"Clearly, the pressure was mounting on Josh Powell," said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist the day after Powell killed himself and his two sons in a home explosion.

"He felt like he was losing custody or control of his children."

Not only was Powell rejected custody of his kids a second time last week, a judge said she would require him to undergo a very intrusive psycho-sexual evaluation if he ever wanted them back.

Listen to Prosecutor Mark Lindquist's interview

"The interviewer goes into the person's life history, sexual history, personality aspects, they undergo an entire MMPI (personality test) and this is done with a polygraph test. So the subject is under pressure to not only answer, but to answer truthfully."

Powell probably saw himself in between a rock and a hard place, according to Lindquist. If he refused the test, he'd lose custody of his children and if he answered truthfully, he'd probably implicate himself and again, lose custody of his children.

Lindquist said Powell was trapped in a classic domestic violence scenario and thought 'If I can't have my kids, nobody else is going to either.'

Meanwhile, 97.3 KIRO FM Reporter Chris Sullivan spent the morning at the Powell home in Graham where teams are sifting through charred remains to find any clues about what led to the explosion.

Chris said neighbors reported hearing sounds like gunshots as the fire started, but Sgt. Ed Troyer said it was probably more like air bubbles and small explosions. But again, we'll learn more when the Medical Examiner releases a full report on the cause of death.

 

Listen to Chris' report

Photo sent from one of our listeners, who was a few miles away

By Stephanie Klein, MyNorthwest.com Editor