A Supervised Visit Ends in Tragedy!

There now has been another tragic event in the case of a Utah woman missing since 2009. Josh Powell, the husband of missing Susan Powell, has taken his life and the lives of their two young children after being denied custody of the two boys. Despite this apparent murder-suicide, Utah police state they will continue to look into the disappearance of Susan Powell.

Police believe that Josh deliberately set his house on fire after a state social worker brought the boys for a supervised visit with their father. What I find hard to understand is why a supervised visit was happening at Josh Powell’s home and not some other place, for instance, a public restaurant, shopping mall, library, or perhaps a government office, some place that the father would not have the opportunity to carry out this tragic event.

It does not matter if we believe that he had anything to do with the disappearance of his wife or not, he was not granted custody of these boys for a reason and giving him access to these children in an area where he could get them alone is just unacceptable. And it is especially unfathomable given the fact that these two boys age 5 and 7 were starting to relate the story of the snowy night there father took the family camping in the middle of the night.

Perhaps Child Protective Services should use caution when doing these supervised visits. This is of course just my opinion. I believe that maybe it is time to rethink how supervised visits are handled by Child Protective Services. What do you think? Is it time for a change?

Source:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-father-sons-explosion-20120206,0,7547036.story

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/josh-powell-susan-fire-utah-police-investigation.html