Sitting here in my home office with the cable TV news playing in the background, I occasionally overhear summaries of stories that have nothing to do with politics, but which are nonetheless interesting as news.
The case of Utah mother Susan Powell’s disappearance has been much-discussed today. This would be just another one of those “Perils of Pauline”-type stories — the attractive white female as crime victim — were it not for the bizarre circumstances revealed by the investigation:
Josh’s father Steve was arrested over the weekend after police found evidence that he shot pictures and video of women and children in various states of undress through several acts of voyeurism.
Josh’s wife Susan Cox Powell has been missing since December 6, 2009, when she was last seen in her West Valley City, Utah home.
Susan’s husband Josh took the couple’s two young sons and moved in with his father Steve a month after Susan’s disappearance.
West Valley City Police served a search warrant at Steve Powell’s Puyallup home in August, and gathered evidence that suggests Steve was engaged in several acts of voyeurism in which he video taped or photographed women and children without their knowledge. Among the video collected by investigators was video of Susan that was shot without her knowledge.
Police say some of the video and photos were of neighbor women and girls.
Ick. The missing woman’s father-in-law was engaged in voyeurism and pornography, including child pornography, and secretly recorded video of Susan Powell. And in case that’s not creepy enough for you, take a look at this angle of the story:
Details emerged Wednesday about Steve Powell’s past in a 1992 divorce case from Spokane County. Case documents reviewed by The Associated Press show Steve Powell’s ex-wife accused him of keeping pornography, damaging his children’s respect for marriage and inappropriately discussing sex issues with the kids.
Terri Powell wrote in the divorce papers that Steve Powell talked of teaching his children about birth control methods when they were as young as 9-years-old. Terri’s sister, Becky Mulcahy, wrote in the documents that Steve Powell told her that he had shown his youngest children books about sexual intercourse when they were 6- and 8-years-old.
Terri Powell said her husband viewed people as animals and that they should be able to have sex with anyone at any time. She recalled a conversation in which Josh referred to a girl his brother, Johnny, liked. “All she is good for is her body, right Dad?” Terri recalled Josh saying. “Yeah, that’s right,” Steve Powell replied, according to the declaration.
Terri Powell also said Steve Powell kept hardcore pornography in the home and that he visited pornography shops.
Jennifer Graves, Josh Powell’s sister, said in an interview with The Associated Press that she broke off ties with her father in part because of his problems with sex and pornography. She recalled going on a business trip with her father when she was about 11-years-old and that he viewed a pornographic video while she was with him.
“Looking back, I wonder if he was willing to do that with a 10-12 year girl — his daughter — in the room, what else would he be willing to do?” she said.
Ick.
Whatever happened to Susan Powell, it appears she unwittingly married into a family badly damaged by Steve Powell, who “viewed people as animals” — hello, Darwinism! — and otherwise shared the perspective on human sexuality promoted by the disciples of Alfred Kinsey.
Perhaps “mental health professionals” will have some comment on this case. And if Steve Powell beats the rap, maybe Columbia University will hire him. Otherwise, he might become an anti-Palin blogger.
Of course, if you see this strange case as relevant to larger trends — a high-profile crime as the tip of a massive iceberg of perversion deeply embedded in our hyper-sexualized culture — then you’re probably some kind of right-wing Christian fundamentalist theocrat, and are therefore automatically discredited as a social critic.
When only secular progressive arguments are deemed admissible, when perspectives of faith and tradition are pre-emptively excluded from public discourse, we should not be surprised when the ghastly results show up on the cable TV news.
Yet those of us excluded from participation in the cultural debate must ask, if only among ourselves, how much of the human misery chronicled in the 24/7 news cycle is the product of a society that has lost sight of those once well-known moral maxims beginning, “Thou shalt not …”?
But this has no relevance to politics, of course.
UPDATE: Thanks to Pagan Temple in the comments, discovering that Susan Powell’s father-in-law Steve Powell was a singer/songwriter, using the pseudonym “Steve Chantrey,” whose Web site includes this interesting item:
[A]s an 18-year-old college student I used a campus talent show as a platform for unveiling a song I had written protesting the Vietnam War and the draft.
Also interesting is that the personal narrative on Steve Powell’s “about” page begins by talking about the break-up of his parents’ marriage. So Steve’s parents were divorced, then Steve was divorced, and now Steve’s daughter-in-law is missing and presumed dead. Something about those “Thou shalt nots” is perhaps relevant to understanding this three-generation legacy of dysfunction, now turned deadly.
UPDATE II: An August story from the Salt Lake Tribune provides background on Steve Powell’s obsession with his daughter-in-law. Some readers may have been following this story a while, and I apologize for re-hashing what is, to you, old news. But I hadn’t been paying attention until they started featuring it in the top-of-the-hour headline updates today on Fox.
