5-Month Anniversary: Latest News

Today it’s been 5 months since Susan Cox Powell disappeared from her home under very suspicious circumstances.

If you’re new to this story, you can find details on the case in thousands of articles, videos, and websites scattered across the internet.  Some good places to look are this website dedicated to finding Susan, the many excellent articles written by Examiner.com’s Isabelle Zehnder since the beginning, the 800 links in the archive of the Friends and Family of Susan Powell Facebook group, and local Salt Lake City media outlets like KSL5, ABC4, KUTV2, FOX13, the Salt Lake Tribune, and the Deseret News.

There hasn’t been a whole lot in the news the past few weeks, but a few days ago an Idaho discovery had a lot of people talking and wondering if it could be Susan.  It wasn’t, but our hearts go out to the family of Stephanie Eldridge. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Isabelle Zehnder with Examiner.com broke the exclusive story of a gag order on the West Valley City police department.  You can read about the reaction of Susan’s parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, here.

Nothing spectacular has been officially planned to mark the 5-month anniversary of Susan’s disappearance today, but many people across the world are planning to light candles in their homes and on their front porches.  You can also light a “virtual candle” here, as well—candles burn for 48 hours and you can come back and light as many as you want. 

Patty on Facebook, someone who never met Susan or her family but has been a faithful supporter for months now, said this:

“I will put mine out on the porch right now. May I ask everyone to pray at High Noon tomorrow, so we can all be praying at the same time? I love this family so much.”

Photos by Amber Hardman, Allison St. Louis, and Kiirsi Hellewell; scrapbooking by Briana Horne

Susan’s friends and family are very grateful to Susan’s past and present friends, the many thousands that have supported and encouraged us with their love and prayers, all the people who have tirelessly searched for her, and especially to the West Valley Police Department for their unrelenting hard work and dedication to finding Susan.  We believe Susan will be found—hopefully before too many more of these anniversaries pass.

Photo and art by Amber Hardman, Hardman Photography

WE LOVE YOU, SUSAN.

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A 4-Month Anniversary & Susan’s Own Words: Part 2

Four months ago today, Susan Cox Powell disappeared from her home. 

Her family and friend’s lives were shattered.  We never believed this could happen to someone we know—especially Susan, a person who lights up people’s lives and makes everyone smile when she walks into a room.  Everyone loves her.

We never believed it would drag on this long and that four months later, we still wouldn’t have answers or that Susan would still be missing.

But there’s still hope—hope that we will find her.  We believe we will.  We know the police are working day and night to bring her home, and that many thousands of kind and wonderful people the world over are praying and putting time, effort and money into finding her.  As I write this, plans are in place to mount a large-scale ground search in Utah’s west desert this Saturday.

Photography by Amber Hardman/Hardman Photography; digital art by Quail Feathers

Today—both four months since Susan went missing and what would have been Susan’s 9-year wedding anniversary—I’d like to share a little bit about Susan and what kind of person she is.  This comes from a church newsletter in Susan’s ward, written in November 2009, just one month before she disappeared.  The ladies did an interview “Spotlight” on her as they often do with one or the other of the women in our ward to help everyone get to know each other better.  Here it is:

Spotlight: Susan Powell

Susan is the third of four girls and was raised in western Washington state.  She and Josh got married in 2001 and moved to Utah in 2004.  She has two sons, Charlie and Braden.

Her favorite foods are Greek and Italian.  Popcorn and spaghetti are like chocolate to her.  Her food philosophy is “Cheese, peanut butter, ranch dressing or A-1 sauce makes anything taste good.”

Her favorites are: color = forest green, lavender/lilac purple; songs = “I Don’t Understand,” “Which Part is Mine” and “Celebrating the Light” by Michael McLean; books = anything murder/mystery, especially Mary Higgins Clark; movies = Enchanted, Get Smart, and most Disney movies.

Her hobbies are: crocheting, doing yard work, cleaning, doing hair, American Sign Language, yoga and pilates.

Her favorite places to go are Washington state to see her family and to be outside hiking and camping.  She would love to go to Hawaii with her husband.

She is a licensed series 7 and 63 stockbroker, real estate agent and cosmetologist.  She highly believes in saving money by growing a garden and becoming more self-sufficient with your food storage.

Photography by Paula Bunn/Sweden Studios & Amber Hardman/Hardman Photography; digital art by Melissa Pepper

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Florida Service in Susan’s Name

A sweet and kind Florida woman—someone who never met Susan but has proven a true friend to her these past months since she’s disappeared—has done many kind acts during her life, most recently in Susan’s name, despite going through personal tragedy of her own during this time.

In Linda’s words:

March 24: Donation made today in the name of the Susan Cox Powell Foundation for 50+ beanie babies.  Donation given to the traffic division of Lauderhill, FL police department. This is our 2nd donation. The first was to the Coral Springs, FL police department. They were very gracious:

SERGEANT GREG SOLOWSKY, LINDA BLAIR

DONATION OF BEANIE BABIES TO LAUDERHILL FLORIDA POLICE TRAFFIC DEPARTMENT TO HONOR SUSAN COX POWELL; TO BE GIVEN TO SMALL CHILDREN ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CALLS

Linda suggests that people everywhere can donate beanie babies to their police departments. She says, “We have been doing this for years… Before beanie babies we made hug-a-bears….this might be a good project for the teenagers so they can get their community service hours for college applications.”

Thank you, Linda, for your kind and thoughtful service in Susan’s name!  And huge thanks to the Lauderhill, Florida Police Department for their service to those in need.

 

 

 

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Continuing Efforts to Find Susan

A kind group of people in northern Utah—who don’t know Susan or her family—decided that they wanted to do something to help find Susan.  They’re in the process of organizing their own ground search for clues to Susan’s disappearance. 

This search will take place on Saturday, April 10, in the Simpson Springs area of the Pony Express trail.  This is the place that Susan’s husband, Josh Powell, said that he went camping with their two small boys the night Susan disappeared on Dec. 6, 2009.

Though this ground search effort is not organized or sponsored by either Susan’s family or the West Valley City Police, many people have responded with wonderful offers of help, support, and teams to help with the search.  The incredible outpouring of love and offers of help have touched many lives, including my own.  There are so many good people in this world.

Here are some links to websites, news stories and video clips about this upcoming search:

ABC-4’s report on local crews volunteering for the search

Deseret News article about the search

Examiner.com article by Isabelle Zehnder

ABC-4 report: the police’s view of the search

Salt Lake Tribune article about the search

Examiner.com article with police comments about the search

Fox13 Video clip on the search

KSL’s report on the search effort

If you’re on Facebook, you can access more search information at this group: Friends and Family of Susan Powell.  The organizers of this search are still putting together search information and details and I will post it here when it’s available, for those who aren’t on Facebook.

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Dear Facebook: Where’s Our Group?

PRESS RELEASE
Saturday, January 30, 2010
2:00 PST
Contact: Shelby Gifford, Cox Family Spokeswoman
253.255.1624
Shelby@theshelbynetwork.com

SUBJECT: Friends & Family of Susan Powell Facebook Page Mysteriously Disappears

The Cox Family and administrators of the Friends & Family of Susan Powell Facebook page are asking for the social networking site’s help in restoring a page dedicated to the disappearance of missing Utah mom, Susan Powell, who was last seen December 6, 2009 in West Valley City, Utah.

The page contained information about Susan and her disappearance, and was a place where members of Facebook could come for up-to-date information about the case. “An entire database of people willing to help with searches and provide other services was deleted from Facebook as of approximately 2 PM Friday, January 29, 2010” said Shelby Gifford, family spokesperson for the Cox family and an administrator on the popular Facebook page. “Additionally, our page had over 45,000 members, all of whom can no longer see the page and who are not able to get or distribute information about Susan’s disappearance.”

The Facebook page has also been plagued by a “troll” who continues to visit the page under assumed identities, even pretending to be Susan Powell herself at one point. The Cox family and the Friends & Family of Susan Powell page administrators have made repeated complaints to Facebook and have not received a response. Susan’s father, Charles Cox, even applied online for a job with Facebook to try to get the company’s attention, but received no response. Other Facebook sites that strive to provide information about Susan have experienced similar problems.

“Obviously, our reason for using Facebook is that it can reach such a large audience quickly. This was proven in our successful Find Susan Media Blitz conducted earlier this month, during which the site grew to over 43,000 members in just a matter of days,” said James Hofheins, Social Media Coordinator for the Friends & Family of Susan Powell group. “We would like to talk with a representative from Facebook so we can remedy this problem once and for all. Their lack of response is causing great frustration among Susan’s friends, family and supporters.”

Various law enforcement agencies have been contacted with regard to threats made to the individual administrators of the Friends & Family of Susan Powell Facebook site. “We will continue to pursue those avenues as needed,” said Gifford.

NOTE: The Cox family had previously planned (but not announced) a press conference for Monday, February 1, 2010 in Puyallup, WA. THIS HAS BEEN POSTPONED. When the conference is rescheduled, members of the media will be notified via an emailed press release. To add your contact information to the Cox Family media database, please send an email to Shelby@theshelbynetwork.com.

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Facebook Group: GONE

Dear friends and supporters of Susan Cox Powell and family,

This afternoon, for reasons unknown, our Facebook group—Friends and Family of Susan Powell—disappeared.  We have never broken any rules.  We don’t allow accusations or speculation in this group.  The group had well over 44,000 members and was growing by hundreds each day.  It was a wonderful source of support, encouragement, prayers, united strength, love, and information as we all worked together across the world to find Susan.

Now it’s gone.  It appears that persons unknown have either hacked or used “inside” friends to pull the group from inside Facebook. 

We will not let this go on, and we are working very, very hard to get it back.  Nobody is going to stop us from finding Susan.

In the meantime, on a more positive note—the preparations for the Week of Service are going really well!  I had a wonderful visit today with Blazing Needles, a beautiful yarn store located on the east side of the Salt Lake valley.  If you’re in the area, check them out!  They have friendly, warm, knowledgeable staff who care deeply about Susan and are committed to helping us.  (Not to mention, a collection of beautiful, delicious, exotic yarn!)  Thank you, Blazing Needles and Cynthia, Chris, and Shelly! We are so excited to work hand-in-hand with you in the coming weeks.

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