Comments about ‘Could Washington have done more to protect Powell boys?’

Washington is a very liberal state allowing children to be in that type of environment for 2 years when the father is and has been a person of interest. At least, they arrested the children's grandfather who took the hit for the pornography. If Josh had that type of trash on his computer in Utah, it wouldn't be surprising to find it in Washington.

If a psychosexual evaluation was mandated for him to have the children, why did the judge and child protection services allow Josh to have even a supervised visitation? He should not have had visitation, even supervised until the evaluation was completed, whenever that was. Josh must have planned this for awhile. What a sad day for the family, is right.

The only person to blame here is Josh Powell. He has just proven his guilt.

We might also ask whether West Valley City police could have done more. I think both the State of Washington and the West Valley City police department were doing their best to balance Josh Powell's constitutional rights against the actionable information they had. Any time you allow someone to exercise their free agency, there's a chance they'll do something sinister and catastrophic. Most of the time, they don't. Ultimately, the blame in this situation rests squarely on Josh Powell's cowardly shoulders.

JWB

Yea right.
It must be a result of WA being a "blue" state that this tragedy happened. Please explain why UT allowed Josh to remove the boys from the state?

It actually seems like the authorities were doing the best they could under the circumstances. People, even muderers, have legal rights under the law, innocent until proven guilty. If they didn't have evidence to bring charges or to show Josh was a danger to his kids, supervised visitation was appropriate. I know here sometimes the supervised visit happens at home, sometimes at a neutral site.

Actually the harm inflicted was not sexual, that we know of. He killed them.

You need to have proof they are in immediate danger. And the type of danger dictates the level of contact. And if there was a chance of him getting custody contact is necessary.

Least the SW was spared. Think if this was a public place it would have gone down similarly with more people dead. He had no regard for human life.

Sometimes we just can't prevent everyone from doing something horrible.

Children have rights but don't have the ability to do anything about it in most cases. These were not adults nor even very old children. People knew that Josh was not handling these children normally nor was he able to do that. Friends knew similar things about the family. If the mother, Susan, expressed problems with her relationship, then these children were definitely at risk for 2 years.

Washington VS Josh Powell

Josh's actions are his responsibility alone and he will be held accountable to them. The state of Washington is not responsible in the slightest for the deaths of the children or even Josh really. Yes, one could push for stricter visitation rules, but this could actually cause more problems. I disfavor the questioning "what could have been done differently?" as this implies that evil can be removed from existence. While we should try to prevent such horrible acts, we can't prevent others from choosing to start these things in the first place. That's the real problem. Rather than focusing on better policies regarding visitation, I'd rather see more people focus on strengthening families. I think this is more effective.

Pretending we could have stopped him or even know his motives does nothing fruitful. We don't know why he did this, or if he even killed Susan. Most these assuming comments are illogical. The only thing we can really do is try to convince as many people to do the right thing as we can.

"Could Washington have done more to protect Powell boys?"

Ya, they should have sent Josh to Utah to go to jail for killing their mother,
but Utah couldn't build a case against him.

Why is Utah blaming Washington State for this?

Didn't the kids stay with Josh the ENTIRE time he was under investigation for murder of their mother when he was here?

Washington State turned the children over to the care and custody of their Grandparents...NOT Utah.

If any STATE is to blame for this tradgedy, it should be UTAH -- who couldn't even put a murderer behind bars where he belonged in the first place.

Josh knew that he could not pass a bank of polygraph tests so he has the lapse of caseworker to his advantage. He killed his two sons in that sad event.

Excuse me...the better question should be "Could the WV Police have saved the lives of the two boys if THEY did their job better!". They have had over two years to do their job and to have Josh Powell behind bars; hence saving the lives of these two innocent sweet boys.

The grandfathers arrest was the reason that josh lost the boys. WVC police had no proof that he had done anything wrong.

Base on the article, it does raise a concern about the belated West Valley City Police Department forwarding of what might have been crucial, relevant information based on 2009 evidence to the psychologist who was ordered to conduct a psychological evaluation back in October 2011 and which was completed prior to the receipt of the West Valley City Police Departments findings and the more recent court ordered psycho-sexual evaluation.

No one to blame, but Josh alone, it is not fair to blame the system. Josh physically barred the social worker from getting in, he had planned this and he committed pre-meditated murder to his own little boys and his wife, no doubt. Here are some of Josh's words, "No child wants to be taken from their parents and it is not reasonable to continue this process," he wrote in a court declaration last Wednesday. "At this point, it is only by bending and breaking the rules that anyone even tries to keep it going." Josh, your children have been taken from you for good, where they are, you can not be, and Josh, you will never find peace, what you have done is pure evil. Your boys are lucky about one thing, they no longer have to be around you for six hours a week, but they will be with their loved ones for eternity.

Well, yes. Probably. However, neither the police in West Valley nor the police in Graham had or have any solid physical factual evidence that Josh Powell, or his father for that matter, killed Susan Powell. It is hard to picture anyone having the capability of that sort of cruel destructive violence -- until it goes off and happens.

I've followed this sad story for the past 2 years, and my greatest concern has been for those 2 little boys. I have 6 sons myself, and 3 daughters. Children are priceless. If you watch the TV news reports of the past few weeks, and especially since the recent custody hearing, and just look at Josh's face, you can see a look of desperation and defeat in his eyes. Other than in photographs, I don't recall seeing Josh smile in any of the news reports I've seen. I think he just felt that he's reached the end of his rope, and didn't want to deal with it any more. Unfortunately, he also didn't want anyone else to have his little boys, so he took them with him. The only comfort in this is knowing that those children are with Heavenly Father now, and with their mother, as I'm pretty sure she is no longer here. A happy reunion for them, at least. Sadness for those left to deal with this awful thing.

Yeah thats it, its because its a "liberal state".... JWB You should be ashamed you said this. Those poor children.

Yeah, they could have done more to protect the kids... the courts can always do more to trample the rights of everyone.

Ask yourself these questions: What if your kids were taken away for no reason? What if you were made to take some SUBJECTIVE test that VIOLATED your rights in order to get them back? What if you were already convicted in the eyes of your in-laws, cops and press? Would you cooperate with those people? What if you were hounded everywhere you went, when there was NO DIRECT EVIDENCE that you were involved in a crime? What if you were pushed into a corner and made to feel there was no way out? Would you be rational and unaffected?

Yeah, I personally believe Josh Powell killed his wife. I also believe he was smarter then the cops from start to finish. The SYSTEM, when unable to make justice happen, found another avenue to usurp the rights of someone they couldn't convict. If there was any evidence, in any of the crimes he was accused of, he would have been in jail. He was never arrested in connection with any of these crimes!

Don't delude yourself, you are going to hear all these people come out with all their "hearsay" evidence about what did or didn't happen in this case. The fact is the cops had no evidence to arrest or hold Josh Powell on or he would have been in jail; none of this having happened. In fact, if the system hadn't taken away his kids for no reason, they would still be alive today. What everyone wanted was a Witch hunt and they got one, one in which they couldn't control the outcome.

Courts are not the only ones that deal with children's cases. Child and Protective services in both Washington and Utah could have done more. It is not just a police problem. Children have rights and those little kids were left to Josh's devisiveness. He was good at manipulation and friends and neighbors saw that in him for years. Josh took the kids out of Utah almost immediately to keep people from really being able to talk to them without his direct hindering the investigation. It is like Elizabeth Smart's sister remembering, eventually who Emmanuel was. It takes time and she finally remembered. These kids always had their dad around. No one was allowed to talk with the kids, under court type order, not even the grandparents. Josh was able to tie everyone's hands and mouth. Unfortunately, the children have died. Their father died many years ago and as some say, his narcisism has gone with him. Josh's father, of similar nature will hopefully talk as he knows more, now than anyone about what happened in December 2009.

This is unfortunately a typical result once government gets involved. The father should have been in jail two years ago. There is little doubt that he is responsible for his wife's disappearance. Government in Utah and Washington seemed to care more about making sure these children did not attend LDS Sunday services than in doing what was best for everyone. It is a terrible event that could have been avoided.

erpiii: They took the kids because of what Joshs father did.