Sometime between 5:00pm on December 6, 2009 and 8:00am on December 7, 28-year-old mother of two Susan Powell disappeared from the home she shared with her husband Josh and their children in West Valley City, Utah. She remains missing to this day, no one has ever been charged in connection with the crime, and although the case is still officially open, West Valley Police Department (WVPD) declared it cold in May 2013. It's generally assumed that Susan was murdered and disposed of by Josh (by 2009, their marriage was falling apart), but her exact fate is unknown. He was declared a person of interest within hours of her being reported missing and was the only suspect the police ever had, although he doggedly maintained his innocence despite a wealth of circumstantial evidence. However, as anybody who knows anything about this case will tell you, this brief overview of the main facts doesn't even begin to hint at the dark underbelly - which includes porn, stalking, sexual obsession, the secret filming of minors, domestic abuse, financial control, religious hatred, and some of the worst music you've ever heard in your life.
Created, executive produced, and directed by James Buddy Day and hosted by Stephanie Bauer, The Disappearance of Susan Cox Powell, which aired on Oxygen in North America and Sky Crime in the UK and Ireland, is a fine introduction to the subject, although it had the somewhat unfortunate luck of airing right in the middle of Cold: Susan Powell Case Files - The Untold Story, an exhaustively researched and staggeringly comprehensive podcast by Dave Cawley, an investigative reporter for KSL NewsRadio in Salt Lake City, Utah. And although I think unilateral comparisons between the show and the podcast are a little unfair (the two-part show is under four hours, whereas the podcast is over 20, and that's not counting the various Facebook Live Q&As, the live show, and various other releases), certainly, if you've already listened to Cold, you'll find very little of interest in Disappearance (except for the presence of one, admittedly important, interviewee). Going in the other direction though, if you know little about the case, Disappearance is a very decent overview and introduction. It's got some noticeable aesthetic problems and makes a few rather ridiculous claims, but it's comprehensive, clear, and inclusive.
The person who appears here who isn't in Cold is Alina Powell, Josh's sister. Unlike his estranged sister Jennifer Graves, Alina is convinced of her brother's innocence and maintains that the police painted her father Steve's actions in an overly negative light (Steve was obsessed with Susan to the point of filming her without her knowledge and literally going through her trash, keeping such things as toenail clippings and panties. In 2011, he was imprisoned on unrelated charges of voyeurism, and in 2014 of being in possession of child porn). Her involvement is the one thing the show has over Cold, if for no other reason than it shows the lengths of self-deception to which people are willing to go to defend loved ones. Alina believes that Susan led Steve on, referring to "the version of Susan that the cops don't want the world to see" (a "version" which not a single other person corroborates). She also refers to the police investigations into Susan's disappearance as a "harassment campaign to damage our family that we'll never recover from". She has the second part right.
On that subject, the show does a good job of establishing just how screwed up the Powell family was. One of the first things we hear Steve say is, "she's the most beautiful thing that ever walked the earth", and later he states, "God, I worship her. She just turns me on. I'm in a perpetual state of turned on when she's around". Remember, this is a 58-year-old man talking about his then 26-year-old daughter-in-law as he secretly films her - a man so delusional that he convinces himself that Susan knows he's filming, and when she reaches down to scratch her leg as she gets into her car, she's actually 'performing' for his camera. And the creepiness of the songs he recorded (under the name Steve Chantrey) is matched only by how laughably bad they are.
It's not just Steve that the show paints in a negative light, however. Josh is portrayed as a control freak unable to see any opinion but his own. Judy Cox, Susan's mother recalls a particular conversation with Susan prior to her marrying Josh; "I said, "go out and date like crazy for a couple of years and have fun." And she goes, "well, what about Josh?" I looked at her, and I said, "I'm sorry Susan, I look at Josh and I see darkness." Later in the first episode, we hear that Susan told her friend Tara Allred, "this is not the man I married", and that Josh had told her, "over my dead body will you leave me."
The show also looks at the perceived failure of the police. Not only was Josh never charged for Susan's disappearance, he was never even arrested, and Steve's later arrest stemmed from unrelated charges. The show explains that WVPD's decision not to arrest Josh was partly tactical (they wanted to leave him on the street in the hopes he might lead them to solid evidence), and partly because the DA recognised how easily their litany of circumstantial evidence could have been dismantled by a defence lawyer (not only was there no body, but the police were unable to say where, how, or even if Susan had been murdered). Reading about the case online can be infuriating in terms of what seems like police ineptitude, and although I think the show lets him off too lightly, lead detective Ellis Maxwell explaining some of the decisions helps to put the whole thing in a better context.
We also examine the emotional fallout from Susan's disappearance, especially in relation to Allred, who is an emotional wreck, clearly missing her best friend, but also clearly blaming herself for not attempting to save her. In a story in which the Powells are almost pantomime villains, it's easy to forget these are real people, but the interviews with Allred pack a real emotional wallop and are probably the show's strongest moments.
In terms of problems, the show makes several inaccurate claims. For one, it claims that Alina's interview is the first time she has spoken publically about the case. It isn't - she's given numerous interviews over the years. The show also claims to have unearthed previously unknown evidence (an audio recording of Steve confessing his love to Susan). However, it wasn't unknown. In actual fact, it was discovered by Cawley during the making of Cold, who made it public seven months before Disappearance aired.
Elsewhere, there are some rather ill-advised aesthetic choices. For example, the show has the habit of repeating the same bit of information multiple times; we hear the original 911 call reporting Susan missing on the morning of December 7, for instance, and then, not two minutes later, we hear the same call again for no apparent reason. Every time the show comes back from an ad break, it recaps what was said before the break, which is not only unnecessary, it's distracting and irritating. There is also an omnipresent generic soundtrack running throughout the entire show - as far as I can remember, the music never stops once. And, of course, when compared to Cold, the show is very simplistic and rudimentary. However, as mentioned above, I don't really feel it's an entirely fair comparison - Cold was designed to be exhaustive, Disappearance was designed to be introductory. And that's exactly what it is.
Problems notwithstanding, I enjoyed The Disappearance of Susan Cox Powell. It provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the case, and although, despite its claims, there's nothing revelatory here, it introduces the main characters and gives a solid overview of events.
