[sodpoodle]

****911 call doesn’t sound like someone watching 3 people die in a fire.****

She called before the fire exploded. She called because she smelled gasoline and Powell had locked the children in the house and would not let her inside. The killer beat the children before he set the house on fire. IMHO she showed remarkably good instincts and presence of mind. Her grace under pressure was misread by the dispatcher - perhaps she should have been more hysterical.

[sockmonkey]

The killer beat the children before he set the house on fire.

Beat them? I thought he whacked them with an axe.

[gundog]

First call: Moments later, the social worker called. She told the dispatcher she wanted to pull her car out of the driveway. She smelled gasoline, she said. "He's got the kids in the house, and he won't let me in. ... I rang the doorbell and everything. I begged him to let me in."

Clearly incompetent for the task at hand.

From the second call: "There's two little boys in the house. They're 5 and 7, and there's an adult man ... he blew up the house and the kids!" she said, speaking calmly but urgently. "And you think he might have done it intentionally?" the dispatcher asked.

If supervised visitation is called for, you do it in controlled facilities. Barring that, you send someone that can kick down a door and drop a hammer on a violent perp.