SEATTLE – Josh Powell told social workers in Washington he liked to take pictures of strangers' legs in public places, documents released Friday show.
The admission came one day after his father was arrested on voyeurism charges as law enforcement officials put more pressure on Powell regarding the 2009 disappearance of his wife in Utah.
The Social Services files, released under state public records laws, say Powell seemed to understand the laws around taking voyeur pictures. Powell said that he didn't take pictures of people's faces.
Powell was a suspect in the disappearance of Susan Powell from their West Valley City, Utah, home. He killed himself and his two sons, Charles and Braden, in a house fire in February.
He had always claimed 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 the home of his father, Steve Powell, in Puyallup, Wash. After Steve Powell's arrest on voyeurism and child pornography charges last fall, the boys were removed from the house and turned over to Susan Powell's parents.
A social worker brought them to Josh Powell's rental home on Feb. 5 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.
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