I’ve written about Susan Powell‘s husband and in-laws so many times that they have their own category on this blog. And here’s one more: over a month ago Josh Powell’s brother, Michael, committed suicide by jumping off the seven-story apartment building in Minnesota where he lived. This less than a week after the anniversary of Josh, Charlie and Braden Powell’s deaths.
So, a reckoning:
1. Susan Powell is missing and presumed dead.
2. Her husband Josh committed murder-suicide last year.
3. Josh killed their two young sons, Charlie and Braden.
4. Josh’s father Steve Powell is in prison for child porn.
5. And now Michael’s jumped off the roof.
And then there were three. The surviving siblings are Alina, John and Jennifer.
Josh had listed his brother Michael and his sisters Alina and John as the beneficiaries for his, Charlie’s and Braden’s life insurance policies, which totaled at least $1.5 million and possibly as much as $2 million. Michael was to get 93% of the money, Alina 4% and John 3%. (Jennifer is estranged from the rest of the family and got promised nothing.) Michael had been bickering with Susan’s parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, over the insurance money. Basically, they argued that since Josh murdered his two children and killed himself, he shouldn’t have the privilege of deciding who gets the resulting insurance payouts. They were also fighting over who should have control of Susan’s estate, which includes $1 million in life insurance. The insurance company refused to pay anybody until a judge decided who should get the money. This legal battle was still ongoing at the time of Michael’s death.
Michael was 30 years old when he died. How much he was a victim of events he could not control, and how much he contributed to all the problems, I don’t know. But in the Epic Rap Battles of History’s Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga vid, Lady Gaga says, “You are the sum of everything I despise / With the most dysfunctional family since the Jackson F*cking Five.” That kind of sums up my feelings about Josh Powell and the rest of that lot.
The Charley Project Blog 
Meaghan, I also read a while back that Josh Powell’s grandmother (his dad’s mother) disappeared when Steven was a teenager & they never found her body. Kinda like the Stacey Peterson history. Could you ever confirm that with archive articles?
I never heard anything like that. I’ll look and see what I can find out.
Hmm. I found this:
Terri noted in her divorce papers that when Steven was a young boy, “he was a victim of parental kidnapping,” making her “fearful that he may try to take our two youngest children.”
Steven Powell addressed the parental kidnapping in an odd way on a website he created under the alias of Steve Chantrey, apparently to promote his music. On the website, he posted songs he had composed and recorded — some of them reportedly about Susan.
In his biography on the website, Steven said his mother “made a unilateral and secretive decision to separate from my dad,” and took him, his brother and his sister to live in Ohio. A few months later she returned to Steven’s father in Portland.
But just a few months after that, when Steven was 7, according to his bio, “my dad made a unilateral and secretive decision to separate from my mom.” Steven said he and his siblings were taken to live with his grandparents who had moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, unknown to Steven’s mother.
“‘Where is Momma?’ I asked. Grandma curtly replied, ‘You’re never going to see your mother again,'” Steven Powell wrote on his website. “My older brother, my sister and I were inconsolable.”
Graves said starting when she was about 10 or 12, she doesn’t remember being allowed to have much contact with her grandparents.
So it looks like Grandma’s accounted for.
Horrifying! what a totally messed up family. I wonder if we will ever know what happened to Susan or what drove this guy to kill himself. Josh,I think we know why he killed himself. The worst was the two kids, though. A completely sick family….
That’s one amazing family here…
Slightly OT – but I ❤ Epic Rap Battles!
Me too.