First, Susan Powell went missing in Utah late in 2009. Her husband Josh was a suspect in possible foul play. He claimed to be innocent. He said he'd come home with their two young sons from a camping trip and she was just gone.
This is such a common lie behind which fatal spouses hide that it was difficult to believe -- especially when there was no evidence of a camping trip. There was also a damp spot on a carpet in the home.
Investigators decided to wait and see. However, leads were scarce. One son mentioned something about his mother being in the trunk of a van and not coming back, but he was just three years old and no one knew what this meant.
Powell quickly resettled in his hometown near Seattle. Due to issues with computer content and child porn in his father's home, Powell lost custody of his children to Susan's parents, living nearby. He had tried, and recently failed, to get them back.
When a social worker took the boys, now 5 and 7, to Powell's home for a supervised visit on February 5, Powell was waiting. He'd already taken the boys' toys to Goodwill. He locked the social worker out, attacked his sons, and lit the house on fire.
After it exploded into an accelerant-fueled fireball, the bodies were recovered. Autopsy reports showed that Powell had used a hatchet on his sons, but they had died from smoke inhalation. It was clear from evidence gathered afterward that Powell had carefully planned the murder-suicide.
Many people wonder why Powell didn't just kill himself and let his boys live. He claimed in a final message that he could not live without his sons, but this does not account for his impulse to commit familicide.
Perhaps he didn't want possible confirmation that he was involved in his wife's disappearance, so he eliminated potential witnesses. Or perhaps he could not bear to lose his fight over custody with Susan's parents. It might also have been due to the threat of losing control.
Men who have killed their wives and children share traits in common. Most are white males in their 30s or 40s who react badly to stress and who view their families as extensions of themselves. They typically use a firearm or knife that they have owned for some time. Often they're depressed or intoxicated, or both.
Invariably, they're described as controlling. They ruminate at length over just what they want to do, and they gather whatever they need to achieve it. Although mothers kill more children overall than fathers, when it comes to wiping out the entire family, fathers lead the way.
Experts on the subject of family massacres offer a list of reasons why men might eliminate their families. These motives range from losing control over the family circumstances, with its accompanying panic over a lack of power, to seeing only adverse circumstances ahead for him or for them. Such men feel overwhelmed, and they cannot bear to let their families live while they die.
A few fatal fathers have believed that the murders were a necessary sacrifice, or that their children could not survive without them. In some instances, we find men killing children to get revenge against an estranged wife. Several fathers have even wiped out their families to liberate themselves.
These incidents generally occur after a build-up of anger and frustration, which undermines their fragile sense of self. Despite Powell's claim that he was strong and resilient, his actions tell a different story. A sense of failure can overwhelm certain men, especially those who cannot tolerate humiliation. Perceiving no clear way to relieve their stress, they let psychological steam build until it explodes into violence.
It's not an option for them to allow a part of themselves to continue, so children may become collateral damage. This way, they can be certain that they have exercised the ultimate form of control.
