Last year Josh Powell committed suicide after killing his two sons with an axe and then himself in a gas explosion. Josh or his father probably killed Josh's wife Susan who has not been seen since a 2009 camping trip. Josh's father had an extensive porn collection, some of which featured Susan. Now, Josh's brother Michael has killed himself by jumping from a seven story building yesterday after a judge ruled he was not entitled to a $1.5M payout from the death of his brother and nephews. Michael Powell was getting his doctorate at the University Of Minnesota.
The poor mother.
ReplyDeleteWhat in the Sam Hell...
ReplyDeleteHill*
ReplyDeleteeh, Hell works too.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to know the real story behind that family.....
ReplyDeleteThat is one bat-shit crazy family.
ReplyDeleteWhat an intensely screwed up family. I lay it at the the elder Powell's door. Porn, plus serious boundary issues; I'm sure they did not start or stop with his daughter-in-law.
ReplyDeleteExactly. That father is a monster.
DeleteHuh, he was getting his degree in Cognitive Science. That's ironic.
ReplyDeleteWhat a strange family. I just got Ann Rule's latest crime files book. In it, she has a novella about the Powell case. I look forwarding to reading it. Something bizarre is afoot.
ReplyDeleteAll kinds of fuckery - how sad
ReplyDeleteEither that family has a history of sever, hereditary mental disease, or their mom and dad just sucked! How terrible. Nothing is worth committing suicide over. My guess is that he was in over his head money wise...no 1.5 payout, no hope. I'm sure there was a lot of other drama to go with it though...
ReplyDelete@princessnikki: I don't know, I kind of feel like if you are a part of this family of murdurous psychopaths and you are perusing a graduate degree into cognition, you would have unique insight into the fact that you yourself may also be a homicidal psychopath and perhaps it's better if you aren't around. I don't buy into the "every single life is better than death" idea
Delete*pursuing. Not perusing
DeleteNothing is worth committing suicide over?
DeleteAs someone who has suicidal thoughts probably too often we can agree to disagree.
I really hope they find Susan but it doesn't seem likely. I feel so sorry for her family. As for the Powells (except for the sister that distanced herself), they(Josh, Steven & Michael) can rot.
ReplyDeleteThis is one seriously phuqued up family! I don't think we'll ever know the truth. Smh.
ReplyDeleteI remember this story about them looking for the Mother & that was years ago ... I didn't know that the father murdered his children with an axe. What a sick fuck. So disturbed about this whole family. RIP Little ones.
ReplyDeleteI hope he finds whatever peace in death that he couldn't find in life. But cashing in on his brother's and nephews deaths is rather gross.
ReplyDeleteBut Josh can rot in hell and hopefully the father will join him there soon.
@Diane - it was a horrible story. Social worker took the boys to visit their father on a court-ordered visit. I believe they were living with the mother's parents. He locked her out of the house and killed the boys. She was on the phone with 911 trying to get police intervention when the house blew up.
ReplyDeleteGood God, how awful. How did I not hear about this in the media? That's something you'd remember. How tragic for all of them
DeleteMormons. Are they are all crazy bent, like that trial going on in Arizona?
ReplyDeleteMary Jones- I am not even religious and I find your comment offensive. Jodi Ann Arias was not a Mormon until she stared dating the man she murdered. She was well crazy before she drank the religious coolaid.
DeleteI read Ann Rules book on it - its very insightful. She's my all time favorite author
ReplyDeleteI love Ann Rule, too. I have most of her books and I can never put them down once I start them.
DeleteI met her once and she was so sweet. I read the Stranger Beside me in 7th grade and I was hooked. She was born I. Saginaw mi and I went to college there so we bonded lol
DeleteThe matriarch of the family moved away from the patriarch after they divorced, but then when everything was blowing up (figuratively) around them, she all of the sudden was standing up for her ex, which I found weird because of what the one estranged daughter says about her dad. She said he once watched porn in front of her in a hotel room when he thought she was asleep. That was the end of her relationship with him. I've heard they think the dad abused Josh and possibly the dad himself was abused. Just messed up people. I just feel bad for all the remaining family. At least the kids are with their mom now, because I just know she is dead.
ReplyDeleteAnd no us Mormons aren't all like that. Are you kidding? Just like every group, sect, religion, race, country, what have you, there are crazies in everything.
ReplyDeleteSuch a tragedy. The 911 dispatcher wasn't doing the greatest job expediting the call so the caseworker had to spend additional time on the phone re-explaining the situation. I have a friend who lives close to the grandparents - many neighbors (in addition to the family) were emotionally gutted by what happened.
ReplyDeleteWow. There must be more to this story. I don't get why anyone would go the suicide route, but in this case, he did it because he didn't get $1.5 million? That seems like a terrible reason. I had a friend/coworker kill himself about 12 years ago now, & it's just so unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteSounds like he may have been expecting the money and had already spent it.
ReplyDeleteThere is way more to this story and I wonder if we'll ever know the truth.
God I hate this story. I would read about it obsessively into the wee hours of the night and then cry thinking about those boys and the mother.
ReplyDeleteI was up into the wee hours last night trying to make sense of Amanda Knox..
Damn. This family is leaving behind a legacy not many would want.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly the patriarch is in prison right? That man gives me the heebee-jeebeez. I would advise you not to look up the interviews he's given. Creepy creepy guy.
Her poor family. To lose their daughter and then the two grandchildren? Unimaginable.
ReplyDeleteIf the estranged sister ever writes a book, she'd sell millions. I'm sure she has some very explosive secrets to tell about growing up in that nut house.
ReplyDeleteDang, was hoping it was the "dad"
ReplyDeleteMy experience as a counseling student is: People are drawn to cognitive/behavioral emphasis in psychotherapy because they want to run screaming and shrieking from the psychodynamic, emotional, affective and psychoanalytic/Gestalt side of the field. CBT got really popular because its publicists kept telling govt people and insurance companies, "We're like totally scientific, and we even have scientific facts to support my claim that we're like super-sciency 'n shit." And so cognitive approaches pushed back real talk therapy for a while, and only in teh past few years have non-CBT people successfully started getting a foothold in evidence-based practice. Having said that, I feel like a jerk for saying this in the context of a man's suicide, so let me note that bad feeling. I was just noting Mooshki's comment about cognitive science -- Human beings reduced to "cognition" may as well be scientology members.
ReplyDeleteThe Powell's are a very messed up family. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the father abused his sons. He is worse than creepy. I wonder why the brother-in-law/uncle felt he should have the money?
ReplyDeleteThe Cox's should be the ones to get the money from the deaths of their grandchildren. They lost their daughter and their grandchildren to this sick, sick family.
Who has that much life insurance on a brother and nephews? Did he know the brother was going to do the murder/suicide? There's more to this story, and I'm sure it's all bad.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the little boys were murdered, it was so sad, can't imagine how devastated the grandparents were.
ReplyDeleteThank God, I'm not related. This family is NUTS...Thanks God, for the family you placed me with. I will never speak badly of my immediate family again. Dysfunctional is the new NORMAL:-)
ReplyDeleteI'll take dysfunctional over Bat Shit Crazy anyday...
I feel kind of sorry for this guy. Yeah having a lawsuit is complete BS, but this guy probably didn't stand a chance of a normal life. He might have gone into cognitive as a chance to get better, or at least he knew something was very wrong. I didn't know it was debunked.
ReplyDeleteHe could have killed himself to stop from doing others harm. We'll never know if he was being noble.
I still remember hearing about the boys. Chilling that they would be killed as they were. And, as far as I'm convinced, proof positive that Josh was absolutely involved in his wife's murder. Wrongfully accused people don't take a hatchet to their sons. Cold-blooded killers do.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum when they don't get to eat dessert. Those little boys didn't deserve such a shitty family.
ReplyDeletePoor children. They are the only ones who we can say are innocent. Rest in peace, babies.
ReplyDeleteNow I just wish that skeevy ass Josh Powell's dad would kill himself. My heart breaks for those two lil' boys and, what they went through in their last moments of life. I really hope there is a hell. And yes Mormons are weird but usually not that weird
ReplyDeletethere are some days when i read the posts and have to wonder if i am still at work. @Barton thanks for the thoughtful comments as usual. CBT has been the go to therapy for many years now and i have never felt like it is the magic that people want to believe it is.
ReplyDeleteand again, those poor kids. what a horrific way to die.
Maybe he was afraid that he would wind up being a wife killing baby murderer like his brother.
ReplyDeleteBeing noble? How is that even a possibility?
ReplyDeleteThere was a large family I knew growing up - Mormon as well - where the father abused all of the boys. Some of the boys turned into psycho predators like their dad. One of them was a friend of mine, who lost his sanity and then stalked me for over 25 years. He died last year, and I was relieved that I never had to worry about him again.
ReplyDeleteIn this family's case, the fact that they were Mormons allowed the father to molest and torture his sons because he was the religious leader of their family.
I want to stress that I think there are good and bad people in every religion. The bad ones use their religion to further their sick agenda and get away with it.
It was his brother that took out the insurance for himself and his 2 sons. The brother changed the beneficiary from his wife to this brother before he murdered his children and himself.
ReplyDeleteNo Susan Powell took that life insurance out on her kids and paid most of it before she was murdered.. Then Josh changed it to his brother a few days before he murdered his kis.. The grandparents fought it in court saying since Susan paid most of it that it should not go to that family and they won.
ReplyDelete