‘Terrified’ 911 Callers Describe Josh Powell House Explosion
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KOMO/ABC News(GRAHAM, Wash.) — As she watched Josh Powell’s house engulfed in flames, the child services worker who brought his two young sons to the home for a supervised visit told a 911 operator she believed he intentionally blew up the house, killing himself and his children.
That same day, Powell’s distraught sister, Alina Powell, called 911 to say she was receiving “weird” messages from her brother via email and voicemail that made her too “terrified to drive over there” herself.
“I’m not afraid of him,” she told the emergency operator through sobs. “He’s never hurt me. I’m afraid of seeing something I don’t want to see.”
What actually was happening may have been even more terrifying than she could have imagined.
The frantic child services worker told the 911 operator that she brought the two boys to Josh Powell’s home for the visit, but after he let the boys into the house he “slammed the door in [her] face” and then the house exploded.
“There’s two little boys in the house and they’re 5 and 7, and there’s an adult man, and he has supervised visits, and he blew up the house and the kids,” said the woman, who identified herself as Elizabeth Griffin-Hall, a Child Protective Services officer.
When the 911 operator asked her if she believed he did it “intentionally,” she answered, “Yes.”
Among the six other tapes released Tuesday was the call from Alina Powell.
“He left me a voicemail,” she said. “He said something about [how] he can’t live without his sons and goodbye.”
ABC News has exclusively obtained what is believed to be Josh Powell’s final words to his loved ones, the voicemail he left for his family just 20 minutes before attacking his two young boys, Braden, 5, and Charles, 7, with a hatchet and igniting a gas leak that blew up his house on Sunday afternoon.
“I am not able to live without my sons, and I’m not able to go on anymore. I’m sorry to everyone I’ve hurt. Goodbye,” the voicemail message said.
Police had called Josh Powell a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, who he claimed went missing from their Utah home after he and his then 2- and 4-year-old sons went on a midnight camping trip in December 2009.
He was never arrested or charged, but he lost custody of his sons after his father, Steven Powell, was arrested in September and charged with 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography. The pornographic images were kept in the home the two men shared with Josh and Susan Powell’s boys.
At a custody hearing last week, a judge said Josh Powell would have to undergo a psychosexual exam before he could get his kids back.
The tapes of the CPS worker and Alina Powell were among seven released Tuesday. The rest recorded the frantic, fearful voices of people who heard the explosion, saw the house engulfed in flames and called 911.
A female neighbor told the 911 operator that there was “a loud, huge boom. And there’s crap flying all over the place, dark smoke.”
“Fire. Fire. There’s a house on fire. Explosion,” a male neighbor said. “The house is totally engulfed in fire, from front to back.”
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