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Puyallup, Wash. • Josh Powell said Friday he was hoping for a resolution in his wife's disappearance after he learned about a police search for her in Ely, Nevada.

"Seeing the [news] coverage this morning, I don't know what to think," Powell said. "It's just not what I was expecting."

"I got the impression they were talking about looking in a hotel or an apartment or something," he added.

West Valley City police announced Thursday they had a new lead in the case and would conduct a search in Ely on Friday. During a Friday morning news conference, police said they would allow reporters to come along on the search. Reporters were then taken to an area where detectives were searching some of the area's many abandoned mine shafts.

Powell's father, Steve, used the unorthodox news conference in Ely and the subsequent search to criticize investigators.

"We thought they really had something, and they just wasted everyone's time," Steve Powell said.

He questioned whether West Valley City police were "trying to justify themselves to voters, through media hoopla" so the city could increase local taxes, and he renewed some standing complaints.

Since the early weeks of his daughter-in-law's disappearance, Steve Powell has complained law enforcement has mishandled the case by placing attention on Powell and not pursuing other theories, such as the possibility Susan Powell ran away with 30-year-old Steven Koecher.

Koecher disappeared in Henderson, Nev., six days after Susan Powell, 28, vanished from her West Valley City home on Dec. 6, 2009.

Steve Powell also has raised the possibility Susan Powell used her job at Wells Fargo to steal someone's identity and could be living as another person.

Josh and Susan Powell grew up in Puyallup, and Josh Powell moved back here in the weeks after his wife's December 2009 disappearance. He now lives with his father and his two sons: Charlie, 6, and Braden, 4.

Steve Powell said he and his son did not tell the boys about a possible break in their mother's case.

"But if they found her, we would have said: 'There's your mommy. It may be a while before you get her back,' " Steve Powell said.

Powell remains the only one police have named a person of interest. He remained the more reserved of the two Powell men Friday.

During an interview at a park near his home, he declined to answer a question about what he thought happened to his wife.

"It's just not something I want to speculate on," Powell said.

ncarlisle@sltrib.com

Twitter: @natecarlisle