Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #16

[Hatfield]

I needed a good cry. TY. I'm so glad everything worked out for you and I guess I understand your daughter's mortification as an 11 year old. But one day she will laugh about it and thank you.

JMO
Yes @branmuffin, if she has not already thanked you for loving her that day, she will when she gets much older.

I have never been blessed with children, but if there is one thing I know for sure and know it well, its how kids will eventually learn to appreciate all the love and concern our parents had for us while growing up. That comes much later in life as the kids turn into adults themselves but I can guarantee you they will think back and remember that all the rules, the groundings, etc. were all done to keep them safe and were done out of love. And I can guarantee you that they will eventually thank their parents and they will express appreciation for all that.

How do I know this so well without having children. Because I was "that kid" once.
I put my parents through enough grief growing up and I threw all the same tantrums that other teenagers do. And when we finally get mature enough to realize all the household rules were for our own benefit, a big light bulb eventually turns on and we thank our parents for everything they did for us to raise us safe and well.

The key to parenting is to make it through those tough times and make it through the kid's teenage years. Once you are past that, you are home free.

 

[Goldenseal]

When my daughter was 11 she went missing. Her school was just a block and a half away. She usually got home around 3:30 and had a key to get in. When I got home around 6:00 pm she wasn't home. The cats hadn't been fed and no evidence of her being home after school was evident.

I went 5 houses down the block to her best friend's house to see if she was there. Her friend went to a different school and hadn't seen her all day. I called a girl in her class who said she hadn't see her in school that day. That was when my heart sank and I called 911.

In less than 5 minutes three patrol cars from the Toronto Police Services pulled up. I can't even begin to explain the feelings you have when someone is missing. I felt like I was looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Everything sounded like it was being filtered through a sea shell. Just a rushing of blood in your ears. I remember a tremor in my chin that I couldn't control.

I do remember giving a description of her clothing and yet for the life of me, I wasn't really sure. I didn't lay her clothes out; she was 11 and had her own thing going on. The cops were so calm while they took down all the details. While I recounted when I'd left for work (before her) and when I got home, I was screaming inside: Find her! Why are you still here!

By that time, a crowd had appeared outside; the neighbours and their kids including her friends and the curious. Everyone was interviewed by the police. It was old hat for some of them because in that area years before several murders of young children had occurred, Lizzie Tomlinson and Emmanuel Jacques. I remember opening my door to let LE look in my basement when Lizzie went missing and now they were asking my neighbours to do the same. Just the most terrible feeling you could imagine.

There were still a lot of people outside my house around 7:30 pm when a cab pulled up in front of my house. Everyone stopped to look at the person getting out of the car. It was my daughter! As soon as I saw her, my mind just had this moment of clarity. OMG, what have I done? My daughter had won a prize for collecting the most money in her school for a charity. The prize was dinner at Mr. Greenjean's and a movie.

I think I collapsed on the ground in relief. My daughter burst into tears. Everyone outside started to clap. She ran up to her bedroom and slammed the door. A cop talked to her teacher who had brought her home in a cab and sent her on her way.

We went back inside and I couldn't stop crying. I kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But every single one of those cops were elated. Because they had been on the other side of those investigations. Not one faulted me for my memory lapse. It was a victory.

Of course, my daughter was mortified and wouldn't speak to me for about 2 days.

And if you're wondering about the girl who said she hadn't seen her that day in school. She didn't because she was home sick. She just didn't explain that to me.

I won't bore everyone with details, but this also happened to me and I can confirm that I was a COMPLETE MESS for the 2 hours it took to locate my 3-yr-old. Missing loved ones -- the worst thing that can happen.

 

[gitana1]

I thought so too upon my first reading. Then I went back, and thought of the possibility of a citizen taking the photo, sending the same to police, then JeffCo. simply publishing the citizen's photo. Dude may have ditched or hidden the van and they might be hoping he is dumb enough to roll it out again or someone may notice it.

ETA: would be nice for a follow up on the story.

But they have the license plate so I’m sure that unless the van is stolen it shouldn’t be hard to track the guy. They know who he is.

 

[vaporlass]

Here’s the text of the update:

TODAY
by Trevor Noel, Organizer

The extended Morphew Family would like to offer our most sincere and heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has contributed to our efforts in finding Suzanne. Whether donating financially, hiking the mountains, hanging posters, canvassing, preparing and delivering food for volunteers and so much more-- please know that your thoughtfulness and compassion are so appreciated and that it has sustained the family throughout the difficulty of the search. The care and love that friends and family near and far have shown towards Suzanne's family during this incredibly tough time has been overwhelming and is deeply appreciated.
Suzanne is still missing and the search goes on. Please continue to pray with us as we hold out hope for her safe return.
Mallory Morphew has been designated as the beneficiary of this campaign and will be tracking and distributing the funds directly towards:
-Expenses related to search efforts (fuel, equipment, gear, food, etc.)
-Supporting the well-being of Suzanne's family
-Food for family and volunteers
-Housing accommodations for family/search volunteers
-Compensating family and volunteers for their time spent away from work and with the Morphew family
Again, your support is truly appreciated. Thank you!

Clearly they are hoping for MORE donations ... which really irks me because there are so many well-meaning people out there that want to help. I don’t get it, they don’t ASK for help to find SM, they aren’t begging for her return ... YET here they are begging for MONEY???

 

[rainbowshummingbird]

I re-watched the TD video. As far as I can tell, because parts of the audio are inaudible, Barry never says the word Suzanne. In the 8:39 interview he refers to SM as “her” or “my wife.” I think that’s interesting.

 

[Dave F.]

nope. I goofed. Jefferson County Sheriff's Office

Oookay, my bad. This is dated January 2020. Different guy? Same guy doing it again? Hard to know that there might be two guys independently doing the same thing in the same area.

Jefferson County is urban west Denver, but the majority it's land area is mountain country. I think you are looking at this same guy, and same string of crimes. IMO
خرائط ‪Google‬‏‏

 

[AugustWest]

But they have the license plate so I’m sure that unless the van is stolen it shouldn’t be hard to track the guy. They know who he is.

At least the person who last tagged the vehicle.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

BBM:

Yeppers.

Generally speaking, if one is innocent, the best thing one can do to assist in the search for a missing loved one is to give LE the information they need to move on to more fruitful lines of inquiry.

If an immediate family member of mine ever went missing, I would certainly hope that my first instinct would NOT be to say to LE, "Listen, I'd love to help you guys out, but even though I'm completely innocent of having any involvement in their disappearance, I'm going to need to retain an attorney first, on account of, you know, I know my rights and stuff."

I understand a defense attorney making the case for innocent people always needing to get an attorney before talking to LE.

It's job security for defense attorneys if everyone does that.

But if I'm innocent, I'm talking to LE and telling them everything I can that might possibly help them find my loved one.

Every minute I prolong LE's focus on me and my movements is one more minute I'm delaying discovery of my loved one.

I can worry about LE stitching me up for the crime down the road.
Or something.

Priorities.

JMO.

But once someone is in the system, at best, it will likely take years to undo a wrongful conviction-if ever. If I were innocent and had 2 children to finish raising, I'd retain counsel as quickly as possible, not take a lie detector test, and with counsel answer questions.

 

[Feistyomi]

I'm fairly new here but wanted to weigh in on this. Very close friends of mine experienced a situation similar to this several years ago. A loved one disappeared virtually into thin air. For the first six months the family was in such trauma that they were not capable of comprehending or caring about public perception. Their focus was completely on finding their missing relative. The case was similar to this one in that very little information was shared and it did not get much attention outside of the immediate area. And like this case, my friend's family was never named as POI or cleared publicly but they maintained a very cooperative and collaborative relationship with law enforcement that was not disclosed or obvious to the public.

They did not engage with the media, did not hire a spokesperson, would have never considered hiring someone to do PR for them. They just focused on what mattered to them- finding their loved one. There was a lot of suspicion and criticism because they did not toss crumbs out to the circling sharks, but they did not care because addressing that negativity took energy away from their primary concern. Perhaps Suzanne's family feels the same way?

Yours is such a thoughtful explanation of the other side of this kind of story. It is such a tragedy. Your statement of the similarities in the familys’ response echoes my own conclusions.It appears your friends have had no resolution, even now.
I am concerned SM may not be found. I hope at some point we will see the lengthy process LE has already completed, and it will fully exonerate BM. Otherwise it will become even more tragic.

 

[IronOreBetty]

How awful! Did your friends' case ever get resolved?



/IMO

It did. About 11 months later their relative was found deceased in a vehicle that drove into a body of water but was not immediately discovered. But the accusations that were lobbed at the family were horrid. In the absence of any real information, the people that took an interest in the case did a lot of speculating that caused a great deal of pain.

It was hard because the family and law enforcement didn't have any information to provide but the public wanted it so the hostility made a difficult time even worse. Ultimately it was a horrible accident.

 

[gitana1]

I'm fairly new here but wanted to weigh in on this. Very close friends of mine experienced a situation similar to this several years ago. A loved one disappeared virtually into thin air. For the first six months the family was in such trauma that they were not capable of comprehending or caring about public perception. Their focus was completely on finding their missing relative. The case was similar to this one in that very little information was shared and it did not get much attention outside of the immediate area. And like this case, my friend's family was never named as POI or cleared publicly but they maintained a very cooperative and collaborative relationship with law enforcement that was not disclosed or obvious to the public.

They did not engage with the media, did not hire a spokesperson, would have never considered hiring someone to do PR for them. They just focused on what mattered to them- finding their loved one. There was a lot of suspicion and criticism because they did not toss crumbs out to the circling sharks, but they did not care because addressing that negativity took energy away from their primary concern. Perhaps Suzanne's family feels the same way?

Thanks for that. It’s certainly possible they are like this. For me, how cooperative they’ve been or haven’t been is what’s crucial.

But what’s noteworthy is that there is a criminal investigation that has extensively focused on the husband, as some of the searches show.

 

[gitana1]

Thread is open again.

In the meantime, maybe I'm missing something. Why this extensive talk of the concrete pad when it appears nothing was found there?

Because we don’t know for sure that nothing was found and even if nothing was found, IMO it’s an extremely relevant part of the case given that it’s the worksite of the husband of the missing person. The timing of his work on the site indeed could show when Suzanne was last seen.

It’s one thing we know in a case that hasn’t revealed much information. I mean since this is a site for us to discuss these cases, that’s one key thing we can talk about in this case. Not too much else to discuss yet.

 

[IronOreBetty]

Thanks for that. It’s certainly possible they are like this. For me, how cooperative they’ve been or haven’t been is what’s crucial.

But what’s noteworthy is that there is a criminal investigation that has extensively focused on the husband, as some of the searches show.

How do we know that though?

Searching the home makes sense to see if something happened there in the absence of her family so that doesn't necessarily point to the husband.

Searching the family vehicles makes sense as well as a means to possibly confirm or exclude his involvement.

Searching the construction site based on tips - or as we have heard, possibly at the insistence of the property owner to make sure she isn't there makes sense as well as a means to exclude an area of concern.

But since all of these have been released and returned, we haven't heard anything else that tells us they are focused on the husband unless I missed something. Did I?

 

[Puzzles8]

< modsnip>
Was it the garage pad they sawed the hole in?
Is it not shown in the recent photos?

ETA - If construction on the pad/foundation/garage (where they sawed into) has not started back up, that would move me back to suspicious.

Years ago, we were under a lengthy construction/remodel at our home. One of the observations I made about the whole process was that they seemed to have each of the groups of tradesmen out at one time for each part of the project.

In other words, if they are framing the Colorado house, I'd think they would be framing the garage at the same time. If they are framing the house, but not the garage, I'd be surprised and wondering why.

In respect to BM lodging with his construction buddies, we hired a general contractor for our construction and he subbed out the different tradesman. We were told the each sub had several bids for each, and the winning sub each had the lowest bid.

Lo and behold, turned out the General Contractor and all of the sub guys on our job had played summer softball together for years. Later, we found out the Village Building Inspector also played on the team...

 

[vaporlass]

and i would add that the reward was not offered through crimestoppers - this is a big problem for me as it seems that he is not working with LE to find his missing wife - just doing his own thing.....
JMO

I wonder why someone who was so quick to call 911 and seek LE assistance decided within a week to “do his own thing” separate from them? Surely he knew he would be POI since he is spouse, why would that offend him so greatly? He has his lawyer, his own PI, his own search team, his private reward for safe return .... he obviously does not like or respect the LE that are investigating and his opinion of them was formed very quickly it seems. Interesting.

 

[Madeleine74]

I wonder why someone who was so quick to call 911 and seek LE assistance decided within a week to “do his own thing” separate from them? Surely he knew he would be POI since he is spouse,

BBM & snipped for space

IMO

I bet he had no idea he'd become the focus of an investigation. How could he have known that unless he was a consistent follower of murder cases, specifically missing/murdered by the partner cases?

Those of us who follow true crime know the deal, but others do not unless they watch Dateline and pay attention to cases.

Most of these partners/spouses have no clue how much attention their missing loved one will get, without any publicity on their part. They don't see their partner/spouse as important and valuable and newsworthy and one of the biggest mistakes made is thinking no one will care or spend much time looking.

 

[MassGuy]

How do we know that though?

Searching the home makes sense to see if something happened there in the absence of her family so that doesn't necessarily point to the husband.

Searching the family vehicles makes sense as well as a means to possibly confirm or exclude his involvement.

Searching the construction site based on tips - or as we have heard, possibly at the insistence of the property owner to make sure she isn't there makes sense as well as a means to exclude an area of concern.

But since all of these have been released and returned, we haven't heard anything else that tells us they are focused on the husband unless I missed something. Did I?

Yes. You apparently missed quite a bit.

First off, the FBI and CBI didn’t treat this as an abduction case. We have seen both agencies quite a bit in recent high profile cases, and they are quite competent (just ask Chris Watts or Patrick Frazee).

Obviously they don’t think this was an abduction, a suicide, or an accident. They also don’t think this was one of the lions from “The Ghost and the Darkness.”

Basically, all I see in defense of this guy are excuses. All the weird behavior does not matter, the behavior of law enforcement does not matter, and something that does not happen with any regularity must have happened.

Yeah, maybe the FBI, CBI, and local law enforcement were fooled, and someone abducted a low risk victim, from a low risk area, and left no trace.

Maybe the husband behaved like a guilty man, and this task force excavated a property for no reason.

But maybe a spade is a spade.

 

[susiQ]

How do we know that though?

Searching the home makes sense to see if something happened there in the absence of her family so that doesn't necessarily point to the husband.

Searching the family vehicles makes sense as well as a means to possibly confirm or exclude his involvement.

Searching the construction site based on tips - or as we have heard, possibly at the insistence of the property owner to make sure she isn't there makes sense as well as a means to exclude an area of concern.

But since all of these have been released and returned, we haven't heard anything else that tells us they are focused on the husband unless I missed something. Did I?

I think the concern for many of us is not the lack of information but the direction LE has taken the investigation and curiously, NOT taken. If BM is not a suspect in their estimation, who is?? Death by mountain lion has pretty much been ruled out and if they suspected abduction, why the silence? No local warnings (BOLO). None of that makes sense, unless someone very close to SM IS the suspect and LE discovered something right from the get go that told them the “story” they were fed is “wanting.” If someone is immediately caught in a lie, they are immediately suspect. Of course, LE is not going to disclose any of this until they are in a position to arrest said suspect. To doubt they have a suspect in mind is to doubt their competence, for if they have no idea who did this, they’re going about their investigation in a very odd manner.

I for one believe they absolutely know what happened here and the silence is a good thing. Of course, we hate not knowing the nitty gritty details, but they’ll come soon enough. Building a case takes time. “One kick at the can” as our prosecutors have pointed out. Patience. JMHO

 

[gitana1]

How do we know that though?

Searching the home makes sense to see if something happened there in the absence of her family so that doesn't necessarily point to the husband.

Searching the family vehicles makes sense as well as a means to possibly confirm or exclude his involvement.

Searching the construction site based on tips - or as we have heard, possibly at the insistence of the property owner to make sure she isn't there makes sense as well as a means to exclude an area of concern.

But since all of these have been released and returned, we haven't heard anything else that tells us they are focused on the husband unless I missed something. Did I?

Yes. First of all, they got a search warrant in this case. It’s been sealed but it is believed to cover the search of the house. It could’ve covered the work site as well. We don’t know.

But with a search warrant there needs to be a showing of probable cause that evidence of a CRIME has been committed in the area to be searched.

And bringing in sonar and digging up an expensive concrete pad, that’s not going to happen without a search warrant. And certainly not at the insistence of a third party property owner. Citizens don’t get to direct law enforcement in their searches.

Second, only three days after she disappeared:

“Spezze declined to comment on whether Morphew’s husband is cooperating with authorities in the search for the woman or whether investigators believe foul play was involved.

‘This is an open criminal investigation,’ Spezze said during a brief interview.”
https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/colorado-woman-missing-after-going-on-mothers-day-bike-ride/

Of course they quickly softened that to:
“The family is cooperating.” And that they wouldn’t “rule out” a criminal investigation.

But the horse is out of the barn.

 

[Dave F.]

Was it the garage pad they sawed the hole in?
Is it not shown in the recent photos?

ETA - If construction on the pad/foundation/garage (where they sawed into) has not started back up, that would move me back to suspicious.

Years ago, we were under a lengthy construction/remodel at our home. One of the observations I made about the whole process was that they seemed to have each of the groups of tradesmen out at one time for each part of the project.

In other words, if they are framing the Colorado house, I'd think they would be framing the garage at the same time. If they are framing the house, but not the garage, I'd be surprised and wondering why.

In respect to BM lodging with his construction buddies, we hired a general contractor for our construction and he subbed out the different tradesman. We were told the each sub had several bids for each, and the winning sub each had the lowest bid.

Lo and behold, turned out the General Contractor and all of the sub guys on our job had played summer softball together for years. Later, we found out the Village Building Inspector also played on the team...

The pictures clearly show they are framing the main portion of the house. The entryway is the tallest section. Both the garage (in front of the picture) and the portion of the house on the opposite side from the garage (bedrooms?) appear to me to be wide enough to require some pretty long roof trusses. There would be no point in erecting stud walls if there was a delay in the truss delivery, because it is difficult to keep walls straight and in square on a busy construction site without the roof to link everything together.
Truss manufacturers do not have the facilities to store their finished product. If there is a delay in construction, the truss order goes back into the queue for rescheduling.
IMO