Sen. Roach Requests Utah Police Warning to DSHS in Powell Case

Under public disclosure laws Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, formally requested information sent by Utah police to alert DSHS in the placement of the children of Susan and Joshua Powell, according to a statement from her office in Olympia.

Roach believes mistakes were made in Washington, according to an interview with the Salt Lake City Tribune. She believes the local judge, law enforcement agencies and DSHS were working toward reuniting Powell and his two boys, even after finding "incestous" images on his computer in 2009.

“DSHS needs to come clean with what they knew. Having information pertinent to the welfare of the Powell children, and not acting on it, may have actually contributed to their deaths,” said Roach. 

This request comes simuntaneously with newly released information from the Pierce County Sheriff on explicit material collected from Powell's computer, prompting a judge to before his children would be returned.

In a press conference on Thursday, Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer told the Associated Press that images collected from the computer in 2009 depicted "incestous," computer-generated depictions of a parent and child.

Read more about what they found in this report from KOMO-4.

Troyer said that since the images did not depict real people, they could not be classified as pornography.

A DSHS spokesperson said that a child welfare worker was allowed to review the images to help make decisions about the welfare of the Powell children.

In a Feb. 1 press release, the police department in West Valley City, Utah, indicated they had sent a warning to Washington regarding the placement of Charles and Braden Powell.  

“It appears DSHS was forewarned about information regarding Joshua Powell and the treatment of his boys,” said Roach.  

Recent news reports from Utah indicate the investigation into Susan Cox Powell’s disappearance in 2009 has been conducted as a homicide investigation for at least six months. During that investigation correlated information unrelated to the death of Susan Powell, but concerning Joshua Powell and the children was discovered.