The missing person case that gripped Colorado

Yahoo

5 days ago

The case of a Colorado woman who disappeared on Mother's Day in 2020 that drew the attention of true crime podcasters across the country and programs like '48 Hours' is back in the news.
A grand jury in the state's Twelfth Judicial District returned an indictment last week charging Barry Morphew, 57, with the first-degree murder of his wife, Suzanne Morphew. This is the second time Barry Morphew has been charged in the death of his wife. Prosecutors dropped the charges in 2022 without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled.
'Federal, state and local law enforcement have never stopped working toward justice for Suzanne,' Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly said in a statement. 'The Twelfth Judicial District Attorney's Office stands in solidarity with Suzanne's family and the citizens of Chaffee and Saguache counties in pursuing the grand jury's indictment.'
Investigators had not found Suzanne Morphew's body the first time Barry Morphew was charged.
The investigation captivated the central Colorado community of about 20,000 people, generating more than 1,400 tips and involving 70 officers from the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office, Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI.
'Cold-case homicides are tremendously difficult. They're difficult for the families of the victims and the communities who wait patiently for answers. While it may seem at times that the world forgets about these victims, I can assure you that my law enforcement partners and Colorado's law enforcement community do not forget,' Kelly said at a news conference last week.
A neighbor reported Suzanne Morphew missing to police at 5:46 p.m. on May 10, 2020. The last known person to see her alive was her husband, according to the indictment.
Barry Morphew told police that she was still asleep in bed when he left their home near Salida at 5 a.m. that morning for a pre-planned work trip in Broomfield where he checked into a hotel. Investigators say he spent little time at the job site during the day.
'Instead, besides two brief visits to the job site area, electronic evidence and cameras from businesses showed him driving around to various locations and discarding unknown items in separate trash cans,' according to the indictment.
Per the indictment, Barry Morphew deleted a May 6 text chain with Suzanne Morphew, though a screen shot of one message from her remained reading, 'I'm done. I could care less what you're up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly.'
Suzanne Morphew's last known communication was a text message sent at 2:11 p.m. on May 9 to a man out of state with whom she was having an affair. Barry Morphew arrived home about a half hour after the message was sent and his cell phone was turned off for the next nearly eight hours, the indictment says.
The neighbor called Barry Morphew around 5 p.m. on May 10 and told him that his daughters were concerned because they couldn't reach Suzanne Morphew on her cell phone all day, according to the indictment. He told the neighbor to check the house and look for her bike. When they couldn't find her or the bike, he told the neighbor to call the sheriff.
Officers responded to the home 45 minutes later. The home was locked, Suzanne Morphew and her bike were gone. Her bike was located less than a mile from the house and her bike helmet was found a mile and a half away from the house just off a highway.
In September 2023, Suzanne Morphew's remains were found in and around a shallow grave in Saguache County, Colorado near Highway 17, less than an hour south of her home. The majority of her bones were recovered and were 'significantly bleached,' according to the indictment.
In addition to her bones, police recovered a cancer port and items of clothing, including biking clothes Suzanne was known to wear. But, according to the indictment, a forensic anthropologist determined that it was unlikely her body decomposed at that site and the decomposition was 'inconsistent' with her wearing the bike clothing at the time.
During an autopsy, the El Paso County coroner's office found the presence of a chemical mixture known as BAM — butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine in Suzanne Morphew's remains. It listed her manner and cause of death as: 'Homicide by unspecified means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine intoxication.'
According to the indictment, Barry Morphew used BAM to sedate and transport deer on his farm in Indiana prior to moving to Colorado in 2018. He also used BAM in Colorado as recently as April 2020, to tranquilize a deer in the breezeway of his home.
Records show Barry Morphew last bought a BAM prescription in March 2018 and no other private citizens or private businesses in any of the surrounding counties had purchased the drugs from 2017-2020, the indictment says.
'Ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM: Barry Morphew.'
Barry Morphew's attorney said the new case isn't unlike the previous one.
'Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence,' said attorney David Beller in a statement, per Colorado Public Radio. 'Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed and the outcome will not either.'
An attorney who represented Barry Morphew also continues to believe he is innocent.
'Not only is he a loving father, but he was a loving husband,' said Iris Eytan, who defended him in 2021. 'I've handled thousands of cases, and I've never seen prosecutors mishandle a case so recklessly. This case was fumbled so terribly, three prosecutors were penalized. After Barry's case was rightly dismissed, I dedicated the second half of my career to ensure what happened to Barry doesn't happen to another innocent person,' she told Colorado Public Radio.
A state disciplinary board disbarred Colorado's 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley in November 2024 for actions she took in the Morphew case, including making improper statements to the media that it said 'threatened to prejudice the defendant and undermine the public's interest in justice,' per The Washington Post. The board also said Stanley did not supervise the prosecution of the case properly.
The Morphew's children have stood by their father. Barry Morphew sued the district attorney for malicious prosecution, a case that was dismissed by a federal judge who found that while the original prosecution was flawed, it wasn't malicious, per Colorado Public Radio.