New articles in the Trib today reminded me of a claim on the Powell's own website: "Since 2004, both Susan and Josh Powell have had the key to all of the vacant HUD homes in Utah." Steve Powell, his father, seems to love to dangle evidence like Susan's diaries, thinking it proves his point. I do wonder what JP was doing in these vacant HUD homes and whether he stashed Susan in one for SP to later recover. I wonder what SPowell knows about the possible uses of vacant homes, and whether there were vacant homes in this Las Vegas neighborhood.
It re-raises for me the possibility that SP could be responsible for Steven Koecher's disappearance. He took two days off work in the days before SK disappeared. For someone who worked by computer, days off work indicate that he needed to somewhere where he couldn't even pretend he was working by telecommuting. Or that he might have had scratches and bruises that would have been noticeable. Or he needed to meet someone in person. In the Perry March case (husband kills wife; father disposes of body), which I think SP and JP could have used as their template, he also accused his wife of running off with another man.
So did SP find a "patsy" in Steven Koecher online through an interest in songwriting? He could have flown to Utah, Reno, or Sacramento to meet him in those two off-work days. Then met him again on the weekend in Las Vegas with some phony "Hey, I'm going to be in Vegas to meet with a producer for a possible show." If you're lured to an ordinary neighborhood, you wouldn't suspect anything's wrong. Maybe the plan was to put the bodies together. I've long thought how each it would be to abduct SK off the Vegas street by pretending you lived in a vacant house, sitting in your car in the driveway until the person approaches, then saying, "Hi, you're here, get in and let's head over to the music studio!" SP is of an age that he would have remembered Ted Bundy, who was from Washington, and who easily lured multiple women to his car where, once they were inside, he knocked them out.
Just my opinion.