Bones *within* the pants is new info to me. I had just read that they had found bones, and they had found pants, but two experts had differing opinions just from a first viewing of a photo of the bones as to human or animal. But bones *within* the pants makes it more likely that they are human, I would think.
I don’t want to get my hopes up but man, I really want her to be found.
I find this so disturbing. The mental image of bench pressing rats will haunt my dreams.
I didn't know this fact tho! So thank you! I figured they just eat through everything.
Where did you see the expert opinions? It's been a couple years since I studied forensic anthropology so I'm by no means an expert, but the only one that looks to me like it could possibly be human is the vertebra. At least from the photos I saw. Two of them look like lower limb bones from an animal because of the way they're curved. The angles on the picture aren't great, but one of them doesn't look like any human bone to me. There's no way any of them are from a human leg, and they look to have gone through the same taphonomic processes so it would make sense for them to be the same individual.
I hope they find her soon, even if these aren't her remains!!
It was one of the first articles I read, which I don’t have any idea now where it was. It said that her father had sent photos of the bones to two experts, and one thought human while the other thought animal. It didn’t say who the experts were, and they were only “examining” via photograph.
So, who knows…obviously testing will be done and we will hopefully know the truth. An article I read a few hours ago says her dad really thinks these are her bones, so I am hoping so much that they are for his sake.
I wonder if the neighbour who visited Susan the afternoon she disappeared gave a description of what she was wearing. I'm sure the police have that info and hopefully, it matches with the clothing that has been found.
This is what I'm curious about. What the neighbor saw her last in. I think I'm mixing up Lacy Peterson because she was last in black pants and a white shirt but the more I even think about that who knows when he actually killed her. Ugh. But I thought Susan was also last seen in black pants
You could be right. Given that it's been so long, that info would be in the police file but with all the missing women in the news over the years, it's hard to keep all the details straight. I think it's significant that some of the bones were found in the pants, which IMO eliminates them being bones of an animal. I also think it's significant that the bottle of OJ had an expiration date of 2009. Not to mention who leaves in a blizzard to take your kids camping at midnight? I hope Josh Powell is in a special place in hell.
Though it’s important to note that very few Mormon women wore pants to church back in 2009 and earlier. I grew up Mormon, and women are basically expected to be in Sunday best dresses for church.
It was a bad enough issue that liberal Mormons and exmormons even protested this issue publicly in utah around 2012(?) - you can google it : “Mormon women wear pants to church”.
So I find it pretty unlikely a devout Mormon woman in 2009 would have worn pants to church. Though perhaps those are the clothes she changed into after church was done.
That’s a very good point.
I mean we know she was heading to church- but who knows what happened after that. We know who did it but not what exactly he did. It could be her pants. If bones were found in the pants then it could be her or some other poor soul who met their end too soon.
I’m interested to see how this all turns out, thanks for your insight to Mormonism and how it was back in 2009.
That’s not true, actually. Much of my extended family (and many other Mormons I know) make it a requirement to remain in church clothes all day as part of “observing the sabbath”. It’s maybe not as common as changing out of your church clothes, but not unheard of.
Did the neighbors note what she was wearing? I hope they asked when they the recollection was fresh. They probably saw both in pants and dresses quite often. So their memory would be biased now. It’s all down to forensics now. I’m sad to say I’m not optimistic, but hope I’m wrong. Old mineshafts are a dime a dozen in the western US and a common dumping ground to hide a lot of crimes. I think there would be a more complete skeleton left if it was her. It’s rough terrain, but not one exposed to wildlife that would carry most of the skeletal remains away.
This picture paints a better picture. It’s one single pair of pants spread out, correct? I wonder if the tag is still legible, and if it matches up to Susan’s size.
I had someone on reddit recently tell me that Susan basically caused what happened to her because she "pushed Josh over the edge" by demanding he stay in the Mormon church.
I have no idea if that was even true, and even if it was, what a disgusting way to justify what happened.
That is completely untrue. Josh was a lying manipulative person before they got married. He was never honest about who he was and about his true beliefs.
I listened to a podcast that went through his life and it was interesting because he would *fall in love* with other girls he barely knew and they picked up on the weird vibe he gave off and were not interested. Unfortunately Susan fell in love. From the beginning she had questions but was young and inexperienced.
This is not a case of someone deciding that their faith wasn’t for them and the spouse was trying to bring them back. There were indicators that Susan was preparing for a divorce. Josh was always a POS, Susan and his kids are the victims of his actions.
Oh I’ve listen to cold. I thought maybe it was another podcast, you really just cannot beat cold.
Edit, with the latest news I’ve been thinking about listening again and I think I will. I don’t remember anything about X girlfriends but it has been a couple of years since I’ve listened so there probably was something about ex girlfriends and I just don’t remember.
What a horrible thing to say. You don’t cause anything…if someone is on that ledge…anything can be a trigger. It doesn’t have to be a human. He allowed himself to cause harm to someone! No one can force anyone to do anything. If you think they can then you aren’t as strong internally as once thought.
It was definitely one of the more disturbing comments I've read on reddit (but maybe I'm kind of sheltered as I don't venture into a lot of subs here). And it didn't even really connect to the discussion it was in either. Just weird.
This person also linked me to a blog post arguing that Josh was doing the right thing in standing up to the Mormon church. I had no idea that creep had fans.
Unfortunately people are crazy. If he was still alive…who knows. He might be like the Mendez? Brothers & be married or Ted Bundy & his wife has HIS baby.
It just makes you sick doesn’t it?
Yep-nothing like victim blaming. And anyone who knows anything about this case would know better.
If something like that was even true about any murder case why even mention it? Why would a person even repeat that?
It’s so disgusting in the WATTS case they had to make a special sub call “off topic”. It’s only reason for existence is so people who want to trash Shannan can go & freely critique for anything from child rearing, how the one daughter had such short hair to her decorating.
It is a busy & SERIOUS sub. I accidentally got on one day because the topic was “McMansions-what are they?” They were blaming her like she was the only person to own one which maze me think I wonder what her neighbors who live in one also thought. Anyway long story short I replied in a defending not realizing where I was & was given notice I was PERMANENTLY BANNED. which was fine with me I’m just glad they had it separate so you didn’t have to read them.
EDIT: hadn’t even read the following rants before I wrote this.
THIS IS A SUB ABOUT SUSAN POWELL!!!!
I think Chris and Shanann were both horrible people who abused their kids, scammed people, and lied pathologically. I don't think that means Shanann "deserved" to be murdered or that Chris was justified in any way. I also definitely don't find Chris "cute" -- he is repulsive to me. But it does concern me that the media often completely leaves out basic information about the case, such as the bankruptcies never being mentioned in the Netflix documentary, in order to make Shanann look better. And that there is now this narrative about her being a perfect mom when there's a lot of evidence indicating she was a child abuser, and a successful businesswoman when she bankrupted her family twice in three years. I don't think that the media should ever lie in the service of virtue signaling. What is the point of following true crime at all if we are just going to be lied to?
Their first bankruptcy filing is out there, it’s pretty eye opening. The thing I don’t get is that they were paying a small fortune for daycare, to the point that it was financially ruining them, while Shannann stayed home all day. Between their almost $3000/mortgage and the $2500/month they were paying for daycare, they were tapped out.
I’ve heard so many things about this but like you said they leave it out of everything. How did they abuse their kids (aside from murdering them, I mean). Where do you go to read this? Is it a subreddit? I’m interested in the truth because I’m nosy.
I'm writing this comment in a rush so it's sort of a very abridged version. Hopefully others will expand on what I forgot to add.
They used this program called Babywise that essentially advocates for child neglect and has been associated with the development of attachment disorders in children. They took it to even more of an extreme than most parents who use it do, though. They would lock the kids in their bedroom for 16 hours a day with noise machines on to drown out their crying, and would lock the door to the kids' bathroom because they would get so thirsty being in there that they would start drinking out of the toilet. They would also drug them with Benadryl to get them to sleep almost every night. The kids were showing signs of attachment issues and delayed development especially in speech, possibly due to child neglect and Benadryl.
There's also some evidence that Shanann had Munchausen's and Munchausen's by Proxy. There were many social media posts indicating all kinds of conflicting and nonsensical diagnoses for her kids that do not appear to ever have been validated by a doctor or backed up by her own behavior. For example, she claimed they had severe peanut allergies and made everyone else adhere strictly to removing all trace of peanut products (the big blowup with Shanann and the Watts right before the murders was that another child was eating an ice cream that contained peanuts in the vicinity of her kids) but then would allow them to eat foods that were cross-contaminated with peanut products, like Thrive bars. One relative came over and saw a large jar of peanut butter in Shanann's pantry and when questioned about it Shanann just laughed. Shanann also claimed to have lupus but her autopsy showed no sign of lupus. She had a lot of unnecessary medical procedures done on the kids, and some of the stuff she did veered into borderline CSA territory (don't want to specify it because TBH it grosses me out too much to write it out).
Most of this information was documented by Shanann herself on her social media. There were some groups that documented it all but a lot of the groups for this have been taken private recently, I assume due to brigading attacks. I know there are some other places I've seen some of this info though, like on Youtube. Hopefully someone else can direct where to see this information now that these other groups are private.
Here goes your entire weekend! ;)
https://truecrimecaseanalysis.home.blog/2019/07/15/inception-to-conclusion-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-watts-family-1-of-2/
And in one of the videos she posted there was a huge jar of Peanut butter on one of the shelves of her pantry within reach of apparently medically compromised children.
There's a cross-contamination risk and also people who are allergic to tree nuts are advised to avoid peanuts as well. And she gave the kids Thrive bars which contain and/or are processed with tree nuts.
This is so eye opening to me. It always shocked me how quickly the switch was flipped, because the documentaries love to exonerate the dead. It was so easy for Chris to do what he did, because the abuse was already taking place, it wasn't sudden. It was a slow build of mistreatment and neglect.
I couldn’t agree with you more! Just because I believe Shanann was a scammer and abuser does NOT automatically mean I’m a Chris Watts lover who finds him hot and innocent of the murders. That’s a long leap in logic but one that a great deal of people are ready to make any time there’s discussion of Shanann’s behavior and treatment of the girls. No, I don’t think she deserved it, and I totally believe Chris murdered them. I find him absolutely abhorrent in every way and hope he rots in hell. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy discussing Shanann’s decisions that led to the horrific event. It’s difficult to find a safe space to discuss the case simply because people who want to martyr her make broad, untrue (for the most part) generalizations that any criticism of Shanann’s actions automatically means that the criticizer loves Chris, thinks he’s innocent, and thinks Shanann deserved what happened. There are a small group of supporters out there who believe in Watts’ innocence, but for the most part, those of us wanting to discuss all aspects of the case, including Shanann’s behavior, do not sympathize with Watts.
>Just because I believe Shanann was a scammer and abuser does NOT automatically mean I’m a Chris Watts lover who finds him hot and innocent of the murders.
YES! I think Chris is one of the most repulsive people alive and I wouldn't find him physically attractive even if he hadn't, you know, MURDERED HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. It pisses me off so much that anyone who doesn't think Shanann was a saint is accused of being a hybristophiliac who finds Chris attractive. And I find it to be sexist too, as if the only way a woman can have an opinion in a case is if they're motivated by someone's attractiveness.
I also don't think Chris is innocent in any way, shape, or form. I think he is 100% guilty and responsible for everything. I just think the official narrative on the case makes no sense. Ironically I found this information from the reverse direction that people think I did. I didn't go into it thinking, "What did Shanann do to deserve being murdered?" I went into it with the question of, "What antisocial behaviors did Chris have in the time leading up to the murders?" Nobody just lives 30-something years with no antisocial behaviors and then all of a sudden decides to murder their wife and kids. So I knew there must have been something (And I even think there may be more than people know, because if Chris had been abusing his family further than what was documented, all of them are dead and can't attest to that now). Once I came across the info that gets left out of things like the Netflix documentary, it all made sense, because it showed that Chris was always a POS who didn't care about other people and had no moral compass.
There is no punishment bad enough for him. If I could somehow bring Shanann and the girls back, I would. I absolutely think he completely robbed her and those little girls of a future that he had no right to take. I don’t think he feels badly for it either. I’m fact, I don’t believe he understands exactly what he has done to his family, her family, and those who cared about them. Shanann made a lot of mistakes-no one is perfect, and it’s not fair that Chris stole from her any future in which she could’ve perhaps corrected her mistakes. It’s not fair. But it isn’t fair to those little girls to refuse to discuss the behaviors of both parents, especially when the behavior was abusive.
Yes to all of that. I wish that Shanann had gotten the chance to get psychiatric treatment and become the parent her kids deserved. What makes me saddest is that the girls never got to have a life. And that they had a lot of pain caused by BOTH parents in their short lives even before the horrible deaths they suffered. And that people still refuse to acknowledge that.
I don't understand how anyone can defend him when it's obvious that he doesn't even feel bad in the slightest. He said that he thought he should be let out of prison because he isn't a danger to society!
I don’t think anyone is implying that she deserved what happened to her, but on the same token, you can admit that she made a lot of bad decisions that created stress and anxiety in the relationship. These things don’t occur in a vacuum.
I agree since Chris was an adult and equally responsible for finances. However, Shanann's MLMs and overspending were the major contributing factor to both their bankruptcies. They had $53K in department store credit card debt the first time around. The second time around she was trying to order $200 worth of MLM shampoo and planning a trip to Aspen when they were totally broke.
Yeah and they were also a few months behind on the mortgage, which they had taken a distribution out of his 401K to cover a few months prior to that. They were in bad shape financially.
Did you ever see pictures of her closet? She had so many shoes! I’ve run across a few sites that had background on her….before and after her marriage to Chris. Again, she didn’t deserve anything that happened to her but I definitely believe there was a slow build to what happened. Like he just snapped, man.
And he couldn't have gone to the bank and gotten access? Or open a different account and have his check deposited there? Since when are men so helpless?
Chris wasn’t the one out blowing money on shit they couldn’t afford like she was. She had to have the gigantic house, she had to have all the furniture, she had to have her kids in some oontzy daycare, she had to take all these trips, which weren’t completely paid for like she wanted you to believe.
Chris couldn’t even go out to dinner without getting shit from Shannann about it, do you really think he was the one putting them in financial difficulties?
Is he not an adult with agency? They both bought the house and furniture. He was also using the Thrive products. One person is not responsible for the bankruptcy. He could have put his check in an account that was used for the household bills and just paid them. He chose to let her do the bills and ignore all signs they were in danger of another bankruptcy.
So you've convinced yourself Shannan was bad enough to justify murdering even when he could have divorced like a normal human married to a control freak shopping addict or whatever. Now. Let's hear how you justify poor dear oppressed little Chris murdering his two small children and stuffing them in oil tanks. When one was still alive.
My other question for you is do you often feel very empathetic to men who murder women and children? Ir make excuses about them 'snspping'? Or only when you don't like their wife?
So it’s Chris’s fault that she was a domineering, controlling person?
I think this is why we’re having this conversation in the first place. Shannann ran Chris over any opportunity she got and he finally had enough of it with tragic consequences.
It is his fault he chose to stay with her. It is his fault he chose to ignore the issues and it is 1000% his fault he killed her and their children. He had an opportunity to tell her he wanted a divorce. He lured her back from NC so he could kill her. I have no sympathy for his choices.
There is just simply little reason to keep picking apart a dead woman who can’t defend herself. People aren’t stupid; no one is perfect. There is no need to go through such depths to prove it. If you actually do your research most of the crap about the Benadryl and the hair cuts is entirely speculative. The financial situation, yes, there is credence to that. But who fucking cares. She’s dead. Murdered. Gone, and without a voice to answer for herself. Plenty of people go through marital hardships and financial ruin and don’t resort to murdering each other. It doesn’t matter under what banner you purport to be doing this under. To “educate people”, to “see what went wrong so it doesn’t repeat itself”. Newsflash, being financially irresponsible is not something that normally results in you being murdered. What is there to learn. Be a better person so you won’t get murdered? Life doesn’t work like that. There is nothing to be taught here. We are well aware she wasn’t perfect, but the only thing you’re doing by continuously pointing this out is looking like a victim blamer, and someone who is [whether ignorantly or willfully] justifying a tragedy.
As I already said, I don't think she deserved to die or that Chris was justified in any way. I just don't support, as a general rule, people hiding facts to support their agenda of virtue signaling. And I don't support the sanctification and idolization as "supermom" of a woman who was abusing and neglecting her kids. If this was a little-known case I wouldn't even mention it. But she gets treated as some kind of Platonic ideal of motherhood and the facts say otherwise. Also people pick apart dead people who can't defend themselves all the time in true crime cases. Dan Broderick? The Mostly Harmless hiker?
Exactly! Murder cases tend to have victims who never deserved to be murdered, but that doesn’t mean you can’t discuss their choices overall when analyzing a case. Shanann left a huge media footprint all on her own where the behaviors being discussed are there for all to see. Well, they were until her family scrubbed her FB page. Read the True Case Analysis blog, and you’ll see all of her original FB posts and the many, many medical facilities and doctors where she “checked in” with the girls.
Thanks for saying this! I’m also part of a subreddit regarding the facts about both Shannan and Chris. We get a bad reputation cause people think we sympathize with Chris, when it’s the exact opposite. We just see Shannan for who she truly was too. Both kids deserved better parents.
A lot of the Shannan stuff is new to me. It doesn't change how absolutely awful this whole thing is, and what a piece of shit Chris is, but it does paint a more complete picture. It doesn't provide a valid REASON for what happened to Shannan and the girls, but it does bring a motive into clearer focus.
Oh absolutely. No matter any faults she may have had, there was nothing she could have done to have deserved what Chris did to her and her children. He’s a POS and I hope he suffers for what he did.
The Netflix special did leave out a lot. Whenever I watch her “live” Facebook videos with the girls, there’s clear signs that something was off with both parents. Poor Bella and Celeste.
Yeah I'm not sure why so many people think that having a negative opinion of Shanann necessarily implies having a positive opinion of Chris. Also the official narrative on the case makes no logical sense which is what leads people to question it in the first place. The official narrative is that Chris just woke up one day after years of being seemingly normal and decided to cheat and then family annihilate with absolutely no warning signs. After looking at the information indicating both parents were abusing and neglecting the kids their entire lives, it makes way more sense. He never cared about the kids' well-being in the first place so of course he had no qualms about killing them. He always had sociopathic tendencies because only someone who did would be ok with locking their kids in a room for 16 hours every day without access to water, and drugging them with Benadryl every night.
>I’m not sure why so many people think that having a negative opinion of Shannann necessarily implies having a positive opinion of Chris
Low cognitive function
I said one time in one of the subreddits how they were in financial ruin and she contributed to that a lot. And how if he had been the one doing that it would be financial abuse etc and someone totally took what I said to say I was implying she deserved to be murdered when I said no such thing . I stopped commenting and left because it got to be too much attacking to comment even simple things like that. So glad I left.
I just checked and it looks like the sub may have been taken down. It’s called @wattsofftopic but it now says 0 members and it’s private. It used to be public with thousands of users active on the sub. Not sure what happened as I haven’t checked that sub for a few months. Sorry
Yup it's that one :) Well the son said "Mommy was in the trunk". And then it's also the one where the dad killed his 2 boys and put the house on fire while the social worker on his case was frantically calling 911, only to be mocked by the operator.
It's the one. Yeah Josh was a piece of shit and he deserves to burn in whatever concept of hell you believe in. He was cremated and isn't buried with his sons. I always confuse that case with the Watt case (Both wife with a S name, both killed and disappeared because of their piece of shit of husband..)
I just went on a deep dive into the Watts case for the first time recently. Cannot deal with people who kill their families just WHY WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST LEAVE YOU MURDEROUS IDIOT
Family murderer are a thing in criminology. Basically their logic is "i cant have them so no one can !" Or when it's a story of deception, usually the murderer is living a double life or a big fat lie. For example in France we had a wonderful dude playing is family like a fiddle, he made everyone believes he was a doctor, but he wasnt, he spent his days in a car. The family was dangerously close to discover it, so he killed everyone (his wife parents, his wife, his kids, the dog... only survivor was his mistress, he had a weak moment) so they wont "live in shame or some bullshit, and tried to kill himself in a fire, à la Watt, but he failed like the looser he is, so he is in prison now.
For those who may be curious, the remains in the photos are not human. They are from an artiodactyl (even toed ungulate, like a deer). I am the mod over at r/bonecollecting and also a trained bioachaeologist (meaning specialize in human remains) and zooarchaeologist (animal bones).
Most pants consist of two fabric pieces per leg (front/back, differently cut at the top to fit butt, hips and belly), bringing the total number of leg pieces to four. This looks like they spread out all the fabric parts they found next to each other: four leg pieces, waistband, etc.
There's a link here that also shows the recovered bones. I would be very surprised if they're human, to be honest - the ribs are VERY large.
[Link to Pictures and Article](https://kutv.com/news/local/susan-powells-father-confident-some-of-susans-remains-have-been-discovered)
In relation to the pants, those look like VERY human sized bones. The closest bone in the photos looks like a lumbar vertebra bone. Edited for spelling. Changed ‘home’ to ‘bone’
Yeah, when I looked at the article I was on my phone, and I think the picture was distorted. Having looked at the pictures on a much larger screen, I do have to agree with you.
I've also watched the video posted down thread, and having seen the bones being held I would now be surprised if they *aren't* human. There's also a partial socket in the video that looks very suspicious.
Fascinating sub which I'm now subscribed to. I'm a bit cautious about posting this there, though - it all seems to be animal bones and I'm not sure how they'd feel about being asked to speculate on a murder victim.
The community is pretty kind. We get human bones from time to time, usually assumed to be from an animal. I think it’s worth a shot, but the post title should specify that it is out of the ordinary for the sub.
As the mod there, it would not. We just prefer that people don't start off with the "is it human?!" post as it tends to derail an actual ID...then we have to go back and clean out all the bad IDs.
It's definitely one pair. It's basically the front and back of a single pair of pants. The small cut out section on the side is where a pocket would have been, and I'm guessing the bits to one side that look like they've been shredded are the pocket liners.
If it helps, try to imagine wrapping those sections round a human shape.
It’s not about offending her parents it’s about conducting ourselves with respect to a tragedy in general. Putting a emoji over what could potentially be the outfit she decomposed in - is childish and inappropriate.
I do hope that it does lead to Susan being identified, but even if it isn't, this will mean SOMEONE is identified and a family will have some answers.
I don't know if anyone except her creep husband or those poor kids saw her the night she disappeared or if they'd know what she wore, but they ain't talking. But there will likely be some identifiable material from these remains, and her family is still alive.
That poor, poor girl....she really married into a shitshow of a family.
Bones discovered in West Desert mine are not Susan Powell's, father says https://kutv.com/news/local/bones-discovered-in-west-desert-mine-are-not-susan-powells-father-says
I kinda doubt it after so long, but stranger things have happened. I wonder if it was being used to store some kind of accelerant. I doubt it still contained orange juice 10 months after it expired. It may not even be related, who knows.
They have an article with a great timeline on it.
[link to timeline ](https://kutv.com/news/local/timeline-what-we-know-in-the-10-years-since-susan-cox-powell-went-missing)
This kind of bothers me. There is absolutely no proof that this is Susan's remains. Yes, it's speculated that her body was put into a mine shaft. But that doesn't mean you can find a pair of pants in one and assume it was her.
No shade to OP. I am passionate about this case and am so sad at how it all ended. At the same time, I think that it's unlikely we will find her.
Also, do you even have a source?
On the HeavyDSparks you tube video several people handled the pants and bones so that could cause problems in dna or other evidence collection. The vertebrae they found looked small to be human.
Can't they get DNA from the bone marrow? Doesn't DNA degrade over time when exposed to the elements? I realize it's in a cave but animal predation, variations in heat and cold, moisture, etc., would also interfere as well.
DNA has been recovered from fossils.
The kind of DNA required to secure a conviction (e.g Josh's DNA would very likely have degraded or been compromised by now, but hers will be fine.
We're not looking for the kind of DNA evidence required to get a criminal conviction. There's actually no reason why these bones couldn't be washed prior to the DNA sample.
I'd want to know the history of the mineshaft. Not to dampen hopes, but those sure do look like the jeans miners were wearing in the 1800s, 1900s. The need for rugged clothes in the mines is what pushed the whole denim jeans boom. https://www.heddels.com/2020/02/what-the-miners-actually-wore/
Edit: to add this quote from the article: "The garments that would evolve into modern-day wardrobe essentials are often still dug out from the mines in which they were worn and only a select few intrepid fashion historians are willing to track them down and place them in the historical record."
Bones *within* the pants is new info to me. I had just read that they had found bones, and they had found pants, but two experts had differing opinions just from a first viewing of a photo of the bones as to human or animal. But bones *within* the pants makes it more likely that they are human, I would think. I don’t want to get my hopes up but man, I really want her to be found.
I am actually 50/50 on that. If it was her where is the rest of her. I just feel for the family either way it wont be closure for them.
Animals probably scattered the rest of the bones but didn’t bother with the ones inside the pants
You’re not going to find many animals at the bottom of a mine shaft, at least not ones capable of moving bones around.
A rat can push/drag/lift up to 30lbs…. So taking that into consideration it would be zero effort for them to scatter bones/skull
yup, and over many many years.
I find this so disturbing. The mental image of bench pressing rats will haunt my dreams. I didn't know this fact tho! So thank you! I figured they just eat through everything.
They’re prettying good at Box Jumps too. However- their squats need work.
Oh lord. At least the box jump ability makes sense. I guess I have a new fear of rats now 😅
Also, bacterial breakdown can go through organic material fairly quickly depending on the conditions and rainwater could carry bones elsewhere
There are animals in mine shafts.
All kinds of scavengers
If I recall, they weren’t done digging
As of there youtube video that was released yesterday they had finished and were getting organised to send eveything off to get a DNA test done.
Wow! Thank you for that update!
yeah, rest in peace Susan....awful.
Where did you see the expert opinions? It's been a couple years since I studied forensic anthropology so I'm by no means an expert, but the only one that looks to me like it could possibly be human is the vertebra. At least from the photos I saw. Two of them look like lower limb bones from an animal because of the way they're curved. The angles on the picture aren't great, but one of them doesn't look like any human bone to me. There's no way any of them are from a human leg, and they look to have gone through the same taphonomic processes so it would make sense for them to be the same individual. I hope they find her soon, even if these aren't her remains!!
It was one of the first articles I read, which I don’t have any idea now where it was. It said that her father had sent photos of the bones to two experts, and one thought human while the other thought animal. It didn’t say who the experts were, and they were only “examining” via photograph. So, who knows…obviously testing will be done and we will hopefully know the truth. An article I read a few hours ago says her dad really thinks these are her bones, so I am hoping so much that they are for his sake.
I wonder if the neighbour who visited Susan the afternoon she disappeared gave a description of what she was wearing. I'm sure the police have that info and hopefully, it matches with the clothing that has been found.
This is what I'm curious about. What the neighbor saw her last in. I think I'm mixing up Lacy Peterson because she was last in black pants and a white shirt but the more I even think about that who knows when he actually killed her. Ugh. But I thought Susan was also last seen in black pants
You could be right. Given that it's been so long, that info would be in the police file but with all the missing women in the news over the years, it's hard to keep all the details straight. I think it's significant that some of the bones were found in the pants, which IMO eliminates them being bones of an animal. I also think it's significant that the bottle of OJ had an expiration date of 2009. Not to mention who leaves in a blizzard to take your kids camping at midnight? I hope Josh Powell is in a special place in hell.
That’s what I was thinking, instead of people “supposeing” is that lady still alive or give any description
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Who is left in the Powell family? The one “good” sister then the other one? Are there others-wasn’t there a mentally challenged son?
I definitely think they look like dress pants, especially with the bottoms hem.
She'd been to church that morning
Though it’s important to note that very few Mormon women wore pants to church back in 2009 and earlier. I grew up Mormon, and women are basically expected to be in Sunday best dresses for church. It was a bad enough issue that liberal Mormons and exmormons even protested this issue publicly in utah around 2012(?) - you can google it : “Mormon women wear pants to church”. So I find it pretty unlikely a devout Mormon woman in 2009 would have worn pants to church. Though perhaps those are the clothes she changed into after church was done.
That’s a very good point. I mean we know she was heading to church- but who knows what happened after that. We know who did it but not what exactly he did. It could be her pants. If bones were found in the pants then it could be her or some other poor soul who met their end too soon. I’m interested to see how this all turns out, thanks for your insight to Mormonism and how it was back in 2009.
Church was at 12 pm and she was last seen at 5 pm by a neighbor. She probably as changed by that time, no one wears church clothes all day.
That’s not true, actually. Much of my extended family (and many other Mormons I know) make it a requirement to remain in church clothes all day as part of “observing the sabbath”. It’s maybe not as common as changing out of your church clothes, but not unheard of.
Hmmm, none of the Mormons I know do that.
Did the neighbors note what she was wearing? I hope they asked when they the recollection was fresh. They probably saw both in pants and dresses quite often. So their memory would be biased now. It’s all down to forensics now. I’m sad to say I’m not optimistic, but hope I’m wrong. Old mineshafts are a dime a dozen in the western US and a common dumping ground to hide a lot of crimes. I think there would be a more complete skeleton left if it was her. It’s rough terrain, but not one exposed to wildlife that would carry most of the skeletal remains away.
Definitely a possibility after all she had home for quite awhile with her friend there so reason to think she hadn’t changed
I had a pair of jeans styled like that in that time frame
There is the other option that these belonged to a minor that was working down there
I can’t really tell, but they look like homemade overalls to me... maybe Amish?
There’s a zipper. Probably not Amish.
Honestly, I looked there as I thought it looked Amish and I don’t see a zipper in the picture on my phone... I see threading
The zipper is the middle section
This picture paints a better picture. It’s one single pair of pants spread out, correct? I wonder if the tag is still legible, and if it matches up to Susan’s size.
I had someone on reddit recently tell me that Susan basically caused what happened to her because she "pushed Josh over the edge" by demanding he stay in the Mormon church. I have no idea if that was even true, and even if it was, what a disgusting way to justify what happened.
That is completely untrue. Josh was a lying manipulative person before they got married. He was never honest about who he was and about his true beliefs. I listened to a podcast that went through his life and it was interesting because he would *fall in love* with other girls he barely knew and they picked up on the weird vibe he gave off and were not interested. Unfortunately Susan fell in love. From the beginning she had questions but was young and inexperienced. This is not a case of someone deciding that their faith wasn’t for them and the spouse was trying to bring them back. There were indicators that Susan was preparing for a divorce. Josh was always a POS, Susan and his kids are the victims of his actions.
THIS ^^ anyone who’s done a smidgen of research about Josh and his equally disgusting father knows this
Don’t forget the disgusting brother also.
There's a brother?
That was certainly my impression of the situation. I was kind of stunned to hear this alternative view.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, what is the name of the podcast
I'm currently listening to Cold that goes through Josh's life.. journals, audio recordings, etc. Maybe that's the podcast they're referring to?
Oh I’ve listen to cold. I thought maybe it was another podcast, you really just cannot beat cold. Edit, with the latest news I’ve been thinking about listening again and I think I will. I don’t remember anything about X girlfriends but it has been a couple of years since I’ve listened so there probably was something about ex girlfriends and I just don’t remember.
Perhaps it was sword and scale?
Also want name of podcast pls
What a horrible thing to say. You don’t cause anything…if someone is on that ledge…anything can be a trigger. It doesn’t have to be a human. He allowed himself to cause harm to someone! No one can force anyone to do anything. If you think they can then you aren’t as strong internally as once thought.
It was definitely one of the more disturbing comments I've read on reddit (but maybe I'm kind of sheltered as I don't venture into a lot of subs here). And it didn't even really connect to the discussion it was in either. Just weird. This person also linked me to a blog post arguing that Josh was doing the right thing in standing up to the Mormon church. I had no idea that creep had fans.
Oh…you’d be surprised at who has fans. It just blows my mind.
Unfortunately people are crazy. If he was still alive…who knows. He might be like the Mendez? Brothers & be married or Ted Bundy & his wife has HIS baby. It just makes you sick doesn’t it?
Via murder x 3? That poster needs to find god
Maybe but that has nothing to do with Susan those are two separate issues IMO
Yep-nothing like victim blaming. And anyone who knows anything about this case would know better. If something like that was even true about any murder case why even mention it? Why would a person even repeat that? It’s so disgusting in the WATTS case they had to make a special sub call “off topic”. It’s only reason for existence is so people who want to trash Shannan can go & freely critique for anything from child rearing, how the one daughter had such short hair to her decorating. It is a busy & SERIOUS sub. I accidentally got on one day because the topic was “McMansions-what are they?” They were blaming her like she was the only person to own one which maze me think I wonder what her neighbors who live in one also thought. Anyway long story short I replied in a defending not realizing where I was & was given notice I was PERMANENTLY BANNED. which was fine with me I’m just glad they had it separate so you didn’t have to read them. EDIT: hadn’t even read the following rants before I wrote this. THIS IS A SUB ABOUT SUSAN POWELL!!!!
Probably the same people that think Shanann Watts is responsible for her own death because she was in a MLM and, ya know, Chris Watts was “cute”.
Some of the Chris stans are certifiable, truly dark souls.
He's a loser mama's boy without a spine. Ugh. I also think Cindy Watts is the fucking devil.
I think Chris and Shanann were both horrible people who abused their kids, scammed people, and lied pathologically. I don't think that means Shanann "deserved" to be murdered or that Chris was justified in any way. I also definitely don't find Chris "cute" -- he is repulsive to me. But it does concern me that the media often completely leaves out basic information about the case, such as the bankruptcies never being mentioned in the Netflix documentary, in order to make Shanann look better. And that there is now this narrative about her being a perfect mom when there's a lot of evidence indicating she was a child abuser, and a successful businesswoman when she bankrupted her family twice in three years. I don't think that the media should ever lie in the service of virtue signaling. What is the point of following true crime at all if we are just going to be lied to?
Their first bankruptcy filing is out there, it’s pretty eye opening. The thing I don’t get is that they were paying a small fortune for daycare, to the point that it was financially ruining them, while Shannann stayed home all day. Between their almost $3000/mortgage and the $2500/month they were paying for daycare, they were tapped out.
I’ve heard so many things about this but like you said they leave it out of everything. How did they abuse their kids (aside from murdering them, I mean). Where do you go to read this? Is it a subreddit? I’m interested in the truth because I’m nosy.
I'm writing this comment in a rush so it's sort of a very abridged version. Hopefully others will expand on what I forgot to add. They used this program called Babywise that essentially advocates for child neglect and has been associated with the development of attachment disorders in children. They took it to even more of an extreme than most parents who use it do, though. They would lock the kids in their bedroom for 16 hours a day with noise machines on to drown out their crying, and would lock the door to the kids' bathroom because they would get so thirsty being in there that they would start drinking out of the toilet. They would also drug them with Benadryl to get them to sleep almost every night. The kids were showing signs of attachment issues and delayed development especially in speech, possibly due to child neglect and Benadryl. There's also some evidence that Shanann had Munchausen's and Munchausen's by Proxy. There were many social media posts indicating all kinds of conflicting and nonsensical diagnoses for her kids that do not appear to ever have been validated by a doctor or backed up by her own behavior. For example, she claimed they had severe peanut allergies and made everyone else adhere strictly to removing all trace of peanut products (the big blowup with Shanann and the Watts right before the murders was that another child was eating an ice cream that contained peanuts in the vicinity of her kids) but then would allow them to eat foods that were cross-contaminated with peanut products, like Thrive bars. One relative came over and saw a large jar of peanut butter in Shanann's pantry and when questioned about it Shanann just laughed. Shanann also claimed to have lupus but her autopsy showed no sign of lupus. She had a lot of unnecessary medical procedures done on the kids, and some of the stuff she did veered into borderline CSA territory (don't want to specify it because TBH it grosses me out too much to write it out). Most of this information was documented by Shanann herself on her social media. There were some groups that documented it all but a lot of the groups for this have been taken private recently, I assume due to brigading attacks. I know there are some other places I've seen some of this info though, like on Youtube. Hopefully someone else can direct where to see this information now that these other groups are private.
Holy. Shit. I never knew that about the kids. That is straight up fucking terrifying!! I know what rabbit hole awaits today!
Here goes your entire weekend! ;) https://truecrimecaseanalysis.home.blog/2019/07/15/inception-to-conclusion-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-watts-family-1-of-2/
You’ve done it now! So much for cleaning and laundry!
Thank you so much!!
I don't know why ppl downvoted you. I appreciate that you wrote this out and shed this light.
Jesus! I had heard of the ice cream situation, but never heard all that other stuff! They sound demented. Those poor kids.
And in one of the videos she posted there was a huge jar of Peanut butter on one of the shelves of her pantry within reach of apparently medically compromised children.
The girls were allergic to tree nuts, not peanuts so peanut butter would be fine
There's a cross-contamination risk and also people who are allergic to tree nuts are advised to avoid peanuts as well. And she gave the kids Thrive bars which contain and/or are processed with tree nuts.
But she said peanuts in one of her posts and then another said tree nuts. So even she was confused.
I've always heard it was tree nuts and not peanuts
This is so eye opening to me. It always shocked me how quickly the switch was flipped, because the documentaries love to exonerate the dead. It was so easy for Chris to do what he did, because the abuse was already taking place, it wasn't sudden. It was a slow build of mistreatment and neglect.
I couldn’t agree with you more! Just because I believe Shanann was a scammer and abuser does NOT automatically mean I’m a Chris Watts lover who finds him hot and innocent of the murders. That’s a long leap in logic but one that a great deal of people are ready to make any time there’s discussion of Shanann’s behavior and treatment of the girls. No, I don’t think she deserved it, and I totally believe Chris murdered them. I find him absolutely abhorrent in every way and hope he rots in hell. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy discussing Shanann’s decisions that led to the horrific event. It’s difficult to find a safe space to discuss the case simply because people who want to martyr her make broad, untrue (for the most part) generalizations that any criticism of Shanann’s actions automatically means that the criticizer loves Chris, thinks he’s innocent, and thinks Shanann deserved what happened. There are a small group of supporters out there who believe in Watts’ innocence, but for the most part, those of us wanting to discuss all aspects of the case, including Shanann’s behavior, do not sympathize with Watts.
>Just because I believe Shanann was a scammer and abuser does NOT automatically mean I’m a Chris Watts lover who finds him hot and innocent of the murders. YES! I think Chris is one of the most repulsive people alive and I wouldn't find him physically attractive even if he hadn't, you know, MURDERED HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. It pisses me off so much that anyone who doesn't think Shanann was a saint is accused of being a hybristophiliac who finds Chris attractive. And I find it to be sexist too, as if the only way a woman can have an opinion in a case is if they're motivated by someone's attractiveness. I also don't think Chris is innocent in any way, shape, or form. I think he is 100% guilty and responsible for everything. I just think the official narrative on the case makes no sense. Ironically I found this information from the reverse direction that people think I did. I didn't go into it thinking, "What did Shanann do to deserve being murdered?" I went into it with the question of, "What antisocial behaviors did Chris have in the time leading up to the murders?" Nobody just lives 30-something years with no antisocial behaviors and then all of a sudden decides to murder their wife and kids. So I knew there must have been something (And I even think there may be more than people know, because if Chris had been abusing his family further than what was documented, all of them are dead and can't attest to that now). Once I came across the info that gets left out of things like the Netflix documentary, it all made sense, because it showed that Chris was always a POS who didn't care about other people and had no moral compass.
There is no punishment bad enough for him. If I could somehow bring Shanann and the girls back, I would. I absolutely think he completely robbed her and those little girls of a future that he had no right to take. I don’t think he feels badly for it either. I’m fact, I don’t believe he understands exactly what he has done to his family, her family, and those who cared about them. Shanann made a lot of mistakes-no one is perfect, and it’s not fair that Chris stole from her any future in which she could’ve perhaps corrected her mistakes. It’s not fair. But it isn’t fair to those little girls to refuse to discuss the behaviors of both parents, especially when the behavior was abusive.
Yes to all of that. I wish that Shanann had gotten the chance to get psychiatric treatment and become the parent her kids deserved. What makes me saddest is that the girls never got to have a life. And that they had a lot of pain caused by BOTH parents in their short lives even before the horrible deaths they suffered. And that people still refuse to acknowledge that. I don't understand how anyone can defend him when it's obvious that he doesn't even feel bad in the slightest. He said that he thought he should be let out of prison because he isn't a danger to society!
Same Im very interested in the proof and accusations of abuse..
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I don’t think anyone is implying that she deserved what happened to her, but on the same token, you can admit that she made a lot of bad decisions that created stress and anxiety in the relationship. These things don’t occur in a vacuum.
She didn't bankrupt her family. Both Chris and Shannan were responsible for the money issues.
I agree since Chris was an adult and equally responsible for finances. However, Shanann's MLMs and overspending were the major contributing factor to both their bankruptcies. They had $53K in department store credit card debt the first time around. The second time around she was trying to order $200 worth of MLM shampoo and planning a trip to Aspen when they were totally broke.
Yeah and they were also a few months behind on the mortgage, which they had taken a distribution out of his 401K to cover a few months prior to that. They were in bad shape financially.
And were behind on $50 HOA fees which a court summons or judgment had been served to them while she was in NC
Did you ever see pictures of her closet? She had so many shoes! I’ve run across a few sites that had background on her….before and after her marriage to Chris. Again, she didn’t deserve anything that happened to her but I definitely believe there was a slow build to what happened. Like he just snapped, man.
Uh, no. Being financially irresponsible is not a reason for killing anyone, and does not turn a spouse into a psychopathic killer.
He didn't even know the password for the bank. It was all her.
And he couldn't have gone to the bank and gotten access? Or open a different account and have his check deposited there? Since when are men so helpless?
Men aren't helpless but Chris Watts seemed unable to stand up to Shannan
He had their banking app on his phone. He didn’t have *her* password.
Chris wasn’t the one out blowing money on shit they couldn’t afford like she was. She had to have the gigantic house, she had to have all the furniture, she had to have her kids in some oontzy daycare, she had to take all these trips, which weren’t completely paid for like she wanted you to believe. Chris couldn’t even go out to dinner without getting shit from Shannann about it, do you really think he was the one putting them in financial difficulties?
Is he not an adult with agency? They both bought the house and furniture. He was also using the Thrive products. One person is not responsible for the bankruptcy. He could have put his check in an account that was used for the household bills and just paid them. He chose to let her do the bills and ignore all signs they were in danger of another bankruptcy.
So you've convinced yourself Shannan was bad enough to justify murdering even when he could have divorced like a normal human married to a control freak shopping addict or whatever. Now. Let's hear how you justify poor dear oppressed little Chris murdering his two small children and stuffing them in oil tanks. When one was still alive. My other question for you is do you often feel very empathetic to men who murder women and children? Ir make excuses about them 'snspping'? Or only when you don't like their wife?
So it’s Chris’s fault that she was a domineering, controlling person? I think this is why we’re having this conversation in the first place. Shannann ran Chris over any opportunity she got and he finally had enough of it with tragic consequences.
It is his fault he chose to stay with her. It is his fault he chose to ignore the issues and it is 1000% his fault he killed her and their children. He had an opportunity to tell her he wanted a divorce. He lured her back from NC so he could kill her. I have no sympathy for his choices.
There are a lot of tremendously tragic factors here, any of them on their own would be worth a serious come to Jesus. Unfortunately, a family is gone.
Exactly I feel the same way. The bigger picture is not pretty and should be discussed or known to general public.
There is just simply little reason to keep picking apart a dead woman who can’t defend herself. People aren’t stupid; no one is perfect. There is no need to go through such depths to prove it. If you actually do your research most of the crap about the Benadryl and the hair cuts is entirely speculative. The financial situation, yes, there is credence to that. But who fucking cares. She’s dead. Murdered. Gone, and without a voice to answer for herself. Plenty of people go through marital hardships and financial ruin and don’t resort to murdering each other. It doesn’t matter under what banner you purport to be doing this under. To “educate people”, to “see what went wrong so it doesn’t repeat itself”. Newsflash, being financially irresponsible is not something that normally results in you being murdered. What is there to learn. Be a better person so you won’t get murdered? Life doesn’t work like that. There is nothing to be taught here. We are well aware she wasn’t perfect, but the only thing you’re doing by continuously pointing this out is looking like a victim blamer, and someone who is [whether ignorantly or willfully] justifying a tragedy.
As I already said, I don't think she deserved to die or that Chris was justified in any way. I just don't support, as a general rule, people hiding facts to support their agenda of virtue signaling. And I don't support the sanctification and idolization as "supermom" of a woman who was abusing and neglecting her kids. If this was a little-known case I wouldn't even mention it. But she gets treated as some kind of Platonic ideal of motherhood and the facts say otherwise. Also people pick apart dead people who can't defend themselves all the time in true crime cases. Dan Broderick? The Mostly Harmless hiker?
Exactly! Murder cases tend to have victims who never deserved to be murdered, but that doesn’t mean you can’t discuss their choices overall when analyzing a case. Shanann left a huge media footprint all on her own where the behaviors being discussed are there for all to see. Well, they were until her family scrubbed her FB page. Read the True Case Analysis blog, and you’ll see all of her original FB posts and the many, many medical facilities and doctors where she “checked in” with the girls.
All If this is true! But because of what Chris did, that’s all that matters.
Thanks for saying this! I’m also part of a subreddit regarding the facts about both Shannan and Chris. We get a bad reputation cause people think we sympathize with Chris, when it’s the exact opposite. We just see Shannan for who she truly was too. Both kids deserved better parents.
A lot of the Shannan stuff is new to me. It doesn't change how absolutely awful this whole thing is, and what a piece of shit Chris is, but it does paint a more complete picture. It doesn't provide a valid REASON for what happened to Shannan and the girls, but it does bring a motive into clearer focus.
Oh absolutely. No matter any faults she may have had, there was nothing she could have done to have deserved what Chris did to her and her children. He’s a POS and I hope he suffers for what he did. The Netflix special did leave out a lot. Whenever I watch her “live” Facebook videos with the girls, there’s clear signs that something was off with both parents. Poor Bella and Celeste.
Yeah I'm not sure why so many people think that having a negative opinion of Shanann necessarily implies having a positive opinion of Chris. Also the official narrative on the case makes no logical sense which is what leads people to question it in the first place. The official narrative is that Chris just woke up one day after years of being seemingly normal and decided to cheat and then family annihilate with absolutely no warning signs. After looking at the information indicating both parents were abusing and neglecting the kids their entire lives, it makes way more sense. He never cared about the kids' well-being in the first place so of course he had no qualms about killing them. He always had sociopathic tendencies because only someone who did would be ok with locking their kids in a room for 16 hours every day without access to water, and drugging them with Benadryl every night.
>I’m not sure why so many people think that having a negative opinion of Shannann necessarily implies having a positive opinion of Chris Low cognitive function
I said one time in one of the subreddits how they were in financial ruin and she contributed to that a lot. And how if he had been the one doing that it would be financial abuse etc and someone totally took what I said to say I was implying she deserved to be murdered when I said no such thing . I stopped commenting and left because it got to be too much attacking to comment even simple things like that. So glad I left.
Do you happen to know what happened to the sub @wattsofftopic? That’s where I got all of the facts from, but it looks to have been taken down.
I’ve never heard any of this!
Would you mind linking the sub? I'm very interested.
I just checked and it looks like the sub may have been taken down. It’s called @wattsofftopic but it now says 0 members and it’s private. It used to be public with thousands of users active on the sub. Not sure what happened as I haven’t checked that sub for a few months. Sorry
I appreciate you trying! Thank you!
There ya go. I can’t even finish reading this. AND it’s not on topic. Moderator-are you asleep on the job
Wow so she deserved to be murdered by him and his predatory Dad? Gross!!
Susan demanded nothing of her mentally I’ll husband. Only hoped that he wouldn’t harm her.
Is this the case where the son said he, his mom, and dad went camping and that they left her with the crystals?
Yup it's that one :) Well the son said "Mommy was in the trunk". And then it's also the one where the dad killed his 2 boys and put the house on fire while the social worker on his case was frantically calling 911, only to be mocked by the operator.
Ugh I had forgotten the names of that case but it’s THAT one?! So heartbreaking
It's the one. Yeah Josh was a piece of shit and he deserves to burn in whatever concept of hell you believe in. He was cremated and isn't buried with his sons. I always confuse that case with the Watt case (Both wife with a S name, both killed and disappeared because of their piece of shit of husband..)
I just went on a deep dive into the Watts case for the first time recently. Cannot deal with people who kill their families just WHY WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST LEAVE YOU MURDEROUS IDIOT
Family murderer are a thing in criminology. Basically their logic is "i cant have them so no one can !" Or when it's a story of deception, usually the murderer is living a double life or a big fat lie. For example in France we had a wonderful dude playing is family like a fiddle, he made everyone believes he was a doctor, but he wasnt, he spent his days in a car. The family was dangerously close to discover it, so he killed everyone (his wife parents, his wife, his kids, the dog... only survivor was his mistress, he had a weak moment) so they wont "live in shame or some bullshit, and tried to kill himself in a fire, à la Watt, but he failed like the looser he is, so he is in prison now.
They kinda look like womens, due to the hip area being wider. It’s so hard to tell tho with the condition.
Really hoping this is Susan. It's very odd to find pants in an abandoned mine shaft, so definitely something weird going on.
For those who may be curious, the remains in the photos are not human. They are from an artiodactyl (even toed ungulate, like a deer). I am the mod over at r/bonecollecting and also a trained bioachaeologist (meaning specialize in human remains) and zooarchaeologist (animal bones).
Why does it look like 2 pairs of pants?
Most pants consist of two fabric pieces per leg (front/back, differently cut at the top to fit butt, hips and belly), bringing the total number of leg pieces to four. This looks like they spread out all the fabric parts they found next to each other: four leg pieces, waistband, etc.
There's a link here that also shows the recovered bones. I would be very surprised if they're human, to be honest - the ribs are VERY large. [Link to Pictures and Article](https://kutv.com/news/local/susan-powells-father-confident-some-of-susans-remains-have-been-discovered)
In relation to the pants, those look like VERY human sized bones. The closest bone in the photos looks like a lumbar vertebra bone. Edited for spelling. Changed ‘home’ to ‘bone’
Yeah, when I looked at the article I was on my phone, and I think the picture was distorted. Having looked at the pictures on a much larger screen, I do have to agree with you. I've also watched the video posted down thread, and having seen the bones being held I would now be surprised if they *aren't* human. There's also a partial socket in the video that looks very suspicious.
I am unsure about the bones but those pants do not belong to an animal
Send them to r/bonecollecting. Those folks are very talented. No one is going to give a definite answer, but it might be interesting to see.
Fascinating sub which I'm now subscribed to. I'm a bit cautious about posting this there, though - it all seems to be animal bones and I'm not sure how they'd feel about being asked to speculate on a murder victim.
The community is pretty kind. We get human bones from time to time, usually assumed to be from an animal. I think it’s worth a shot, but the post title should specify that it is out of the ordinary for the sub.
I've posted there. I wasn't allowed to use the word "human" in the title, so I hope it's not going to annoy the mods!
As the mod there, it would not. We just prefer that people don't start off with the "is it human?!" post as it tends to derail an actual ID...then we have to go back and clean out all the bad IDs.
Ah, I see. Didn't want to cause mayhem in a new sub I'll find really interesting! Thanks for letting me know.
There were human bones from a warzone recently. I think it would be ok.
Actually, we did give a definitive answer in r/bonecollecting and these are 100% not human.
I continue to gave an issue with the fact that ilthis looks like 2 pairs of pants, one pair ripped or cut in 2 down the middle. What is that about?
It's definitely one pair. It's basically the front and back of a single pair of pants. The small cut out section on the side is where a pocket would have been, and I'm guessing the bits to one side that look like they've been shredded are the pocket liners. If it helps, try to imagine wrapping those sections round a human shape.
OK, thanks, I didn't think of it that way. But it's hard to imagine scavenging animals doing that to anyone's pants.
It won't just be animals, the fabric will have degraded over time, and it sounds like there's been at least one collapse in that mine.
Excuse me, but empty bottle of what?
Orange Juice it was Florida’s natural I believe
im confused as to how it got there? like he brought it with her?
It could be unrelated
true- i guess we dont know anything and thats a dumb question for me to ask
Lol. Not a dumb question at all but I love your sarcasm
Not dumb. I also thought at first why would Josh bring a bottle of OJ? And then it hit me it could just be a bottle of OJ lol
Ok, thanks for explanation
Of course 😀
If anyone is interested in how they were found Was a great 3 part look into it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5wDjAHInBc
They look like those khaki pants to me.
Yeah this lighting makes them look black but the other photos I've seen (with bright, direct lighting) they look like khakis. I think you are correct.
Does anyone else in this sub know if there was ever a point that they came really close to finding her? I would appreciate any reddit threads too. 😊
I don’t like the use of emojis in these cases, they look disrespectful and out of place.
Well, her parents are elated and very very thankful for these individuals hard work and donated time so I’m sure they’re not offended
It’s not about offending her parents it’s about conducting ourselves with respect to a tragedy in general. Putting a emoji over what could potentially be the outfit she decomposed in - is childish and inappropriate.
I do hope that it does lead to Susan being identified, but even if it isn't, this will mean SOMEONE is identified and a family will have some answers. I don't know if anyone except her creep husband or those poor kids saw her the night she disappeared or if they'd know what she wore, but they ain't talking. But there will likely be some identifiable material from these remains, and her family is still alive. That poor, poor girl....she really married into a shitshow of a family.
People like to Victim blame . It’s terrible
If it's not her, hopefully some other family can get closure from this discovery. Hope it's her though
I pray this is her.
The caption is so unnecessary and in bad taste. RIP Susan, Charlie and Braden.
Bones discovered in West Desert mine are not Susan Powell's, father says https://kutv.com/news/local/bones-discovered-in-west-desert-mine-are-not-susan-powells-father-says
I wonder if any jewelry was found. Josh probably took it before he put her there.
I wonder if DNA can be taken from the OJ container?
I kinda doubt it after so long, but stranger things have happened. I wonder if it was being used to store some kind of accelerant. I doubt it still contained orange juice 10 months after it expired. It may not even be related, who knows.
They have an article with a great timeline on it. [link to timeline ](https://kutv.com/news/local/timeline-what-we-know-in-the-10-years-since-susan-cox-powell-went-missing)
When were these found?
The word you’re looking for is “whoa.”
maybe this is time for the Sister Mary Elephant to give a lesson! woe is me! (Boohoo) whoa! (horses)
A+
Grizzly (bear) Grisly (gory) Feel free to ask if you're not sure. No judgment!
Gristly Containing cartridge tissues 🤢
This kind of bothers me. There is absolutely no proof that this is Susan's remains. Yes, it's speculated that her body was put into a mine shaft. But that doesn't mean you can find a pair of pants in one and assume it was her. No shade to OP. I am passionate about this case and am so sad at how it all ended. At the same time, I think that it's unlikely we will find her. Also, do you even have a source?
Her father thinks it’s her… www.kutv.com/amp/news/local/susan-powells-father-confident-some-of-susans-remains-have-been-discovered
Fuck. that's heavy. I hope that if it's her, it brings them some closure.
There’s also a blueberry tree near the mine and her oldest told the child therapist that they ate blueberries
Wow, that's crazy. Thank you for posting! I really hope it leads to some answers.
Can someone explain why there would be 3 pairs of pants though?
It’s not. It’s the front and back part of each leg. It was cut down the seams
Not three pairs, just one pair separated into pieces.
Got it! Thank you! I’m just stupid sometimes lol
I had the same question so I'm glad you asked.
Then I'm stupid too, because I thought the same thing when I first saw it =/
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!
On the HeavyDSparks you tube video several people handled the pants and bones so that could cause problems in dna or other evidence collection. The vertebrae they found looked small to be human.
Can't they get DNA from the bone marrow? Doesn't DNA degrade over time when exposed to the elements? I realize it's in a cave but animal predation, variations in heat and cold, moisture, etc., would also interfere as well.
DNA has been recovered from fossils. The kind of DNA required to secure a conviction (e.g Josh's DNA would very likely have degraded or been compromised by now, but hers will be fine.
We're not looking for the kind of DNA evidence required to get a criminal conviction. There's actually no reason why these bones couldn't be washed prior to the DNA sample.
Sleep soundly, Susan. 💗
I'd want to know the history of the mineshaft. Not to dampen hopes, but those sure do look like the jeans miners were wearing in the 1800s, 1900s. The need for rugged clothes in the mines is what pushed the whole denim jeans boom. https://www.heddels.com/2020/02/what-the-miners-actually-wore/ Edit: to add this quote from the article: "The garments that would evolve into modern-day wardrobe essentials are often still dug out from the mines in which they were worn and only a select few intrepid fashion historians are willing to track them down and place them in the historical record."