During Josh Powell's custody hearing last week, a judge took issue with a disturbing picture found during a search of his Utah home two years ago.
It was "a picture, depicting the torso of a woman with a sword from her vagina up to her heart," says Steve Downing, the Cox family attorney.
So instead of allowing him to regain custody of his children, Judge Kathryn Nelson ordered a psycho-sexual evaluation for Powell.
"They are highly intrusive," says Pierce Co. Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. "They go on for several hours. The subject's entire life history is studied. The subject's entire sexual history is studied. The subject undergoes a personality test and all of this is done with a polygraph."
Lindquist says the court-ordered evaluation was a "lose-lose" for Powell.
"Either he refuses to take to take it and he loses custody of his children, or he takes it and reveals information that will cost him custody of his children," says Lindquist.
"He got backed into a corner with taking a psycho-sexual evaluation," says Dr. Dan Singer, a licensed counselor, who has conducted hundreds of these evaluations. "He was upset, he did not want to do that."
Singer believes experts should have realized the court orders could push Powell to the brink, and because of that, reconsidered his visitation with his kids.
"Before we make our orders and demands which will provoke a crazy person," says Singer, "we need to take a step back and decide what is our plan."
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