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Nancy Grace

Susan Powell`s Father-in-Law`s Graphic Diaries

Aired August 15, 2012 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Salt Lake City. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young stockbroker, a mother of two, 28-year-old Susan Cox Powell, last seen when Daddy suddenly announces at midnight on a Sunday night he`s taking the boys, ages 4 and 2 camping -- in the snow. They get back home, Daddy says Mommy`s gone, and she`s never seen again.

Then more tragedy for Susan`s family. Husband Josh Powell`s home explodes in a towering burst of flames. Inside, Josh Powell, and in a bitter twist, Susan`s beloved little boys, Josh Powell inflicting the greatest pain ever on Susan and her family in a suicide-double homicide of the two little boys, just 5 and 7.

Bombshell tonight. After outrageous claims from the father-in-law -- Josh Powell`s father -- that he was having an affair with Susan Powell, we obtain the father-in-law`s private journals, revealing his twisted sex obsession with his own daughter-in-law, Susan, the diaries complete with undercover photos of Susan, some of them so graphic, we can`t even repeat them in their entirety on the air tonight.

But tonight, did the sex-obsessed father-in-law mastermind Susan`s death and the murders of her two little boys?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I have never felt such lust for a woman, even for the one I ended up marrying."

STEVEN POWELL, FATHER-IN-LAW: Susan was very, very sexual with me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Steven Powell even wrote love songs about her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I have never lusted for a woman as I do Susan."

POWELL: She was very flirtatious. I mean, I`m her father-in-law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I would love to clean her entire body with my tongue."

POWELL: She pressed her breasts against my hands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I was so in lust with her that I began going to her laundry and retrieving her panties to check out her scent."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think a part of you started falling in love with Susan?

POWELL: That`s pretty likely, yes. I mean, I -- yes, I would say so. And I -- and there`s no question in my mind that the feelings were mutual.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I could see well up her thigh, covered as it was with the silky white garments. I let my eyes slowly move down her body and drink her in."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Susan is dead. Her two boys were murdered. And this is her pervy father-in-law. That was Susan`s father-in-law on ABC`s "GMA" talking about how there was a mutual flirtation. There was not. Before I go to the first guest or take the first call, let me just say that is not true.

Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.

Bombshell tonight. Live to Salt Lake City, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young stockbroker, a mother of two, Susan Cox Powell. After bizarre and outrageous claims by her father-in-law he was having a torrid affair with her, we get our mitts on his private journals that reveal his twisted and sick sex obsession, a sex obsession with his own daughter-in-law, Susan Powell.

These diaries -- they`re complete with undercover photos. And what I mean by that is this guy -- let me just start off with saying he`s been busted taking long-shot photos of an 8 and 9-year-old little girl in the bathroom across the way, like across the street, going to the bathroom. He takes pictures of these children, these little girls, as they`re tee-teeing in their own bathroom.

These graphic photos he takes of her -- she didn`t pose for them. He would slip mirrors under doors, take long-shot lens photos of her. But the big question tonight -- forget about his creepy sex obsession with his own daughter-in-law. My question tonight is did this perv mastermind Susan`s disappearance and death and the murder of her two little boys in what I can only describe as a towering inferno in the home of their addled-brained father, Josh Powell.

Her parents are torn in half at the loss of their two grandchildren, the loss of their daughter, who we all know we`ll never see again. Now, Josh Powell`s family, including the stepfather, still contends that she ran off with another man. That did not happen, OK?

When you hear his diaries, you too may come to question whether he, in fact, was the mastermind behind her death and the deaths of her children.

We are taking your calls. I want to go straight out to Jim Kirkwood, joining me there in Salt Lake City, the host at KTKK. Jim, I am disgusted with these journals.

Before I throw you the first question, I want the viewers to get a tiny taste of what we have all been really forced to read in a search for the truth. Roll it, Dana.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "In many ways, my life has seemed out of control. My biggest problem, as well as my greatest pleasure, lies in the fact that for over a year, I have been madly in love with my daughter-in-law, Susan. I want to (EXPLETIVE DELETED) her, but I also want to marry her. I wonder if she would consider that? I have never lusted for a woman as I do Susan."

"Driving on the freeway today, I wanted Susan so much that it was squeezing tears out of my eyes. The pressure was coming from my genitals in the form of desire that seemed to actually fill my head with some sort of love-induced pressure."

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: You`re seeing a shot there that was included in his diaries. He would take these long-shot angles. Look, he would -- let me see that in full, please, Dana.

He would actually go to where she worked and video her going in and out of her workplace, and then fantasize in his journals that she knew that he was videoing her from -- there`s a shot of her leg. Man, this poor lady didn`t have a chance.

All right, Kirkwood, KTKK, joining me out of Salt Lake City. I have - - I am just consumed with the thought that this guy was part and parcel in her disappearance and death. What do we know, Jim Kirkwood? What do these journals reveal?

JIM KIRKWOOD, KTKK (via telephone): After you get past the disgusting perversion and look at a couple of statements he made, Nancy -- for example, where he said several times he hopes nothing happens to her. That kind of remark is not something a person would say unless he knew Josh was planning something. At least, that`s my opinion of it.

GRACE: You know, he is refusing to talk to police. He`s not talking to anybody. His obsession goes to the point, Clark Goldband -- well, you know what? I`ll let you explain it, Clark. I want to hear about how he would go into their dirty laundry and how he would buy her pantyhose.

CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes, Nancy. This is in over 2,300 pages of these diaries. We`ve gone through every single page. And there are a few occasions -- more than a few occasions where Powell writes of going through Susan Powell`s underwear drawer, taking pairs of underwear and using it later to masturbate.

He also talks about trying to find Susan Powell`s hair and making a hair collection out of Susan Powell`s hair that he also, it would appear, assists him in masturbation.

The stockings you just brought up a few moments ago -- Steven Powell writes that he apparently purchases multiple copies of the same type of stockings. And that`s because he gave a pair to Susan and kept a spare for himself. Then after Susan would wear the stockings, Steve Powell apparently would swap those stockings out, take those stockings back to his home and use those stockings also to assist him in gratifying himself.

GRACE: OK, let me get this straight. So -- put Goldband up there. So the father-in-law, who`s sitting behind bars right now, refusing to talk, would go to the store, buy her hose, her pantyhose, go home, take her worn -- her pantyhose she wore the day before that she hadn`t washed yet and take them home to masturbate with them and then replace them with the newly purchased hose. And she never knew about it, right?

GOLDBAND: That`s what Steve Powell writes in these diaries.

GRACE: All right. Clark, explain to me about these photos, the photos he has of her. He acts -- and I`ve read these journals. He really believes, or says he believes, that she knows he`s taking these -- there`s her leg, for Pete`s sake.

Explain. There`s one in here that I just love. It`s of her and she`s holding her pet bird. Tell me about that photo, please.

GOLDBAND: Yes, Nancy. There are over 100 photos throughout these 2,300 pages. A lot of them are actually cut out from other places and pasted inside the journal. And next to virtually all of these pictures are handwritten captions that Steve Powell writes underneath the pictures.

And as you were just alluding to a few moments ago, Steve Powell seems to take her non-action towards him, or just not even being aware of his feelings towards her -- Steve Powell takes that as, Perhaps she`s playing hard to get, perhaps she doesn`t want to upset her husband...

GRACE: OK, wait a minute! Hold on!

GOLDBAND: I know she wants me...

GRACE: I`m missing a page here. He says -- this is the one with the parakeet. Let me see that shot because you`ve got the other page, Clark. "On Sunday afternoon I taped Susan as she" -- she probably didn`t know she was being taped, by the way. He was probably hanging upside-down out the window.

"Afternoon -- I taped her as she played with a parakeet, Verde (ph). It was sweet to watch her bring Verde to her lips to kiss him. I`m reviewing the tape" -- freak! "I`m reviewing the tape. I get the impression she starts out self-conscious. She kisses him in such a way" -- what? What`s the rest of that? She kisses him in such a way that what?

GOLDBAND: Nancy, I`m going to have to just take a moment to track that down in my notes. There are 2,300 pages.

GRACE: OK, because...

GOLDBAND: And I will find that for you.

GRACE: ... he goes on to say the picture of her with the parakeet, kissing the pet bird, "brought me to such a strong orgasm. The night before this video was taken, Susan and I were in bodily contact for nearly two hours."

GOLDBAND: Yes.

GRACE: Clark...

GOLDBAND: Yes.

GRACE: ... he sat on the sofa next to her.

GOLDBAND: Yes, Nancy. I have found that in my notes. Yes, that`s correct.

GRACE: Go ahead. Explain.

GOLDBAND: And Steve Powell, as you were saying, just sitting next to her on the sofa, or something like that. Susan Powell also apparently cut Steven Powell`s hair from time to time. In fact, by the looks of what`s in these journals, he was excited each time she would cut his hair.

And he would stress and write over and over about what he should wear during the haircut, that -- there was one time I read he took off his top shirt and was just sitting in a white undershirt, and was wondering if Susan noticed, you know, how strong and how he looked and how special it was.

And any incidental contact that may have been made during these haircuts was just analyzed over and over, over scores of these pages, Nancy. Every little movement was painstakingly analyzed by Steven Powell in his own mind.

GRACE: How did the journals surface, Jim Kirkwood?

KIRKWOOD: When the search warrant was executed on the home where Steve -- where -- Steven Powell`s home -- Josh Powell had moved there, from Utah to Washington. The police got a search warrant looking for information about Josh and Susan Powell and her disappearance. And in the process, they discovered all this information about his pedophilia, voyeurism stuff. And that`s where it all came from.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I would like female companionship, but I am still madly in love with Susan. I would rather look at a video or picture of her than have a social life. I spread out my collection of pictures of Susan, and I could not fit them all on the king-size bed in this room -- compose them in such a way as to make it appear that she was kissing, licking or biting me."

POWELL: When Josh actually became aware of it, I said, Well, Josh, it really was Susan who came on to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I was so in lust with her that I began going to her laundry and retrieving her panties to check out her scent. The fox is in the henhouse, as they say. I know some people would think I am strange or even sick for collecting articles of Susan`s lingerie, but try this one on for size. I just went to my Susan drawer and sniffed a small wad of her hair I took from her hairbrush. I also found some of her hair in a trash bucket in the bathroom. I have been collecting her hair to create a growing and beautiful piece of her actual person."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I`m voting unanimously for creepy, all right? But creepy doesn`t carry the day. Is this sex-obsessed father-in-law obsessed with Susan Cox Powell, who many of us believe to be dead at the hands of his son and possibly him...

We are taking your calls. Is he involved in her death and disappearance and the murders of her two little boys?

Joining me right now, a special, Anne Bremner. She is the attorney for Chuck and Judy Cox, parents of Susan Cox Powell. Anne, you have handled so many, many high-profile cases. This one has completely broken my heart. I can hardly even prepare for the...

ANNE BREMNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I know.

GRACE: ... discussion of this case because of those two little boys` murder. I find it entirely possible that he is involved, the father-in-law is involved in Susan`s murder.

BREMNER: Let me start here, Nancy -- and thank you and your show for how supportive you`ve been of the family, my clients, because they`ve been through just -- I mean, we just feel like the hits keep coming. It`s so horrific (ph). Susan`s missing, and of course, the little boys with the hatchet and fire and the inferno. And now this. I mean, it`s just one thing after another in this case.

But I think Chuck and Judy have always thought that Steven could be involved in Susan`s disappearance. And the fact is, these journals underscore creepy, I mean, massively creepy, also potential involvement.

And I can talk to you about a couple of other factors, if you have time on this right now, or we can come back to it.

GRACE: Yes, tell me.

BREMNER: But there are -- there are accounts that he was in Utah around the time of this, quote, unquote, "camping trip" at midnight with the 2 and 4-year-old. And also that he called in sick after that. And he came, you know, all the way from Washington to Utah, and then, basically, was on the phone a number of those days with Josh.

And so Chuck has always maintained -- and Chuck is ex-law enforcement -- that Steven knows a lot and/or was involved in Susan`s disappearance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "My erotic experiences with my beautiful daughter- in-law. I couldn`t wait to see her in the buff. I wanted to make love to her right then, but she was just a tease and I her clown. She`d put her makeup on and dress to kill. I`d stare at her and never get my fill. I think I have supplied all of her pantyhose in the last year. She said she runs out before she can launder them."

"My personal motivations are, one, I like knowing what she has under her skirts. Two, I have exact duplicates of her pantyhose, which enables me to pull ones she has worn from her laundry and replace them with no trace. And three, I love doing anything for her, and this is all the more pleasant to give her because it is so personal and intimate. I don`t know if I dare buy pantyhose for her birthday now, ever since I told her I was in love with her.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. These personal diaries have emerged in the search of Steven Powell`s home. This is the father-in-law of missing woman Susan Cox Powell, the mother of two little boys, ages 4 and 2. Is the father-in-law and his creepy sex obsession with his own daughter-in-law part and parcel of her death and disappearance?

To Aaron Brehove, body language expert. You have observed him, especially when he was speaking on "GMA." What do you make of him, Aaron Brehove?

AARON BREHOVE, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: What we see a lot when we`re looking at the journals and when we also listen to him in the video, he`s consistently -- he makes statements and then goes back and (ph) something else.

Like, he said that he -- Susan said that he was a pedophile and didn`t want him around his (SIC) kids. And then a few pages later, says that he wants to be with her and thinks that she wants to be with him. He does this a lot with the video, as well. He`s kind of going forward and saying something else. And I think he understands that he doesn`t love her, but he tries to run over it and tries to really push forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "As soon as she would go into that bathroom to pee, I would grab my mirror and dive for the floor. But what I`ve written about Susan represents the first time I`ve mentioned fetishes and what might be considered sociopathic. I mean, who looks under a bathroom door with a mirror? I tend to think a lot of guys do.

"I won`t give up on her, unless fate somehow separates us by geographic or other means. It has been a year since I saw her. I despair that I may never see her again.

"I would like female companionship, but I am still madly in love with Susan. I would rather look at a video or picture of her than have a social life. It amazes me that I have not seen her or spoken to her for a year- and-a-half, and yet I am still totally captivated by her.

"Susan was my fantasy come true. She was the yin to my yang, she was the exhibitionist, and I the voyeur. She was the female answer to my sexual proclivities.

"God, I miss her. "

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: That is total B.S. When the father-in-law finally confronts Susan Powell, Susan Cox-Powell now missing and believed to be dead, her two little boys also dead, she becomes angry, cuts off all contact with him for well over a year, won`t have anything to do with him. Reports what he says to her husband, Powell`s son. She wanted nothing to do with him.

She complained to her parents, to her sister, to many others that the father-in-law was creepy when it came to her.

Unleash the lawyers, Kelly Saindon, Alex Sanchez, Peter Odom.

Peter, you do know why the father-in-law, Steve Powell, is currently in jail, right?

PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, apparently it`s for a voyeur episode with the young girl across the street from where he lived. Yes. So I mean this is not something new.

GRACE: Two little girls ages 8 and 9.

ODOM: Yes.

GRACE: He used a long lens to capture the two little girls urinating in their family bathroom.

ODOM: So this is --

GRACE: OK. This is who we`re talking about.

ODOM: Right.

GRACE: OK, weigh in, Alex Sanchez. Right now he has not been named a person of interest in the murder of Susan Powell. There`s no body, but you heard what was just laid out by Anne Bremner that he travels all the way to Utah at the time Susan Powell goes missing.

ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Listen, this guy`s a repulsive character, I`m not even going to try to defend his character. But I want to ask a simple question, I think the viewers would agree with me on this. If this guy was so obsessed with this woman, and was so much in love with her, wouldn`t he be the one person that would want to keep her safe and alive? So that he could continue to satiate his sexual gratifications?

GRACE: You know what? It`s interesting that you`re saying that, but I`m going to give you an unexpected answer, and let me point out that all of his sex gratification was achieved without her being there in person, but your question is, isn`t he the one person that would want her alive, that`s not always necessarily true, is it, Dr. Bethany?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": No, you`re right, Nancy, because he`s the one person who would want her dead, because she had moved away and he no longer had knowledge of her whereabouts, so if he kills her and he stores the body somewhere then she is constantly, consistently available to her -- to him. So of course he would want her in that state of repose so that he can fantasize about her and make of her what he wants.

You know, Nancy, he has four of the five perversions -- pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, which is looking at somebody who doesn`t know you`re looking at them, frauderism, is rubbing up against an unsuspecting partner in public. He did that through the lingerie, taking pieces of her hair. She was the air he breathed. He`s very primitive. People this disturbed are primitive. They have the mental operations of an infant.

Infants -- for infants, mommy and baby are one. Mommy is the air I breathe, I want to merge with her and be one with her, and then he`s obsessed with her with erotic overtones. So if he had her in the freezer, in the basement, under the bed, that would be the perfect scenario for someone like them because -- him because he could then fantasize and have sexual activity with her all the time. And she`s dead, she wouldn`t even know about it.

GRACE: Everybody, we are taking your calls. To Joanie in Massachusetts. Hi, Joanie, what`s your question, dear?

JOANIE, CALLER FROM MASSACHUSETTS: Hi, Nancy. I so admire you. Thank you for taking my calls. I was wondering, do you know if the parents are still in touch with the social workers that was taking care of the boys?

GRACE: Man, Joanie in Massachusetts. That`s a whole another can of worms.

To you, Anne Bremner, a lot of discussion that the social workers or DFACS, Department of Family and Children Services, could have prevented the murders of the two little boys.

ANNE BREMNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.

GRACE: I know there was a social worker that brought them to the home and then the moment they got in, the son, Josh Powell, hacked the boys to death with a hatchet and set the place on fire.

And another thing, before I lose this thought, Alex Sanchez, you were saying, isn`t he, the father-in-law, obsessed with her, the one person to would protect her? He didn`t protect her from his own son, Josh Powell. Just hold that thought.

All right. Back to you, Anne Bremner. What`s the status of the social worker, DFACS?

BREMNER: Well, right now, the social worker is just acting on, you know, what she was told to do in the case. There`s a claim for damages that we filed right now alleging that this should not have been unsupervised visitation between Josh and those kids. And they need to -- they really need to change the focus in Washington state from reuniting families at any cost to the safety and welfare of the kids.

GRACE: You know you`re so right. I want to go to Mary Ellen O`Toole, PhD, former senior FBI profiler, author of "Dangerous Instincts."

Mary Ellen, thank you for being with us. I can`t wait to hear your thoughts, Mary Ellen O`Toole.

MARY ELLEN O`TOOLE, PHD, RETIRED SENIOR FBI PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "DANGEROUS INSTINCTS": You`re welcome. After reading all of this and following this case pretty closely, I think there`s certainly every possibility that the father, if not directly involved, was aware of what happened to his daughter-in-law. But when I look at what Josh did in terms of those little boys and himself, the way he coped with his particular situation was to act out with extreme violence.

Extremely inappropriate but that`s what he chose to do. So it makes sense to me behaviorally that the murder of his wife would certainly be something that he would resort to, that`s part of his repertoire of behavior is if -- to treat people like objects, and if you`re not going along with me, or if I can`t have you nobody will have you.

GRACE: Alexis Weed, I find it very compelling that the father-in-law obsessed with his own daughter-in-law, now missing, her children dead, traveled all the way to Utah at the very time she goes missing.

ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right, Nancy, we also have to look at the fact that Steven Powell took off those two days of work, the 8th and 9th of December after Susan went missing. Why was he gone? Why did he call in and have a family emergency, so he told work? That`s why he was not there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she is very aware that I have taken secret video clips of her both at home and at the mall where I would occasionally wait for her to arrive at work just to see her and film her.

I am 90 percent certain that even when I was filming her secretly, she was aware. Many things suggest to me that she was very much aware, as I used a mirror under the bathroom door to admire her most private moments. In the meantime, I was looking at some pictures of her this evening and printed a couple of frames from the last few of video I took of her.

I have even told her I was in love with her. I have now doubt that bothers Josh, but I can`t take those words back and maybe they affect her at times, but maybe someday she will come back to me because she knows I love her. I know Susan was in love with me, but when I told her I loved her, she came unglued, told Josh and wouldn`t speak to me for months.

She was commenting that she did not want her boys over here with me because I am a pedophile. I would be devastated or I`d to find out Susan was dead from any cause. I am still so in love with her, and I can barely function. I wish I could tell her that. I wish I knew she was as much in love with me.

I spread out my collection of pictures of Susan and I could not fit them all on the king sized bed in this room, composed them in such a way as to make it appear that she was kissing, licking or biting me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. For those of you just joining us now, under scrutiny, Steven Powell, the father-in-law of Susan Cox-Powell, a stock broker, a 28-year-old young mother of two little boys ages 2 and 4.

That night, the dad, Josh Powell, says he`s taking the children camping, in the middle of the night on a Sunday night in sub-zero temperatures. It`s snowing outside. When they get home, Susan is gone, never seen again. The children later tell authorities that mommy is in the mines, that mommy is in the trunk of the car and they draw pictures to depict those two scenarios.

Later Josh Powell, still not charged with the murder of his wife, hacks his children to death and sets the home on fire. After the Department of Family and Children Services wants to keep the family together.

We are faking your calls, to Greg Kading, former LAPD detective, author of "Murder Rap."

Greg, after reading his diaries and his obsession with this woman, you, after working the streets for so long in L.A. as a cop, know how quickly sex obsession can turn to hatred when -- when the person is rejected, Greg?

GREG KADING, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE, AUTHOR, "MURDER RAP": Yes, and it is very interesting that he had a conversation about his obsession with her with his son. And his son in turn kind of excuses the father and says, well, we`re just a crazy family. Well, it`s very clear that the son probably turned his rage then against the wife for the actions that the dad was responsible for.

So it`s very interesting. But what`s most disturbing about this, Nancy, is that he gets out next year. And this is not a man that`s fit for society.

GRACE: Kelly Saindon, right now the police are not naming him a person of interest in the murder or the death of Susan Powell. In fact murder charges have never been brought, there is no body, but Kelly, isn`t it true murder can be prosecuted even without a body?

KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: Absolutely. You don`t always have to have a body. The fact that she was gone, the testimony of the children alone should be enough to presume something nefarious happened, that she`s not going to resurface. And this whole idea that she ran away with someone, there`s nothing credible behind that.

As creepy as the dad is, what Josh Powell did to his kids in the house, I would think authorities would presume she`s dead and they would have a case. The issue is, are they only focusing on Josh and not on the crazy dad?

GRACE: Well, you know, Anne Bremner, Kelly is making a great point. What was his excuse for being in the area at the time Susan Cox-Powell goes missing?

BREMNER: Well, this came from a co-worker actually, Nancy, and he really hasn`t commented on what he was doing there. But he had a van that belonged to the Department of Corrections of all institutions, that he`d worked for. And this is a person that has reported about his whereabouts when he said. One other thing is, he didn`t act in any way surprised that she was missing when it hit the news reports. And he`d never mentioned it before it hit the news.

GRACE: I want to go to Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner, joining us out of Philadelphia this evening.

Dr. Manion, thanks for being with us.

DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: My pleasure.

GRACE: Dr. Manion, if Susan Cox-Powell`s body was found, now, would we still be able to get DNA off of the body if it`s there, of course? Could it still be identified as Steven Powell`s?

MANION: Yes, we would be able to get DNA from the skeleton, the marrow, but the body`s probably been completely skeletonized now. The only thing left would be bones and hair. And I -- if there were clothing there, there -- you may be able to get the DNA off the clothing, if somebody had cut themselves or had left a stain there or something like that.

The other thing we checked, of course, if we found the skeleton is the jaw -- lower jaw and upper jaw for the teeth and fillings that could also be used to identify her. But I don`t -- there`s no tissue left now, the skin`s gone and her body is just a skeleton right now.

GRACE: Unless of course the body were frozen.

Everyone, we are taking your calls. After the extensive diaries, thousands of pages, written by father-in-law, Steve Powell, many court watchers believe he is in some way responsible for the murder of his daughter-in- law, Susan Powell.

So, Jim Kirkwood, KTKK, what more needs to be done? Let`s just assume we`re never going to find her body.

JIM KIRKWOOD, NEWS SHOW HOST, KTKK: Well, there`s a lot of criticism of the prosecutor and the police over here because there has been no charges filed. And Tim Gill, the county attorney, basically said that a defense attorney could just tear the case apart, which I`m not certain is true, but that`s his position and that`s why it was never filed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Susan did not take well to my revelation that I had been in love with her for months. She told Josh and when I called him, he began with, "I guess insanity runs in our family."

I acknowledge that this thing for Susan is like alcoholism. It stops me in my tracks at all hours of the day. I frequently want nothing more than to lay in bed with my eyes closed and think about her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author of "Dealbreakers."

Of course, again, Josh Powell is the only named person of interest in the disappearance of Susan Powell, although these diaries certainly, certainly in my mind are probative. What does it mean to you, Bethany?

MARSHALL: Well, it means to me that you have a man who`s perverse, primitive, has a fixation on her. Wants to know where she is at every hour of the day. I really think we have to think about at some point where -- what are his activities going to be when he gets out of prison? Is he going to fixate on somebody else or is he going to continue to fixate on her and is that going to give us some clues about where she might be?

GRACE: Dr. Bethany, the reality is he says in his own words he`d rather lay in bed and fantasize about her. You know, she`s not there. Than anything else. So what about her dead body? What would he do with that, Dr. Bethany?

MARSHALL: Well, I mean he seems to feel that whatever is in his mind is in her mind. If he wants her, she wants him back. So he seems to be well able to imbue her with characteristics that are not true of her. So if she was dead, that wouldn`t really very much matter to him. For instance, when he puts the mirror under the bathroom door so he can see her urinate, he`s not thinking about what she`s thinking, he`s thinking about the perverse act of watching her.

So watching her in repose like necrophilia is going to be more important than whether she`s alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spent some time Saturday night reading Susan`s journal. I scanned all of the journals I could get my hands on from her first entries as a preteen to her entries just before I met her.

Funny, I don`t feel guilty in the least about reading her journals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I`m reading more of the journals or so much of it I can even read on air. In the middle of this graphic entry he says, I have contemplated the thought of being invited into the delivery room when she has her child. It would be an incredible turn-on. I`d love to be the cameraman.

All right, Peter Odom, weigh in.

ODOM: Nancy, you`ve got 2,334 pages of expressions of lust, adulation, love. I don`t know how anybody could suggest that there`s anything violent there. There`s not. Certainly, though, once Josh found out this connection --

GRACE: He was stalking her. He was stalking her.

ODOM: Well, you -- that`s your -- that your word. That`s your word. That`s not his.

GRACE: He admits he puts a mirror under the bathroom door to watch her urinate. You don`t think that`s stalking?

ODOM: Again. Not a word of violence in there, Nancy. This is adulation and lust.

GRACE: That`s stalking. That`s not adulation. That is a crime.

ODOM: Nancy --

GRACE: She is a sex victim.

ODOM: But it`s not violence. There`s one person that has shown a tendency for violence. That`s Josh. And all your talk about how he must be responsible, that`s rank speculation and it`s purely based on nothing.

GRACE: That`s not what I said.

OK. Agree or disagree, Anne Bremner?

BREMNER: Well, the apple doesn`t fall very far from the tree. And when looking at this stalking behavior about her, even his obssessiveness, you know, who knows, he didn`t even have journal entries during the time that she went missing. They`ve stopped before she went missing and then they picked up again many months later.

And the fact of the matter is, this is a guy who was creepy with a capital K. And he was creepy toward her. And he was obsessed throughout all of this. And I have all kinds of records about Steven Powell in terms of the way he raised his own kids and the way he reacted to her.

We had to sue him over the journals. And we`ve seen all kinds of things with him. But the fact of the matter is, like Josh said, maybe insanity does run in the family. That`s what he said to his dad.

GRACE: Anne Bremner, high-profile lawyer out of Seattle, representing Susan`s parents.

Let`s stop and remember, Army Staff Sergeant Alex French IV, 31, Milledgeville, Georgia, killed, Afghanistan. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, two Army Commendation medals, Army Achievement medal, also served the Navy, sheriff`s deputy back home. Worked for Department of Corrections. Leaves behind parents Alex III, Gwendolyn, sisters Latoya, Laquita.

Alex French IV, American hero.

Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us. Dr. Drew up next.

Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END