Comments about ‘Unspeakably tragic: Josh Powell, Susan Cox Powell’

The tragedy is the incompetence of the "investigation". Public frustration was warranted with WVC police's claim of insufficient evidence, followed by their two mind boggling media stunts in Eastern Nevada and at Topaz Mountain. Those two children would have been protected had the investigation been handled properly and Josh brought to Justice.

Instead, the public can now only worry that any future major crime within that city will be handled just as poorly.

Perhaps Josh was ruined by his own sick father. Josh turned out to be every parent's worse nightmare for their daughter.

Where do we go from here? How do we learn from this?

If Josh Powell sent an e-mail to his attorney can we see the e-mail?

MapleDon,

So... when there isn't enough evidence to reasonably convict someone of a crime, it's automatically the police departments fault? That's a complete rejection of reason.

So many spout how they 'knew he killed Susan' and so on. I have news for you. Logically what I'm about to say is infallible and could withstand any argument. Are you ready for this? We DO NOT know anything, not even if Susan is dead. Yes, the odds are high. We've all seen odds be wrong, even in similar cases. Could the court prosecute a guy with as little evidence as they had? No. We still practice 'innocent until proven guilty' for good reason. For more than a 1000 years a different system existed, and history shows us it didn't go too well- where even more people died.

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Everyone spouts how "they knew" and it's completely false. The explosion doesn't say anything about Susan's disappearance. I'm not even defending Josh here, nor would I. But the hatred on these comment sections shows that the people are blind to reason.

This is a sad time, not a time to ridicule EITHER family or ANY state's law enforcement. Just mourn. I wish the D.N. would reconsider some of these comments.

How can anyone be shocked by this?

If you box an animal into a corner, you can expect it to lash out and bite. The court of public opinion boxed Josh into a corner. What killed those kids? An internet-hungry public hooked on instant information demanding to know every detail of a case before it went to trial.

Moderate,

Josh killed the two boys. He, their father, is 100% responsible for his own actions. Neither you nor anyone else can blame anyone else for YOUR actions in life. Each of us is responsible for our thoughts, our desires, our anger, our pride. No one makes us "lash out and bite". Doing that would be our own choice.

If he'd killed only himself, then blame the public and cyber bullying. But he planned and executed on cold blood his own two sons. There was no enough proof about Susan being dead or alive. That was the big problem. Justice can prosecute somebody without a body or very strong proof she was dead. Everything they found was circunstancial. Teenagers had taken their own lives because bullying but they don't take little brother or sister or parents with them. And the selfish act of all: not only he took his kids with him, he didn't leave any clue about Susan's final place. Not even a letter saying I didn't do it. Nothing. His hate was that big and blind.

Moderate

He should've just killed himself if that were the case. Nothing justifies the murder of his 2 boys regardless of what might have happened.

Mike Richards"Josh killed the two boys." No doubt.

My point was, you cannot be shocked that he did so. A suicidal parent often takes their children with them.

The Motive in summary;
If I can't have the boys, then nobody will have them.

The End.

Sad.

Throughout most of our lifetimes, we have read about cases where a body was never found. We have read about the #1 suspect in such a case, being convicted of a murder due to evidence that was introduced in the courts. The #1 suspect was convicted of the murder, sentenced, and sent to prison.
Now, we are anxiously hoping information will be released by the West Valley Police concerning evidence collected in the Powell case.
We need to understand why the above scenario did not take place.

There is no way the police, the media, or the public is in any way responsible for Josh's horrific crime of murdering his own children.

For the most part, we've been asking/begging Josh to cooperate and address some very sensitive questions. Some may even be a little incriminating, but history says we must rule out the husband first. Husbands go through the wringer during the first few days of their wives disappearance. Even in the movies.

Either Josh's insecurity or Josh's guilt is responsible for the murder of Susan's kids.

@ Voice of Reason

So how many years have you been on the force?

@Maple Don

A Voice of Reason was correct. Many people suspected Josh in the disappearance of his wife. I do not KNOW what he did. I do believe that he was guilty in her disappearance. I believe his behavior yesterday showed he was capable of tremendous acts of violence. I mourn for the friends and family that are left behind to cope with this tragic turn of events.

I wish the justice system was effective in preventing this type of situation from occurring. It's not. It never will be without the loss of our constitutional rights.

We have the best system around, but it is flawed because we are flawed. I don't know how long Voice of Reason has been on the police force, if ever, but I have been an American all my life. I am proud of my country and the laws that protect us, even those accused or suspected of committing criminal acts. Without these constitutional protections, the government would run out of control and become oppressive to all citizens.

Despite what many think, we are sitting in a good place. One change I would like to see would be term-limits for all public offices. Too much power in one place or person is a bad thing.

That being said, I pray for the friends and family left behind in this unavoidable tragedy. If anyone says that they saw this coming, I have my doubts. Josh may have been suspected of hurting another, but no one ever reported that he showed signs of hurting his kids.

It's hard to feel sympathy for Josh's relatives when they have defended him, and some are continuing to blame others for his actions.

It appears that the grandparents were pumping the boys for information AND prepping them against their father.

MapleDon,

I have never been in any police department, nor anything similar. I am not even trying to defend the police, the Powells, the Coxes, or anyone else. I'm only arguing my view because everyone seems to think they know how things should be done, while their comments are only reactionary to this case and not very considerate of the law and how it best protects everyone else.

Did anyone aside from God and Josh Powell know his plans? Did we? No. With that in mind, could the police have prevented this? No. Should all 'suspects' face as much scrutiny from the courts as Josh Powell did, if not more scrutiny (as some are arguing)? Absolutely not! If we 'tighten the system' to prevent this, it will only cause more problems, imo. Prevention is best taught through teaching moral values, not through force. What we learn from this is to teach people to avoid the evils that prompted this, to teach them good values, family first, etc. Yet oddly such values are attacked on here more than anything else. Either way, this is my motivation for commenting- not my employment.

Another Thought...: "Many people suspected Josh in the disappearance of his wife."

That's because they were having marital problems plus, he refused to cooperate with law enforcement. My gosh, if your wife mysteriously disappears you should be not only willing by anxious to cooperate.

Another Thought...: "I wish the justice system was effective in preventing this type of situation from occurring. It's not."

The justice system and child protection agency have a responsibility to protect children. A suspected killer (and Josh was a person of interest, i.e., suspected killer) should not be seeing his children without child protection agency securing the environment in which the visit is to take place. This would seem to be step one in their assigned responsibility.

Another Thought...: "Josh may have been suspected of hurting another, but no one ever reported that he showed signs of hurting his kids."

If he can hurt (murdered) his wife, he can hurt his kids.

wrz,

Your anxious argument (a common one debated) is invalid.

Assume Josh didn't kill Susan (or have involvement). If this were true and the police were questioning him inappropriately, or he had previous negative experiences with law, or anything else- there are plausible reasons for his being restrictive that would include innocence. While I personally agree that in most cases one should be more than cooperative, innocent persons in history have been unreasonably treated by the law- enough to even warrant non-cooperation.

Your suspect argument is also invalid. It sets a dangerous precedent of invading rights. Being a "suspect" does NOT mean 'proven guilty' or even that there is strong evidence. If we took custody away from every "suspect" in history, this world would be a far darker place than it is today. The burden of proof is on the prosecution for a reason, pre-'innocent until proven guilty' things were MUCH worse.

And your last claim assumes he killed Susan. There isn't enough evidence of this. There isn't even proof that she isn't alive.

A voice of Reason:

"Your anxious argument (a common one debated) is invalid."

Arguments based on opinions and assumptions (as mine are) are never invalid. They are opinions and assumptions.

"...there are plausible reasons for his being restrictive that would include innocence."

There are more plausible reasons of his conduct that would indicate guilt. Someone who suddenly finds his wife missing, whom he insists he loves and adores, and who refuses to cooperate with the police to find her on almost all issues, shows a high degree of guilt as to the cause of her disappearance. And someone who will drag his babies out at midnight in the middle of the winter to go camping in the desert is either guilty of some misconduct or just plain nuts.

"If we took custody away from every 'suspect' in history, this world would be a far darker place than it is today."

If you're speaking of child custody, there is ample reason for removing the children such as child porn on a computer in the home.

"And your last claim assumes he killed Susan. There isn't enough evidence of this. There isn't even proof that she isn't alive."

One hundred percent proof is not required for making assumptions.