I understand what you are talking about.
I have been doing a little research into Steve Powell. What is interesting is that his good friend Sandy is the president of an ex-Mormon group in Washington. She helps organize meet-ups of ex-Mormons in the Seattle area.
Steve as we know has been very vocal about his anti-Mormon views, and from what Sandy has said, these views of SP are voiced in discussion groups online. I am looking for those records now, they should be online somewhere.
I have also researched the crux of the problem between JP and Susan. It is my theory that JP had basic survival needs (finance, caring for the kids) for Susan to be alive, and that the only reason he would have killed her is from the deranged idea that his survival was enhanced by doing so. In this case, it would allow him to keep the kids and not be stuck with child support payments for the next 16 years.
The crux of the problem was their religious views were at polar opposites due to the propaganda being put out by his dad, Steven Powell.
What makes this problem more significant than the average couple is the type of religion that was the issue here. Here is an interesting summation of this point from a website that takes on the issue:
http://exmormonfoundation.org/files/April 2008 Expositor_0.pdf
I have talked about the deadline Susan gave JP of April 6, 2010 to get a recommendation from their temple, otherwise she was going to divorce him. What has come to light in the last couple of days with the interviews is that there was an even earlier deadline of December 31, 2009, for JP to get more active with the church and have regular attendance.
Susan's disappearance was on a Sunday that was just 3 weeks before this deadline. That Sunday, JP did
not go to church. For a lot of us, this doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but we should look at it from Susan's perspective, the problem she was trying to solve, her deadline, and what her likely reaction to this would be, also keeping in mind that her friends have said she was outspoken and not a wimp.
The argument that would have unfolded that day could have been a highly charged one with Susan having had it with JP, knowing that he was in no position to get a recommendation by the deadline. Her marriage counselor had been urging her to get a divorce, her friends were likely in similar frames of mind, and the earlier concerns about not staying true to her religious beliefs about marriage may have receded to the point she could comfortably enough say to JP that she was done with him. More than anything, I have gathered that Susan would have been doing it to ensure her sons were brought up as per Mormon doctrine, and that the marriage with JP was simply not going to work.
We know now that JP had a 15 minute conversation with SP that very day, per JP about how to make pancakes. That was Susan's last meal.
SP, with his constant nullification of Susan and her cherished Mormon beliefs, worked the spell on JP that ruined their marriage. He also probably "warned" him about the messy divorce he had, how hard and hopeless the custody battle would be in Utah, how stiff his child support payments would be, how the LDS was "behind it", and that there has to be a "better way." He over time developed this into a user-friendly method for JP to kill Susan, the feminine preferred method of poisoning the victim. That fateful Sunday, JP got worked up enough from the argument to have the nerve to go through with it.
MOO.
