Susan Powell e-mails described desperation

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WEST VALLEY, Utah, April 30 (UPI) -- Susan Powell, the long-missing Utah woman, sent friends e-mails before disappearing, saying she was trying to improve her relationship with husband Josh Powell.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported it had received the e-mails a few days before she vanished in December 2009 but agreed not to publish them at the request of the provider, who feared the content of the messages could be an invasion of her privacy or interfere with the police investigation of the missing woman's case.

But the newspaper said it decided to publish the e-mails after Josh Powell killed himself and the couple's two young sons in a fire at a Graham, Wash., rental home in February.

"I want him in counseling, on meds, I want my husband, friend, lover BACK no more crazy, outrageous, outlandish beliefs/opinions," Powell wrote in an e-mail to friends dated July 11, 2008, as she described stress and depression linked to her troubled marriage.

In a July 28, 2008, e-mail, she wrote: "I know everyone else will support me in whatever decisions, even if that means I crash anyone's house in the middle of the night with my boys in tow. (Hope that never happens) or stay with him. But believe me, my bottom line is he WILL DO COUNSELING.

"I'm sure if he fixes himself, everyone else will see a much closer version of the guy I married. And it will be easy enough to forget the hell and turmoil he's put me through."

Josh Powell was named as a person of interest in his wife's disappearance.