well,
Speaker 1: we had we also had a game and we always
Speaker 1: had a contestancy who knew more about the show, you know,
Speaker 1: her eye and the game was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But you know, we got off the phone and she
Speaker 1: had to go, of course. And you know, a week later,
Speaker 1: my dad called me and I was at work and
Speaker 1: he asked me, wait a minute, wait a minute, today's everybody,
Speaker 1: don't get mad at me for interrupting. You said she
Speaker 1: had to go. Of course, now I know what that means,
Speaker 1: But could you tell everybody else what you mean? When
Speaker 1: I was an abusive marriage at the time, and from
Speaker 1: talking to her, I know it seemed like she had
Speaker 1: the perfect marriage to everybody from you know, she put
Speaker 1: up a good front. But with our conversations, I knew better.
Speaker 1: And we both had to sneak our conversations with each other.
Speaker 1: And when we did it with our husband's home, we
Speaker 1: both had listening to ears and we had to be
Speaker 1: careful what we said. And when I got to talk
Speaker 1: to her, it was barely for about twenty minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes, you know, when our husbands were listening,
Speaker 1: and then he you know, one of them would encourage
Speaker 1: us to get off the phone because you know, there
Speaker 1: are attentions not on them and I could always hear
Speaker 1: Josh in the background saying in other words, when Josh
Speaker 1: was around, you couldn't talk to not really at it.
Speaker 1: So she had to get off the phone. Then, um,
Speaker 1: a week later, she just I got a phone call
Speaker 1: from my dad asked if I darted from her, and
Speaker 1: I knew where she was, and you know, obviously from
Speaker 1: that week before I that was the last time I
Speaker 1: had heard from her. Thinking then, you know, at first
Speaker 1: I thought nothing of it because she had you know,
Speaker 1: my thought, maybe she went to a friends or you know,
Speaker 1: she was busy doing something for work. But when it went,
Speaker 1: you know, three days not hearing from her, I got
Speaker 1: alarmed then because I would have heard from her if
Speaker 1: there was something going on. We're pretty close. Then what happened?
Speaker 1: Search parties um a lot of anxiety, wondering where she
Speaker 1: is waiting by the phone. Look, you know, just waiting
Speaker 1: it's a waiting game, as it's a waiting game now,
Speaker 1: and wondering what happened to her? Well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: didn't you ask Josh? Didn't you ask Josh where Susan?
Speaker 1: Why is she not? He wouldn't answer my phone call.
Speaker 1: I tried calling her phone, and of course she didn't answer.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I talked to my dad, had
Speaker 1: tried to find out from Josh where she was, and
Speaker 1: I tried asking him. He didn't want to talk to
Speaker 1: our family at all. He didn't like our friendly at all,
Speaker 1: but he didn't he didn't talk to me very much,
Speaker 1: and he knew how I felt about him, so he
Speaker 1: wasn't forthcoming on any information. He dodged the family. I'm
Speaker 1: just having a hard time even getting my mind around that,
Speaker 1: because if I couldn't find David, I mean, and then
Speaker 1: somebody wouldn't his family or his friends are the people
Speaker 1: at his building where he works, wouldn't answer me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I go set the place on fire for Pete say,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand why he wouldn't even speak to
Speaker 1: you or answer your calls to me. That's a very
Speaker 1: bad sign. Okay. What we know happened after that is
Speaker 1: based on a relative there in town. The police go
Speaker 1: to the house. They get to the home, it's locked
Speaker 1: up tight, and nobody answers. Very significant fact and Bremner
Speaker 1: Cox family lawyer, is that when that morning when she
Speaker 1: didn't show up to work, remember the camping trip in
Speaker 1: the middle of the snow with two little tots was
Speaker 1: on a Sunday night. The next morning, Monday, she she
Speaker 1: Susan Cox Powell, did not show up to work. That
Speaker 1: was a problem. And so the police go to the house.
Speaker 1: The house is sealed up tight. A relative goes, yes,
Speaker 1: open the window, break in. The police break wind. They
Speaker 1: get entered the door, they find a wet a big
Speaker 1: wet spot on the carpet in front of the love seat,
Speaker 1: which I guess is in the living room with din
Speaker 1: with two giant fans acing it, blowing on it. The
Speaker 1: house was left like that. They also significant significant see
Speaker 1: her purse, her I d her car, keys, her credit cards,
Speaker 1: for driver's license, everything is in the home. So what
Speaker 1: did she do leave on foot? Her car car is
Speaker 1: not missing. What did she leave on foot in the
Speaker 1: snow that night? When Josh was Josh Powell was asked
Speaker 1: later and I've watched him, I've watched his face when
Speaker 1: he answers where why didn't she go with you camping
Speaker 1: that night? He just simply says she didn't want to.
Speaker 1: It would have been a cold day and h G.
Speaker 1: Double l and Bremner high profile Seattle lawyer and Cox
Speaker 1: family lawyer. Then I would let David Lynch take John,
Speaker 1: David and Lucy out on a Sunday night and sub
Speaker 1: freezing temperatures to go camping. Uh n O and uh
Speaker 1: absolutely Nancy. And that should have been probably cause alone
Speaker 1: for the police in West Valley City. The jurisdiction where
Speaker 1: this happened. And Josh had her phone. Um, and then
Speaker 1: he took the SIM card out, and then he acted
Speaker 1: like he was calling her at work. Wait wait wait
Speaker 1: wa wa what and and it's like drinking from a
Speaker 1: fire hydrant. Okay, it's just too much at once. So
Speaker 1: Josh Powell and I do the same thing. I've studied
Speaker 1: it so much, I just rattle off these facts. Let
Speaker 1: me take in what you just said. So the husband
Speaker 1: Josh Powell has her cell phone. Okay, again, it would
Speaker 1: be a cold and h double l but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: part with my cell phone. That's how I stay in
Speaker 1: touch with the children's school and David and my mom
Speaker 1: and everybody else. All right. Uh, So he has her
Speaker 1: cell phone, then he takes the SIM card out. What okay, stop,
Speaker 1: hold on, ben Levitan. What does it mean to take
Speaker 1: a SIM card, s I Amazon mother, out of a
Speaker 1: cell phone? What does that mean? Nancy? The SIM card
Speaker 1: is everything that identifies your phone is yours. If you
Speaker 1: take that out, it's essentially like throwing the phone away. There. Uh,
Speaker 1: the phone will not send out any information. You could
Speaker 1: not trace the phone very easily once that sim cards
Speaker 1: out Nancy, Now, what do you have to do to
Speaker 1: get the SIM card out? Ben Levitan? Everybody? Ben Levitan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: longtime friend and colleague joining me out of Raleigh is
Speaker 1: the telecommunications and tech expert. So what do you have
Speaker 1: to do to get a SIM card out of a phone?
Speaker 1: And why would you do that? Well, Nancy, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: two types of cell phones. There's the ones where you
Speaker 1: go to the store and they program all your information
Speaker 1: into that phone. It becomes your phone. So when someone
Speaker 1: calls you, boom Uh, calls automatically go to you. You
Speaker 1: can easily make calls. So that's those types of phones. Uh.
Speaker 1: That would be Verizon and Spread have that technology. The
Speaker 1: other technology, which we call G S M. You can
Speaker 1: go get any phone in the world and all that
Speaker 1: programming information about your phone is on a little sim
Speaker 1: card like a little memory card. You can stick that
Speaker 1: little memory card into any phone that's compatible, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you can use your phone. If you
Speaker 1: take that little memory card out of the phone. Uh,
Speaker 1: we can't find the phone. And it's very easy to do.
Speaker 1: It's intended to come out in and out of phones
Speaker 1: very easily. Because we anticipated back early in the days
Speaker 1: that people would want to have, you know, one type
Speaker 1: of phone for work, and then want to have a
Speaker 1: different type of phone when you went out not at night,
Speaker 1: and you want to have a little phone you put
Speaker 1: in your pocketbooks. So we made these little cards that
Speaker 1: you could easily encourage people to buy lots of phones
Speaker 1: and just move the SIM card around. But once that's
Speaker 1: SIM card, I don't know who has the money. I
Speaker 1: don't know who has the money to buy three different phones.
Speaker 1: But you're living, you know, in a different world from
Speaker 1: they've been leviting. We have because an iPhone have a
Speaker 1: SIM card in it. Uh. The phones that are for yes,
Speaker 1: they do. They don't easily come out. It depends on
Speaker 1: the type of phone, Nancy. Some phones, Uh, the SIM
Speaker 1: card comes in and out very easily. It's almost like
Speaker 1: an ATM card where once you put the UH ATM
Speaker 1: card into a a t M machine, that machine is yours.
Speaker 1: You know it. It's programmed for you. So on some
Speaker 1: phones it's very easy to do. Sometimes let me ask you,
Speaker 1: this is how I compare it. I compare it to
Speaker 1: a car without the engine. It looks like a car.
Speaker 1: The doors open and shut. You can stick the key
Speaker 1: in the ignition but without the SIM card, the phone
Speaker 1: won't work. Without the engine, the car won't work, and
Speaker 1: you can't see that on the outside. So he cracks
Speaker 1: open the phone, according to and Bremner, and removes the
Speaker 1: SIM card. That's something I didn't know, So what else
Speaker 1: are you telling me? And Bremner? He takes a SIM
Speaker 1: card and what else? Um? And then he calls acting
Speaker 1: like he's just checking on her at work, and he's
Speaker 1: very invasive. He gives a police statement that is very bizarre,
Speaker 1: as do the kids? Can I back up? So that
Speaker 1: we already know that she's not at work, so her
Speaker 1: car is at work. So why they they know she's
Speaker 1: not at work? Why would he call her at work
Speaker 1: pretending she's there. What did he say on those messages
Speaker 1: just checking in? He I can't remember if he said
Speaker 1: something about giving her a ride, but he clearly was
Speaker 1: trying to cover his tracks, you know, after the fact,
Speaker 1: and he knew she was coming, I mean, and it
Speaker 1: was very apparent from his behavior. I want to pause
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Speaker 1: ready to help with me. The sister or Susan Cox
Speaker 1: and these Cox Arenest and the Cox family five and
Speaker 1: investigator Rose Winklist. It's very significant, I believe to the
Speaker 1: two of you, and I'll start with Rose. What the children,
Speaker 1: the two little boys said about what happened that night
Speaker 1: and the pictures that they drew rose. What has Susan's
Speaker 1: children the two little boys said happened that night? Well,
Speaker 1: to start, I think, um, when Chuck and Judy Cox
Speaker 1: essentially got custody of the children, they began to disclose information.
Speaker 1: Having been now at the ages of five and seven,
Speaker 1: they started to remember some things or be more verbal
Speaker 1: about things, and they started to disclose different things that
Speaker 1: they remembered about that night they so called went camping
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. I think Josh left
Speaker 1: probably around twelve or twelve thirty and they only had
Speaker 1: one car by the way, so they knew when they
Speaker 1: went over to Susan's house that morning that the kids
Speaker 1: didn't show up for daycare, that no one had been
Speaker 1: there because there was no tire tracks. There was snow
Speaker 1: in the dryway and there was no tracks, so they
Speaker 1: knew something was amiss. Now, just a back up for
Speaker 1: a moment, if you don't mind, um. Josh actually, in
Speaker 1: his interview with the police, removed his own simcard as
Speaker 1: well out of his phone because he had a sense
Speaker 1: that the police were going to confiscate his phone, which
Speaker 1: they should have and then gotten a search warrant for it,
Speaker 1: but they didn't, and so when they took his phone
Speaker 1: to look at it, the SIM card had been removed
Speaker 1: from his phone as well. So that was a pretty
Speaker 1: just sit right now, That's a fact. And I've studied
Speaker 1: this so much. I did not know this. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of law enforcement because I have
Speaker 1: been part of law enforcement. I'm a whole legal career.
Speaker 1: But I don't understand this. Why in the world would
Speaker 1: they not confiscate his phone and SIM card and hers
Speaker 1: too immediately? That is the million dollar question. I wish
Speaker 1: I knew they should have. Have you asked them? Why
Speaker 1: do you think they didn't pursue him as a person
Speaker 1: of interest immediately? You know, I haven't personally asked them.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that question has been asked directly
Speaker 1: to the lead detectives that was assigned to the case. Um,
Speaker 1: and we have asked it during deposition, But I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about that. Let's find out. And Brenner, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't understand it because I firmly believe if Josh
Speaker 1: Powell had been arrested immediately, the two little boys would
Speaker 1: be alive today. The boys are dead, okay, And I
Speaker 1: firmly believe if he had been prosecuted immediately, this would
Speaker 1: not have happened. I agree in Answing even such a
Speaker 1: friend to the family and throughout this tragic ordeal that
Speaker 1: involved the deaths of the boys and potentially Susan although
Speaker 1: she's still missing. Um. I tried to get their records.
Speaker 1: I went to Utah three different times trying to get
Speaker 1: records at three different hearings procedures. And you know, they
Speaker 1: were slow to look at him as a suspect, and
Speaker 1: they kept calling him a person of interest when actually
Speaker 1: search warrants eventually did issue in the case, but they
Speaker 1: had to sealed investigation. It was very hard to get
Speaker 1: information about the specifics of what, if anything, they were doing.
Speaker 1: All right, just tell me Anne, too many words? Are
Speaker 1: they all tangled up in the Mormon church together? Is
Speaker 1: that what it is? You? No, I don't know. They
Speaker 1: were just they kept saying they couldn't prosecute without a
Speaker 1: body kind of the that's not true. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was with her that night, and he goes on this
Speaker 1: big fake camping trip at twelve thirty at night out
Speaker 1: in sub sub freezing temperatures with two little boys. My
Speaker 1: question was back to Rose Winkrest. She's the Cox family
Speaker 1: private investigator who was actually got a little crack in
Speaker 1: the case right now. But what the children said? They
Speaker 1: said the two boys said, Mommy went looking for crystals
Speaker 1: in the minds. She went into the mind Daddy came
Speaker 1: back and Mommy didn't. They had the children draw pictures
Speaker 1: of the night she goes missing, that mommy disappears off
Speaker 1: the face of the earth, and they have the picture
Speaker 1: of Mommy in the car that night, but in the
Speaker 1: trunk of the car. Right then, he should have been arrested.
Speaker 1: What does nobody know? Children can be witnesses. Denise Cox Ernst,
Speaker 1: this is Susan's sister. Why wasn't he arrested? I think
Speaker 1: he should have been arrested when he came back with
Speaker 1: nos and cards in the phone, I think he should
Speaker 1: have been arrested. You know, when he said she three
Speaker 1: went camping, he had no proof to couldn't give a
Speaker 1: straight answer where he was. I believe he should have
Speaker 1: been arrested. You know, two days after she went missing
Speaker 1: and still hadn't returned. The majority, I mean, the rule
Speaker 1: is majority. You look towards the spouse when there's someone missing,
Speaker 1: that's who they usually first investigate. And I don't know
Speaker 1: why they didn't do that in this case. It's very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Let me come on, she's missing. He says that she
Speaker 1: just didn't want to go camping, and the children draw
Speaker 1: this picture. And I've used this technique a million times
Speaker 1: when I was prosecuting a case where there was a
Speaker 1: child victim or witness. You get them to draw. If
Speaker 1: they cannot articulate or verbalize what happened, they can draw it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they simply can't say the words. Sometimes it hurts
Speaker 1: to say the words. Sometimes they don't want to want
Speaker 1: to say the words, so they'll draw you a picture.
Speaker 1: Those pictures get me shown to a jury. What is
Speaker 1: so not true? It just makes me sick. When we
Speaker 1: were younger, we were really big, you know, because my
Speaker 1: dad wasn't boy Scouts in the church, and my sister
Speaker 1: and I went Igloo camping. So to hear that she
Speaker 1: didn't want to go camping, nor would she ever allow
Speaker 1: Josh to take him camping. That night without her with him,
Speaker 1: we went into Igloo camping, we were hiking. We were
Speaker 1: very outdoorsy person. This is not my Susan was not
Speaker 1: a stay at home, do your hair and nail's kind
Speaker 1: of person. She was out there and very active person.
Speaker 1: She didn't get to drive the family vehicle to work.
Speaker 1: Most of the time she rode her bike. So when
Speaker 1: he says that she didn't want to go, that makes
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense to me. I know her better than that. Well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, it's midnight. It's midnight and degrees. Of
Speaker 1: course she doesn't want to go camping for Pete's sake,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't see her letting the children
Speaker 1: go camping either. It's ridiculous and interesting. Nobody called the
Speaker 1: daycare to say the boys weren't coming that day. So
Speaker 1: here's what we see. We know that they he had
Speaker 1: been camping many times before, and the children sent Mom
Speaker 1: said Mom went to go look for crystals in a mine,
Speaker 1: and she never came out. All right, Sunday night, fourteen
Speaker 1: degrees outside. Daddy never arrested. They say daddy took mommy out,
Speaker 1: Mommy didn't come back, and Daddy did. Okay, He was
Speaker 1: never arrested. Nothing ever moved forward in this case. Then
Speaker 1: out of the blue and Bremner Cox family lawyer Josh
Speaker 1: Powell picks up and leaves town. It moves to where
Speaker 1: he moves to the Pierce County And and the other
Speaker 1: thing that Nancy is that he'd stopped payment on a
Speaker 1: payment to the daycare on a check that was due,
Speaker 1: and he did that before she went missing, So I
Speaker 1: thought that. And the other thing is he took out
Speaker 1: life insurance policies on her three point five million dollars
Speaker 1: when he was essentially broke. She was the breadwinner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he came out here, left everything behind, you know, didn't
Speaker 1: go look for her, No no search parties, no nothing.
Speaker 1: He just moved with the boys. I'm out to Pierce
Speaker 1: County here in Washington State. And so he moves to
Speaker 1: a different state and with his father, who was a
Speaker 1: whole another can of worms. Susan Cox's father in law
Speaker 1: was then arrested on child pornography. He turned out that
Speaker 1: he allegedly had almost five thousand pictures taken of unsuspecting
Speaker 1: women dressing and undressing, including many of them of Susan,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to her. And then he and his son Josh Powell,
Speaker 1: start smearing Susan's name by saying she was sexually aggressive
Speaker 1: on her own father in law, which is could not
Speaker 1: have been further from the truth because Denise Cox, Susan's sister,
Speaker 1: she told people she was very uncomfortable around the father
Speaker 1: in law and actually made the family move away from
Speaker 1: him because he kept making unwanted sex and answers on her. Denise, Yes,
Speaker 1: yes she did. She told me about that actually quite awesome.
Speaker 1: Before they actually moved, that he would peek under they
Speaker 1: lived in his living room or dining room in his house,
Speaker 1: and they had a blanket like curtain surrounding her dressing area,
Speaker 1: and she caught him multiple times spine on her, and
Speaker 1: he actually told her that he wanted to run away
Speaker 1: with her and that he loved her, and that Josh
Speaker 1: would share. Another thing that he also we became aware of.
Speaker 1: He was accused of stealing her panty hose and he
Speaker 1: would replace her panty hose with the same brand knew
Speaker 1: and then take her used panty hose. Okay, whoa So
Speaker 1: between the father and the son, I really don't know
Speaker 1: which way to turn, But I'm focused on the little boys.
Speaker 1: Been Levitan joining me telecommunications expert. Is there any way
Speaker 1: to track by the car or the cell phone we
Speaker 1: he went that night? See if this is so long
Speaker 1: after the facts that the records just aren't kepta and
Speaker 1: that's that's the big problem. Uh, there's still could be
Speaker 1: records um of where the phones were, but it's it's
Speaker 1: likely this far off the investigation that did not do
Speaker 1: a forensic on that phone and not get the phone
Speaker 1: records immediately just unforgivable. You know, it really is. Anne Bremner,
Speaker 1: high profile Seattle lawyer representing Susan's family. Did he remove
Speaker 1: his and her simkine before sim card from their phones
Speaker 1: before the so called camping trip or after after? Oh,
Speaker 1: dear Lord in Heaven, ben Levitan, You're right, if they
Speaker 1: had gotten those pings, we would know where he put
Speaker 1: her body right now. But that's not how it unfolded.
Speaker 1: It's not how it unfolded. Rose win Quest, the Cox Family,
Speaker 1: private investigator, Susan's family, Her parents got custody of the children.
Speaker 1: They wrestled it away from the dad, and he had
Speaker 1: visitation of the two little boys right which you know,
Speaker 1: to me was unforgivable for him to have visitation rights
Speaker 1: with these boys given all the red flags. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: let me go to Denise Cox, Susan's sister, Denise Cox
Speaker 1: Ernst Denise if you can bring yourself to do it,
Speaker 1: please explain what happened the last time two little boys
Speaker 1: had visitation with their dad, Josh Powell. This is long
Speaker 1: after mommy disappeared into the minds looking for crystals. One
Speaker 1: night of the night before his visitation, I took them
Speaker 1: into bed and they played the game of Hugs and
Speaker 1: kisses Uh to Charlie, then hugs and kisses to Braidon,
Speaker 1: and went back and forth. And after all those games
Speaker 1: they were tucked in. It was Charlie's birthday on the
Speaker 1: nineteenth of January, and we had planned after his visitation.
Speaker 1: He made me promise to him that I would take
Speaker 1: him to go get his fish for the fish tank
Speaker 1: that we bought for his birthday, which is what he
Speaker 1: had asked me for. They didn't want to go to
Speaker 1: see their dads. They wanted to actually have me pick
Speaker 1: them up in the morning and take them to go
Speaker 1: get the fish and set up the fish tank. Those
Speaker 1: boys were they went from when they first came to
Speaker 1: my parents, scared, hiding and yelling at us. Two lovable boys,
Speaker 1: you know, just coming through the door. They grab your
Speaker 1: legs and give you bunch of hugs. And they had
Speaker 1: totally did a big change from when they were their dead.
Speaker 1: They were finally feeling safe, they were feeling love finally,
Speaker 1: And you know, it breaks my heart because I was
Speaker 1: so looking forward to spending the time with him the
Speaker 1: next day and had been shopping for made of honor dress,
Speaker 1: and after that happened, I had to shout for a
Speaker 1: funeral dress. And I cherished that night that I got
Speaker 1: to tuck them in one last time, not knowing what
Speaker 1: would happen the next day. It really hurts that and Denise, Denise,
Speaker 1: what happened the next day, the day of their last
Speaker 1: visitation with their dad, Josh Powell. What I was told
Speaker 1: is after my parents go to church during their visitation,
Speaker 1: and I said I was shopping and when they were going,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to go, and my parents talked to
Speaker 1: him into going, said we'll see you later after the visitation,
Speaker 1: and they just didn't come back. It's like the boys knew.
Speaker 1: To Anne Bremner, the Cox family lawyer, what happened the
Speaker 1: day of their last visitation that we know named the
Speaker 1: boys were brought by a CPS worker to a home
Speaker 1: that was staged by Josh Powell. It wasn't where he
Speaker 1: had been living. He'd staged it so he could look
Speaker 1: better to the case workers. And the case worker brought
Speaker 1: the boys up to the house and Josh said, you
Speaker 1: put the door, and he said, um, I have a
Speaker 1: surprise for you, and they ran to him and he
Speaker 1: slammed the door on the case worker who was supposed
Speaker 1: to be part of the visit, and the next thing
Speaker 1: she knew, she smelled gasolene. And then he blew up
Speaker 1: the house and he killed the boys with the hatchet.
Speaker 1: He had a room in the back of the house
Speaker 1: that had all their toys, and that's where they were running,
Speaker 1: because that's where they ended up. And he killed himself
Speaker 1: and he killed both of those boys. It was unbelievably horrific.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to understand why why he had to
Speaker 1: kill the two little boys? Um do you believe? And
Speaker 1: Bremner that there was at pending arrest and prosecution for
Speaker 1: the murder of Susan Cox Powell. I had been told
Speaker 1: that by the West Valley City Police, and there have
Speaker 1: been a search warrant executed out of his dad's house
Speaker 1: that led to his dad's arrest for the porn and voyeurism,
Speaker 1: including a little girls that live next door. And it's
Speaker 1: a very very lengthy search warrant and it all pertained
Speaker 1: to getting those journals. That um, that that was both
Speaker 1: Stephen and Josha talked about. That was the purpose of
Speaker 1: the warrant, and then they found all of these other things.
Speaker 1: But my point is is that it like they were
Speaker 1: close because they listed so many items of incriminating evidence
Speaker 1: against Josh Pale. And one other thing, Josh Pale had
Speaker 1: been ordered by the court to take a psycho sexual evaluation,
Speaker 1: and his reaction in court that day, Um, he showed
Speaker 1: extreme anger. He was yelling at his lawyer and a
Speaker 1: lot of angst. And that was right before he killed himself.
Speaker 1: In the book, now, what was that entail? And Bremner,
Speaker 1: you're the cops family lawyer. Why was he ordered to
Speaker 1: take a psycho sexual evaluation? And how many years after
Speaker 1: Susan quote god missing? Had this been that the cops
Speaker 1: were still you know, not making an arrest or doing anything.
Speaker 1: How long had passed that Susan goes missing? And what
Speaker 1: would the psycho sexual evaluation entail, Well, it had been
Speaker 1: a number of years and it wouldn't tail a polygraph.
Speaker 1: It would also entail a placismograph, and the placismograph would
Speaker 1: show aberrant reaction or reactions to aberrant kind of interest.
Speaker 1: Because he also had cartoon child porn fo images on
Speaker 1: his computer back in Utah, and then his father had
Speaker 1: all kinds of corn throughout the house, multiple computers. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you a question. Are you saying that Josh
Speaker 1: Powell had uh sexual cartoons on his computer? Yes, of
Speaker 1: incest cartoons. It was cartoons, but it was four hundred
Speaker 1: images and it was clearly incest. I want to thank
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Speaker 1: d so when the court ordered him, and this is
Speaker 1: all because of a search warrant that was done on
Speaker 1: the dad's home, during which they covered thousands of disturbing images,
Speaker 1: including some of alleged child porn and voyeurism on women,
Speaker 1: unsuspecting women of their body parts, and sex organs when
Speaker 1: they were changing clothes, including Susan. They find all this.
Speaker 1: They also find disturbing issues with Josh Powell, Susan's husband.
Speaker 1: As a result of this extensive search, the court orders
Speaker 1: Josh Powell to undergo a psycho sexual evaluation, and he
Speaker 1: goes berserk. With all this in mind, police still not acting,
Speaker 1: he still gets the visitation with the boys. The social
Speaker 1: worker brings the boys over. He says, come in, I
Speaker 1: want to show you something, slams the door and locks that.
Speaker 1: She immediately calls her superiors and the house blows up.
Speaker 1: We now know he also attacked the two little boys
Speaker 1: with a hatchet, the two little boys that had already
Speaker 1: been through so much, Denise Cox, aren't this is Susan's sister.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the moment that you learned what had
Speaker 1: happened to the boys, Denise Um? I was told at
Speaker 1: first that they were blown up, and later on uh
Speaker 1: that I was told that he had they had heard
Speaker 1: the social work had heard the boys scream and found
Speaker 1: out that was as the result of the hatchett and
Speaker 1: how he did it. He did not actually kill them.
Speaker 1: They didn't die from those loans. They died from the
Speaker 1: slope from the fire. And what really tore me apart
Speaker 1: was they died holding hands. I don't know if Josh
Speaker 1: positioned them that way or that's how it was, but
Speaker 1: those boys are really close, so as me to know,
Speaker 1: because Charlie has always been afraid of fire, that he
Speaker 1: had to die with his fear. Denise, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to absorb everything you're saying. And Ben Leviatan joining me
Speaker 1: out of Raleigh, tell the communications and texts tech expert
Speaker 1: renowned in his field. Then when I think back, and
Speaker 1: there's woulda could have should have? You know, if they
Speaker 1: had done this, if they had done that. But Ben,
Speaker 1: it's so simple if they had just not even named
Speaker 1: him a suspect. But if they had just subpoenaed the
Speaker 1: Peen records when Susan went missing, they would have had
Speaker 1: information about where her body was. Based on that and
Speaker 1: what the boys were saying and the pictures they were
Speaker 1: drawing and the wet carpet and everything. These little boys
Speaker 1: would be alive. They would be living with Denise right now, alive,
Speaker 1: and well they'd be heading to college right now for
Speaker 1: Pete's sake, Ben, it would be so easy. Tell me
Speaker 1: how easy it would have been, well, Nancy taking you know,
Speaker 1: he took the SIM card out of his phone, and
Speaker 1: that's a it's an amateur theory that that that's gonna
Speaker 1: You know, he did that intentionally. One he did not
Speaker 1: want phone calls coming into the phone, and he also
Speaker 1: did one calls going out of the phone. It disabled
Speaker 1: the phone. But in an exigent situation like this, we
Speaker 1: contract the phone itself, you could find the phone. We
Speaker 1: could have probably found both these phones within an area
Speaker 1: of at feet, Nancy, we would at least know that
Speaker 1: they were together. And if these phones were together, that's
Speaker 1: enough probable cause I would imagine and and think about it,
Speaker 1: Ben levitaming. You and I have come through so many
Speaker 1: criminal cases, intricate and complicated criminal cases. Think about it.
Speaker 1: If she were in the trunk like the little boys
Speaker 1: drew in the picture, you know, he could not have
Speaker 1: dragged her body that far in the snow, which would
Speaker 1: have if the phone had been paid, placed the phone
Speaker 1: within you know, her feet of where the body was hidden.
Speaker 1: I mean, was she even dead at the time he
Speaker 1: left her? And my guess is that she was if
Speaker 1: she had been in the car trunk like the boys
Speaker 1: drew in their picture. But just by doing that one
Speaker 1: simple thing, I mean, in my mind, these detectives must
Speaker 1: wake up every morning with the two boys faces, you know,
Speaker 1: in their minds. I first thing every morning, because if
Speaker 1: they had done that one simple thing, these children, I
Speaker 1: believe would still be alive today. For some reason, police
Speaker 1: kept holding off on taking action against Josh Powell. I
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. Rose Wink was with me, Susan
Speaker 1: Cox Family private investigator. Right now, Rose, you are undertaking
Speaker 1: something the cops have not been able to do, and
Speaker 1: that is to crack the encryption code. This is back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine and Josh Powell had so
Speaker 1: heavily encrypted his computers. Even the cops haven't been able
Speaker 1: to break in yet. But you've you made little headway.
Speaker 1: And this is so important, Rose, because maybe Google search,
Speaker 1: a Google map, search, am emails something may reveal where
Speaker 1: she is. Tell me about the encryption, Rose A. Win Quist. Well,
Speaker 1: to start um, once Josh had killed the little boys,
Speaker 1: and then committed suicide. Essentially, his brother Michael, subsequently jumped
Speaker 1: off a parking garage bridge in Minneapolis. Then the police,
Speaker 1: at some point after what they suspected to be the
Speaker 1: people that were complicit in her disappearance, decided to deem
Speaker 1: the case cold, and Bremner, the attorney that I'm working
Speaker 1: for through the Cox family, asked West Valley Police Department
Speaker 1: multiple times since this quote the Sensus case was called
Speaker 1: old um, it should have been turned over. We wanted
Speaker 1: the case. We wanted the case. We wanted the case.
Speaker 1: We wanted to see what they had done, what they
Speaker 1: hadn't done, what leads there were. Finally, finally, after the
Speaker 1: people that they deemed responsible were dead, they turned over
Speaker 1: the case. They were supposed to turn it over unredacted.
Speaker 1: It came back redacted in a way that it was
Speaker 1: really difficult to put together a timeline because they left
Speaker 1: things out. The multiple times I get I request nine
Speaker 1: one one calls, for example from tipsters that are complete
Speaker 1: with phone numbers and names and what the tip is,
Speaker 1: they went as far to redact that information, which is
Speaker 1: which is rarely in my view, for at least in Washington,
Speaker 1: they give you all of that and they didn't, so
Speaker 1: fast forwarding, we then got the case file, and we're
Speaker 1: able to via a timeline, put together some events and
Speaker 1: leads that the police simply didn't follow up on. So
Speaker 1: Chuck Cox and Denise and Susan Cox, Powell's sister, and
Speaker 1: myself and my husband went on a road trip because
Speaker 1: we found that there was a point where where where
Speaker 1: Josh had another phone and it pinned somewhere in Oregon
Speaker 1: around the place where Michael's car had been towed to
Speaker 1: a salvage yard. It didn't appear to be disabled or
Speaker 1: broken in any way. It was he apparently, or his
Speaker 1: sister called Elena. Elena is his sister Powell called a
Speaker 1: toeyard and they came and got it and gave him
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks for it or whatever. And the police
Speaker 1: found out about this. But this is in two thousand
Speaker 1: and all, and of course Susan disappeared in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: So here we are some three and a half years later, nearly,
Speaker 1: and they took cadaver dogs to this salvage yard and
Speaker 1: loan behold, these cadaver dogs immediately hit on the trunk
Speaker 1: of Michael's car. Well prior to them finding out that
Speaker 1: Michael had taken this car to a salvage yard. Uh.
Speaker 1: He somehow got ahold of Google and was trying to
Speaker 1: get Google to manipulate their maps so that his car
Speaker 1: wouldn't show up if it were searched by the police
Speaker 1: on the Google Maps. And when he figured out that
Speaker 1: the police had figured out information that he didn't really
Speaker 1: want them to know, that's when he decided to commit suicide.
Speaker 1: So boom, there's another one gone that obviously had clear
Speaker 1: information about Susan. That is overwhelming. Ben levitan Um, tell
Speaker 1: me how difficult it can be to crack the code
Speaker 1: on an encryption Well, Nancy, this is we have the
Speaker 1: hard disk. Think of encryption is, uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: you read an email, you read from left to right
Speaker 1: and top to bottom. What encryption does is just gramble
Speaker 1: that completely. And you need you need a password which
Speaker 1: is about a hundred and twenty eight letters and characters
Speaker 1: long to figure out what order you should read these
Speaker 1: letters in it. So it's it's it's technically incredibly hard
Speaker 1: to do. There's there's uh formulas you can try to
Speaker 1: figure out. These things can take years and years to decrypt.
Speaker 1: But one thing that can be done and can be
Speaker 1: done right now, Nancy. When we do an investigation on
Speaker 1: a hard disk, we don't use the original hard disc
Speaker 1: because we don't want to risk changing into the data.
Speaker 1: We make copies of it. So whoever is doing the
Speaker 1: forensics examination is doing a copy uh the exam out
Speaker 1: of copy of the hardness. There's no reason you can't
Speaker 1: make a thousand copies of this hardness, send it out
Speaker 1: to a thousand forensic experts and maybe get this code cracked,
Speaker 1: you know, years sooner. Nancy. What would it mean, Denise
Speaker 1: cox Ernst to Susan's parents to be able to find
Speaker 1: Susan's remains and bury them with her children. It would
Speaker 1: mean a lot. We've been looking for her for almost
Speaker 1: eight years now, and the hardest part about going on
Speaker 1: is not knowing what happened and not being able to
Speaker 1: fill at peace or any sense of finality of this event.
Speaker 1: We to my parents are starting to know. We we've
Speaker 1: all had to move on. But you don't go a
Speaker 1: day without wondering what happened and without thinking you know,
Speaker 1: where is she? And it would it would be amazing
Speaker 1: to finally be able to you know, visit her and
Speaker 1: have a peace of mind on knowing what happened or
Speaker 1: having some closure of some sort. On this case, Susan
Speaker 1: meant the world to us, and it's it's really hard
Speaker 1: to go, you know, to go to that grave site
Speaker 1: and you're mourning the boys, and you still wondering where
Speaker 1: is Susan. And it gets harder after so long, it does.
Speaker 1: It never gets easier after time goes on, it gets
Speaker 1: harder every time. Our prayer today is for peace for
Speaker 1: Susan's family and for justice as much as it can
Speaker 1: be attained. New the niece then and Rose, thank you
Speaker 1: for being with us. Nancy Grace by Story signing off,
Speaker 1: good bye friends,