WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (Isabelle Zehnder reporting) – West Valley City Mayor Mike Winder announced Tuesday that Pleasant Green Cemetery in Magna offered to donate a plot of land for a memorial to missing Utah mom, Susan Cox Powell, and her two young sons, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5.
Susan’s best friend, Kiirsi Hellewell, told Examiner.com Tuesday that Hiram Bertoch, president of the nonprofit cemetery, wanted to donate land for a memorial for Susan and her boys. The cemetery board approved the donation of a 15-by-15 foot plot.
“He [Bertoch] said he thinks the community is really hurting and could benefit from a peaceful, healing place to visit here in Utah,” Kiirsi said. “The cemetery is a little ways up the Oquirrh Mountains and has a beautiful view of the Salt Lake Valley.”
Kiirsi said she called Susan’s father, Chuck Cox, and he said he loves the idea. Chuck said he’d like to see a statue of a woman with two boys, looking out over the valley, and a semi-circle of benches around it so people could look at the statue and also the beautiful valley view.
A Kearns sculptor, Stan Watts, has offered to donate his time to make a statue, Kiirsi said. “Stan said he can envision a statue of Susan with her arms around Charlie and Braden, and the boys leaning into her. He said to him, the message is that Susan was here to protect her boys, and when she was taken, it was left up to society to protect them … and society failed.” (Website.)
Kiirsi will head the committee that will review artists' work and approve the statue. The tentative plan is to hold a service to dedicate the memorial around Susan’s birthday in October.
Susan went missing from her West Valley City, Utah home in early December 2009. Within weeks of her disappearance Susan’s husband, Josh Powell, packed their belongings and two young sons and moved to his father, Steve Powell’s, home in Puyallup, Washington. A move Susan’s friends and family have long said she would not have wanted for her children.
Josh and his children lived with Steve until his arrest on September 22, 2011. The children were removed from Josh’s custody that day, placed into state custody, and eventually placed into the temporary custody of their maternal grandparents, Chuck and Judy Cox.
Josh was the only named person of interest in Susan’s disappearance until he took his life and the lives of his two young children, Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, when on Feb. 5, 2012, he doused his rental home with 10 gallons of gasoline, beat his children with a hatchet, then set them all on fire in what police say was a double-murder-suicide.
Steve Powell was named a person of interest in Susan’s disappearance after the deaths of his grandchildren and eldest son.
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