Stockbroker vanished; husband left town with kids

New York (News Terupdate) - Tom McLachlan, a police captain in West Valley, Utah, felt a surge of adrenalin when he received a phone call two weeks ago from authorities some 200 miles away in Idaho.

A motorist looking for a better cell phone signal had found female skeletal remains on a hilltop near Idaho Falls. McLachlan had a case on his desk involving a 28-year-old stockbroker and mother of two who vanished in December under suspicious circumstances.

Could the body be Susan Powell's?

McLachlan says he now has doubts. The skeletal remains seemed to have been there much longer than Susan Powell has been missing.

"Susan has been missing for five months, so the body is likely not her," he told CNN. "We need to wait until DNA tests come back, which could take up to a few weeks."

Susan Powell's disappearance is the kind of case that gets under an investigator's skin. Right now, police have plenty of suspicion but scant evidence.

Powell simply vanished, leaving her purse, wallet and cell phone behind in her home.

Her husband, Josh Powell, told police she was asleep when he left after midnight, taking their children, ages 2 and 4, on a camping trip in below-freezing weather.

He told police he spent the early morning hours of December 7 with his children in the family van in Simpson Springs Campground, a 90-minute drive from the Powells' home.

Police entered the case that Monday afternoon. The children had not been dropped off at day care and neither Josh nor Susan Powell had shown up at work. No one had heard from them.

"We were concerned that the family was in the house and some accident, maybe a gas leak, had injured them," said McLachlan. "So we broke into the home when no one answered the door."

Police sources told CNN that officers found a large wet spot on the carpet in the home. It was being dried by two fans, they said, but would give no further details.

West Valley police say Josh Powell is the only person they are looking at, but they are not calling him a suspect in his wife's disappearance. They say they have no physical evidence of foul play.

CNN called several times seeking comment from Josh Powell and his attorney, Scott Williams. The phone calls were not returned.

Police say they have been unable to confirm Powell's story about the camping trip. They searched the campground, but any potential evidence had been covered by heavy snow.

Police characterize Josh Powell as being uncooperative, saying he would not lead them to the exact location of the camp site. In January, he packed up his belongings and moved with the children to his parents' home in Puyallup, Washington.

Susan Powell's father, Charles Cox, told CNN she is not the kind of person who would go off on her own without contacting her family.

"She would never leave those two children behind," Cox said.

Susan Powell's father says there was trouble in the marriage, with financial pressures being the primary issue between the couple. Josh had been unemployed until just before his wife disappeared.

In the months leading up to her disappearance, Susan Powell had talked about getting a divorce, family and friends told CNN. They asked that their names not be published because the investigation is ongoing.

Police are asking for the public's help in solving this case. Susan Powell stands 5-foot-3, is 130 pounds and has brown hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Susan Powell is asked to call the West Valley Police Department tip line at (801) 840-4000. An $11,000 reward is offered.

Source : CNN

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Royal wedding called off amid cheating claims

(News Terupdate) - Sweden's Princess Madeleine has called off her planned wedding to Jonas Bergstrom, the Swedish Royal Court announced following media reports that Bergstrom had sex with a college student during their engagement.

"After having thought it through thoroughly, the Princess Madeleine and Mr. Jonas Bergstrom have made the decision to go their separate ways," the court statement said.

The couple asked for "peace and quiet in this difficult situation. The extreme coverage by the press is not making this situation any easier for them," said the court statement, which was released Saturday.

Princess Madeleine Therese Amelie Josephine, 27, is the youngest child of Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. Her older sister, Crown Princess Victoria, is due to marry gym owner Daniel Westling in June.

The split follows weeks of intense media coverage of the Swedish royal family, speculating on the state of the couple's relationship.

"I think it is great that we can now avoid all those speculations in the press about them that we have had over the last week. This has certainly cleared the air," said Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg, the former head of press at the royal court and now the royal commentator for CNN affiliate Swedish TV4.

"It felt like the end of a road where they had to turn one way or the other, and now they have chosen their path," Tarras-Wahlberg said in an interview with TV4.

Princess Madeleine and Bergstrom met through mutual friends in 1999 and became a couple during the summer of 2002, according to Swedish media reports. Madeleine said in an interview that it was love at first sight, and Bergstrom said he "fell in love with her blue eyes and wonderful laughter," Swedish daily Expressen wrote.

But through the years, Swedish press has been full of speculations about the ups and downs in the couple's relationship. According to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, there were reports of Bergstrom living a wild party life at Stockholm's exclusive nightclubs as early as 2005, fueling reports their relationship was on the rocks.

But Bergstrom proposed to Madeleine in June on the Italian island of Capri. After King Carl XVI Gustaf gave his approval -- and the Swedish government subsequently signed off on their engagement as required by law -- the couple announced their engagement to the public on August 11.

But just as quickly as the engagement was announced, something happened.

The couple last appeared together in public at the Nobel dinner in Stockholm in December 2009. Over the past few weeks, Swedish press has covered the couple's potential problems with an intensity never seen before.

The first public admittance that something was not right came when Queen Silvia told Aftonbladet on April 13 that her youngest daughter's wedding would not happen this year as planned. She told the paper that there was too much going on with the preparations for the Crown Princess' wedding and that Madeleine deserved peace and quiet around her own wedding.

Then, on Wednesday, Norwegian magazine Se og Hor published an interview with Norwegian handball star Tora Uppstrom Berg in which she claimed she had been intimate with Bergstrom at the Swedish ski resort Are last year. She told the magazine that he called himself Jacob Bernstrom, and that it wasn't until she called his cell phone a few days later that she realized who he was.

According to Aftonbladet, Berg is studying photography at Art University College in Bournemouth. The paper reported that Berg had planned to hide in England when the interview was published, but because of the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, she was stuck in Norway when the news broke.

The Swedish media continued to speculate on the couple's problems, writing that the two had seen a couples counselor and outlining what they called Bergstrom's "double life" -- by day, a respected lawyer and fiance; at night, partying with Stockholm's elite.

Tarras-Wahlberg said the decision was likely Madeleine's.

"I don't think anyone has pushed them into this decision. Madeleine is a decisive individual, and she knows what she wants, but of course this decision has been taken during discussions together with the rest of the royal family," Tarras-Wahlberg said.

"I think it is a good thing that they were able to get this cleared away before Victoria's wedding, since with the speed of the media today, by that time there will be plenty of other wonderful things to talk about so that this will only be somewhere in the background," Tarras-Wahlberg said.

The Swedish royal family may not be used to the intensity of the media over recent weeks, but in 2003 they successfully sued two German magazines after they published false information about the crown princess, according to Swedish Radio.

After the worldwide publication of the interview with Bergstrom's alleged lover, Berg told Norwegian newspaper VG that she regrets having made the affair public.

"I could never imagine the enormous consequences this would have," she told the newspaper.

In a press release sent to several newspapers in the region, Berg's family said she had been naive, and that she had received 12.500 Norwegian Kroner for the interview. The press release, published in its entirety in Expressen, said that no further money had been accepted. At the bottom, the press release was signed, "Tora with family."

The Swedish monarchy has been under fire lately, and not just because of the princess' problems.

In a recent study by Gothenburg University, published in Svenska Dagbladet, 22 percent of all Swedes want to abolish the monarchy, up from 15 percent six years ago. The Swedish writer Goran Hagg recently proposed in an interview with TV4 that the king should be elected in a public vote.

Source : CNN

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