Puyallup, Wash. • The videos capture the boys in their element.
Braden Powell, 5, is filmed mischievously running around his grandparents’ home, chasing cousins and giggling.
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Big brother Charlie Powell, 7, known as "the little scientist" to his first-grade classmates, is shown thoroughly explaining his plans to carve a Halloween Jack-O-Lantern.
"Charlie explains to you what he is cutting and why," the boys’ aunt Denise Cox, said with a laugh in an interview this week. "It’s the cutest video."
After a weekend of mourning her nephews at two funeral services and a Monday burial in Puyallup, Wash., Cox released videos of her nephews to The Salt Lake Tribune — images she wants to share, she said, to bring focus to the boys’ energetic personalities instead of to their horrific final moments before their deaths.
"They’ve got the sweetest little smiles. You see Braden’s activeness and you see how smart Charlie was," Cox said of the videos.
Cox said she and family members have watched the film clips repeatedly in recent days.
Those memories, along with her last encounters with her nephews provide some solace. The Wednesday before the children were killed by their father, Josh Powell, Braden visited Cox and played at her home.
Before the boy left, he approached his aunt and asked "Can I play with this truck again?"
Bewildered, and not seeing a truck in sight, Cox asked Braden about what toy he was referring to. The boy then led her to his cousin’s room, where he had carefully hidden a Hot Wheels car in the cousin’s bedsheets.
Cox burst out laughing when she saw Braden had wrapped the car in a hiding spot, certain the toy would be safe there until he next returned.
"I said, you know what? You can have that," Cox said, handing the boy the truck. "He said ‘Gee thanks!’ " Then he said, ‘Can Charlie have something too?’ "
Cox promised Braden that his brother could visit soon and pick out a toy of his own. The visit never happened.
Now, Cox is reconciling how her brother-in-law could kill himself and his boys in a blaze set at his Graham-area rental home.
Cox, who believes Josh Powell is responsible for killing her missing sister, Susan Powell, said she feels Powell cheated her out a budding relationship with her nephews.
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