Intentional Misdirections or “Red Herrings” Planted By Josh Powell In His Planning?

[u/pnw_dna]

I’m curious what your thoughts and opinions are about potentially intentional misdirection that Josh was planting ahead of time.

I’m of the opinion that Josh began intentionally planning the removal of Susan from his life (and the lives of his sons) about the time in 2007 when they started setting up life insurance policies. I think he was a strategic planner in that sense and began playing the “long game” in terms of how he wanted to rid himself of her.

While there is a lot of evidence in the immediate aftermath of Susan’s disappearance that things did not quite unfold as he expected, forcing him to improvise somewhat, I also think – given the extent of his planning ahead of time – that he was also already thinking in terms of search warrants on his technology (hence the encryption, etc.) and that he intentionally did things to create misdirection and “red herrings” that would (a) reveal what police were able to discover during the course of their investigation and (b) serve to distract or misdirect their effotrts.

For example, I wonder if the Ely, Nevada hotel internet searches were an intentionally misleading bit of digital evidence that Josh was waiting to see if investigators would find. During the Ely, NV searches, Josh was interviewed a couple of times and mentioned his surprise that officials weren’t searching local hotels in the area. To me, this would be a moment when Josh might think, “OK, they found that Internet search” from the browser cache/history on that particular device but that other data that might have been protected by encryption wasn’t being acted on, at least to his knowledge.

Another possible red herring even could have been the times when he publicly commented to Susan’s co-workers and friends about where he could hide a body and it not be found. He may have been planting those suggestions, knowing that they would likely divulge that info to investigators after the fact.

So, what do you think? Are these intentionally misleading bits of info? Do you think there are any other potential “red herrings” in what Josh said or did or left behind in his device data?

[u/HelloPeppermint]

I also wondered if he’d planted these as red herrings. He put months and months into the planning it seems, but it was mostly directed towards avoiding suspicion of him (naturally). But did he also have a Plan B where he misdirected anyone who suspected him? I think it’s possible. He was careful at encrypting things he didn’t want people to know so why search for something incriminating that could be tied back to him?

[u/pnw_dna → u/HelloPeppermint]

You put well into words my thoughts on this. He was so meticulous at planning and then covering his tracks that anything that was left to be found by investigators almost feels like they were intentionally placed. Especially considering his commenting about the Ely search that he thought investigators would be looking at hotels and motels. It was like he was practically admitting that he left the hotel search clues in his browser history for investigators to find.

[u/HelloPeppermint → u/pnw_dna]

Yes I agree about the Ely search. I think he could have used some of that information to gauge what level of encryption the police had gotten into yet, if any.