Man blows up house with his two children inside after wife mysteriously disappears

Mum-of-two Susan Powell mysteriously vanished without a trace from her home in Utah during a snow storm in 2009.

But what happened in the months that followed, and the evidence that emerged surrounding her husband and her father-in-law, brought a twist to the case no one was expecting, and ultimately lead to the death of her two sons.

Susan and her partner Josh had a whirlwind romance, getting an engaged just six months after meeting in April 2001, when she was 20 and he was 25.

Not long later, they welcomed their two young sons, Charlie and Braden.

At the time, friends thought of Josh as ‘the ideal husband’, but it didn’t take long for his true nature to emerge.

Josh’s ‘obsessions’ and ‘odd’ traits were revealed, with those close to him claiming how he’d skip from topic to topic like gardening or politics, pouring over each.

‘He needed to be seen as an authority in that subject,’ a forensic psychologist notes in a new episode of Deadliest Families.

But despite how in love with his wife Josh appeared to be, things began to change when Susan revealed fights and arguments they’d had, over finances and the strains on their relationship.

And when she suddenly disappeared, all suspicions turned on him.

Police were notified of the whole family not answering the door during a snowstorm by Josh’s mum, who was concerned that there were no tyre tracks emerging from the house, the doors were locked and windows covered, and she was unaware of the family’s plans to go anywhere.

There was no sign of the children, and the family’s minivan was missing, leaving patrol officers so concerned they called in a detective, but as evidence emerged, it was clear this couldn’t have been a planned trip.

Inside the house, rather suspiciously, her purse had been left with her wallet, credit card, and keys left behind in the house, and bizarrely, a carpet cleaner was left out.

A routine welfare check had suddenly turned into four missing persons investigations.

After nine hours missing, Josh finally answered his phone and gave the first version of his story: that Susan had gone to bed and he had left with his children at midnight to go camping, in a snowstorm. He also claimed that the carpet cleaner was left out because Susan had asked him to steam clean their sofas.

At the time, Josh was urged to come home, with a detective commenting on how ‘a lot of red flags’ were being displayed, but there was no evidence pinning Josh down for kidnapping or murder.

But things took a darker turn when police found a note written by Susan buried in the house. It read: ‘If I die, it may not be an accident even if it looks like one.’

Then, blood droplets were found next to one of the sofas that had been cleaned.

24 hours after she was recorded missing, Josh was interviewed again by the police, where he continued to insist he didn’t know where she was, and said he didn’t consider himself a suspect.

Police also searched the area where Josh claimed to have taken their children camping, but they were left ‘frustrated’ when they were unable to find the remains of a fire he claimed to have sparked beside the road.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people had started holding vigils in Susan’s honour – though Josh prevented his sons interacting with the mourners.

Two weeks following her disappearance, Josh moved to live with his father in Washington, but bizarrely didn’t check in with the police for updates on his wife, as they continued searching in abandoned mines.

And it was then that stories about Susan’s father-in-law emerged, leaving police shocked.

He was ‘weirdly’ revealed to have had an infatuation with Susan, inappropriately claiming he was in love with her. It was then discovered that he had been around at the time of Susan’s disappearance.

His disturbing behaviour had been reported to friends, who claimed Susan said that her father-in-law, Steven, tried to reach up her dress.

A friend even recalls Susan telling her that Steven would film her, and that he once shockingly put a mirror under the bathroom door while she was inside.

He’s ‘an evil sick pervert, the devil incarnate,’ she said.

But what police found next was far more disturbing than they could have ever thought.

After searching Steven’s house, there was evidence of Susan’s hair, hygiene products, her underwear and her nail clippings, as well as a picture of all these items spread out on his bed. He had even recorded himself masturbating to those products and her images, and was said to have filmed himself doing so.

In one clip, he tells the camera that he’s had ‘the most erotic experience of his life’, and described massaging Susan’s feet to ‘give her stimulation’.

But the infatuation was clearly one-sided, as another recording reveals Susan telling Steven, after he said he was ‘aroused’, that she ‘should just be the daughter-in-law’.

Eventually, police found numerous videos Steven had been taking of women and girls over the last decade, recording young children in a bathroom through the window of neighbouring houses.

He was arrested on manufacturing child pornography and convicted of 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography.

But despite the charges, police were insistent that Steve would not have killed Susan, simply because he was so in love with her.

As more details about Josh’s father emerged, long-forgotten files of Steve’s divorce are discovered, painting a ‘really troubling picture’ of Josh’s childhood.

One story recalls Josh chasing his mum around the house with a knife, and another of him killing his sister’s pet gerbil and forcing her to touch its blood.

By September 2011, Susan’s parents had been appointed as temporary foster-parents to Charlie and Braden, but Josh was attempting to get custody and, after his devices were found to have child pornography images on them in another shocking twist in the case, he was made to go through a psycho-sexual evaluation before being united with htem.

In February 2012, he requested visitation with his children, but when the supervisor brought them to him, he slammed the door before she could follow in.

Horrified clips then reveal the terrified supervisor calling emergency services, saying she could smell gasoline. And i front of her eyes, the entire house blew up, with the two children and Josh inside.

All three died, with little remains or evidence able to be recovered, and investigators later learned that Josh not only blew up the house, but before doing so, bludgeoned his two sons with a hatchet and doused them in gasoline.

In the weeks and months that followed, Susan’s grieving parents filed a lawsuit against the state of Washington, saying the social workers were negligent by allowing the visitations to take place. They were awarded $98million in damages, and have now established a foundation in Susan’s name to help victims of domestic abuse safely escape their abusers.

Police weren’t able to ever find Susan’s body and were left speculating what could have happened. Had she been suffocated and coughed leaving the droplets of blood in their home? Had he been angered if she said she wanted a divorce As the mystery remains shrouded in doubt, volunteer forces continue the search for her body.

Deadliest Families airs Saturdays at 9pm on Quest Red, also available to stream on discovery+

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