Thanks for your support and the question...I think a preliminary step for LE would have been to reach out to SM's neighbors immediately requesting that they save any outdoor camera related video tape; as a preliminary step LE would have also canvassed the Salidas residents for relevant information/camera footage, etc. In other words, several investigative steps that LE took after they dug deep into SM's husband for evidence that he was responsible for her disappearance should have been done in the very beginning when SM was reported missing. A wide net around the area of her disappearance should have been cast with investigators gathering as much as they could from sources that could have provided leads that were possibly lost because no one was looking beyond the assumption that BLM had something to do with his missing wife.
Hi
@trujac. Here is my take on this. It is MOO. When LE first got the call, it was from a neighbor who told them that SM had reportedly gone for a bicycle ride and had not returned. We do not know who told the neighbor this. The call was at approximately 5:46 pm. We know that BM was not home at this time. He stated that he arrived home from Denver at approximately 9:00p.m. that evening. We do not know when the daughters arrived home. We do not know if the neighbor met LE at the Morphew house or her own house. It has been speculated that either the daughters or BM called the neighbor when they could not reach SM on Mother’s Day. They may have asked the neighbor to check the house for her car, which was there, or her bike, which was not. LE may even have called either BM or the daughters from the scene to get as much info as possible i.e. when they last spoke to her, saw her, what her usual bike routes were, etc. We have not received any reports that anyone saw SM on her bike that day.
Knowing they only had a couple of hours of daylight left, LE immediately began searching the area. I’m sure the original theory,
based on information they had at that time, would have been medical emergency or accident. Thought may also have been given to an animal attack.
We do know that the bike was found that night. We don’t know by whom or what time, what position it was in, or what condition it was in. We do know that LE requested, and received from the DOC, up to eight tracking dogs. They also called in help from nearby police agencies. By Monday, there were over 100 law enforcement, the aforementioned tracking dogs, SAR teams, and divers searching the area. They continued these searches at least until the following Sunday when there were still divers photographed in the ponds, rivers, and creeks in the area. On Thursday they discovered some personal items of SM’s near the intersection of 225 and 50 which led them to close a big stretch of Hwy 50 west so they could search there.
We do not know if when they searched the immediate area near SM’s home, they asked neighbors what they might have seen and if they had video cameras. There are about a half dozen homes or less near the Morphew home. Most sit on tracts of land of many acres. Some of these few homes are used as Airbnb’s or vacation homes. Because of COVID many were not occupied.
This is a very isolated area. I am attaching a photo of the Morphew neigborhood as well as a photo of the area between the Morphews’ and Salida, which is about 18 miles away. Hwy 50, which runs between them, is a well-traveled road, but there is mostly forest and open land around it. I think the maps illustrate how rural this area is. Canvassing here is not like canvassing a city or suburban area. Canvassing in a town almost 20 miles away would have to be for something or someone in particular. We don’t even have a good physical description of SM or her clothing. Likewise, footage on a busy road does not help much unless you are looking for a particular vehicle. How would you track down every vehicle that drove through the area?
Although you think that LE skipped preliminary steps and immediately focused on BM, IMO I think LE did everything early on to try to find a missing woman who did not return from a bicycle ride. I think when they were able to rule out accident, medical emergency, or animal attack, is when they began to shift focus.
