Four years have passed since the deaths of two young brothers in Graham at the hands of their father, the memory of them remained fresh during a candlelight ceremony in their honor last week. The event Dec. 7 at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup, where Charlie and Brayden Cox are buried, came with an invitation for the public to attend in memory of any children whose lives ended too soon. Chuck Cox, grandfather of Charlie and Brayden, was joined at the ceremony by law enforcement representatives, including Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor. Cox and others became outspoken advocates of protection for children in the wake of his grandsons’ murder Feb. 5, 2012, at the Graham-area home of their father, Josh Powell. Authorities said Powell bludgeoned them with an axe before setting the home on fire. The boys, under a Pierce County Superior Court order, were in the foster care of their Puyallup-area grandparents while authorities were deciding whether the siblings could be returned to their father, who was under suspicion in the unsolved disappearance and suspected murder in 2009 of their mother, Susan Powell. The brothers were on a scheduled, state-supervised visit at their father’s house when he killed them and himself. In a subsequent study of the case, a state review panel concluded that social workers should have talked to police and taken other steps before allowing the Powell boys to visit their father at his residence. Panel members said a police investigation of Josh Powell in connection with his wife was enough to raise concerns about the potential for domestic violence in the family. Detectives investigating Powell told the panel that they would have been concerned if they’d known that supervised visits with the boys had moved to his home. They also said decisions about visitation should be made by children’s welfare officials and courts. “Nothing we can do will bring the Powell boys back, and we will never be able to account for every situation. But we owe it to our citizens to make sure the state is doing everything in its power to prevent tragedies like this,” state Sen. Randi Becker, a member of the panel, said after the review was completed.
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