Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #24

[Fireflize]

Did anyone notices that BM changes his story about who called who on MD? He told TD that his daughters called the neighbor and the neighbor called him when she didn’t locate SM at the home.
See screenshot of pertinent section from TD’s recording below.
He apparently told the Morphews that he called the neighbor.
I wonder why the change?

Indeed! Good catch oldcop!

 

[Hatfield]

My guess is, he is the one to throw out the “bike ride” scenario to the neighbor. He probably will deny he said it if it comes down to the neighbors word against his.
He needed them to start looking for the bike to make the set up believable.

JMO
If he was responsible, then he had to have the bicycle be discovered before he could even come home.

He surely didnt want it to only be that she was missing from the home when he got back to Salida area so he had to force the issue so the bike could be found because it was getting late.

With the kids not arriving yet to figure it all out, I suspect he may have dropped hints about she may have gone on a bike ride so check to see if garage has a bike in it. Huge red flag if it happened that way.

 

[Jacquie1]

JMO
If he was responsible, then he had to have the bicycle be discovered before he could even come home.

He surely didnt want it to only be that she was missing from the home when he got back to Salida area so he had to force the issue so the bike could be found because it was getting late.

With the kids not arriving yet to figure it all out, I suspect he may have dropped hints about she may have gone on a bike ride so check to see if garage has a bike in it. Huge red flag if it happened that way.

Exactly. He needed them to find it. He couldn’t exactly come home and be the one to “find” it.
He’s not that good an actor.
I’m guessing if the neighbor reports BM mentioned the bike to her, he will blame her age & forgetfulness.
About the cars in the drive (2) that apparently did not belong to BM, I’m curious about those...

 

[Angleterre]

I think there are a couple of things at play here right now.
1) Because of Covid, there are really long delays as far as receiving forensics reports back. This would include both digital and material evidence. After the reports come back, they then have to follow up on the information in the reports. The last house search was 7/9. If it took 30 days to get the reports back, they are only on day one of follow up.
2) I’m sure LE would really like to have a body.
So, as much as all of us would love to see an arrest, I’m not worried yet.
MOO

At the beginning of this case, I posted a synopsis of what is going on behind the scenes with a high profile investigation (UK perspective) and my role as the Senior Investigative Officer in charge overall and I thought that it may be useful to post it again here to reassure you all that 3 months isn’t a long time and that I appreciate that we all want to know what happened to SM and for justice to be granted for her but be reassured that there will be action behind the scenes...
With any major enquiry wether that be a murder / Homicide or a missing person , a dedicated team of detectives is set up with a SIO ( senior investigative officer) as the lead .
Certainly in the UK, a policy book is commenced and everything that you know , everything that subsequently happens, every decision taken and every action followed up, is written into the policy book . Every decision made by the SIO and the justification behind such a decision, has to be written into the policy book .
I was responsible for leading a number of murder investigations and Missing persons investigations and I would lead teams of detectives and forensic experts etc
A twice daily briefing would be held where everyone has an input as to what has happened that day , any evidence found , any witnesses spoken to etc and a summary of the day’s investigation would be written up by the SIO.
Each investigation has a strategy and that strategy is followed from the Murder and Major Crime investigations Manual .
So at the start of the investigation, there will be various strategies drawn up to encompass all of the different strands of the Investigation.
They are :
1.Victim - what do we know ?
2. Suspect - Do we have any?
3. Circumstances of last seen
4. Intelligence - What do we know ? What can we find out?
5. Cell phone analysis
6. Forensics - what do we have ? How are they to be prioritised? Submissions to laboratory and cost?
DNA evidence
Fingerprints
7. Search parameters and recovery of evidence to include continuity of retrieval
8. CCtv - What’s available ? How do we prioritise it?
9. Cell Phones - Victims, Suspect’s, Family etc
10. Family History
11. Actions - those raised that need investigation and those that are considered but not deemed to take the investigation further ( but it still all needs recording )
12. Forensic mapping
13. Witnesses
14. Interviews - suspect/s?
15. Exhibits/Property Officer - to record everything brought into the enquiry and the continuity of that evidence
16. File of evidence - Who will create the file of evidence for submission to CPS/DA
17. Warrants - allocated officer to swear all warrants
18. Disclosure - Officer allocated to start a disclosure record ( court process )
19. Family liaison officer - Officer allocate to be the go between for the family and SIO
20. Media strategy - controlled release of information to press
I could go on but I think that you get the drift that any investigation of this type is massive and takes time and has to be that way to get it right so that by the time it gets to the Court process, there’s no room for doubt or for weaknesses in the investigation to allow the accused to get off on a technicality or procedural issue .
Then if there is a suspect you need to start thinking of who will do the suspect interview and the downstream monitoring and alibi checks .
And on top of all that, the biggest and most onerous task besides cell phone evidence retrieval, is CCTV ! And that is a biggie ... it takes Detectives hours upon hours to go through and watch CCTV to enable them to ascertain if there is anything of evidential value on each individual recording and that can be CCTV from the street , from a shop, car park, toll booth , buildings, churches , Public CCTV along a route and individual CCTV in peoples driveways or on their mobile phones etc
You start to get the idea of just how much work is involved in a major investigation and that’s before you go to a judge to swear out warrants and arrest the perpetrator. Once an arrest takes place, you then have interviews and downstream monitoring in real time of the interviews and then liaison with the CPS in UK and DA/attorney general I think maybe in the USA? And then putting the whole file of evidence together and ensuring full disclosure to the defence ... it’s massive workloads and it goes on and on ...
Cell phone data is also massive because of pings of location and subsequent searches and data dumps of all cell phones active within a specific MAST area and tracing who those numbers belong to and ascertain what they were doing in the area. And I can tell you that the evidence from one cell phone alone can run into thousands of pages for my detectives to read through and decipher what, If anything, is relevant to the case . So can you imagine when you have numerous people involved in an investigation, wether it to be rule them in or out or as an alibi or a victim, just how onerous this task is? And it is just one small part of the investigation.

Also the CCTV , people ask why now , 1 month later ? Well you don’t know what evidence that LE already have and if they had nothing else then the individual private residence CCTV would have been done immediately but it is a massive task and takes officers hours and hours to sit and watch every piece of CCTV that comes into the enquiry so it’s now easier to say , keep hold of your own individual residential CCTV and if you think that you have something of importance then let us know immediately otherwise we will get round to looking at it when we can because EVERYTHING has to be prioritised.

In the UK we have HOLMES ( home office Major enquires system ) and everything is entered into the system and looked at by three officers working with admin staff and any actions deemed necessary as a result of those 3 officers painstakingly going through every piece of information, item, cell phone number, cctv , search recovery evidence etc and allocating actions ( work ) to officers to compete before they are given another action . And some officers are individually given specific roles for example CCTV, Cell phones, Intelligence, Statement takers , Family liaison .

So this gives you an idea of just what is going on behind the scenes .
And the information released has to be protected and provenanced to ensure accuracy and the SIO doesn’t want information released unless absolutely necessary because the perpetrator may slip up and say something that hasn’t yet been released to the public and that then becomes dynamite to the investigation.
I hope this helps you all to understand the process , procedures and time for any major investigation to bear fruit .

Regarding technology- People do not realise just how much electronic tracking there is in our everyday lives and the footprint that we leave . Let’s take for example the obvious ones like public CCTV and residential / business CCTV and street CCTV , shop and bank and fuel CCTV, road surveillance CCTV to monitor traffic flow and speed camera CCTV etc The list is endless! Then there are tracking devices on the car if there is one , then there is the cell phone and text message/social media footprints alongside Pings
But - there are some footprints that we either don’t think about or are not aware of for example I own a luxury ( ish ) brand of car and I don’t have a key , I have a black plastic fob that I carry around which activates the car but without inserting it anywhere within my car console. Now when my car has a problem and I go to the dealership, this fob is inserted into their computer and it tell you every journey I have made and the status of the car throughout that journey, if the fuels low , if the seatbelt warning is activated, if any warning lights come on , if tyre pressure is low etc
I was gobsmacked just how much information that could be obtained and to be quite honest, I am a law abiding citizen but it scared even me , just how much we are being monitored. Then there is ANPR both mobile and static and lets not forget that it’s not only your cell phone that can be pinged and calls traced but LE can go to any mast and triangulate all mobile cell phones that ping off a particular mast at a given time and they can cross reference the data from this to any of the contacts in your phone and see if there are any patterns . So just from this you can start to see how many avenues are open for LE to look at. And then we have instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp and snapchat and Twitter and email and fit bits and apple watches and you start to get my drift .....
Edited to add: We have family Life 360 so that we can see where our children are and vice versa and my DH decided to turn his location permissions off
BUT although it does not now tell me his location in words, it does show him driving down the various roads and highways when he’s out and about. So another form of surveillance and if somebody was going to commit a heinous crime, they cannot possibly erase all their electronic footprints

Then we have Amazon Alexa and Smart devices ...
The list is endless so 3 months at this point in and like @OldCop points out above, I’m not worried either. All MOO

 

[Jacquie1]

Also, Mike & Chris know exactly what BM was doing Saturday night... they said they couldn’t go into it but they made reference to it.
I’m guessing BM had a mess to clean up... and most likely, help.

 

[DizzyB]

Did BM stay in Denver just waiting for someone to finally sound the alarm? Was he really depending on the girls to make the discovery? Red flag Barry...

 

[Fireflize]

Exactly. He needed them to find it. He couldn’t exactly come home and be the one to “find” it.
He’s not that good an actor.
I’m guessing if the neighbor reports BM mentioned the bike to her, he will blame her age & forgetfulness.
About the cars in the drive (2) that apparently did not belong to BM, I’m curious about those...

I feel that BM may have helped that particular neighbor with odd chores in the past. He may have felt that she had a good opinion of him and was a safe character to introduce. Same for the girls, he felt they would be safe, never doubting anything he said. I feel in general that BM has disregard for the intelligence of females, and is intimidated by males, regardless of his blustering posture.
Moo of course.

 

[Truecolors]

Did BM stay in Denver just waiting for someone to finally sound the alarm? Was he really depending on the girls to make the discovery? Red flag Barry...

It looks this way. And it makes me feel very sad and angry if true.

If he’s responsible, I suspect that avoiding appearance if guilt in his family’s eyes is even more important to him than avoiding guilt in the eyes of the law.

I’d love to see an alternative explanation.

MOO

 

[Fireflize]

It looks this way. And it makes me feel very sad and angry if true.

If he’s responsible, I suspect that avoiding appearance if guilt in his family’s eyes is even more important to him than avoiding guilt in the eyes of the law.

I’d love to see an alternative explanation.

MOO

Considering that he probably had been awake since Saturday am, he probably took a nap in Denver, while waiting for the girls to discover their mother missing. Yes, it does make me angry too. Moo

 

[Boxer]

Remember the early July update from LS indicated that CBI told her that the last known contact with the missing person was later than they originally thought. Surely LE was aware of these texts and the spouse of the missing person's claim that he last saw her on 10MAY20 at 0500 early on in the investigation.

Thus, the last known contact is either after the texts on 09MAY20 or the 0500 10MAY20 claim by the spouse... IMO.

There is probably about a 12 hour time frame between the texts and the 0500 time, so not a big time frame, but there appears to be some sort of known contact after this time..IMO!

MOO known contact:

The friend on
Saturday night contact was a "known."
The texts extremely personalized to the context of the conversation and to the wedding situation and prove, or allow police to "know" that the person on SMs phone was SM.
BM reported that he saw a sleeping Suzanne at 5am, MOO this is not a "known" contact but a report based on BMs word.

 

[Seattle1]

Correct me if I’m wrong... the picture of Suzanne in the bike helmet.... she has Apple ear pods in... they are tracking devices. My kids have them & they link to the “find my iPhone” Ap.

I wonder if iPods were found in the home?

I think the problem here whether it be apple watch, ear pods, phone, etc., is that there is no cellular signal at/near the trail or the residence. MOO

 

[Truecolors]

MOO known contact:

The friend on
Saturday night contact was a "known."
The texts extremely personalized to the context of the conversation and to the wedding situation and prove, or allow police to "know" that the person on SMs phone was SM.
BM reported that he saw a sleeping Suzanne at 5am, MOO this is not a "known" contact but a report based on BMs word.

LE has commented on the last time SM was spoken to or seen a couple times, and those comments felt meaningful to me—especially in the absence of comment on other specifics.

I wonder if this friend was the last spoken to contact that was “later than previously thought”, narrowing down the window of suspicion.

MOO

 

[Chingaling]

I think the only one fitting that loyalty is his wife and I think SM is already deceased. On the other hand, if BM needed assistance to disappear SM's body, we know that BM "has people" -- he likes telling us that he "has people." They take orders from BM and they do as instructed or they are gone.

However, I also think the worst that could happen to BM is for him to owe somebody so he surrounds himself with yes people, and shares nothing.

I think it's possible that BM could call one of his people for help but his request would be very cryptic. For example, calling an employee late on Saturday night and telling him to get out of bed and go move a piece of equipment off a project and relocate it at another location 100 miles away. I think his people do what he asks, and don't ask questions -- just as BM likes it. I also think he makes it worth their while, in the only way he knows $$$. They despise BM, but stick around for the extra income. I think a guy like BM, by his very nature, finds himself with a lot of "bonus jobs" for his people.

MOO

My husband is a Mommy’s boy and I have no doubt she would do anything to protect him...would she help him bury my body? I hope not but honestly cannot say definitely not. I’m NOT accusing BM’s mom or anyone of helping him. Just saying it is very possible he had an accomplice and it sure seems like PE is thinking this could be the case. Sometimes there are friends & family that are “ride or die” that could be called upon to bail someone out out of jail...or in the extreme to help dispose of a body. We’ve seen it time and time again. Another example is MT in Jennifer Dulos case. Whether out of loyalty, for greed, or LOVE...morals may go out the window and the accomplice is probably not thinking clearly. Also I bet a lot of times the murderer has been filling their head with a bunch of lies about why or how it happened twisting it around to make them seem like the victim.

I said earlier that it would be someone who would rather die than give him up and since he only knew his FF buddies less than 3 yrs , I don't think he could depend on them throwing caution to the wind and get involved in something of this nature.

 

[Chingaling]

I think the only one fitting that loyalty is his wife and I think SM is already deceased. On the other hand, if BM needed assistance to disappear SM's body, we know that BM "has people" -- he likes telling us that he "has people." They take orders from BM and they do as instructed or they are gone.

However, I also think the worst that could happen to BM is for him to owe somebody so he surrounds himself with yes people, and shares nothing.

I think it's possible that BM could call one of his people for help but his request would be very cryptic. For example, calling an employee late on Saturday night and telling him to get out of bed and go move a piece of equipment off a project and relocate it at another location 100 miles away. I think his people do what he asks, and don't ask questions -- just as BM likes it. I also think he makes it worth their while, in the only way he knows $$$. They despise BM, but stick around for the extra income. I think a guy like BM, by his very nature, finds himself with a lot of "bonus jobs" for his people.

MOO

My husband is a Mommy’s boy and I have no doubt she would do anything to protect him...would she help him bury my body? I hope not but honestly cannot say definitely not. I’m NOT accusing BM’s mom or anyone of helping him. Just saying it is very possible he had an accomplice and it sure seems like PE is thinking this could be the case. Sometimes there are friends & family that are “ride or die” that could be called upon to bail someone out out of jail...or in the extreme to help dispose of a body. We’ve seen it time and time again. Another example is MT in Jennifer Dulos case. Whether out of loyalty, for greed, or LOVE...morals may go out the window and the accomplice is probably not thinking clearly. Also I bet a lot of times the murderer has been filling their head with a bunch of lies about why or how it happened twisting it around to make them seem like the victim.

I said earlier that it would be someone who would rather die than give him up and since he only knew his FF buddies less than 3 yrs , I don't think he could depend on them throwing caution to the wind and get involved in something of this nature.

 

[Cassady]

MOO known contact:

The friend on
Saturday night contact was a "known."
The texts extremely personalized to the context of the conversation and to the wedding situation and prove, or allow police to "know" that the person on SMs phone was SM.
BM reported that he saw a sleeping Suzanne at 5am, MOO this is not a "known" contact but a report based on BMs word.

IMO LE would have been aware of these texts within the first week of the investigation. The CBI update in early July given to LS indicated LE had a later known contact with the missing person than they originally thought. If the texts on 09MAY20 late afternoon or evening were originally the last known contact with the missing person then the July update was referring to a time after those texts.

Saturday night or sometime Sunday. IMO the CBI update in July was logically referring to a known contact with the missing person sometime on 10MAY20.

 

[Barry]

Correct me if I’m wrong... the picture of Suzanne in the bike helmet.... she has Apple ear pods in... they are tracking devices. My kids have them & they link to the “find my iPhone” Ap.

I wonder if iPods were found in the home?

If the ear pods were found in the home, that would be an interesting fact. MOO.

 

[rainbowshummingbird]

I feel that BM may have helped that particular neighbor with odd chores in the past. He may have felt that she had a good opinion of him and was a safe character to introduce. Same for the girls, he felt they would be safe, never doubting anything he said. I feel in general that BM has disregard for the intelligence of females, and is intimidated by males, regardless of his blustering posture.
Moo of course.

I live in Colorado and it is common for neighbors to help neighbors, especially when there’s a lot of snow. Snow shoveling is brutal, and I’m fairly fit. I’m sure Barry has the blade that he can attach to his diggie thing for ease of snow removal. Perhaps he had an agreement with his neighbor on this.

 

[LietKynes]

My husband is a Mommy’s boy and I have no doubt she would do anything to protect him...would she help him bury my body? I hope not but honestly cannot say definitely not. I’m NOT accusing BM’s mom or anyone of helping him. Just saying it is very possible he had an accomplice and it sure seems like PE is thinking this could be the case. Sometimes there are friends & family that are “ride or die” that could be called upon to bail someone out out of jail...or in the extreme to help dispose of a body. We’ve seen it time and time again. Another example is MT in Jennifer Dulos case. Whether out of loyalty, for greed, or LOVE...morals may go out the window and the accomplice is probably not thinking clearly. Also I bet a lot of times the murderer has been filling their head with a bunch of lies about why or how it happened twisting it around to make them seem like the victim.

Great post !

Also, the email to the church that had the words : "Barry is beside himself...(w/supposed worry) ".
Who wrote that ??
Imo.

 

[Seattle1]

Remember the early July update from LS indicated that CBI told her that the last known contact with the missing person was later than they originally thought. Surely LE was aware of these texts and the spouse of the missing person's claim that he last saw her on 10MAY20 at 0500 early on in the investigation.

Thus, the last known contact is either after the texts on 09MAY20 or the 0500 10MAY20 claim by the spouse... IMO.

There is probably about a 12 hour time frame between the texts and the 0500 time, so not a big time frame, but there appears to be some sort of known contact after this time..IMO!

MOO known contact:

The friend on
Saturday night contact was a "known."
The texts extremely personalized to the context of the conversation and to the wedding situation and prove, or allow police to "know" that the person on SMs phone was SM.
BM reported that he saw a sleeping Suzanne at 5am, MOO this is not a "known" contact but a report based on BMs word.

I have to disagree with @Cassady, and agree with @Boxer:

It was the CBI that told reporter LS that the last known contact with the missing person was later than they originally thought. IMO, coming from the CBI, this means last verifiable contact with the missing person. Unlike an alleged sighting of SM sleeping by BM, authorities are able to obtain very specific, confirming, details from SM's electronic communication, and also the party she was communicating with.

Since when is corroboration of the material facts not required?

I don't think an alleged sighting of SM by the Pope would be considered proof by the CBI if the sighting cannot be corroborated by another witness.

MOO

ETA: Also, any electronic/digital verification here would not be immediate as authorities would need to obtain a search warrant for the tracking/phone information.

 

[Truecolors]

I don’t think BM would need any help, nor would he want anyone in his family to know the truth.

MOO