Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #4

[Backstroke10]

I'm thinking that they knew their dad was out of town and would not be able to go and check on their mother. They may have contacted him and asked him if he had spoken to her

I understand what your saying. IF the girls spoke to their Dad and were going to have a neighbor call 911, I would think the Dad would drive home to check on her before anyone called 911. There’s a reason why the girls were concerned enough to involve LE. I want to know if they actually spoke to him? MOO

 

[Seattle1]

For those questioning leaving Colorado to camp in Idaho, I have to ask why leave Colorado during the global COVID19 shelter-in-place mandate. Colorado was on a 10-mile restriction for recreation.

Please remember no sleuthing of the children.

I wonder who suggested the trip and if parental permission sought?

 

[ajaylee]

Perhaps they were on private property?

They may have been on federal lands (BLM, some wildlife refuges).

 

[clearskies1]

I don’t know if it was a statewide order for Colorado but the campgrounds in the Colorado counties I was in were all closed due to COVID.

Not 100% sure, but I think all State campgrounds in Colorado and Idaho were closed. The determination whether private campgrounds were "essential" and could remain open may have been determined by local governments.

 

[lucidtx]

Perhaps they were on private property?

Maybe that, or one of the countless undeveloped campsites on BLM or Forest Service lands.

I cannot emphasize enough that closures of developed campgrounds haven't stopped anyone from camping and that these areas have been busier than ever. Most of us were camping for free at undeveloped dispersed sites before the pandemic. I've only seen those sites get busier during this shut-down.

 

[lucidtx]

Reading article now, but want to say that Canon City is a SUPERMAX prison...surely nobody was released from there? I’ve viewed their inmate list before and it’s literally terrorists, etc.

I'd be looking more at the huge medium-security facility that's basically just down the road in Buena Vista. They're much more likely to have recently released people.

 

[Herat]

I

If perp was stupid enough to take her phone & pretend to be her: said perp is getting nailed pronto.....

Anyway...where my thoughts are leading.....

JMO

Well that was exactly what Patrick Frazee did with the late Kelsey Berreth's phone. And LE was able to establish that the phones were both pinging off of the same cell towers clearly enough that they used this as evidence. Just as with the late Kelsey Berreth's phone and Krystal Lee Kenney's phone as Krystal drove Kelseys phone to Idaho in her car.

I assume LE will be able to detect all cell phones in the area for the time of any texts or calls from her phone. Unless of course, the perp has studied the Kelsey Berreth murder and turns off his phone, whether it's his or a burner phone he bought

 

[Seattle1]

I'm a fire wife too out here in Colorado and I know a lot of vollies. There are two main reasons I think a firefighting training in Denver seems unlikely:

1) Most trainings have been postponed or cancelled due to COVID. The annual National Fire Academy in MD is a good example. Even the highest level officers in big career departments aren't allowed to travel for major training right now.

2) There's little reason for a volunteer firefighter (especially a non-officer) in Chaffee County to ever need to travel far for training. Colorado Fire Camp is basically the pinnacle of wildland training and it happens to be just down the road. Firefighters from all over the state actually come to Chaffee County for training at Fire Camp. There's ample opportunities for structural firefighting training hosted by these departments themselves and orgs like Colorado Mountain College.

FWIW, I don't think the family or BM himself have ever said that he was out-of-town for anything related to firefighting. I think they've just said he was out of town for business, which very well could've been for his day job.

Hear, hear!

I also posted link upthread to Salida's Colorado Firecamp 2020 Schedule for example.

 

[10ofRods]

Well I WAS caught up.....quick thought. MOO/speculation obviously. So the bike was found on a nearby bridge (condition of bike still unknown) but another personal item was found in another location as far as we know? I can understand a perp (stranger abductor or otherwise) staging the bike for lots of reasons, but would they stage another personal item in another location?

Staging the bike says (to me) hey look here! Something happened here!

Staging a second item in a separate location would muddy the waters but would it serve the perp’s intentions in some way? Trying to think of a scenario. If they want LE to think something happened where the bike was found - wouldn’t a second item elsewhere draw attention away from their initial diversion of the bike?

The only thing that keeps coming to mind would be if she WAS abducted where the bike was found, or even from her home and the bike was staging, if she somehow managed to throw a personal item from a moving vehicle, etc.?

Sure would like to know why that wit thought he’d seen a vehicle that didn’t belong (paraphrasing). Sure would like to know so many many things.

I’ve leaned pretty hard off the fence from the beginning that something happened at the house prior to the 10th. The DM article, for what it’s worth, certainly wants to shove me right off the fence, though I confess I was leaning so far it wouldn’t take much.

To me, it sounds like someone trying to stage a suicide. Perhaps the papers taken out of the house had something to do with Suzanne's medical condition. Maybe the daughters were happy that Mom had beat cancer, but perhaps she'd received ambivalent information (or information that could be construed as negative). Maybe someone pointed LE to those documents.

The bike makes us think "suicide" since it's on a bridge. But perhaps it would have been too obvious that she couldn't have jumped into the rocks below, and so it was made to look like she walked along the river looking for another spot.

It was poorly thought out, if so. But that seems to be true of most staging, which is often done while a person is in an altered state/panic. If it is staging, one wonders if someone saw the bike there before Sunday and called in a tip.

 

[Nerissa]

Maybe that, or one of the countless undeveloped campsites on BLM or Forest Service lands.

I cannot emphasize enough that closures of developed campgrounds hasn't stopped anyone from camping and that these areas have been busier than ever. Most of us were camping for free at undeveloped dispersed sites before the pandemic. I've only seen those sites get busier during this shut-down.

Precisely

Not sure it's relevant why the gals went to Idaho (well....unless it was a friend of BMs & he encouraged the girls to go - ya never know)
OR how they camped...but: that weekend I was camping right outside Buena Vista - dispersed camping & it was plenty busy

In fact, slightly irritating, lol - a huge group (which actually banned with covid) & all sorts of RV/Trailers with generators going & barking dogs
& then people having fires even though illegal......
& everything I just said is why some folks might go to Idaho - much less overrun than CO.....

Anyway...just my two cents on this line of discussion

 

[lucidtx]

Precisely

Not sure it's relevant why the gals went to Idaho (well....unless it was a friend of BMs & he encouraged the girls to go - ya never know)
OR how they camped...but: that weekend I was camping right outside Buena Vista - dispersed camping & it was plenty busy

In fact, slightly irritating, lol - a huge group (which actually banned with covid) & all sorts of RV/Trailers with generators going & barking dogs
& then people having fires even though illegal......
& everything I just said is why some folks might go to Idaho - much less overrun than CO.....

Anyway...just my two cents on this line of discussion

Yeah, it's seriously been crazy out there. I'm a native and I've never seen the public lands this busy.

 

[kkdj]

I'm leaning more and more towards the bicycle being planted there. But what about the other item of hers being found? Could it have been from another day?

 

[Carrie Ann]

Daily News and Patreon just posted photos of the csi taking stuff from the house in Brown packing. I am not sure if BM is involved. The girls did reach out to the neighbor and she called the police. I am trying not to judge anyone. I still feel like there's someone else. This awful she beat cancer twice and now the officials are treating this as a murder case. Call me a optimist but I still holding out for her safe return. I not sure why I feel that BM didn't have anything to with this but I just don't feel like he did
Maybe I am a optimist about this not another husband hurting his wife. I understand everyone assumed that he did right away. I just want to hold on to the thought that not every woman who is harmed is by the man she loves and trust. I follow these cases and normally my gut is right but with life's condition (virus) maybe I just want the kids not to lose both parents. I am now sitting on the fence with 1 foot on the ground if someone else has harmed her kidnapped her. I really just want her safe. Please don't pop my little bubble of hope in these troubled times of the world. I am aware that it might be popped by LE but for right now I am going to stay in my bubble if optimists. Ok Just til I get back on the site

 

[indicolite22]

If the bike had been planted on a Country Road 225 bridge a day before, wouldn't any Mother's Day visitors of Fooses Lake have remembered seeing it? How much car traffic would be expected on that road?

 

[LilAlaskan]

Did anyone else find it interesting that the cell phone carrier was never listed/utilized as an agency helping with the search? And what does that tell us?

It makes sense since if SM’s phone was at home, and MSM has said BM has handed his phone over to LE. Also if the LE were able to access all of information (texts, calls, locations) off the phones. I had still assumed that they would be needed for targeted searches and such.

sorry, my brains not helping me convey thoughts right now.

 

[margarita25]

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Again, I place chances of recovery low here, sadly. Too much time and land and complex terrain. However, you never know. Especially if things were panicked. I just learned the other day that Diana Alvarez was recovered (where they had searched many times before)—I was sure she’d never be found due to alligators and Lake Okeechobee.
LE was able to notice that the perp stopped and spent a lot of time around a location. If LE saw this on his phone, then obviously that’s indicative of a potential recovery site; however, it seems to me to date they have been focusing on areas closer to the home, but then again we wouldn’t know if they did a search somewhere else. We also don’t know how long it took to get warrants on his phone, etc., but I’m assuming he was asked to give them his phone immediately. As for how long it took for processing and analysis...

 

[DizzyB]

I will also say that I am much more stringent with my quarantine than one of my twenty-something children. My kid would go camping in a heartbeat, and would not think twice about seeing a larger group. She has also been out of cell range while camping for a few days. If foul play, was this a crime of opportunity based on timing or random?

 

[lucidtx]

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When I hear "camping" I think of something much more simple and rugged. Is there a reason to think they were up there doing something fancier? That seems less likely right now because of the whole COVID situation. It's a lot easier to drive out to the middle of nowhere and pitch a tent right now. A planned vacation with a rented room/house right now just seems much less likely.

 

[ab01]

Did anyone else find it interesting that the cell phone carrier was never listed/utilized as an agency helping with the search? And what does that tell us?

It makes sense since if SM’s phone was at home, and MSM has said BM has handed his phone over to LE. Also if the LE were able to access all of information (texts, calls, locations) off the phones. I had still assumed that they would be needed for targeted searches and such.

sorry, my brains not helping me convey thoughts right now.

I would only expect that info to be present on an Arrest Affidavit

I wouldn't expect that to be listed as one of the agencies aiding in the search via a press release from the local sheriff

JMO

 

[MimosaMornings]

Like a place with a pool, horseback riding, spa, etc? Those amenities would not have been open or available during the restrictions. JMO
A 14 hour trip to “rough it” and hike perhaps. Maybe they were very outdoorsy types.
How horrible for them - that long drive back knowing their mom was missing.