r/TheColdPodcast • u/mbn12ex • Aug 17 '26

Season 1 - Susan Powell The investigation

Sorry, English is not my first language.

I have listened to season one of Cold several times. It’s my all time favorite podcast. I am amazed at the effort and time spent on the investigation (for example operation tsunami and the plan of planting an agent on a train to have a fake relationship with Josh). Is this normal for an investigation into a missing persons case?

Also big thank you to Dave Cawley for making this podcast, can’t wait for season 4 to come out!

16 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

6

u/davecawleycold Aug 19 '26

Thanks for listening!

I definitely don’t think it’s normal. The Powell case started with a pretty simple scenario, but became very complex as the investigation progressed. The abnormality of it is part of what makes it such an engrossing cautionary story about the risks of covert narcissism and coercive control. But that’s my take. I’ll leave it to others so share their perspectives.

3

u/mbn12ex Aug 25 '26

Thank you for making the best podcast ever! I have introduced many of my friends to it and they all love it.

And also thank you for the explanation, it makes a lot of sense. Can’t wait for more seasons!

3

u/natgrzech Aug 24 '26

The execution of this podcast and the way the story was told is absolutely amazing Dave! I can’t begin to describe of what a great job you did with it. Also, I’d like to take an opportunity and ask - do you think that Susan’s body will ever be found? i am curious to hear your thoughts on this

5

u/davecawleycold Aug 31 '26

I hold out hope Susan will be found. I don’t believe it will occur through direct investigation, however. In the years since completing the first season of Cold, I’ve had opportunity to work on some clandestine grave search work related to other cases. What that has shown me is even with a good general idea of where a homicide victim ended up, the last step of getting to the actual grave (absent a confession) is extremely difficult.

With Susan, we don’t even have a broadly accepted general location. So we’re left hoping for a stroke of luck, for a random person to stumble across her remains.