(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump will sit for a “victim interview” in the investigation into his attempted assassination, the FBI announced on a Monday conference call with reporters.
FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Pittsburgh field office Kevin Rojek did not say when the interview will take place, but said it will be “a standard victim interview we do for any other victim of crime.”
One spectator was killed and two were hurt in the shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear.
On Monday’s call, Rojek and other senior FBI officials provided new details about information gleaned from the investigation into what happened at the rally.
Rojek said it appears the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks “made significant efforts to conceal his activities.”
“We believe his actions also show a careful planning ahead of the rally,” Rojek said.
Senior officials from the FBI painted a picture of a shooter who had no friends and his social circle appeared to be limited to his immediate family.
Crooks did a significant amount of preplanning online and didn’t show any outward signs he would be planning a shooting of a former president, officials said.
The FBI determined that, in addition to searching for details on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Crooks also searched for details about other mass casualty events, officials said.
Rojek said his searches were “related to power plants mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices and the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister earlier this year.”
Crooks also searched for nationally elected officials, including President Joe Biden and former presidents, officials said.
The gun used in the shooting was purchased by Crooks’ dad in 2013 and legally transferred to Crooks in 2023, according to the FBI.
The FBI also provided an updated new timeline.
Crooks went to the rally site at 11 a.m. on the day of the shooting and spent one hour in the area before traveling home, the FBI said.
At 1:30 p.m., Crooks obtained the rifle from his home and told parents he was going to the shooting range, the FBI said.
Crooks arrived back at the rally site at 3:45 p.m. and started flying a drone about 200 yards from the rally site from 3:50 p.m. to just after 4 p.m., the FBI said. The drone did not contain a memory card, officials said. The FBI said it is working to determine if Crooks was viewing footage and whether that revealed insights into the security posture.
At 4 p.m., Crooks drove throughout the area in the vicinity of the shooting. Shortly after 5 p.m., Crooks was identified as suspicious by a local SWAT officer who took a photo of him, the FBI said.
Just after 5:30 p.m., that same SWAT officer observed Crooks using a rangefinder and reading news on his phone, officials said. At 5:56 p.m., Crooks was seen walking in the vicinity of the AGR building, the FBI said.
Police dash camera video from 6:08 p.m. captured Crooks on the roof, the FBI said.
At 6:11 p.m., a local police officer was boosted up to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed a rifle at him, the FBI said. The officer immediately dropped off the roof, the FBI said.
About 25 to 30 seconds later, shots were fired, the FBI said.
Explosives were found in Crooks’ car and home, but the explosives in the car didn’t go off because the receivers found on Crooks were in the off position, the FBI said.
“Explosive experts in the FBI lab assessed the devices from the subject’s vehicle were capable of exploding. However, the magnitude of the damage associated with an explosion is unclear,” Rojek said.
FBI officials declined to answer any questions about the law enforcement posture, security strategy and response, citing multiple ongoing reviews.
(NEW YORK) — The days of the perfect-looking yard — often lawns that guzzle copious amounts of water to stay green — may soon be gone.
Homeowners are increasingly opting to “re-wilding” their homes, incorporating native plants and decreasing the amount of lawn care to make their properties more sustainable and encourage natural ecosystems to recover, according to Plan It Wild, a New York-based native landscape design company.
About 30% of the water an average American family consumes is used for the outdoors, including activities such as watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the West, where water is absorbed almost immediately by the sun or thirsty vegetation, outdoor water usage can increase to an average of 60% for the average family.
As concerns for the environment — as well as increasing utility bills — grow, so do homeowners’ preferences for how they decorate their yards.
“I don’t want to mow it. I don’t want to water it,” Judy Vigiletti, resident of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, told ABC News. “There’s a lot of lawn, and I need to get rid of it.”
Vigiletti is in the process of removing a large chunk of her lawn — an aesthetic that has taken hold of the modern American neighborhood — and replacing it with native plants.
Embedded in her vision for her new yard are the sights of a natural environment.
“I can just imagine when the wind blows in, the leaves are swaying and the plants are moving,” Vigiletti said. “And that’s what I’m looking for — that kind of harmony.”
Live vegetation native to the region, such as shrubs and trees, provide many benefits once established. They require much less maintenance, including little water beyond normal rainfall, according to the EPA. They also provide collection for stormwater and water quality benefits as well as carbon sequestration.
A method of “tucking in” the plants with a bit of mulch helps them to retain moisture, Dave Baker, co-founder and COO of Plan It Wild, told ABC News.
Vigiletti is among a growing movement of homeowners who are choosing regional vegetation over the traditional lawn, according to Plan It Wild. The landscape design company has seen a surge of people wanting to get rid of their lawns, a trend they have dubbed “rewilding,” Joanna Hall, CEO of Plan it Wild, told ABC News.
When Jane Balter moved into her home in Mount Kisco, New York, it was almost all grass and trees. She began re-wilding the space four years ago, she told ABC News.
One of the biggest challenges she ran into was learning the specifics of her property — some areas were wetter and some drier.
“So that’s sort of a trial and error, and then you learn from what you did and see what’s growing,” Balter said. “And you just plant more of that.”
Now, Balter describes her outdoor space as a “sanctuary.” In a once wildlife-less landscape now lives biodiversity. There are now deer, fox, coyote, birds and insects that venture into her yard, she said.
“It’s the feeling, is just gratitude, really,” she said. “That something that was so lifeless has become so full of life.”
Even early in Vigiletti’s yard transformation, monarch butterflies, have already begun to appear. Populations of the iconic species have been on a steady decline in recent years, according to researchers.
Hall estimates between 40 to 60 million acres of lawn across the country. The lawn is being over-watered and being flooded with pesticides, she said.
“Nothing is wrong with grass,” she said. “It’s that in America, we just have too much.”
This story is part of our Climate Ready series – a collaboration between ABC News and the ABC Owned Television Stations focused on providing practical solutions to help you and your family adapt to extreme weather events and the current challenges of climate change.
(NEW YORK) — Something seemed off from the moment Beaver County SWAT sniper Gregory Nicol spotted a man skulking around the outskirts of the site where former President Donald Trump was about to take the stage on July 13.
From his second-floor post inside the AGR complex at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, Nicol noticed the young man in a gray T-shirt, lurking.
“He was looking up and down the building … It just seemed out of place,” Nicol, assistant leader of the Beaver County SWAT team, told ABC News in an interview that airs Monday on Good Morning America, “It just didn’t seem right.”
Nicol noticed an unattended bike and backpack. And he saw the man looking up and around, then pulling a rangefinder from his pocket. There was no apparent reason to have a distance-gauging device at a political rally featuring the man who, in a few days, would accept his party’s presidential nomination. The sharpshooter snapped pictures of the suspicious-looking man and the bike, then flagged it to fellow snipers from his team assigned to the event and called it into the command group.
Nicol would be the first officer to issue a warning about 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Within an hour, Crooks would open fire from the roof of that very building, less than 200 yards from the rally’s stage, wounding Trump on live TV, killing one person in the crowd, and critically injuring two more.
The sniper and his fellow Beaver County SWAT officers were assigned to Trump’s Butler campaign rally, and tasked with supporting the Secret Service and other law enforcement in the mission to keep the event and Secret Service protectee, safe.
They have not spoken publicly until now.
‘Something that we’ll always carry with us’
In their first public comments since the assassination attempt, the Beaver County SWAT team and their supervisors spoke with ABC News Senior Investigative Correspondent Aaron Katersky, marking the first time any of the key law enforcement personnel who were on site July 13 have offered firsthand accounts of what occurred.
The violent episode has already led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. And, in the wake of the assassination attempt, a series of law enforcement, internal, and congressional probes have been announced — with communications and coordination a key focus of investigators’ attention.
“This one is something that we’ll always carry with us,” assistant Beaver County SWAT leader Mike Priolo told ABC News.
Long before Crooks would fire his AR-style rifle that Saturday evening, Crooks’ presence wasn’t the only thing that didn’t seem quite right to the local SWAT team.
Team members said that the day of the rally, they had no contact with the agents on Trump’s Secret Service detail.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, team leader for Beaver County’s Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section.
“So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened. We had no communication,” Woods said. “Not until after the shooting.”
By then, he said, “it was too late.”
The Secret Service, whose on-site team was supplemented as usual by local, county and state law-enforcement agencies, was ultimately responsible for security at the event, but none of the concerns apparently reached members of Trump’s detail.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to the comments Woods and his colleagues made to ABC News. He said the agency “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”
To the men and woman of Beaver County SWAT, what happened is clear: There was a lack of planning and communication that caused a catastrophic failure in the protection of Donald Trump. They said they saw the problem coming, and they tried to alert the people in charge and sound the alarm.
With the presidential campaign in full gear and Trump now saying he wants to return for another rally outside Pittsburgh, it is critical to know what went wrong at the last one — so it doesn’t happen again.
“I have to imagine that they’re going to make some very serious adjustments — namely, probably, hold it inside where you have a lot more control over who’s coming in,” said Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible, who oversees the county SWAT unit. “If we’re asked for assistance, we will provide it.”
‘An away game’
By mid-morning on July 13, the Beaver County team of snipers and spotters was in position — hours before Trump was set to take the stage that evening at the sprawling grounds that’s studded by a complex of warehouses.
Once they were positioned at the security perimeter — outside the metal detectors — Woods said he immediately wondered whether they had been put in the most effective spot.
“I think the better location would have been inside looking out, and that’s actually where the Secret Service snipers end up getting placed,” Woods said. “For us to effectively do our job, I don’t know if that was the best location.”
But it was “an away game,” Woods said, meaning his team was not in charge. So they deferred to the Secret Service agents whose job it was to determine the security plan and keep Trump safe.
“I knew the Secret Service knew where we were supposed to be, and that’s where we were placed,” Woods said.
“Our instructions, marching orders were given to us from Butler County EMS unit, their command. With, historically speaking, approval from the Secret Service,” Priolo said.
This was not the team’s first time participating in a Secret Service operation.
“We as a team would assume that that would be a robust type thing, that they would have constant communication. And it very well might have been — we’re just not aware of it,” said Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, the commander of emergency services.
The event’s atmosphere, Young said, also meant a dynamic environment: Officers had to rapidly gauge whether rallygoers’ bulging back pockets held merely bottled water or booze — commonplace at a festive gathering under the blazing summer sun of Western Pennsylvania — or was a sign of something more sinister.
“Our first indication that there was going to be something different about this was the lack of patrol that we’d seen in the area,” Priolo said of the plans.
The effect of that, he said, was that the SWAT officers would have to personally handle any urgent patrol-level incident that should arise.
“The best analogy I’ve heard is — we’re a scalpel, when you’re asking us to be used as a hammer,” Priolo said. “That’s kind of what we figured out throughout the day.”
‘They must have found this guy’
When Nicol observed Crooks’ suspicious presence and called it in to local command via radio, he said he expected action to be taken — like a uniformed officer would “check it out,” according to text messages between snipers on the ground, which were obtained by ABC News.
“The first thing I did, I sent those pictures out, we had a text group between the local snipers that were on the scene. I sent those pictures out to that group and advised them of what I noticed and what I’d seen,” Nicol said. ‘There was a text back that said, ‘Call it into command.’ I then called into our to the command via radio. And they acknowledged.”
“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to — you know, to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what’s going on,” he added.
Nicol moved through the building trying to shadow Crooks, who was outside, and keep eyes on him. But Nicole lost sight of Crooks as Nicol made his way down to the building’s first level.
By that time, Trump had taken the stage, Nicol said.
Then, as the former president began speaking, Nicole noticed rallygoers looking away from the podium, up toward the roof of the AGR building. Some were shouting that there was someone up there.
Nicol said he was almost relieved, thinking to himself, “Oh, they must have found this guy we were looking for out there, and everybody’s watching the police deal with him.”
He would soon discover that wasn’t the case.
“That’s when I heard the gunshots,” Nicol said. Crooks had opened fire on the campaign rally.
SWAT medic Michel Vasiladiotis-Nicol responded with Beaver County SWAT Det. Rich Gianvito, along with other local personnel from Butler County and the surrounding areas.
They squeezed through the fence perimeter and headed toward the building where the shots had come from.
“We then ascended that ladder to then meet up with — what — we weren’t sure again if it was a mass casualty or what we were walking into,” said Vasiladiotis-Nicol, who is sniper Gregory Nicol’s wife.
“We’re prepared for anything at that point,” Gianvito said, including a possible firefight because the team had no idea if the rooftop shooter was dead or alive, or if there could be an accomplice still unaccounted for.
On the roof, they found Crooks motionless and face down — images captured on Gianvito’s helmet camera. Crooks’ wrists had been quickly bound with white plastic ties, in case he was still alive. A long trail of blood flowed down the sloped roof.
Vasiladiotis-Nicol put her gloved fingers to the shooter’s neck. “He had absolutely no pulse,” she recalled.
In the seconds after the shooting, Trump was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors treated a wound to his ear. Later that night he flew back to his golf club in New Jersey. The first photos of him after the shooting — blood down his face, fist raised over the heads of the Secret Service agents rushing him away — have already become iconic images.
What remains are looming questions and an impatient Congress. How could this happen? Could the shooting have been prevented? Was it a failure of planning, coordination, communications — or all of the above?
“I think with some better planning perhaps, it could have been stopped,” said Bible, the Beaver County DA. “You’re protecting one of probably the more high-profile political candidates in history. So, how was a 20-year-old able to fire off several shots at him?”
(BUTLER, Pa.) — A local SWAT sniper noticed the suspected gunman at former President Donald Trump’s deadly campaign rally earlier than previously known, according to text messages obtained by ABC News.
On July 13, in what authorities have said was an assassination attempt, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire at the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving Trump bleeding from his right ear.
At 4:26 p.m. — nearly two hours before the shooting began — a sniper leaving the area where local SWAT members assembled saw Crooks “sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit,” the text message said.
The obtained text messages were shared among snipers in the American Glass Research (AGR) building area, which was being used as a staging area for local police, who were inside the structure.
The sniper who alerted others that Crooks was lurking in the area noted Crooks was likely aware of the snipers’ position, writing, “because you see me go out with my rifle and put it in my car, so he knows you guys are up there.”
Less than an hour later, as ABC News previously reported, a member of that same sniper team identified Crooks as suspicious — and shortly after that, called it into local command, warning of the suspicious presence.
In their first public comments since the assassination attempt, the Beaver County SWAT team on the ground that day and their supervisors spoke exclusively with ABC News Senior Investigative Correspondent Aaron Katersky.
It is the first time any key law enforcement personnel on-site on July 13 have offered first-hand accounts of what occurred.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, lead sharpshooter on the SWAT team in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
“So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” Woods said. “We had no communication.”
The Secret Service, whose on-site team was supplemented as usual by local, county and state law-enforcement agencies, was ultimately responsible for security at the event. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Secret Service agents have complained they were not made aware of the warnings.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to the comments from Woods and his colleagues. He said the agency “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”
Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who runs the Emergency Services Unit and SWAT team, said collaboration is key when lives are on the line.
“I believe our team did everything humanly possible that day,” Young said. “We talk a lot on SWAT that we as individuals mean nothing until we come together as a team.”
(AUSTIN, Texas.) — A Texas woman who self-managed her abortion is suing prosecutors and a local sheriff after she was held in jail for two nights on a murder charge that was ultimately dismissed.
Lizelle Gonzalez, a Star County, Texas, resident, filed a civil rights complaint alleging that hospital staff provided her private information to prosecutors and the county sheriff who later charged her with murder, according to court documents.
Under Texas’ multiple abortion bans, it is not a crime for a woman to obtain or seek abortion care for herself; the abortion bans target physicians and anyone who aids a woman in obtaining or seeking an abortion.
Gonzalez is alleging the prosecutors and the sheriff violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and is seeking over $1 million in damages. Two prosecutors — District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez and District Attorney Alexandria Lynn Barrera — as well as Starr County Sheriff Rene Fuentes and Starr County are all named in the lawsuit.
State law prohibits physicians from providing abortion care and places civil and criminal penalties on anyone who aids a woman in obtaining abortion care unless the mother’s life is at risk.
Complaint alleges privacy law violations Gonzalez says she went to an emergency room in January 2022 after having taken “Cytotec Icetrogen 400 mcg” — otherwise known as misoprotol, one of the two medications used in the abortion pill regimen — to cause an abortion when she was 19 weeks pregnant, according to her complaint.
An exam found no contractions and found a fetal heart rate so she was discharged from the hospital and told to follow up days later, according to her lawsuit.
Less than an hour after she was discharged, she was taken back to the hospital with complaints of abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. No fetal cardiac activity was detected upon examination and a cesarean section was performed. She delivered a stillborn child, according to court documents.
Gonzalez alleged her private medical information was then given to state prosecutors and the sheriff, ultimately leading to her arrest which she says violated federal privacy laws.
Gonzalez alleged in court documents that the district attorney’s office and the Starr County Sheriff’s Office had agreements with a local hospital to report these types of cases. Gonzalez also alleged there are other women who’s health information was also shared for the purpose of investigations and potential indictments.
She alleged that two district attorneys and the Starr County’s sheriff presented false and misleading information to a grand jury to secure an indictment against her, according to court documents.
Gonzalez was arrested in April 2022 and held in jail for two nights before a $500,000 bond was posted and she was released. The charges against her were dismissed two days after she was released.
Due to her indictment and arrest, Gonzalez suffered “humiliation” which has “permanently affected her standing in the community,” she alleged in court documents.
Earlier this year, Ramirez agreed to pay a $1,250 fine under a settlement reached with the State Bar of Texas and to have his license held in a probated suspension for 12 months for his prosecution of acts clearly not criminal under state law. He remains the Starr County district attorney.
Ramirez and Barrera have sought to have the suit dismissed and have argued in court documents that they have “absolute immunity for the individual claims against them because the pleaded facts show nothing other than actions taken as part of the judicial phase of criminal proceedings,” according to court documents.
Fuentes also sought to get the case thrown out and argued that he has “qualified immunity” and argued that she did not specify claims against him specifically, but rather against his office.
An attorney representing Ramirez, Barrera, Fuentes and Starr County declined to comment on the lawsuit and told ABC News all responses will be through court filings.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) — Sonya Massey, the Illinois woman fatally shot by a deputy while responding to her 911 call, died by homicide due to a gunshot wound to her head, according to an autopsy report released Friday by the Sangamon County coroner.
Though the autopsy report did not state the manner of death, Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon confirmed it was homicide.
“The cause of death; gunshot wound of the head. The manner of death; Homicide,” Allmon told ABC News in a statement.
The bullet that killed Massey, 36, entered at the lower eyelid of her left eye and exited through the posterior left surface of her upper neck, according to the autopsy report.
Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy who shot Massey, was fired and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in Massey’s death. He pleaded not guilty.
Massey and a second, unnamed deputy responded to Massey’s 911 call reporting a possible intruder at her Springfield home on July 6.
Body camera footage released Monday shows Grayson, 30, yelling at Massey to put down a pot of boiling water.
The footage, reviewed by ABC News, shows Massey telling the two responding deputies, “Please, don’t hurt me,” once she answered their knocks on her door.
Grayson responded, “I don’t want to hurt you, you called us.”
Later in the video, while inside Massey’s home as she searches for her ID, Grayson points out a pot of boiling water on her stove and says, “We don’t need a fire while we’re in here.”
Massey then pours the water into the sink and tells the deputy, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Grayson threatens to shoot her, according to the video, and Massey apologizes and ducks down behind a counter, covering her face with what appears to be a red oven mitt. She briefly rises, and Grayson shoots her three times in the face, the footage shows.
The footage is from the point of view of Grayson’s partner, because Grayson did not turn on his own body camera until after the shooting, according to court documents.
A review by Illinois State Police found Grayson was not justified in his use of deadly force.
Grayson was discharged from the U.S. Army for “misconduct (serious offense),” according to documents obtained by ABC News.
ABC News has also learned that Grayson was charged with two DUI offenses in Macoupin County, Illinois, in August 2015 and July 2016, according to court documents.
Grayson’s attorney, Dan Fultz, declined to comment.
The news of his discharge and DUI offenses come days after it was revealed through Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board records obtained by ABC News that Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies over the last four years.
(LOS ANGELES) — Wildfires are exploding across the West, especially in California, where the Park Fire has now grown to be the biggest in the state this year.
There are currently 11 wildfires over 1,000 acres burning in California, according to Cal Fire. The largest of those is the Park Fire, burning in Butte and Tehama counties, just north of Chico, which grew to over 164,000 acres on Friday with just 3% containment.
Ronnie Dean Stout II, 48, has been arrested on suspicion of arson for starting the Park Fire after he allegedly pushed a burning car into a gully in Bidwell Park, near Chico, according to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.
There are more than 1,150 personnel, six helicopters and 153 fire engines assigned just to the Park Fire.
The Lake Fire, in Santa Barbara County, is the second-largest burning in the state at the moment at over 38,000 acres, though it is 90% contained after sparking July 5.
Meanwhile, farther north, the Durkee Fire in Oregon had grown to over 288,000 acres on Friday morning with 20% containment, according to the Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management. It was sparked on July 17 by a lightning strike and has grown to the largest fire in the country this year.
There are more than 500 people fighting the fire, as rain fell overnight in the area, providing some relief for firefighters.
Smoke spreads across several western states
The smoke from fires in Northern California and Oregon is spreading across several states, including Idaho, Montana and North Dakota, which will all see regions under “very heavy” smoke conditions — the second-worst level.
The Air Quality Index is expected to rise above 150 in Boise, Idaho, on Friday, which would put it in the “unhealthy” category, the fourth of six levels. In Butte, Montana, the Air Quality Index was forecast to be in the 100 to 150 range and “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
(NEW YORK) — A special encore “20/20” airing Friday, July 26, at 9 p.m. ET, which originally aired in 2020, revisits the case of missing Utah mom Susan Powell. The show looks at the continued hunt for Susan’s body and the heartbreaking details surrounding the murders of her two sons at the hands of her husband, Josh, who died by suicide after killing the boys.
Chuck and Judy Cox have spent the past eight years in agony while trying to find some semblance of justice after their son-in-law, Josh Powell, murdered their two young grandsons.
When it finally seemed like they were on the verge of finding some closure earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic brought everything to a halt.
“I don’t know anything else I could have done and they’re still dead. My daughter’s still missing, and now the children are dead,” said Chuck Cox. “I had them safe… They were in my care.”
His daughter, Josh Powell’s wife Susan Powell, was the mother of Braden and Charlie Powell. She disappeared under suspicious circumstances in 2009 and her body has never been found.
In February 2012, Josh Powell killed himself along with Braden, 5, and Charlie, 7, in a house explosion during a supervised visit. Josh Powell locked out the social worker from the home upon their arrival.
“Why take the kids, why? It makes absolutely no sense,” said Cox.
After the house explosion, Chuck and Judy Cox sued the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in civil court, alleging that its negligence contributed to the deaths of their grandsons. The lawsuit was thrown out in 2015 but was appealed and revived in 2019 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The fact of the matter is they’re the only ones who could have protected the children at that point,” Cox said of the child welfare agency run by DSHS. “They’re the ones with responsibility.”
The wrongful death civil trial began in February in Tacoma, Washington, but was interrupted in March as COVID-19 swept through the nation.
“We have been robbed of three precious lives and it’s just devastating to think the same person did it,” Denise Cox-Ernest, Susan Powell’s sister, told ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in 2012.
What happened to Susan Powell remains a mystery to this day.
She was reported missing in December 2009 when the family was living in West Valley City, Utah. That night, Josh Powell claimed he had gone on a camping trip in the middle of the night with their sons. Susan Powell, he said, stayed home because she was tired.
“As soon as I heard that he was back and Susan was not with them, I instantly said to myself, ‘What has he done?’” Kiirsi Hellewell, Susan Powell’s friend. “Susan would have never allowed him to ever take the boys out in the winter to the desert, in the middle of the night. Never. I never believed his story at all.”
West Valley City Police Det. Ellis Maxwell, who led the investigation into Susan Powell’s disappearance, said that when investigators arrived at the house, there were no signs of a disturbance or physical altercations.
At the bank in which she’d worked, inside a safe deposit box that belonged to her, investigators discovered a handwritten will and testament. In the will, Susan Powell had written about how bad her marriage had become and that Josh Powell had taken out a $1 million life insurance policy on her.
“If I die,” her note said, “it may not be an accident.”
Police discovered a safety deposit box that contained Susan Powell’s makeshift last will and testament. She wrote about her “extreme marital stress” and a note to her boys: “I would never leave you!”
“That is our biggest piece of evidence,” Maxwell said. “It’s her last words. There was no doubt that this document was authored by Susan.”
Authorities also determined that Josh Powell had filed paperwork to withdraw money from her retirement account about 10 days after she had disappeared.
At the time of her disappearance, Susan Powell’s close friends said her marriage had been in turmoil for years and that she had even seen a divorce lawyer.
“She’d been really happy. He’d been a great husband, and she said that he really changed. He became not affectionate,” said the Cox family attorney, Anne Bremner.
Her friends also said Susan Powell would complain about a lack of intimacy from her husband.
“He kept her at arm’s length. He wouldn’t kiss her anymore. He wouldn’t touch her. He wouldn’t hold her hand,” said Hellewell.
“Josh and Susan’s marriage reaches rock bottom in the summer of 2008. Josh and Susan are constantly fighting. They’re arguing in front of the kids. Josh is exhibiting extreme control over Susan,” said Dave Cawley, the host of “Cold,” an investigative podcast on the case.
Hellewell said Susan Powell would email her a lot, saying she wants “to do everything in my power to save my marriage before I walk away.”
Chuck Cox said that after his daughter’s will was found, he felt “frustrated” that authorities didn’t arrest Josh Powell.
“I felt they had plenty of evidence to arrest him,” Chuck Cox said.
Police publicly declared Josh Powell as a “person of interest” about a week after his wife went missing. However, despite suspicions, Josh Powell was never charged in Susan Powell’s disappearance.
Those close to the family say Josh Powell acted strangely in the wake of his wife’s disappearance. He was observed cleaning his minivan and the garage.
“It was really odd to me because he was running around the house grabbing piles of towels and putting them in the washer And finally, we’re like, you’ve got to go to your interview with the police,” said Jennifer Graves, Josh Powell’s sister.
Friends and close relatives also said that he never participated in search efforts or showed urgency to find his wife.
“There was no point at which Josh ever seemed to even be concerned that Susan was missing,” said Hellewell. “He never participated in any of the massive, massive efforts that myself and relatives and friends launched to put out flyers in malls and parking lots.”
When detectives pushed Josh Powell on the details from the night his wife went missing, he said he could not remember the events leading up to her disappearance.
“I just don’t remember what activity we were doing,” he had told Maxwell.
Investigators also questioned then 4-year-old Charlie the day after his mother disappeared.
Charlie confirmed to investigators that he went “camping” the night his mother vanished, saying “my dad and my mom and my little brother” were also there.
“The children said, ‘Mommy was in the van but didn’t come back with us,’ a pretty significant thing for a 4-year-old to tell a detective,” said Rebecca Morris, who authored a book about the case titled “If I Can’t Have You.”
“My mom stayed at Dinosaur National Park. My mom stayed where the crystals are,” Charlie had also said.
Many people interpreted Charlie’s statement to mean that his mother was dead. However, the toddler also made comments that were clearly false, including taking an airplane to go camping.
“There’s a pile of circumstantial evidence,” said Maxwell. “Is there enough there to arrest him and book him into jail and hold him accountable? Absolutely, there is. Could we? No.”
Maxwell said that the Salt Lake County district attorney refused to file charges without a body until a year had passed.
ABC News reached out to the district attorney at the time, but they declined to respond to this claim and refused to comment on this case.
In January 2010, less than a month after his wife disappeared, Josh Powell said he had sought to get away from media attention and moved with his sons into his father Steven Powell’s house in Puyallup, Washington.
In an effort to get more information for authorities, Graves wore a wire and confronted her brother about his wife’s disappearance.
“Suddenly I just shoved Josh into the bathroom and at that point, I was like, ‘Drop all pretense. Just tell me where her body is,’” said Graves.
He continued to deny knowing anything about Susan Powell’s disappearance and the situation escalated. Steven Powell then kicked Graves out of the house.
“I regret not getting the confession, but I don’t regret going,” said Graves.
“Suddenly, I just shoved Josh into the bathroom,” Jennifer Graves recalled about confronting Powell. “At that point, I was like, ‘Drop all pretense. Just tell me where her body is.’“
In 2010, about a year after investigators first spoke to Charlie on the day after his mother’s disappearance, they sat down with the 5-year-old again and asked him about what he remembers from that night.
“We can’t talk about Susan or camping. I always keep things as secrets,” Charlie said in the interview. “I didn’t want to talk to you on this long, I mean this many minutes. Now I’m done.”
“The only thing we got out of [Charlie] that time was that he said that she went camping, but she didn’t come home with them. Then, he kinda clammed up after that,” said Det. Sgt. Gary Sanders of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
All the while new details began to emerge about Steven Powell’s unusual fixation and inappropriate behavior toward his daughter-in-law, Susan Powell.
In a 2011 interview with ABC News, he alleged that Susan Powell had made sexual advances toward him.
“She told me that part of the reason they moved to Utah was to get away from her father-in-law, Steven Powell. She was like, ‘He is the most filthy, foul, sick, disgusting pervert the world has ever seen. He’s in love with me,’” said Hellewell.
“Susan was very, very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious,” Steven Powell told ABC News. “We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. I enjoy doing that.”
“Why are you telling everyone that? That’s not to your benefit,” Graves said of her father. “But somehow in my dad’s own twisted mind, he thought that that was the greatest strategy to keep the dogs off Josh or something. I don’t know.”
Denise Cox-Ernest said her sister, Susan Powell, had complained about her father-in-law’s inappropriate advances and that she had told Josh Powell about them, too.
“She was extremely upset about that and disturbed, but even more disturbed when Josh just said that, you know, that’s his dad,” said Cox-Ernest.
Shortly after ABC News’ interview, Utah police searched the Powell family home in Puyallup, where Josh Powell and his sons were living at the time. Investigators found home videos taken by Steven Powell that showed secret recordings of his daughter-in-law’s body parts and video diaries in which he smelled her underwear and expressed his love and sexual feelings toward her. The search also yielded dozens of computer disks containing images of women and young girls that focused on their private parts, according to prosecutors.
Police arrested Steven Powell in November 2011 and charged him with voyeurism and possession of child pornography. Josh Powell was named as a “subject” in the child pornography investigation.
Following Steven Powell’s arrest, Josh Powell lost custody of his two sons. Chuck and Judy Cox were awarded temporary custody of the children in which they acted essentially as foster parents — the state had official custody — and Josh Powell was given weekly supervised visitation.
“Because of all the things that the police encountered in the search of the Steven Powell home, it became apparent, eventually, these boys were at imminent risk of harm,” Ted Buck, another attorney for the Cox family.
In February 2012, new evidence emerged that a laptop from Josh Powell’s Utah home contained images of cartoon pornography. A judge then ordered Josh Powell to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and take a polygraph test.
But before Josh Powell could take the evaluation or polygraph test, he killed himself and the two boys. On Feb. 5, 2012, a state caseworker brought the boys to Powell’s home for a supervised visit. He locked the official out, incapacitated the 5- and 7-year-old children with a hatchet, poured gasoline on them and around the house and then caused an explosion, according to authorities.
A few months later, in June 2012, Steven Powell was convicted on the voyeurism charges and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. The trial court had initially dismissed the charge for possession of child pornography in 2012, but the state’s court of appeals reinstated the charge in 2014. He was convicted of possession of child pornography in 2015 and spent another two years in prison.
Steven Powell served a total of seven years in prison before being released in July 2017. He died of heart problems a year later.
Maxwell believes that Josh Powell’s murder-suicide was “definitely an admission of guilt” for Susan Powell’s murder.
“She was going to divorce him. If he can’t have her, nobody will,” he said. “So he essentially kidnaps Susan and most likely murders her and disposes of her body. Where? I have no idea. Nobody knows.”
The Cox family civil case reconvened at the end of July this year. In August, the jury awarded the family a record $98.5 million award against the State Department of Social and Health Services.
Chuck Cox said he is going to use the reward money to honor his late grandchildren.
“I intend to … use the award to try and help other people, [so] that we can save more children,” said Chuck Cox.
The judge presiding over the case has since reduced the reward to $32 million — $16 million for Charlie and $16 million for their other grandson Braden. The Cox family will appeal the court’s decision to reduce the jury’s verdict, their attorney said.
Graves said Susan Powell’s story “will continue to live on and inspire others to move in the right direction. To move towards good relationships and get out of bad situations — abusive situations.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two top leaders of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel have been taken into custody by United States authorities to face charges for their role in leading the group’s vast drug trafficking enterprise, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of “El Chapo” Guzman, were placed under arrest in El Paso, Texas on Thursday, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks,” Garland said in a statement.
“El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States,” Garland said.
Zambada faces multiple federal indictments for his alleged role in the cartel and has been on the run from U.S. and Mexican law enforcement for years. His fellow co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, El Chapo, was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
“Today, the FBI and DEA arrested two alleged cartel leaders who have eluded law enforcement for decades. Ismael Mario ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of El Chapo, will now face justice in the United States,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
“Garcia and Guzman have allegedly overseen the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the U.S. along with related violence. These arrests are an example of the FBI’s and our partners commitment to dismantling violent transnational criminal organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel,” Wray said.
The circumstances behind Zambada and Guzman Lopez being taken into custody were not immediately clear as of Thursday evening, however, the men were arrested in an operation that ended on U.S. soil.
“El Mayo” thought he was headed to inspect a clandestine Mexican airfield, of which the Sinaloa cartel has many in the country. Instead, according to a Homeland Security Investigations official, a senior ranking member of the cartel tricked him and flew him to El Paso, Texas instead.
Upon landing on the tarmac, agents from HSI, along with the FBI arrested “El Mayo” and Guzman.
The HSI official tells ABC News the operation had been planned “for months.”
They were placed in handcuffs by FBI agents during an operation culminating at an airstrip not far from El Paso.
“The arrest of Ismael Zambada García, better known as ‘El Mayo,’ one of the alleged founders and leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast. El Mayo is one of DEA’s most wanted fugitives and he is in custody tonight and will soon face justice in a U.S. court of law,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram.
“Joaquin Guzman Lopez, another alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the son of ‘El Chapo,’ was also arrested today – his arrest is another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2017, he and his brothers, the Chapitos, allegedly took control of the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo was extradited to the United States. DEA will continue to seek justice for any American life that is lost and will work tirelessly to prevent more needless deaths and pursue those that are responsible,” Milgram said.
The U.S. government had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Zambada.
Guzman Lopez’s brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was charged last year with two dozen others as part of a crackdown targeting a global drug trafficking network run through Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. According to the charges, the cartel used precursor chemicals shipped from China to fuel the fentanyl crisis plaguing the U.S.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez had been wanted by U.S. authorities since 2019 and was captured by Mexican armed forces in January 2023 in a small town just outside the city of Culiacán, the capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
He was captured in an overnight raid that had been in the works for more than six months, officials said at the time. The arrest followed an infamous incident in 2019, in which authorities briefly detained Guzman Lopez at a home in Culiacán, before word spread and heavily armed gunmen flooded the city. Massive shootouts occurred between cartel members and Mexican armed forces around the city. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered Guzman Lopez released in order to avoid more bloodshed.
Their father is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after being convicted in 2019 of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, including large-scale narcotics violations and a murder conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracies, unlawful use of a firearm and a money laundering conspiracy.
(NEW YORK) –Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday asked a New York judge to reject former President Donald Trump’s attempt to throw out his criminal hush money conviction, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity “has nothing to say about defendant’s conviction.”
Trump earlier this month asked Judge Juan Merchan to vacate his conviction on the grounds that the trial was “tainted” by evidence and testimony that was made off-limits after the Supreme Court ruled Trump has presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
Prosecutors said in Thursday’s court filing that paying hush money to an adult film actress is “entirely personal” with “no relationship whatsoever to any official duty of the presidency.”
The former president was found guilty in May of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
The jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts after seeing “overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” prosecutors argued in the filing.
Trump argued that certain evidence presented at trial — including testimony from former White House aide Hope Hicks and Trump’s tweets about his former attorney Michael Cohen — related to his official acts as president and should now be considered inadmissible in light of the Supreme Court opinion.
Prosecutors pushed back in their filing.
“The challenged Tweets bear no resemblance to the kinds of public comments that the Supreme Court indicated would qualify as official presidential conduct,” the district attorney’s office said. “Defendant’s Tweets conveying his personal opinion about his private attorney do not bear any conceivable relationship to any official duty of the Presidency.”
Prosecutors also argued that testimony from Hicks, who was once Trump’s communications director, “related solely to unofficial conduct.”
“[T]he evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty of all 34 felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt,” the filing said.
Earlier this month, Judge Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing in the case from July 11 to Sept. 18 so he could consider Trump’s request to vacate his conviction.
