Jury delivers verdict in wrongful death trial on behalf of Susan Cox Powell’s sons
Jurors delivered a verdict Friday in a case brought by Susan Cox Powell’s parents against the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.
The jury found the state negligent, and awarded slightly more than $98 million to the Cox family for the pain and suffering of Charlie and Braden Powell, a spokesperson for the plaintiffs said.
Judith and Charles Cox filed the wrongful death lawsuit alleging the state didn’t do enough to keep their 7-year-old and 5-year-old grandsons safe from their father, who killed the boys in 2012.
Charles Cox said in a statement: “Nothing can bring back the boys, but this is the end of a nightmare, and it’s gratifying to hear a jury tell the state they were wrong, and to award a verdict that will force them to change the culture ... to make sure this doesn’t happen to other children in the future.”
The trial started in February and was interrupted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jurors started deliberating Thursday, and returned the verdict Friday afternoon.
Braden and Charlie Powell were killed by Josh Powell during a supervised visit at his Graham-area rental home. He attacked the boys with a hatchet and set the house on fire. Josh Powell also died.
The verdict form Friday showed jurors found damages for each boy to be $57,500,000, and that they found $8,245,500 of those damages for each child “proximately caused by the intentional criminal acts of Joshua Powell, and not proximately caused by the state.”
Josh Powell was being investigated at the time in the disappearance of his wife. Susan Cox Powell went missing from their Utah home in December 2009 and is presumed dead.
After Susan Cox Powell disappeared, Josh Powell and his sons moved to his father’s Puyallup home.
The boys were taken into protective custody after investigators searched that home for evidence in Susan Cox Powell’s disappearance. Investigators found pornography and other graphic images in the home, and Steven Powell, Josh Powell’s father, was later convicted of voyeurism and child pornography for photos he took of neighbor girls through their bathroom window.
The boys were placed with the Coxes, and Josh Powell rented the house in Graham.
On Feb. 5, 2012, Josh Powell locked the DSHS-contracted supervisor out of his home and killed the boys.
“If the state had followed its policies, its guidelines, common sense, investigated, had visitations where it was supposed to have them, none of this would have happened,” Ted Buck, an attorney for the Coxes, told the jury during his closing argument Wednesday.
Assistant attorney general Joseph Diaz said in his closing argument on behalf of the state: “There is no if’s and’s or but’s that it was a very tragic, tragic matter, but the state ... took this very serious. They did their job, they followed their policies.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 4:08 PM.
