Josh Powell's family backs down on burial site

SEATTLE - The man who killed his two sons in an explosive house fire in Washington state will not be buried in the same cemetery as the children, according to a lawyer involved in the case.

Attorney Steve Downing said he was informed by Josh Powell's estranged sister, Jennifer Graves, that her mother would put out a statement Thursday announcing the decision.

Downing says the parents of Powell's missing wife, Susan, Charles and Judy Cox, had threatened to move the boys' casket if Josh Powell were interred nearby. Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor and Detective Ed Troyer, who heads the anti-crime organization Crimestoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County, also responded by buying the two plots on either side of the boys to make sure Josh Powell didn't wind up there. The cost is being paid by Crimestoppers, other organizations and private donations.

"We might not be able to keep Josh Powell out of the cemetery, but it's way better than having him right next to the boys," Troyer said.

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Powell relatives had visited the Woodbine Cemetery and initially selected a plot near where 7-year-old Charlie and 5-year-old Braden Powell are buried.

Josh Powell killed his sons and himself in a gas-fueled blaze Feb. 5 at a home he was renting in Graham. More than 1,000 mourners attended the boys' funeral Saturday. They were later buried in a single casket at Woodbine, a municipal cemetery in Puyallup.

Josh Powell was a suspect in Susan Powell's 2009 disappearance from their home in West Valley City, Utah. He had always claimed that he didn't know what happened to his wife. He took the boys — then 2 and 4 — on a midnight camping trip in freezing weather in the Utah desert, he said, and when he returned home the next day authorities were at the house looking for her.

Weeks later, he moved the boys to his father's home in Puyallup. After Steve Powell's arrest on voyeurism and child pornography charges last fall, the boys were removed from the house and turned over to the Coxes.

A social worker brought them to Josh Powell's rental home for what was supposed to be a court-sanctioned supervised visit. Josh Powell let the boys inside, locked the social worker out, hit them with a hatchet and set fire to gasoline, authorities said.

A judge had recently ordered that Josh Powell undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation if he hoped to regain custody, and in a last-minute message to his sister he said he couldn't live without his boys.