Man, after my whole Casey Anthony rant last July, I kinda felt like I was different from everybody else. I felt like I didn't identify with the rest of the country. Well now I realize that I didn't have any idea what that felt like. Now I know what it's like to have an opinion that's different from everybody in the country.
Unlike Casey Anthony's situation, which I only started paying attention to while the trial was happening, I have been aware of the Susan Powell case for at least a year and a half. I've was following the story when they searched for her in Nevada and in Utah's west desert. I know that they found human material on some charred wood, and I, like the rest of the nation wondered if it was part of the remains of Susan Powell. I was aware of Steven Powell's arrest for Voyeurism and Child Pornography. I followed the custody battle between Josh Powell and Chuck and Judy Cox. I turned the TV on Sunday evening and saw the footage of the fire that Josh lit to kill himself and his two young boys. What I'm trying to say is that I've been following this with some degree of interest.
First of all, the main reason I'm going to say what I'm going to say is because of my feelings on the media. I think that the media feels a need with every story to make one player the villain and one the hero. In the case of Susan Powell's disappearance Josh has been the villain while his in-laws, the Cox's, are the heroes. I will agree that there is something very suspicious about leaving in the middle of the night in below freezing temperatures for a camping trip, but until there is concrete evidence that Josh's wife was in that car when they left and not when they got back then there's no reason why it couldn't just be one of those weird things that people do, like how my brother watches "My Little Pony." Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that just because someone's suspicious doesn't mean they're guilty.
Second, I think that we need to realize that, if we operate under the assumption that Josh Powell did not kill his wife (which assumption I will operate under because of that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing), he has had a pretty traumatic last two years. Between his wife's disappearance, his sister essentially disowning him, his father's arrest, and his children being taken away from him he seems to have lost a lot of family members. I don't condone the murder of his two children, don't get me wrong, it takes some serious problems to do what he did to those boys, but the suicide I understand. If I had my wife, sister, father, and (as of now, nonexistent) children taken from me within two years, and was being constantly hounded by the media, vilified by my in-laws, and generally hated by everyone, by all means I would want to end it. Unfortunately, Josh chose to end his suffering in a way that continues to make him a villain. If it had just been him that died, maybe more people would have felt bad, but the way he ended his life causes us to wonder what could possess someone to do such a terrible thing. I suggest that before we pass judgement on him, we think about how much of what he did we would do in that situation. Hopefully we can see that, although the act was evil, the actor was not necessarily so. He needed help and we as a country refused to help him. So to those few like me, who feel like this tragedy could have been prevented if only the media hadn't vilified him, if only we hadn't eaten up the media's poison about another human being, just remember, you aren't alone out there.
