Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #30

[NuttMegg]

I’ll look for verification, but in the spirit of keeping to facts, iirc, the neighbor was 70 years old. (Which doesn’t automatically make her a doddering old woman. I know plenty of physically fit women in their seventies who can work circles around much younger women.)

Oh sorry! When I read the account, like many other old people I noted "Well she's older than me!" ha ha. Too late to edit the OP, if the neighbor is reading here....very sorry! Now I see it online as 70, so again, apologies for adding years to anyone's age, but the original point still stands.....he let an elderly (70 year old) neighbor go over there twice, when he knew no one was home (IMO) and that there was a bloody antler, or even more dead game parts, by the house.

 

[Puzzles8]

I looked at the drone footage of their house. Look at about 3:01, closer to the top of the picture. Might that be the elk rack?

 

[Lilypad13]

I’m trying to make sense of this elk antlers situation...so if I’m understanding this correctly BM brought home elk antlers with some flesh still attached on May 13th and laid it against his house?? Or did he pick up a whole dead elk and cut the antlers off? Also when BM told TD that a mountain lion was seen walking through the area wasn’t he referring to the evening of May 10th at the location where the bike was found? So was he misspeaking again or was there two cat sightings? And WITW is he worried about elk antlers when his wife had been “missing” for three days? Was he putting the elk antlers there to lure the mountain lion back? Somebody help me please. I don’t get any of this. I watched PE last night but I still don’t understand. TIA!

 

[NuttMegg]

I looked at the drone footage of their house. Look at about 3:01, closer to the top of the picture. Might that be the elk rack?

Wow! You are incredible! It's a rack, but I'll let someone else guess if it's an elk or large deer. Anyway it doesn't seem to have bloody flesh attached to the bottom of it, but it wouldn't be unusual for hunters to have a few dry ones around (IMO). Antlers that just shed naturally won't have part of their skull skin and bloody tissue attached. JMO but I don't think a dry, shed elk/deer rack would attract a large predator like a cougar or bear.

 

[swedeheart]

huh. so what happened to the rest of the elk, if it was just the rack at his house? there's some troubling ways of disposing of animal carcasses, per colorado.gov.

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Animal-Carcass-Disposal-CDPHE.pdf

 

[MsBetsy]

Regardless of AM's statement along the line that BM was a great hunter, I don't believe it. Certainty BM likes to have people believe that he is and perhaps he thinks that he is. A legend in his own mind. Im sticking to my opinion that he's not. He doesn't seem to have the patience that would require. I think he's paid good money to operations that tweek his ego and make sure that he gets a kill. I find that sort of hunter disgusting.
The whole roadkill antler story is weird. I could see him salvaging antlers to add to his collection. He could have been baiting preditors or he could just be really dumb. I wonder what LE made of meaty antlers laying around. Moo

What exactly makes someone a good hunter? Where I live just about every morning when I walk my dog there are two or three deer standing around chewing up my grass as we walk by. There are bears that make their rounds every day. It's not uncommon for many places in NY, NJ, or PA. It can't be much different in Colorado. How hard can it be to shoot an animal?

 

[NuttMegg]

huh. so what happened to the rest of the elk, if it was just the rack at his house? there's some troubling ways of disposing of animal carcasses, per colorado.gov.

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Animal-Carcass-Disposal-CDPHE.pdf

In other words, it's one big humongous hassle to bring a road killed elk carcass home and deal with it legally. IMO he just whacked the rack off, but I still think an elk would not have a rack worth keeping in May.

 

[windrower]

-----------------------------

I wasn't home to watch PE last night, so I'm very glad for this post.

This information is of great import.

1. My brother-in-law had picked up a dead elk off of the road:

Well it's not likely he carried it with his bare hands. That means the back of a truck was used. That means rotting dead flesh scent could have been in the back of the truck.

2. he had the horn set sitting next to the house:

Not the dead carcass--just the antlers. That begs the question "where's the carcass"? And, how easy is it to remove antlers from and animal? Doesn't sound like he removed them while the dead elk was on the road. Is it a bloody mess to remove them? Is it a long process?

3. sitting next to the house with meat still where the skull

With meat still on it. Yes, was this all done on purpose to mask blood or blood/human scent??

Or was the point of AM and PE guys---that if Suzzane's body was being eaten on by a cougar--why would he it waste its time with a set of antlers with some meat still on it?? Meaning---she wasn't killed by a cougar. She was killed by a human.

______________________________________


bam! yes, i think so, too, to all of this @Warwick7.

which means BM's truck would have been caught on camera or by gps if he had gone anywhere that was not on his alleged schedule, at least from saturday night, to 5 am when he "left for denver/cs." and if this was as premeditated as i think it was, he could have pre-planned a special spot to put her. shoot, he could have worked on said spot all weekend long if it was on his property! i really think suzanne is on that property, and if she's not, she's somewhere around the job site, bc those 2 places are easily explained by BM's truck travelling there. everywhere else he would have travelled to would have been harder to explain, and i don't think he would have taken such a risk, not when we have seen how well he has covered his tracks (as far as we know). unless someone else stopped by the morphew's house that evening, and then left shortly thereafter, she's close by, i swear she is. and all the bizarro-land "coincidences" are to throw investigators off that scent.[/QUOTE]

According to the 2020 Colorado state maps, hunting area 561 is in the area to the south of the Morphew house. Up behind the house, away from Hwy 50.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Atlas

Maybe SUZANNE will be found during this year’s hunting seasons, no matter where she is hidden.

I hope LE knows the where/when/who about the roadkill elk.

 

[LietKynes]

I’m trying to make sense of this elk antlers situation...so if I’m understanding this correctly BM brought home elk antlers with some flesh still attached on May 13th and laid it against his house?? Or did he pick up a whole dead elk and cut the antlers off? Also when BM told TD that a mountain lion was seen walking through the area wasn’t he referring to the evening of May 10th at the location where the bike was found? So was he misspeaking again or was there two cat sightings? And WITW is he worried about elk antlers when his wife had been “missing” for three days? Was he putting the elk antlers there to lure the mountain lion back? Somebody help me please. I don’t get any of this. I watched PE last night but I still don’t understand. TIA!

bbm
Good post ! ^^^

Considering all of the "mountain lion sightings" were reported by BM I'd take it with a massive grain of salt.
IMO --- Very early on in this case BM said that LE saw the mountain lion.
LE have not said anything about a mountain lion, other than they don't believe Suzanne was attacked and taken away by a big cat.
More red herrings, I think.
More B-splaining.
I feel like w/everything BM says most sleuthers using their brains are thinking : "Oh, really ? You don't say. Tell us more."

It'd be ridiculous if it wasn't so maddening and sad.

Her poor daughters and her family.
They are the true victims in this.

I'm anxious to see if the upcoming search will flush someone out in the open and cause him to start speaking publicly.
I find it reprehensible that the statement given to LS by BM couldn't use his face , nor his voice.
Sounds as if he has a great deal to hide.
Imo.

 

[GoJacks]

Perhaps the Elk was brought home in order to attempt to interfere with cadaver dogs. (in BM's mind)

Think most well trained dogs aren't fooled by animal remains, luckily.

 

[oviedo]

Perhaps the Elk was brought home in order to attempt to interfere with cadaver dogs. (in BM's mind)

Think most well trained dogs aren't fooled by animal remains, luckily.

I think that is entirely possible - I've thought from the beginning there was a clean up inside the home.
JMO

 

[MadTing]

<modsnip: Sleuthing BM's social media is not allowed>

Interesting that there was an elk rack with flesh still attached outside of the home. Maybe BM was on a hunt in the days before Suzanne went missing?

JMO

Not sure if its been mentioned as iv'e skipped a few pages as i simply can't keep up at the moment but is it possible this was left outside of the house to "lure" in a mountain lion to suit ones own agenda?

 

[Ontario Mom]

he said may 12 or 13, which makes it even stranger, bc BM's house was not under his control at that time. right? i'm feeling confused and unsure that BM doesn't have friends in the force that are looking the other way, at the moment.

IIRC what was stated in MSM was that BM was not allowed inside his home once he returned from Denver. I can only assume, if sometime around the 12th or 13th he came upon this road kill and decided to take it to the house and lean it up there the way it's being described, surely there were local CCSO folks (or someone, anyone?) there that saw him and said "sure, go ahead and lean this dead thing up next to the house, just don't go inside!" Right?

 

[swedeheart]

IIRC what was stated in MSM was that BM was not allowed inside his home once he returned from Denver. I can only assume, if sometime around the 12th or 13th he came upon this road kill and decided to take it to the house and lean it up there the way it's being described, surely there were local CCSO folks (or someone, anyone?) there that saw him and said "sure, go ahead and lean this dead thing up next to the house, just don't go inside!" Right?

well, maybe, but i'd surely like to believe they didn't let him anywhere NEAR the premises if they were investigating the freaking house! (and especially if they needed a warrant to search the house, bc that means he was being suspected from day 1!) ya know?

i do NOT think the elk is insignificant!

 

[DellaC]

Re Shed Elk Antlers

Some online research suggests that elk shed their antlers earlier in the year than Mother's Day. Additionally, there are a lot of people that collect shed antlers. Colorado has regulations on when you can't collect them due to the stress that vehicle noise and invasion of territory puts on wildlife. Colorado Parks and Wildlife

MOO. There is likely some poor communication on the antlers the mountain lion was sniffing at. I doubt there would be any "meat" on them in mid-May. BM may, indeed, have picked them up off a road kill, but it would have been months before, not that week. MOO

I also offer this: I live in a National Park Service scenic easement. Mind you, this is midsummer. A couple of weeks ago, a deer dropped dead near our house, cause of death unknown, but not poaching. It bloated and smelled for 2 days. On day 3, the maggots did their magic. We saw no crows or vultures on the carcass. In a matter of days almost nothing was left.

 

[LandManatee]

I’ll look for verification, but in the spirit of keeping to facts, iirc, the neighbor was 70 years old. (Which doesn’t automatically make her a doddering old woman. I know plenty of physically fit women in their seventies who can work circles around much younger women.)

IMO I feel that neighbor was pretty ballsy to have agreed to go over to their home and look around. It was reported she walked the entire interior of the home looking for SM the first time. There was no telling what she could have come across; a graphic crime scene, dangerous wildlife, nefarious activity, etc.
I would have not only taken someone with me to look around but I would have been sure I was armed.

 

[NuttMegg]

Re Shed Elk Antlers

Some online research suggests that elk shed their antlers earlier in the year than Mother's Day. Additionally, there are a lot of people that collect shed antlers. Colorado has regulations on when you can't collect them due to the stress that vehicle noise and invasion of territory puts on wildlife. Colorado Parks and Wildlife

MOO. There is likely some poor communication on the antlers the mountain lion was sniffing at. I doubt there would be any "meat" on them in mid-May. BM may, indeed, have picked them up off a road kill, but it would have been months before, not that week. MOO

I also offer this: I live in a National Park Service scenic easement. Mind you, this is midsummer. A couple of weeks ago, a deer dropped dead near our house, cause of death unknown, but not poaching. It bloated and smelled for 2 days. On day 3, the maggots did their magic. We saw no crows or vultures on the carcass. In a matter of days almost nothing was left.

Great post. Where I live occasionally a cougar does kill sheep, usually a lot of them the same night as she is teaching the cubs. The owners have to burn the sheep, in a big pile, even with very fresh meat that you'd think could be salvaged, ASAP. They say there is some substance in cougar saliva that turns the sheep carcass poisonous for humans. And that the vultures don't come anywhere near the dead sheep before they are burned. (heresay!!) But I did ask someone why they didn't salvage the meat, and that was the answer I got.

 

[kkdj]

IMO I feel that neighbor was pretty ballsy to have agreed to go over to their home and look around. It was reported she walked the entire interior of the home looking for SM the first time. There was no telling what she could have come across; a graphic crime scene, dangerous wildlife, nefarious activity, etc.
I would have not only taken someone with me to look around but I would have been sure I was armed.

I wouldn't have gone in. I would have called the police (or had BM call them) and had the police search. But not me. No Way!

 

[EggSalad]

Not sure if its been mentioned as iv'e skipped a few pages as i simply can't keep up at the moment but is it possible this was left outside of the house to "lure" in a mountain lion to suit ones own agenda?

Some of the thoughts I have:

-Yes, could be something to lure a cougar(s) to be seen on or near the property.
-The carcass and what was done with it is also interesting. Was it left on the side of the road? Was it brought home, processed and then spread throughout the property to really make sure cougars would be in the area?
-Was it brought home so that a lot of elk blood would Be in the back of BM’s truck giving him an excuse to wash the truck or to make it hard for LE to obtain samples of
Possible human blood?
-Does BM as a hunter, have a burn pit on his property to dispose of any unused animal parts? If so, had it been used recently?
-Does the story pivot to BM searching for shedded antlers and this any sightings or scent of him in certain areas can be explained?

What an absolutely crazy case.

 

[kkdj]

Did the home cameras show BM bringing the animal or any part(s) of it to the home?