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In the more than 12 years since Puyallup native Susan Cox-Powell vanished on a cold December night from her home in West Valley City, Utah, her father Chuck Cox has never stopped searching.

Family of Susan Powell still holds hope 10 years after her disappearance

Cox and his wife Judy endured years of tragedy after Susan disappeared in 2009, after leaving their young grandsons, Charlie and Braden, to remain with their father Josh Powell 鈥� always a person of interest in Susan鈥檚 disappearance 鈥� and his father Steven Powell, who time would reveal was obsessed with his daughter-in-law and fanaticized about her.

Cox always believed Josh killed his daughter and that his father Steven not only knew what happened to Susan, but where to find her remains. Even after Steven Powell was arrested on unrelated charges in 2011 and sent to prison, though, he refused to give up any information. Anything he might have known, he took to the grave when he died in Tacoma in 2018.

Six years before that, in 2012, anything that Josh Powell could have shared was also gone, when he murdered his two young sons and took his own life in a brutal attack on the boys in a fiery explosion of his Graham home during a supervised visit.

There was also a belief that Josh鈥檚 brother Michael may have had some knowledge of where Susan was or even may have been involved in her death, but if so, those secrets died with him when he jumped off a Minnesota high rise a year after Josh Powell and the boys died.

That did not stop Cox, who has engaged in private searches for his daughter for years, as have others on his behalf.

That is the case with the current search of that Cox left his Washington home to go see for himself earlier this year.

That search has been possible because of a tip that came into Dave Sparks of Discovery鈥檚 鈥淒iesel Brothers鈥� show, and the equipment Sparks has access to to conduct such a search.

鈥淗e’s like this angel that showed up,” Cox told 成人X站 Newsradio鈥檚 Hanna Scott from his home in Washington. “I needed somebody with the time and the money and willingness to do this and he’s getting inundated with people wanting to help and they’re all sharing information.”

The mine being searched is about 30 miles away from the site where Josh Powell claimed to have gone on a snowy camping trip with his sons on the night Susan vanished.

But there are reasons for Chuck Cox to describe it as feeling 鈥渄ifferent鈥� than some of the other searches.

鈥淭his location felt different, because I knew and the police have known for a while Josh had told some friends at a party that the way to get rid of a person was to poison them. So they can’t fight you, fight back, scratch you, give you marks, right? And take and dump them into a mine and then you collapse the mine,鈥� Cox said.

On top of that, there鈥檚 the timeline based on the tip that Sparks got that sent the search crew to this mine in the first place. That tip came from a man who had hoped to dig the mine himself back in November 2009, just weeks before Susan vanished.

鈥淲hen he was on that mine in November, the mine was all secured — it was fine, it had an opening where they put the ore cart. It had a pulley up on top and these big timbers so that they could pull up a heavier cart with a rope and they were mining it. It was about a four-by-four hole or so in the rock and that was secured so the mine would not collapse,鈥� Cox said, referring to the November 2009 timeframe.

鈥淪ometime between Dec. 1 and Jan. 10 or 15, the mine got burned and collapsed,鈥� Cox explained, noting the condition the mine was found in just a few weeks later when the guy returned — shortly after Susan disappeared.

As for the remains pulled from the mine recently, they are not Susan.

鈥淭hey tested the DNA on the bones because that were most obvious — three ribs and four vertebrae — it came out to be not human. Then they also tested the pants, and that came out to have male DNA on it, not female,鈥� said Cox, noting they are still working on getting a DNA sample from someone in Josh鈥檚 family to test against the sample from the pants found in the mine.

鈥淲e’re working on that,鈥� he added.

Theory of Susan Powell in Nutty Putty Cave debunked

Cox says the pants pulled from the mine are very similar to those that Susan wore at her bank job in 2009, where Josh claimed she had gone the morning after she disappeared.

Cox believes Josh may have grabbed the pants, intending to dress Susan in them after killing her to back up his lie that she had simply gone to work.

But the pants are not Chuck Cox鈥檚 only hope.

鈥淚 discovered that they had not tested a sock that we found there — and it’s in pretty good shape actually — and also a piece of a shirt that appeared to be a blouse-like material with gathering where you would have around the sleeve or something,” he described. “Then we’d have some other things like that that were in with the bones, so I鈥檓 going, why don’t you test the rest of the stuff?鈥�

And even if the pants and other materials don鈥檛 pan out, this is far from over.

鈥淭he next step is basically to go back to the mine and screen the material we pull out of the mine, and also use cadaver dogs,” Cox explained. “That makes it easier to know that you’re pulling out the right material for the test.”

Cox still believes this could be the site that finally gives him answers.

“Every time there’s been a missing person, they call us and say there’s a missing person,” he said. “The likelihood has been very unlikely. [The mine] was a likely spot when they got down there and they found the bones and the pants and stuff.”

Besides, simply getting a DNA match on the remains right away is not the way this saga would have played out based on history, according to Cox.

鈥淚t would have been too easy. Nothing is simple. Nothing Josh ever did was simple. Everything he did was complicated and a mess,” he said. “Everyone dreaded the day that they met him and have ever since.”