In 911 call, worker fears for Josh Powell’s sons

Related Photos

Discussion

February 8, 2012

By Chris Grygiel Associated Press Wed Feb 08, 2012, 11:44 AM CST

SEATTLE — A 911 call recording reveals a social worker’s attempts over a more than six-minute call to get a dispatcher to send authorities quickly to the home of Josh Powell after he locked himself and his two sons in the home he then set ablaze.

The social worker seemed to try repeatedly to relay the gravity of what was going on to dispatchers. Josh Powell was scheduled for a supervised visit with his sons Sunday. Authorities said he locked the door, used a hatchet on his kids, and lit the house on fire, killing all inside.

In the first minutes of the 911 call, released late Tuesday, the woman laid out the situation.

“Something really weird has happened. The kids went into the house and the parent — the biological parent — whose name is Josh Powell will not let me in the door. What should I do? ... I could hear one of the kids crying, and he still wouldn’t let me in.”

The social worker told the dispatcher she “was one step in back of them (the boys). He shut the door right in my face.”

At one point the dispatcher asked the social worker what address she was at. The social worker didn’t know and needed to look for it. It took her about 1 1/2 minutes to find it in her car. At one point she asks, “You can’t find me by GPS?” While she’s still looking for the address she says, “But I think I need help right away.”

The woman also explained that she smelled gasoline, saying four minutes into the call that the boys have been locked in the home for 10 minutes. Authorities later said Josh Powell spread a 5-gallon drum of gasoline around the home to ensure the fire he set burned faster.

After six minutes on the call, a dispatcher says: “We’ll have somebody look for you there.”

“OK, how long will it be?” the woman asks.

“I don’t know, ma’am. We have to respond to emergency life-threatening situations first. The first available deputy ...”

The woman responded: “This could be life-threatening ... I’m afraid for their lives.”

After the home erupted in flames, the woman screamed in a separate call: “He exploded the house!”

Also Tuesday, authorities released a 911 call Josh Powell’s sister made Sunday, saying she received emails from her brother explaining what to do with his property and saying he couldn’t live without his sons. Alina Powell told a dispatcher she feared her brother was going to do something because of pressure he faced after his wife, Susan, disappeared two years ago. Josh Powell was a “person of interest” in Susan’s Utah disappearance.

Crying, Alina Powell told the dispatcher: “I’m terrified to drive over there. I’m not afraid of him. He’s never hurt me. I’m afraid of seeing something I don’t want to see.”

Text Only

State, national, world

Tropical Storm Beryl makes landfall on Fla. coast
Tropical Storm Beryl has made landfall in northeastern Florida, bringing drenching rains and driving winds to the southeastern U.S. coast, forecasters said.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
Syria defiantly denies killings; U.N. council meets
Syria on Sunday strongly denied allegations that its forces killed scores of people — including women and children — in one of the deadliest days of the country’s uprising, and the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session on the massacre.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
NATO disputes report of casualties in airstrike
The U.S.-led coalition on Sunday disputed reports that eight civilians, including children, were killed in a NATO airstrike in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan.

May 27, 2012 1 Photo
Oklahoma woman recalls deadly 2002 bridge collapse
She recalls a van disappearing in front of her and her evangelist husband, Max, the sensation of flying and the heat of a deployed air bag. Beyond that, it all kind of runs together.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Florida police kill naked man chewing on face
Witnesses said that a woman saw two men fighting and flagged down a police officer, who came upon a naked man mauling the other man.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Dozens of children killed in new Syria attack
Gruesome video Saturday showed rows of dead Syrian children lying in a mosque in bloody shorts and T-shirts with gaping head wounds, haunting images of what activists called one of the deadliest regime attacks yet in Syria’s 14-month-old uprising.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks
An already-sordid scandal over leaked Vatican documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday with confirmation that the pope’s own butler had been arrested after documents he had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Astronauts enter world's first private supply spacecraft
Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world’s first commercial supply ship.

May 26, 2012
Court: Electric cars eligible for tax credit
The Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals on Friday overturned a state Tax Commission ruling certain electric cars were not eligible for a state tax credit.

May 26, 2012 1 Photo
Notorious missing child case finally gets an arrest
Police said Hernandez told a relative and others, as far back as 1981, that he had “done something bad” and killed an unnamed child in New York City.

May 25, 2012 2 Photos
More State, national, world Headlines

State, national, world

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

In 911 call, worker fears for Josh Powell’s sons

Site Map

Contact Us