Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors (16 page)

Nor did Mark Quigley and Travis Currie mount a defense. They called no witnesses.

Suddenly, the trial was over.

*   *   *

The jury quickly found Steven Craig Powell guilty on all fourteen counts of voyeurism. His sentencing was set for June 15.

The public believed that Powell could get as little as four years in prison or as much as ninety years if the sentences ran consecutively.

Prosecutor Lindquist said that his office would seek a ten-year sentence. That seemed very short to most people, but there were statutes in place at the time of the crimes against the Mahoney girls that might impact the sentencing. Powell’s defense attorneys announced that they were asking that their client serve only a year in prison.

Many people who had followed Susan’s case since 2009 hoped that there might be some kind of plea bargain. If Steven Powell would tell where Susan was, maybe he would get a shorter sentence.

“They didn’t offer,” deputy prosecutor Grant Blinn commented about such a possibility. “And we didn’t ask.”

It probably would have been fruitless anyway. Steven Powell had been a sphinx when it came to any questions about Susan’s fate. Investigators doubted he would suddenly open up now, particularly if he had any guilty knowledge of her disappearance.

June 15 arrived, and Judge Culpepper had to cope with a difficult legal decision. Were the fourteen instances of voyeurism involving the Mahoney girls a
series
of separate offenses? Or should they be viewed by the Court as a continuing single act?

Quigley and Currie cited several voyeurism cases in Pierce County. One convicted man had had
sixteen
convictions of voyeurism, and his sentence was only nine months!

Quigley argued that his client should be dealt with the same way.
To be fair.

Blinn pointed out that Steven Powell had shown no remorse at all for his crimes, and that he had never even admitted his behavior was wrong.

For those who wanted to see Steven Powell go to prison for the rest of his life—and many did—Judge Culpepper’s ruling was astounding. And yet his choices were limited under the law.

Culpepper termed Powell “the ultimate creep of a neighbor,” as he pronounced sentence. “I think it’s appropriate for him to be punished for what he did. Not for what somebody suspects. Mr. Powell obviously has a longstanding sexual deviance. There’s something seriously wrong with Mr. Powell’s view of women in the world.”

And then, to everyone’s shock, he sentenced Steven Powell to only two and a half years in prison! With credit for time already served, and time off for good behavior, Powell will probably be in prison for less than a year. He will remain in isolation while he is evaluated at an interim facility, and likely will remain isolated in his final prison. If he is out in the general prisoner population, his chances of survival could be slim.

On the day her father’s case went to the jury, Alina Powell began a website castigating law enforcement. Alina believes her father and her brother are innocent of any criminal acts, and are merely victims of public opinion and devious investigators.

Although Judge Culpepper did his best to see that Steven Powell was not convicted because of suspicion that he might have had something to do with Susan’s death, questions remain. Steven asked for time off from his job within days of Susan’s disappearance in Utah. Many believe he went to Utah. During that time, Josh rented a vehicle and put eight hundred miles on the odometer. Is it possible that Steven was part of a plot to kill Susan? Perhaps he was like Josh was with his sons. Rather than give them up to Susan’s parents, Josh killed them. If Steven could not have Susan, then perhaps he didn’t want Josh to have her, either. Maybe he manipulated his weak son into destroying her. Possibly he went to Utah to help Josh hide Susan’s body where no one could ever find it?

An investigation into that possibility is ongoing.

*   *   *

It’s sad to visit at Chuck and Judy’s home, to sit in the room that was once meant for Charlie and Braden, and to look at the island in the duck pond, an island where the little boys said the ducks would be safe. Their photos are there in their grandparents’ house, along with a giant picture of Susan. It seems as if the front door will suddenly open and all three of them will come running up the stairs.

But, of course, they won’t.

Judy longs to have Susan’s scrapbook—the one she kept from the time she was a little girl. But Steven has refused to give it to her.

Chuck thinks he burned it.

Steven Craig Powell is far from out of the woods legally. On the day he was sentenced to prison, Anne Bremner served him with papers as she filed a civil suit against him on Chuck and Judy’s behalf alleging “general outrage” for his criminal acts.

*   *   *

In the third week of August 2012, Anne Bremner flew to Utah to present a request to the city council of West Valley City. On behalf of Chuck and Judy Cox, she asked that the West Valley City Police Department release their investigative files on the disappearance of their daughter, Susan Cox Powell.

Susan’s case had stalled and been virtually dead in the water for many months. Her parents had been allowed only glimpses of any discoveries the Utah police investigators had found over the almost two years since Susan vanished. And what they
had
learned was excruciatingly painful—details on Susan’s note, obviously written as she feared she might be murdered, and descriptions of the amount of her blood found in the home she shared with Josh.

It was like pulling adhesive tape slowly from a wound, and it hurt far more than if the Coxes could know it all in a complete reveal.

“It’s been horrible for Chuck and Judy,” Bremner told the city council. “They just want to see it all at once, especially if there is something more upsetting coming out.”

The Seattle attorney pointed out that Susan’s case wasn’t moving forward. “
Who
are they investigating?” she asked. “And for
what
?”

She asked the council members to look at what chief Buzz Nielsen’s department was doing on the probe and to find out for themselves if the investigation was dormant or not, reminding them that it seemed to be going nowhere. Under Utah’s victims’ rights laws, she felt the Coxes had every right to read the files on their missing daughter and her now-dead husband, the prime suspect.

West Valley City police advisor Clint Gilmore insisted that the council didn’t have the authority to release the Powell records. “The case is still active,” he said. “This is an ongoing investigation. We want to solve this case, and to disclose anything would jeopardize it.”

Whether he was being actively investigated in Utah for any part he might have played in Susan’s disappearance—and, perhaps, murder—Steven Powell
was
the target of great interest for the Pierce County sheriff’s detectives and prosecutor Mark Lindquist’s office.

“We have to wonder,” Bremner said, “if there is information on his [Steve Powell] being there at the time of Susan’s disappearance, about phone calls he made to Josh, his calling in sick after she disappeared, and about his criminal obsession with her. What did the West Valley City Police know about that?”

Steven Powell
had
called in sick on December 8 and 9, 2009. Although he kept in touch with coworkers via the Internet, no one had actually seen him during that time. One coworker recalled that he had told her around Thanksgiving that he planned a camping trip in Utah with his son Josh in the near future.

There were other issues. The Cox family was in a legal tussle with the Powells over millions of dollars in insurance money. The money didn’t matter to them, but it would be a bitter pill to see members of Josh’s family profit from the loss of their daughter and their grandsons. They needed to know what had taken place in a missing person’s probe that had lasted for almost three years.

But Anne Bremner’s plea to the West Valley City council members didn’t convince them. They debated over what she had said, but came back with their refusal to release the city’s police records on Susan Powell.

And so the saga continues, still full of secrets and lies. There will never be full closure for the Cox family that has lost so much, but it is desperately important that what is hidden from them will one day be revealed.

They deserve that.

FIRE AND ICE

Susan Cox Powell was a happy, loving young woman. She disappeared one night in December, leaving behind her beloved little boys, Charlie and Braden. Her husband, Josh, said that she had run off with another man. (
Cox family
)

Susan and Josh as an engaged couple in January 2001. They would be married in three months. He was seven years older than she was, and yet he looked as young—or younger. (
Cox family
)

In 2001, Susan worked as the co-manager of the Orchard Park Retirement Residence, a job she shared with her bridegroom, Josh Powell, shortly after they were married. She thought it was a great opportunity for advancement, but Josh criticized his bosses and was let go. (
Cox family
)