The last person to see Susan Powell alive was her neighbor.
It was December 6, 2009—a cold Sunday evening in West Valley City, Utah. The neighbor had come over for pancakes with the Powell family, staying until around five o’clock. As she left, Susan mentioned she was going to lie down for a nap. The house was warm. The boys—Charlie, four years old, and Braden, just two—were playing nearby. Everything seemed ordinary.
But Susan Powell would never wake up from that nap. Not in the way anyone hoped.
By the next morning, she was gone. Her purse sat untouched on the counter. Her keys, her wallet, her identification—all of it still inside. Her cell phone, which she’d used to call a friend at 2:29 that afternoon, was nowhere to be found. And her husband, Josh Powell, had a story that made no sense at all.
He said he’d taken their two toddlers camping. In the middle of a December night. In a blizzard. At midnight.
This is the story of a woman who knew she was in danger. A woman who left behind a letter, a warning, and a love so fierce it would outlive her disappearance. This is the story of Susan Powell—and the truth she tried so desperately to protect.
A Love That Started With Hope
Susan Marie Cox was born on October 16, 1981, into a devout Latter-day Saint family. She grew up with dreams that weren’t unusual for a young woman of her time—marriage, motherhood, a stable career, and a home filled with love. She trained as a cosmetologist, but her ambitions stretched further. By the time she met Joshua Powell, she was working her way into the financial world, eventually landing a position at Wells Fargo Investments.
Josh Powell seemed like a good match at first. They met in November 2000 at a church Institute of Religion class in Tacoma, Washington, during a dinner party at his apartment. He was studying business at the University of Washington. She was young—just nineteen when they got engaged—and hopeful.
“At the very beginning they were, you know, happy, holding hands, hugging, kissing each other,” Susan’s sister, Denise Cox, later recalled. “You thought they were a perfect couple, a very happy couple”.
They married in April 2001 at the Portland Oregon Temple. For a while, it seemed like the life Susan had dreamed of was unfolding just as it should. Josh earned his degree. Susan built her career. And in 2005, their first son, Charles, was born. Two years later, in 2007, came Braden.
But beneath the surface, something dark was growing.
The Father-in-Law Who Watched Too Closely
After their wedding, Josh and Susan lived briefly with Josh’s father, Steven Powell, in South Hill, Washington. It was supposed to be temporary—a way to save money while they got on their feet. But it became a nightmare Susan would never fully escape.
Steven Powell was obsessed with his daughter-in-law. He followed her around the house with a camcorder. He used a small mirror to spy on her in the bathroom. He stole her underwear from the laundry. He read her private journals and posted love songs online under a fake name, dedicating them to her.
In 2003, Steven confessed his “amorous feelings” to Susan. She rejected him. The encounter was accidentally recorded on Steven’s own camcorder, a chilling piece of evidence that would later surface in court documents.
Susan was horrified. She wanted out. And partly because of Steven’s behavior, the couple moved to Utah—far away from Washington, far away from the man who wouldn’t stop watching.
But the damage had already been done. Josh had grown up in a deeply dysfunctional household, shaped by Steven’s abusive behavior and toxic worldview. And as the years went on, Susan began to see those same patterns in her own husband.
The Woman Who Knew She Was Running Out of Time
By 2008, Susan Powell’s marriage was unraveling. Friends and family noticed the change. She confided in them about Josh’s controlling behavior—how he monitored her movements, questioned her decisions, and made her feel trapped.
She talked about divorce. She told loved ones that if things didn’t improve by their wedding anniversary in April, she would leave.
But Josh had made his position clear. According to family acquaintances who later spoke to police, Josh had threatened Susan. He told her he would “destroy her” if she tried to divorce him. He said her children would not have a mother and father.
And in conversations that would later chill investigators to the bone, Josh had talked—more than once—about how to kill someone and dispose of a body without getting caught.
Susan knew she was in danger. And so, on June 28, 2008, she did something remarkable. She sat down and wrote a letter. She titled it: “Last Will and Testament for Susan Powell”.
The letter was handwritten. It was folded, stapled, and placed in a safe deposit box at a bank in Salt Lake City—somewhere Josh would never find it. In it, Susan detailed the “extreme marital stress” she was under. She wrote about Josh’s threats. She wrote about her fears.
And then she wrote the words that would later break the hearts of everyone who read them:
“If I die, it may not be an accident—even if it looks like one”.
She addressed her sons directly: “I would never leave you”.
It was a promise. A plea. A warning.
Susan Powell knew what was coming. She just didn’t know when.
The Night Everything Changed
Sunday, December 6, 2009, began like any other weekend day for the Powell family. Susan took Charlie and Braden to church services at their local ward that morning. She walked home with a friend, Kiirsi Hellewell. That afternoon, the neighbor came over for pancakes.
Susan’s last known phone call was at 2:29 p.m. She spoke with a friend. The conversation was unremarkable.
At 5:00 p.m., the neighbor left. Susan said she was going to take a nap. It was the last time anyone outside the Powell household saw her alive.
What happened next depends entirely on who you ask.
According to Josh Powell, he decided—at around 12:30 a.m., in the middle of the night—to take his two toddlers camping in the West Desert of Utah. He claimed Susan stayed home, saying she didn’t want to go because she had to work the next day.
But there was a blizzard that night. Temperatures dropped below freezing. And Josh said he’d driven his two young sons—one of them still in diapers—out into the freezing wilderness in the middle of the night to go “sledding” and look at “rocks”.
When he returned home the next day, around 5:00 p.m., Susan was gone.
The Alibi That Made No Sense
Josh Powell’s story fell apart almost immediately.
Susan’s employer, Wells Fargo Investments, confirmed that she never showed up for work on Monday, December 7. She was a no-call, no-show—completely out of character for a woman who was known for her professionalism and reliability.
Her car was still in the driveway. Her purse was inside the house, untouched. Her identification, her credit cards, her money—all of it was there.
But her cell phone was missing. Police would later find it in Josh’s car, along with a generator, blankets, a gas can, tarps, and a shovel.
When police arrived at the Powell home, they found two large fans blowing in the living room, aimed directly at a sofa. Josh claimed Susan had told him to clean the couch before she disappeared.
Later, forensic analysts would discover why. The tile floor near the couch tested positive for Susan’s blood.
Josh’s behavior grew stranger by the hour. He rented a car at Salt Lake City International Airport on the evening of December 8, just two days after Susan vanished. His whereabouts for the next eighteen hours remain unknown. When he finally resurfaced on December 9, he called his mother from a new phone while driving on Interstate 84.
Police later discovered that Josh had put an additional 807 miles on the rental car’s odometer.
Where had he gone? What had he been doing? To this day, no one knows.
The Boys Who Remembered
In the weeks and months after Susan’s disappearance, her sons began to speak. And what they said was devastating.
Charlie, the older boy, confirmed his father’s camping trip story—but with one critical difference. He said Susan had gone with them.
“Mommy was in the trunk,” Charlie told his daycare provider.
Weeks later, a teacher reported that Charlie had said his mother was dead.
Several months after Susan vanished, Braden drew a picture as part of a school assignment. It showed a van with three people: his father driving, him and his brother in the back seat, and their mother in the trunk.
When asked why his mother was in the trunk, Charlie said he didn’t know. He said his parents had gotten out of the van. “And she got lost,” he told investigators.
The boys were only four and two years old when their mother disappeared. But they remembered something. Something their father desperately wanted to stay buried.
The Search That Never Found Her
Police named Josh Powell a person of interest on December 16, 2009—just ten days after Susan vanished. But naming him and proving his guilt were two very different things.
Without a body, there was no murder charge. Without a confession, there was no closure. And Josh wasn’t talking.
Investigators searched the West Desert, the mines near Ely, Nevada, and the abandoned shafts where Josh might have hidden Susan’s remains. In September 2011, they found human remains near Topaz Mountain—but the bones weren’t Susan’s.
In January 2010, Josh packed up and moved back to Washington, taking the boys with him. He moved in with his father, Steven—the same man who had terrorized Susan years earlier.
Susan’s family was horrified. They fought in court for custody of Charlie and Braden, arguing that the boys were not safe with Josh.
The courts disagreed. Josh retained custody. The boys were ordered to visit their father under supervised conditions.
It was a decision that would end in unimaginable tragedy.
The Letter That Told the Truth
On December 15, 2009—nine days after Susan disappeared—investigators opened the safe deposit box she had rented in secret.
Inside, they found her letter. Her warning. Her will.
It was all there, written in her own hand: the threats, the fear, the knowledge that if something happened to her, it wouldn’t be an accident.
She had tried to protect herself. She had left a trail of breadcrumbs—emails to friends detailing Josh’s behavior, confessions of her fear, plans to leave if things didn’t change.
But it wasn’t enough to save her.
The Father Who Chose Destruction
By early 2012, the walls were closing in on Josh Powell. His father, Steven, had been arrested in August 2011 on charges of voyeurism and possession of child pornography—images he had secretly recorded of Susan years earlier.
Josh was losing control. The courts had ordered him to undergo psychological evaluations. Though the evaluator found him to have “adequate parenting skills,” the custody battle was intensifying.
And then, on February 5, 2012, something snapped.
That morning, a social worker named Elizabeth Griffin Hall brought Charlie and Braden to Josh’s home in South Hill, Washington, for a supervised visit. As the boys ran toward their father, Josh grabbed them and pulled them inside. He slammed the door in the social worker’s face.
Hall immediately called 911. “He won’t let me in the door,” she told the dispatcher. “I can hear something… something’s not right”.
Inside the house, Josh Powell had already made his decision. He attacked his sons with a hatchet. Then he set the house on fire, ensuring no one would survive.
By the time firefighters arrived, the home was engulfed in flames. Charlie, age seven, and Braden, age five, were pronounced dead. So was their father.
Susan’s boys—the children she had written to, the ones she promised she would never leave—were gone.
The Case That Remains Unsolved
On May 19, 2013, the West Valley City Police Department officially closed the active investigation into Susan Powell’s disappearance. They declared Josh Powell the only suspect. They believed Susan had been murdered. But without a body, without a confession, without Josh alive to face trial, there would be no justice.
Susan’s remains have never been found.
Her family continues to search. They have created a nonprofit organization in her name, dedicated to helping families of missing persons and raising awareness about domestic violence.
Because Susan’s story is not just a mystery. It’s a warning.
The Legacy of a Mother’s Love
In the years since Susan’s disappearance, her story has reached millions. It has been featured on national news programs, true crime documentaries, and podcasts. And it has saved lives.
Friends of Susan have said that her case inspired them to leave abusive relationships. Advocates have pointed to her letter—the one she hid in the safe deposit box—as a model for women who fear for their safety.
Susan Powell’s voice, silenced in December 2009, continues to speak.
Her letter to her sons still echoes: “I would never leave you”.
And she didn’t. Not by choice. Not willingly. Not ever.
Susan Powell was taken. But her love—her fierce, protective, unbreakable love—remains.
The Parents Who Never Stopped Searching
Chuck and Judy Cox never believed Josh Powell’s story. Not for a single day.
They knew their daughter. Susan was responsible, devoted, and deeply committed to her sons. She would never disappear without a word. She would never miss work without calling. And she certainly would never abandon Charlie and Braden.
From the moment Susan was reported missing, the Coxes became warriors in a battle they never wanted to fight.
They searched the West Desert. They combed through abandoned mine shafts. They organized volunteer search parties, posted flyers, and pleaded with the media to keep Susan’s story alive. And they fought—relentlessly—to protect their grandsons from the man they believed had murdered their daughter.
“I felt they had plenty of evidence to arrest him,” Chuck Cox said years later, his voice heavy with frustration. He was talking about the investigators, the system, the agonizing delays that let Josh Powell remain free despite the mounting evidence against him.
Susan’s blood on the floor. The life insurance policies worth $1.5 million. The secret will hidden in the safe deposit box. The bizarre alibi. The rental car with 807 unexplained miles. The fans blowing on the freshly cleaned sofa.
It should have been enough.
But without a body, there was no arrest. And without an arrest, Josh Powell remained in control of Charlie and Braden.
The Coxes couldn’t sleep. They couldn’t rest. Because they knew—deep in their bones—that the same man who had taken their daughter was now raising their grandsons.
The Evidence That Should Have Convicted Him
Investigators didn’t need to guess what happened to Susan Powell. The evidence told the story.
Inside the Powell home, forensic teams found traces of Susan’s blood on the tile floor near the living room sofa—the same sofa Josh claimed he had cleaned before taking the boys on their midnight camping trip. The blood was tested and confirmed to belong to Susan.
In the safe deposit box Susan had secretly rented, investigators found her handwritten will, dated June 28, 2008—more than a year before she disappeared. In it, she wrote that Josh had threatened to “destroy her” if she sought a divorce. She wrote that her children would be left without a mother or father. She wrote that if she died, it might not be an accident—even if it looked like one.
Police also discovered that Josh had taken out life insurance policies on Susan totaling $1.5 million. Just days before her disappearance, he had closed joint bank accounts and made significant financial changes—moves that suggested he was preparing for a future without her.
Then there was the rental car. On December 8, 2009—just two days after Susan vanished—Josh rented a vehicle at Salt Lake City International Airport. He disappeared for eighteen hours. When he finally resurfaced on December 9, he called his mother from a new cell phone while driving on Interstate 84.
Investigators later discovered that Josh had driven that rental car an additional 807 miles beyond what his stated activities would require.
Where did he go? What did he do during those eighteen hours? The answer, investigators believed, lay buried somewhere in the Utah desert.
Josh had once told a friend that if you wanted to hide a body, an abandoned mine shaft was the perfect place. “If you knocked a little [of a shaft] loose,” Josh had said, “it would all come tumbling down and no one would really want to travel down it because they are all so unsafe”.
There are thousands of abandoned mine shafts scattered across Utah’s West Desert.
And Susan Powell has never been found.
The Father-in-Law’s Dark Secrets
In August 2011, nearly two years after Susan’s disappearance, another layer of horror was uncovered.
Steven Powell—Josh’s father, the man who had obsessed over Susan for years—was arrested in Washington on charges of voyeurism and possession of child pornography. The images weren’t just of anyone. They were of Susan.
Steven had secretly recorded Susan in the bathroom, in the bedroom, and around the house during the years she and Josh had lived with him. He had hundreds of images. Thousands of words written about her in journals and online posts, confessing his “amorous feelings” and documenting his obsession.
The discovery was sickening. But it also gave the Cox family the leverage they desperately needed.
Because at the time of Steven’s arrest, Josh and his two sons were living in Steven’s home in Washington. And now, the house where Charlie and Braden were being raised was the site of a criminal investigation involving child pornography.
On September 27, 2011, a Washington judge granted temporary custody of Charlie and Braden to Chuck and Judy Cox. The boys were removed from Josh’s care and placed in the safety of their grandparents’ home.
For the first time in nearly two years, the Coxes could breathe.
Their grandsons were safe. The boys were in counseling. They were going to school. They were beginning to heal.
But the court battle wasn’t over. Josh Powell wanted his sons back. And he was willing to do whatever it took to regain custody—even if it meant destroying everything in his path.
The Supervised Visit That Ended in Fire
By early 2012, Josh Powell had rented a house in South Hill, Washington, and was working to meet the court’s requirements for regaining custody of his sons. He had been ordered to undergo psychological evaluations, submit to polygraph tests, and participate in supervised visitation with Charlie and Braden.
The court-appointed psychologist found that Josh had “adequate parenting skills” but noted concerns about his lack of emotional expression regarding Susan’s disappearance. Still, the legal process moved forward. Josh was granted supervised visits with his sons every Sunday.
Elizabeth Griffin-Hall, a social worker contracted by the state, was assigned to supervise these visits.
On the morning of February 5, 2012, she arrived at Josh’s rental home with Charlie and Braden for their weekly visit. The boys were excited. They ran ahead of her toward the front door.
Josh opened the door. He grabbed the boys by their arms and pulled them inside.
Then he slammed the door in Griffin-Hall’s face.
She knocked. She called out. She tried the handle. The door was locked.
And then she smelled gasoline.
Griffin-Hall immediately called 911.
“I’m on a supervised visit with a client,” she told the dispatcher, her voice shaking. “He won’t let me in the door”.
The dispatcher asked for the address. Griffin-Hall gave it: 8119 189th Street Court East.
“I need someone here now,” she said. “This is Josh Powell. He didn’t get his kids back on Wednesday, and I’m afraid for their lives”.
The dispatcher told her that deputies would respond as soon as they were available. They had to prioritize life-threatening emergencies first.
“This could be life-threatening,” Griffin-Hall pleaded.
But it was already too late.
The Explosion That Took Everything
Inside the house, Josh Powell had already set his plan in motion.
Investigators would later piece together what happened in those final, horrific minutes. Josh attacked his sons with a hatchet, striking them in the head and neck. Then he poured gasoline throughout the house—over the furniture, over the floors, over the bodies of his children.
He lit a match.
The house exploded in flames.
By the time firefighters arrived, the structure was fully engulfed. They could hear the sound of the fire roaring, the walls cracking, the roof beginning to collapse.
They found three bodies inside.
Charlie Powell, seven years old. Braden Powell, five years old. And their father, Josh.
The official cause of death for all three was carbon monoxide poisoning, though the coroner noted that both boys had sustained significant chopping injuries to the head and neck. The hatchet was found near Josh’s body.
Investigators also discovered two five-gallon cans of gasoline on the premises, along with evidence that Josh had deliberately spread accelerant throughout the home before igniting it.
It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a moment of panic. It was premeditated, calculated, and designed to ensure that no one survived.
Josh Powell had made a choice. If he couldn’t have his sons, no one would.
A Grandfather’s Unbearable Grief
Chuck Cox was at home when he received the call.
His grandsons—the boys he had fought so hard to protect, the children he and Judy had cared for, loved, and kept safe—were dead.
“I had them safe,” Chuck said later, his voice breaking. “They were in my care. I don’t know anything else I could have done and they’re still dead. My daughter’s still missing, and now the children are dead”.
It was a pain no grandparent should ever have to endure. The Coxes had already lost their daughter. And now, they had lost the only living pieces of her they had left.
Susan’s sister, Denise Cox-Ernest, spoke to the press in the days after the tragedy. “We have been robbed of three precious lives,” she said, “and it’s just devastating to think the same person did it”.
Because everyone knew the truth. Josh Powell hadn’t just killed his sons. He had killed Susan, too.
And he had taken that knowledge to his grave.
The Case That Closed Without Answers
On May 19, 2013—more than three years after Susan’s disappearance—the West Valley City Police Department officially closed the active investigation into her case.
In a press conference, Chief Buzz Nielsen stated that Josh Powell was the only suspect in Susan’s disappearance and presumed murder. The department had exhausted all leads. They had searched thousands of square miles of desert. They had interviewed hundreds of witnesses. They had analyzed every piece of evidence.
But without a body, there could be no charges. And with Josh Powell dead, there would be no trial.
“This case is solvable,” Nielsen said. “We just haven’t found Susan”.
The Coxes refused to give up.
In the years since the investigation closed, they have continued to organize search efforts, working with volunteers, private investigators, and anyone willing to help. In February 2022—more than twelve years after Susan vanished—a team of searchers descended into a 300-foot-deep abandoned mine shaft in Utah’s West Desert.
The team had reason to believe the mine was connected to Susan’s disappearance. Two members of the search party had discovered the mine shortly after Susan went missing in 2009. At the time, the mine had been in good condition, with a wooden platform and an A-frame structure at the top.
But when they returned just a few months later, they found that someone had burned the structure down.
The timing was suspicious. The location was remote. And Josh Powell had once told a friend that a mine shaft would be the perfect place to hide a body.
The search team spent days pulling debris from the mine, hauling up dozens of 70-gallon drums filled with burnt wood, rocks, and refuse. They found bones—a rib, possibly a collarbone, too large to belong to a small animal. They found scraps of fabric that might have been clothing.
But when the bones were tested, they didn’t belong to Susan.
Chuck Cox stood at the edge of that mine shaft, watching the searchers work, holding onto hope even as it slipped through his fingers.
“We just want to bring her home,” he said.
The Friend Who Turned Grief Into Action
Kiirsi Hellewell met Susan Powell in 2004. They lived just a few houses apart on the same street in West Valley City, Utah. At first, Susan and Josh seemed like the perfect couple—affectionate, close, always holding hands.
But over time, things changed.
Susan confided in Hellewell that she was unhappy in her marriage. Josh was controlling, obsessive, and financially abusive. Susan was the main breadwinner, working full-time at Wells Fargo, but Josh demanded she hand over her paychecks. He would keep most of the money and give her about ten dollars a week to buy food for the family.
Hellewell remembers one occasion when Susan called her, asking if she could have a hot dog to feed her kids dinner.
A single hot dog. That was all she had.
“Josh considered Susan an asset,” Hellewell said years later. “She did all the work around the house, cooked the food, took care of the kids, and worked hard at her job and brought in most of the money. Once she started to stand up to him and take back control, he viewed her as a liability. And in his mind, she had to go”.
After Susan disappeared, Hellewell could have retreated into grief. She could have stayed silent. But she didn’t.
Instead, she turned her pain into purpose.
Hellewell founded the Susan Cox Powell Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families of missing persons and raising awareness about domestic violence. She manages social media accounts in Susan’s name, keeping her story alive and her memory honored.
And over the years, something remarkable has happened.
Women from all over the country—all over the world—have reached out to Hellewell. They’ve told her that Susan’s story saved their lives.
“I had one woman say to me, ‘If I’d stayed two more months, my children and I would both be dead,’” Hellewell recalled. “There are a lot of people who’ve been able to get out because of Susan”.
That is Susan Powell’s legacy. Not just a tragedy. Not just a mystery. But a warning—and a lifeline—for those who recognize the signs of danger before it’s too late.
“In my mind,” Hellewell said, “Susan’s legacy is to help others get out before they become like her”.
The Legal Battle for Justice
Even in death, Josh Powell continued to inflict harm on the Cox family.
After the murder-suicide, Josh’s mother, Terrica Powell, and his sister, Alina, attempted to have Susan declared legally dead so they could collect on the $1.5 million life insurance policies Josh had taken out on her. They argued that they were entitled to the money as Josh’s heirs.
The Coxes fought back.
In March 2015, Chuck Cox won a protracted court battle and gained full control of Susan’s estate. The life insurance money would not go to the family of the man who had murdered her.
But the Coxes weren’t done fighting.
They filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and the social workers involved in the custody case. The lawsuit alleged that the state had prioritized Josh Powell’s parental rights over the safety of Charlie and Braden, and that this failure had directly contributed to their deaths.
The case went to trial. And in 2019, a jury agreed with the Coxes.
They awarded Chuck and Judy Cox $98.5 million in damages—one of the largest wrongful-death verdicts in Washington state history. The award was later reduced by a judge, but the message was clear: the system had failed Susan, Charlie, and Braden Powell.
The Coxes didn’t pursue the lawsuit for money. They pursued it for accountability.
“We wanted people to know that this didn’t have to happen,” Chuck Cox said. “Our grandsons should still be alive”.
The Letter That Still Speaks
More than fifteen years have passed since Susan Powell wrote her last will and testament.
The letter is still preserved as evidence—pages of handwritten words, folded and stapled, hidden away in a safe deposit box where Josh would never find it.
In that letter, Susan did everything she could to protect herself and her children. She documented Josh’s threats. She described the fear she lived with every day. She made it clear that if something happened to her, it wouldn’t be an accident.
And she wrote directly to her sons.
“I would never leave you,” she promised them.
It was a vow she kept. Not because she chose to disappear. But because she was taken—against her will, without a chance to say goodbye, without the ability to protect the two little boys she loved more than anything in the world.
Susan Powell’s letter is now used by domestic violence advocates as a model for at-risk individuals who fear for their safety. Legal experts recommend that anyone in a dangerous relationship create a similar document—detailing threats, documenting behavior, and leaving a written record that could one day speak for them if they can’t speak for themselves.
Susan’s voice, silenced in December 2009, still echoes through that letter.
And it’s saving lives.
The Sons Who Remembered
In the aftermath of Susan’s disappearance, investigators interviewed Charlie and Braden multiple times, hoping the boys could provide clues about what happened to their mother.
Charlie, who was four years old when Susan vanished, confirmed his father’s camping trip story—but with one devastating difference. Unlike Josh, Charlie said that Susan had gone with them.
“Mommy was in the trunk,” Charlie told his daycare provider.
Weeks later, a teacher reported that Charlie had said his mother was dead.
Several months after Susan’s disappearance, Braden—who was only two years old at the time—drew a picture as part of a school activity. The drawing showed a van with three people: his father driving, him and Charlie in the back seat, and their mother in the trunk.
When asked why his mother was in the trunk, Charlie said he didn’t know. He said his parents had gotten out of the van. “And she got lost,” he told investigators.
The boys were too young to fully understand what they had witnessed. But their words—innocent, fragmented, heartbreaking—painted a picture that aligned with investigators’ worst fears.
Susan had gone on that camping trip. She had been in the trunk. And she had never come home.
Charlie and Braden Powell died before they could ever testify about what they saw that night.
But their voices—recorded in police interviews, preserved in drawings, remembered by teachers and caregivers—remain as evidence of the truth their father tried so desperately to bury.
The Woman Who Lives On
Susan Powell would have turned 44 years old in October 2025.
If she were still alive, she would have watched her sons grow up. She would have been there for their first days of school, their soccer games, their birthday parties. She would have taught them to be kind, to be strong, to stand up for what’s right.
But Susan never got that chance.
Instead, her legacy lives on in the ways she tried to protect herself and others. It lives on in the letter she wrote, the emails she sent to friends, the courage she showed in standing up to a man who sought to control her.
It lives on in the foundation that bears her name, the lives that have been saved because someone saw her story and recognized the warning signs in their own relationship.
And it lives on in the hearts of those who loved her—her parents, her siblings, her friends—who refuse to let her be forgotten.
“Susan was an amazing person,” Kiirsi Hellewell said. “She was smart, talented, loving, and strong. And even though she’s gone, she’s still helping people. That’s the kind of person she was”.
The Search That Never Ends
Chuck and Judy Cox are now in their seventies. They have spent more than fifteen years searching for their daughter—walking through deserts, descending into mine shafts, following every lead, no matter how small.
They have faced unimaginable loss. Their daughter is missing. Their grandsons are dead. And the man responsible for all of it took his own life, ensuring he would never be held accountable in a court of law.
But the Coxes refuse to stop searching.
“We just want to bring her home,” Chuck said during one of the many search efforts organized over the years.
Home. That’s all they want. To find Susan. To give her a proper burial. To finally lay her to rest beside her sons.
Because Susan Powell deserves that. She deserves to be found. She deserves justice. And she deserves to be remembered—not as a victim, not as a statistic, but as a mother, a daughter, a friend, and a woman who loved deeply and fought bravely to protect the people she cared about.
The Warning She Left Behind
On December 6, 2009, Susan Powell vanished into a cold winter night.
She left behind a purse, a set of keys, and a cell phone that would later be found in her husband’s car. She left behind a job she loved, friends who cared about her, and a family who would never stop looking for her.
But most importantly, she left behind a warning.
“If I die, it may not be an accident—even if it looks like one”.
Those words, written more than a year before she disappeared, proved to be tragically prophetic.
Susan knew she was in danger. She knew the man she had married was capable of violence. And she did everything in her power to protect herself and her children.
In the end, it wasn’t enough to save her. But it was enough to tell the truth.
And that truth—preserved in a handwritten letter, hidden in a safe deposit box, discovered by investigators who refused to give up—has become a beacon for others who find themselves trapped in dangerous relationships.
If you are reading Susan’s story and you recognize the warning signs—the control, the threats, the isolation, the fear—know this: You are not alone.
There are people who will help you. There are resources available. There are ways to get out safely.
Susan Powell didn’t have that chance. But you do.
And if you choose to take it, you will honor her memory in the most powerful way possible—by surviving.
In Her Own Words
Susan Powell’s final promise to her sons was simple:
“I would never leave you”.
She didn’t leave. She was taken.
But her love—fierce, protective, and unbreakable—remains.
It remains in the letter she wrote. In the lives she has saved. In the legacy she left behind.
Susan Powell may be gone. But she will never be forgotten.
And one day—perhaps soon—she will be brought home.
Until then, her story endures. A mother’s love. A woman’s courage. A warning that still speaks.
She wrote, “I would never leave you.”
And she never did.
