In fact, Nutty Putty had been closed for several years prior to 2009, due to some close calls. The rescuers knew a thing or two about Nutty Putty. Nutty Putty’s remote location meant it took time just for the first responders to get to there, let alone begin the rescue. Y’know, ggetting here, getting any resources here that we needed to try and effect a rescue, so there’s a major concern there.ĭave Cawley: That’s Utah County Sheriff’s Sergeant Spencer Cannon. That, that happens, but where it was, we knew right away that there were a certain set of challenges that we would have to defeat right from the very beginning. Spencer Cannon: Yeah, we got notified late at night. It took some time for other members of his party to discover his predicament and exit the cave, where they could call for help. But, while wriggling through one narrow stretch at about 8:45 p.m., John became stuck. So on the evening of Tuesday, November 24 th, 2009, he and several friends entered Nutty Putty to probe its narrow passageways. I got pictures of him at the bottom of the Bloomington Caves, in a tight spot.ĭave Cawley: He’d explored other caves for fun.
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Leon Jones (from NovemKSL TV archive): He’s been in caves. He was 26 and in his second year there when he, his then pregnant wife and their 14-month-old daughter came to Utah to visit family over Thanksgiving. John Hollenhorst (from NovemKSL TV archive): Since Tuesday night, rescuers struggled against the unforgiving topography of Nutty Putty Cave.ĭave Cawley: John had grown up in Utah, attending Brigham Young University before leaving for medical school at the University of Virginia. John Jones’ death in Nutty Putty was, along with the disappearance of Susan Powell, one of the biggest Utah news stories of 2009. on December 6 th, about the same time Josh was looking at the weather and information about Ely, Nevada. The timestamp for that photo showed it was accessed at 5:25 p.m. A timestamp showed it had been accessed on December 4 th, three days before Susan’s disappearance.Īnother showed a man named John Edward Jones who had died in Nutty Putty Cave the night before Thanksgiving. In addition, West Valley police located a few small, thumbnail images on Josh Powell’s laptop computer, the one they seized with a search warrant the day after Susan’s disappearance. But it proved he was at the least aware of Nutty Putty. Hole in the ground with maze.ĭave Cawley: I don’t know when Josh wrote those words or why. They read:Įric Openshaw (as Josh Powell from undated postcard): Nutty Putty Caves in Eureka (south of Spanish Fork). What made this postcard curious were two lines scribbled on the back in Josh’s handwriting. I could see the address lines on the back side were blank. The front showed a picture the Heart of Timpanogos, a rock feature inside Utah’s Timpanogos Cave National Monument. Here’s why: while sifting through hundreds of Josh Powell’s digital files, I came across a scanned copy of a postcard. I can tell you with 100-percent certainty that the answer is yes. I’m Dave Cawley.ĭave Cawley: Before looking at the plausibility of the Nutty Putty Cave idea, we have to determine if Josh was even aware of the cave. This is a bonus episode of Cold: Nutty Putty Cave. People wondered if Josh might have disposed of Susan’s body not in a mine, but in the cave. And the only way to get through the first part of the opening, which is 10 or 15 feet long, is to either go flat on your back or flat on your stomach and just kind of move your way through carefully like that and then the cave opens up into some larger caverns.ĭave Cawley: West Valley City police case files indicate they received the first of many tips about Nutty Putty Cave on December 14 th, 2009, exactly one week after the date of Susan’s disappearance. Spencer Cannon: The opening to the cave, it starts up on flat ground up here, flat rocky ground, and you go down into the ground about 15 feet and from there you have to go horizontal. All you need to understand is we’re way off the beaten path, standing on the fringe of Utah’s West Desert next to a hole in the ground known as Nutty Putty Cave. Anybody from anywhere in Utah County, the, the closest anybody would be in arrival time would be 35 to 40 minutes at the very best if somebody was coming from say Saratoga Springs or, or uh Goshen or Eureka or something like that.ĭave Cawley: If you’re not familiar with an of this geography, that’s okay. It takes the better part of an hour from Spanish Fork to get here. Spencer Cannon: As you saw coming out here, there’s no fast way to get here. We’re eight miles off the pavement down a muddy, rutted dirt road. Beyond that, a sea of basin and range, stretching on across Utah and Nevada. Off to the west, the Tintic Mountains obscure my view of the Rush Valley. Dave Cawley: Standing at the top of Blowhole Hill, I can see storm cells sliding south across the Cedar Valley.