Josh Powell put some thought into killing his sons.

In the days leading up to Sunday, he gave away the toys and books he kept for the two boys at his Graham-area house and stopped somewhere to fill two 5-gallon cans with gasoline, authorities said Monday.

When Charlie, 7, and Braden, 5, arrived for a scheduled visit about noon, their father had either saturated his home with gasoline or was about to, Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said. He also had a hatchet on hand he used to chop them in the head and neck.

Minutes before, he’d sent out emails to friends, relatives and his pastor, saying goodbye and apprising them of where he kept his money and how to cancel the utilities.

One of the emails said, “I can’t live without my boys,” Troyer said.

“He was taking care of his final business,” Troyer told news reporters from around the nation who’d gathered outside the charred husk of Powell’s house. “This is something he was intending on doing.”

Then he did it, sparking an inferno that destroyed the house and killed Charlie, Braden and himself.

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