Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #78 *ARREST*

[10ofRods]

I am starting to think that BM's killing animals' escalation heralded him killing a human. I was laughing at the attempts to connect him to other murders in Indiana, but I wonder if he was growing murderous.

It is a hard thing to discuss, because I am not against hunting; my grandfather was a hunter, I am not a vegetarian, and here many people provide for their families this way. So in general, I don't mind. But cutting off deers antlers (that has to be done by deer farmers and not just anyone living on this earth), plus this taxidermy, plus hunting animals from his house, to me signals escalation. Sooner or later, he would have killed a human. And here was his beautiful wife, who had fallen out of love with him, and loved someone else. He probably wanted to kill her lover, but as a coward, he was afraid of killing a person from another community and a different state. His own wife, easily, and to lawyer up. His daughters, who needed a mother, he didn't think much of.

MG, who worked with BM and moved out of state for fear of him, probably knew what she was doing.

Barry had a deer farmers' license. So I'm guessing he considered himself...a deer farmer (although it was only legal in Indiana...)

MG is the only witness whose conversations (not texts) were shared at the PH, IIRC.

 

[girlhasnoname]

So if BM went to the Spa Store on Sat between 4-5:30, which is usually closed at 2 pm <and during Covid restrictions no less>, how is it that he didn't purchase anything yet there were spa bottles recovered in Suzanne's RR??

Suzanne sent a text to BM around 10:30 am on Saturday to pick up 'spa stuff'?

Maybe he purchased it while at Walmart on Sunday? I know around my area there was no chlorine or bleach to be had during the first few months of lockdown.

@LaurenScharfTV

SALIDA STOVE & SPA: Agent Graham said the owners had told him #BarryMorphew had been in the store acquiring to get his hot tub fixed on May 9 from 4-5:30 p.m. The investigator said the owner had told them that Morphew didn't buy anything either.

12:12 PM · Aug 23, 2021

MOO

 

[clearskies1]

Re the use of ketamine. I understand it's used by paramedics in the UK when dealing with high pain situations in the field and believe it's use in that situation has to be authorized by a doctor first. This article discusses the possible misuse of the drug by some Colorado law enforcement officers.
Elijah McClain's death puts focus on ketamine injections during police calls

 

[Deleted member 222031]

I understand the PH isn’t designed to present a narrative but is designed to show collected evidence.

However, I still wonder about:
1) When and how did the Garfield Mine come into play?

My understanding is BM admitted to making a left onto hwy 50 to follow a full-antlered bull elk. But does the GPS/phone data show that? And if it didn’t, why not?

Did Barry state where he turned around and the time he did that?

Was the Garfield mine and the roads up to it extensively searched? Is the mine abandoned? Is it on private or public lands? Does Monarch Lodge have cameras and were they inquired about?

Did LE recreate that left turn drive under the same conditions as 5/10/20? How dark was it when BM left on 5/10/20? Did Colorado Parks and Wildlife weigh in on how likely a full-antlered bull would be around the county road and state hwy 50 in mid-May?

2) There are various definitions of SM’s phone pinging near Poncha Springs early 5/10/20. But was her phone moving or just signal-roaming from PP?

3) Did or did not Suzanne’s Range Rover have recorded GPS?

4) When the searches were performed, were the searchers just looking for a body or were they looking for disturbed land?

5) This is minutia but did MM1 have a Spring Turkey permit? Was she interviewed if she shot a turkey and let it wander away by the river?

Great questions @cattlekate. I hope we find out & soon.

 

[10ofRods]

The spa bottles in the car were empty. I suppose they were there so that Suzanne would know what to buy if she was ever allowed to go to the spa store.

I don't believe there was a Saturday afternoon visit to the spa store, I think the owners are confused about what day this happened (they got a phone call from Barry that day, he didn't go there). They have no receipts or video to remind them exactly when it was, but since Barry keeps saying he was out and about at that time, they early on formed a false memory, when in fact it was probably some other time or the day before.

I sure would like to know how it was Barry was there for 1.5 hours and what in heck they talked about for that length of time. Surely, he wasn't just standing there with his hands in his pockets.

 

[K9Enzo]

I'm curious what prompted the dig at the house site - it was not brought up at all IIRC
Police and FBI wrap up search at property where missing mom Suzanne Morphew's husband worked | Daily Mail Online

so no evidence at all?

I think this lead (whatever it was- the neighbor reporting noises late at night) was a dead-end for LE. Not all search warrants result in found/recovered evidence and I’m assuming that’s what happened here. IMO

 

[swedeheart]

Mike goes over what we learned in the preliminary hearing, and discusses the differences between circumstantial evidence vs. coincidence.

 

[CGray123]

Just had a thought. Could there be something in the AA that is such explosive conjecture (maybe another serious crime by BM) that releasing the AA will be damningly prejudicial? And if so, why did he allow it to go forward for an arrest? There's got to be more to this.
JMO

You're really onto something here, IMO.

IIRC, the defense made motions to suppress at the outset of the prelim, and the judge said he couldn't hear the motions until November. The defense also described some of the AA information as "character assassination".

IMO, the prosecution edited their case in the prelim to avoid issues later on involving unfairly prejudicial publicity, etc.

 

[Ontario Mom]

I can't stop thinking about BM's admission that he struck Suzanne. (In typical abuser style, he claims it was an accident and minimizes her injury.) Why admit to this? If there wasn't some sort of proof, he would deny it.

IMO, there are photos and/or eyewitness accounts. Let's not forget the sentence-enhancing DV charge that would not be brought without solid evidence.

I believe the PH was a simmering version of the explosive AA to come.

I tend to agree. I suspect there is something morally reprehensible connected to BM (and at this point, would that really surprise any of us?) that's been uncovered in the course of the investigation into Suzanne's disappearance. I suspect that whatever that thing is, is what the judge was attempting to shield the M daughters from, with the sealing of the AA for now.

jmo

 

[girlhasnoname]

I think there’s a strong possibility if he had attorneys, especially his current ones, early on he would not been arrested in May. IMO

Sadly I agree. I go back to my thinking that Barry believes he is Omnipotent. He didn't need attorneys, he truly believed he would never be charged, let alone arrested and sitting in jail.

I'm glad he kept running his big mouth.

JMO

 

[Deleted member 222031]

He didn't criticize the probative value of the entire AA. He just said that '...a significant portion of the information in the Affidavit was not relevant to the Court's finding of probable cause." So he's questioning the probative value of some the things they included, rather than of the entire AA.

By way of (silly) example, imagine an elementary school teacher assigned the class an essay on Goldilocks. Little Suzy wrote the best essay that the teacher had ever seen on the subject. However she also included footnotes on every page explaining why Johnny, who sits next to her, is a giant poopyhead. The teacher would be correct in saying both that Suzy had written an amazing paper on Goldilocks and that the essay contained irrelevant and inappropriate content.

For issuing an arrest warrant based on the AA, the only thing that matters is whether the relevant information in it establishes probable cause. The extraneous information is just irrelevant. And Judge Murphy obviously felt that the relevant information was sufficient to show probable cause, since he signed the warrant. For releasing it publicly, the irrelevant information included becomes an issue since it will be released as well. It's a bit of a catch-22 since it's hard to know how reasonable his concerns are without seeing the information that he's concerned about. But say for example that the AA includes a transcript of all of the messages between SM and JL, including photos. Only a small portion of those messages are relevant to probable cause. But the content of the rest of the messages would probably generate fairly intense media (I can imagine the Daily Mail headlines) and social media attention for a while and might be quite devastating to the daughters/Suzanne's family.

It seems like the eventual solution is redaction. Hopefully they do that and release it soon. My personal impression of the judge so far is that he seems careful and cautious. Those can be good qualities in a judge, but they can also be taken too far.

Thank you so much! Adding the 3 bears to the ark (we only had 1 before).

 

[Ruby_PA]

I just think he would’ve tried harder to locate it when he stripped his shorts to throw them in the washer if that were the case.

I thought the same, assuming the floor in the MBR was hard wood, he would have heard it hit the floor. But according to the photos on the real estate site, bedrooms are all fully carpeted. Maybe he simply did not hear it fall and it got kicked under the night stand or wherever.

 

[MrX]

I think there’s a strong possibility if he had attorneys, especially his current ones, early on he would not been arrested in May. IMO

Absolutely. They said that the decision to arrest was based on FDI audit of his statements to investigators. If he doesn't talk, there aren't any contradictions. It's astounding that, if he researched True Crime, that this wasn't the first lesson he learned.

 

[O.Incandenza]

You and I are 100% on the same page. I don't really understand the point of the PH if the AA was enough to arrest him for these charges, why isn't it enough to go to trial? Why would the judge approve having BM arrested on the charges submitted but not feel its enough to go to trial? This is extremely confusing and even more confusing if Judge Murphy is the judge that signed the AA. If a different judge signed the AA I could see Murphy disagreeing, but not if he is the one who signed it.

A couple possible reasons:

• There's no one arguing the other side in an AA. Perhaps the defense managed to convince the judge that some of the evidence wasn't nearly as strong as LE had said it was in the AA.
• The AA and arrest warrant come before any charges are filed. So it might be that he thought the evidence showed probable cause to support an arrest for murder, but he's not sure that it supports a charge of murder with premeditation.

I'd guess the second since I thought the evidence of premeditation presented at the hearing was pretty flimsy. But he could also just be being very cautious and want to write a solid decision so the defense can't attack it.

 

[rainbowshummingbird]

I theorized a few threads back that the unspent bullet could’ve come from Suzanne trying to frantically load a gun for protection before Barry forced the door to get to her. I believe he didn’t realize she dropped a bullet when doing so. Would you lean more toward that, or it falling from his shorts? Both are plausible. I just think he would’ve tried harder to locate it when he stripped his shorts to throw them in the washer if that were the case.

I’m so ready to see the AA so I can understand the weapons and their locations a bit more. Perhaps you know, is the 22 the weapon labeled as a short rifle, or are those two separate items? I know next to nothing about guns.

The missing towel (and the gps/ping data) leads me to believe whatever happened started when Suzanne was still sunbathing. I don’t understand how or why her bathing suits were not taken into evidence, unless they just didn’t have that photo yet to realize their significance. I don’t think the sheets have anything to do with her murder at this point. Just the other things that were tossed in to dry with them later.

I think it’s possible, but unless Barry confesses not sure how it could be proven. Also, it does seem like he took steps and thought about how to carry out her murder. Would he have removed from the home the guns that Suzanne could access? Could there have been a gun hidden in the bedroom that he simply forgot about? Did Suzanne make it further by foot after being darted than he’d planned?

 

[girlhasnoname]

The spa bottles in the car were empty. I suppose they were there so that Suzanne would know what to buy if she was ever allowed to go to the spa store.

I don't believe there was a Saturday afternoon visit to the spa store, I think the owners are confused about what day this happened (they got a phone call from Barry that day, he didn't go there). They have no receipts or video to remind them exactly when it was, but since Barry keeps saying he was out and about at that time, they early on formed a false memory, when in fact it was probably some other time or the day before.

I sure would like to know how it was Barry was there for 1.5 hours and what in heck they talked about for that length of time. Surely, he wasn't just standing there with his hands in his pockets.

I agree the story of his spa run in complete nonsense too. He did something with Suzanne during that time IMO.

When asked by Defense if BM was there Agent Graham replied something like that is what they thought. I'll look for Lauren's exact tweet.

MOO

ETA: fixed typed gobblygook

 

[Stripehaven]

Absolutely. They said that the decision to arrest was based on FDI audit of his statements to investigators. If he doesn't talk, there aren't any contradictions. It's astounding that, if he researched True Crime, that this wasn't the first lesson he learned.

Some people simply cannot keep their mouths shut, and also are flummoxed when others don’t believe everything they say, including contradictions. Think: Diane Downs.

 

[Deleted member 222031]

Absolutely. They said that the decision to arrest was based on FDI audit of his statements to investigators. If he doesn't talk, there aren't any contradictions. It's astounding that, if he researched True Crime, that this wasn't the first lesson he learned.

I've said it before & I'll say it again: hubris. He had cleared himself in his own mind, why wouldn't others see him as someone innocent who "just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time" (**looking guilty as sin**). MOO

 

[clearskies1]

Wonder if they contemplated or actually applied to the court for any warrants to wiretap his phone.

 

[10ofRods]

A couple possible reasons:

• There's no one arguing the other side in an AA. Perhaps the defense managed to convince the judge that some of the evidence wasn't nearly as strong as LE had said it was in the AA.
• The AA and arrest warrant come before any charges are filed. So it might be that he thought the evidence showed probable cause to support an arrest for murder, but he's not sure that it supports a charge of murder with premeditation.

I'd guess the second since I thought the evidence of premeditation presented at the hearing was pretty flimsy. But he could also just be being very cautious and want to write a solid decision so the defense can't attack it.

Exactly. Of ALL THAT EVIDENCE in the A.A., we mostly heard about the parts that the defense thinks are hinky.

But that's supposed to be how it works. The prosecution is required to present exculpatory evidence (evidence that could exonerate Barry) and so the DNA in the glove box and in the back seat, stuff like that - that's just about all there is.