Steve Powell, father-in-law of missing Utahn Susan Powell, paroled from Washington state prison on child porn conviction

Courts • Steve Powell served time for child porn conviction.

Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune

A photographic slide show of Susan Powell and her sons, Charlie and Braden, is projected on a covered picnic area during a vigil at West View Park in West Valley City, Utah Tuesday February 5, 2013. The vigil was to commemorate the one year anniversary of the boy's death.

Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune

Joshua Powell talks about todays press conference in Ely, Nevada, and the renewed interest by West Valley Police, in the search for Susan Powell, during an interview in a park near his home, in Puyallup, Washington, Friday, August 19, 2011

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By Nate Carlisle The Salt Lake Tribune

· July 11, 2017 10:13 pm

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Steve Powell — a figure in the disappearance of his daughter-in-law, Susan Powell, from her home in West Valley City — was released Tuesday from prison in Washington state after serving about three years in jail and prison for a child pornography conviction.

Jeremy Barclay, a spokesman for the Washington Department of Corrections, confirmed that Powell was released from a prison in Monroe, Wash. Barclay said Powell, 67, will serve another two years on parole.

Barclay did not know where Powell planned to live or what restrictions have been placed on where he can reside.

It was Powell's second prison stint. He served 30 months in prison for voyeurism. At his sentencing hearing in 2012, a judge dismissed two counts of child pornography. Both crimes related to Powell taking photographs of neighbor girls through windows.

Not long after the voyeurism term ended in 2014, he was rearrested. An appeals court overturned the judge's dismissal of the child porn charges, and Powell was tried and convicted again. A judge in August 2015 sentenced him to five years in prison. Washington offers credit for time served and good behavior.

Susan Powell disappeared from her home in West Valley City in December 2009. Her husband, Josh Powell, was a person of interest in the case. He was living with his father in 2011 when police served a search warrant on their home.

Detectives didn't find enough evidence to arrest Josh Powell for his wife's disappearance, but police did find evidence that Steve Powell used a telephoto lens to take photos of the neighbor girls, ages 8 and 9, from his bedroom window, which faced their bathroom.

Steve Powell was in jail awaiting trial in February 2012 when Josh Powell, 36, struck his two sons — Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5 — with a hatchet and set a fire to his rental home in Graham, Wash., killing himself and the boys. Susan Powell has never been found.

ncarlisle@sltrib.com

Twitter: @natecarlisle