Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #6

[Love Never Fails]

Here are some generalities about the search. All are my opinion, based on years of experience:

(1) Many searches conducted by LE are done out of simple application of good sense. If the spouse of a missing person is a gravedigger, LE would certainly want to examine the work that he did in his cemetery during the appropriate time. LE doesn't need a giant "Aha!" moment to get a search warrant. They need to use common sense and gauge their application for a warrant accordingly.
(2) Property owners rarely hire workers directly, and have nothing to do with the scheduling. The owner deals with a general contractor, who in turn sub-contracts with firms of the trade, who then again sub-contract labor to independent workmen.
(3) Colorado recognizes that building conditions are radically different in the mountains, and therefore has a separate method of applying National Building codes to what is commonly called "mountain construction". It is useless to sit as I do in Montana, and say: "Gee, I've never seen that before and I know my codes. What we see can't be right. It's against code."

Now, within those parameters, my further opinion is:
(a) The sight appears to be flat in some pictures, but when you study it, there is a steep slope down to the river's edge. When you look at the pictures taken by news people with telephoto lenses from across the river, it becomes obvious that there is fill dirt mounded very high between the lower part of the house and the river. In one picture of LE sifting dirt under the canopy and there is a mound of dirt in the foreground......that is a telephoto shot from across the river. What you see is only the very top of a large mounding of dirt below the level where LE is located.
(b) When I look at the overall array of concrete, It is going to be a multi faceted, rambling structure. When I look for utility stubs, etc. I don't see ones that I would associate with a house. If you were to tell me it's going to be a restaurant, I would believe you. That hole where the canopy was erected does not look to me like it was cut by LE yesterday. It looks like it was part of the concrete pour..........for a void in the structure for architectural effect or for a more utilitarian purpose, like a sump well for to prevent seepage from the river in high water events. My point is that I don't know what it is.
(c) My rough guess of how much concrete has been poured so far is a minimum of ten full truckloads. That wasn't all done in a day.
(d) At no time does any version of the building code allow structural concrete to be poured over fresh backfill, even freshly compacted backfill. Being a river bank site, the rock base was probably not deep. A bulldozer was probably used to level up the site and remove the topsoil to expose the base, then the pads were poured and THEN a landscaper would have come in to backfill to the pad edges and contour the property. It appears to me that the landscaper was about half done with that job.
Conclusion: In a recent prominent case on WS, there were pages and pages of debate over what LE's purpose was in sifting through a large landfill for weeks. I posted before they even started that I believed that when LE ran out of other places to look, they had to do it. They wouldn't have been doing their job if they didn't try it. As samples went into their mobile lab, speculation as to each piece's effect on the case was rampant. When the actual trial was held, the landfill search was never mentioned. Not one shred of usable evidence, but the absence of landfill evidence certainly contributed to proving a theory of body disposal that I certainly never saw coming. Having been once burnt, I am prone to sit back and let this thing unfold on it's own schedule. IMO

Well said Dave! Thank you.

 

[Tate123]

One thing to note is that if LE were comfortable that BM was not involved, then surely searching and digging at one of his job sites would be pointless? The current activities tell me that they’ve had a POI all along.

Unless they suspect a worker of his.

 

[Boxer]

Well surely there wasn't a fire at the property being searched now right? So where would such a fire take place? At the home? If so the neighbors would probably know if there was a brush burning party at the Morphew house recently.

Didn't neighbors talk about a fire in the Makensie Lueck case?

A giant fire more like a pyre, I think neighbor's fearful of wildfire would complain.

 

[charminglane]

Any place where a suspect would drive could be pinpointed by cell activity. In case BM is involved, he may have thought to dispose of a body in a place he was expected to be, not somewhere farther off along the river. Easy to explain why his phone tracked to this particular place than some random spot. JMO

Of course it could also have played a part in knowing when he was there and have led to this investigation. JMO

Or where Suzanne's phone might have pinged on his person.

 

[muppethead]

Even though the home owner "hired" Barry, is it conclusive that he did the job himself? Any chance that he could have contracted out part of the job to employees?

Homeowner has said investigators are using x-ray equipment, so IMO they've seen something to warrant such an extensive use of manpower. WRT the sifting, could be there is an indication of a body buried deeper but they are sifting all dirt as it is removed in case there could be other evidence in addition to a body.

I think it would be very interesting to watch their suspect during this time of digging too. Telltale heart. How close can they can before he/she breaks? How much is someone sweating?

 

[303gmf]

It looks like a new construction site to me. I don’t think the property owners live there yet.

If the address is what a temporary sign in one of the video flyovers it appears to have had a smaller house prior, looks like it was scraped off for a much larger new home.
I noted the large blue roll off dumpster on far right of lot on same videos, looked empty but pallets full of items just to rear of it and what looks like an evidence truck parked next to it.

 

[Knox]

Maybe he also helps trucking in dirt to level the land before construction? We live on a hill in the mountains and the people who built the house had to truck in tons of dirt to get a level space in the rocky forest area.

If you are pouring a foundation or stem walls, you need to have a compacted foundation to pour on. So maybe that was his part, to bring in the fill dirt and compact.
Building permit search - Building Department Permit Search Home

 

[Acorunadepor]

To construct a scenario in which BM disposed his wife body there. A number of question need to be answered. When did the daughters leave for their trip? When did BM finished his job at that site? How many more people visited that site? If BM is doing this during the daytime, how can he safely slip in a body? Where was the body kept until then?

 

[dixiegirl1035]

I agree. Spreading dirt doesnt seem like a job he would do. But on the other hand, maybe he did do the job and its unusual that he did, so it looked suspicious to the police.

Remember Fotis Dulos... who was house cleaning *cough cough* - multimillionaire (well, not really due to debt lol) cleaning a house when wife went missing.

 

[oviedo]

Even though the home owner "hired" Barry, is it conclusive that he did the job himself? Any chance that he could have contracted out part of the job to employees?

Homeowner has said investigators are using x-ray equipment, so IMO they've seen something to warrant such an extensive use of manpower. WRT the sifting, could be there is an indication of a body buried deeper but they are sifting all dirt as it is removed in case there could be other evidence in addition to a body.

As far as I’ve read no one except the homeowner has confirmed he was hired and the articles don’t specify he was seen at the site by anyone IIRC

Finding Suzanne Morphew: Investigators Search Husband's Job Site Near Salida
Snipped

Author: Rick Sallinger
May 22, 2020 at 11:00 pm
Filed Under: Chaffee County News, Chaffee County Sheriff, Colorado News, Missing Woman, Suzanne Morphew
SALIDA, Colo. (CBS4) — A residential construction site is now the focus of the search for Suzanne Morphew, a Colorado woman who was reported missing from her Chaffee County home on Mother’s Day. The property owner confirmed to CBS4’s Rick Sallinger that Suzanne’s husband was hired to lay dirt on the riverfront land, located east of Salida.
...
The search will resume Saturday morning. Investigators said Friday night Suzanne had not been found and no arrests had been made.

Reporter from CBS News4 Denver

Rick Sallinger on Twitter

Husband of missing #suzannemorphew Morphew laid the dirt where search is now going on for her body. This is according to property owner who I spoke with Friday night.
——-

"The property owner confirmed to CBS4’s Rick Sallinger that Suzanne’s husband was hired to lay dirt on the riverfront land, located east of Salida.

The owner of the property told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger that he has known Barry Morphew for three weeks. The riverfront property was undergoing improvement. Concrete was laid over the dirt."

"The property owner has told others that investigators have been using an x-ray type device to try to see through the concrete."

BBM.

Finding Suzanne Morphew: Investigators Search Husband's Job Site Near Salida

 

[Knox]

A giant fire more like a pyre, I think neighbor's fearful of wildfire would complain.

Yeah, I'm not talking about a pyre but a brush pile. He's a trained volunteer fire fighter. Surely he has buffer around his home which is maintained. We could burn up until two weeks ago, not sure about Colorado.

 

[Feistyomi]

I think it would be very interesting to watch their suspect during this time of digging too. Telltale heart. How close can they can before he/she breaks? How much is someone sweating?

Lurking here, as Gannon’s forum is almost at standstill, will be reading from first threads, but one quick question?
She disappeared Mother’s Day weekend, seems odd for her to have been left alone on
that weekend, what was the general consensus on this?
Also, it was good to have Maddie Bell found safe, no matter the circumstances!

 

[Alethea]

And to the question of who pays: it depends! You can try to get the city to pay but often times it falls on the homeowner.

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1382&context=wmborj

 

[OnlyFacts]

Remember Fotis Dulos... who was house cleaning *cough cough* - multimillionaire (well, not really due to debt lol) cleaning a house when wife went missing.

But Fortis Dulos didn't frame the houses he built.

 

[justice be served]

To construct a scenario in which BM disposed his wife body there. A number of question need to be answered. When did the daughters leave for their trip? When did BM finished his job at that site? How many more people visited that site? If BM is doing this during the daytime, how can he safely slip in a body? Where was the body kept until then?

To add to your questions...........and were there no cameras at the construction site? Perhaps too early in the process to require cameras?

 

[pepper 34]

Here is a Google Earth image of where the cement slab is located on the right side of County Road 105... and just past Vandaveer Street. You can see the red garage on the right hand side of the Google Earth street view photo.

The cement slab the FBI is examining is on the right side of a larger cement slab which is all that remains of a house you can still see on the Google Earth aerial "photo."

It's hard to imagine where or how the home owner could be living on this construction site, because the DM photo shows that the original home site has been removed in order to build a new home on the property lot.

There are 2 DM shot used here. One is an aerial shot showing the house on the left is gone and the other shows the red garage which is seen in photos from DM which is located on the right of the construction lot. Suzanne Morphew's husband was paid to lay dirt at the building site Colorado cops are searching | Daily Mail Online

 

[Alethea]

Yeah, I'm not talking about a pyre but a brush pile. He's a trained volunteer fire fighter. Surely he has buffer around his home which is maintained. We could burn up until two weeks ago, not sure about Colorado.

That’s what I was thinking. Do they have a small fire pit? I couldn’t tell if my neighbors had a small fire. People burn brush here all the time - just carefully since we’re in the forest too. If the neighborhood is mostly AirBnBs would people really call the police over a fire down the block in a place they don’t live? I know I wouldn’t unless I saw a house on fire.

 

[Tate123]

To add to your questions...........and were there no cameras at the construction site? Perhaps too early in the process to require cameras?

It's not a remote location. The property is close to the road, not in the middle of the woods. I can't imagine anyone thinking this is a "good" spot to dispose of a body. It seems the opposite to me.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Here are some generalities about the search. All are my opinion, based on years of experience:

(1) Many searches conducted by LE are done out of simple application of good sense. If the spouse of a missing person is a gravedigger, LE would certainly want to examine the work that he did in his cemetery during the appropriate time. LE doesn't need a giant "Aha!" moment to get a search warrant. They need to use common sense and gauge their application for a warrant accordingly.
(2) Property owners rarely hire workers directly, and have nothing to do with the scheduling. The owner deals with a general contractor, who in turn sub-contracts with firms of the trade, who then again sub-contract labor to independent workmen.
(3) Colorado recognizes that building conditions are radically different in the mountains, and therefore has a separate method of applying National Building codes to what is commonly called "mountain construction". It is useless to sit as I do in Montana, and say: "Gee, I've never seen that before and I know my codes. What we see can't be right. It's against code."

Now, within those parameters, my further opinion is:
(a) The sight appears to be flat in some pictures, but when you study it, there is a steep slope down to the river's edge. When you look at the pictures taken by news people with telephoto lenses from across the river, it becomes obvious that there is fill dirt mounded very high between the lower part of the house and the river. In one picture of LE sifting dirt under the canopy and there is a mound of dirt in the foreground......that is a telephoto shot from across the river. What you see is only the very top of a large mounding of dirt below the level where LE is located.
(b) When I look at the overall array of concrete, It is going to be a multi faceted, rambling structure. When I look for utility stubs, etc. I don't see ones that I would associate with a house. If you were to tell me it's going to be a restaurant, I would believe you. That hole where the canopy was erected does not look to me like it was cut by LE yesterday. It looks like it was part of the concrete pour..........for a void in the structure for architectural effect or for a more utilitarian purpose, like a sump well for to prevent seepage from the river in high water events. My point is that I don't know what it is.
(c) My rough guess of how much concrete has been poured so far is a minimum of ten full truckloads. That wasn't all done in a day.
(d) At no time does any version of the building code allow structural concrete to be poured over fresh backfill, even freshly compacted backfill. Being a river bank site, the rock base was probably not deep. A bulldozer was probably used to level up the site and remove the topsoil to expose the base, then the pads were poured and THEN a landscaper would have come in to backfill to the pad edges and contour the property. It appears to me that the landscaper was about half done with that job.
Conclusion: In a recent prominent case on WS, there were pages and pages of debate over what LE's purpose was in sifting through a large landfill for weeks. I posted before they even started that I believed that when LE ran out of other places to look, they had to do it. They wouldn't have been doing their job if they didn't try it. As samples went into their mobile lab, speculation as to each piece's effect on the case was rampant. When the actual trial was held, the landfill search was never mentioned. Not one shred of usable evidence, but the absence of landfill evidence certainly contributed to proving a theory of body disposal that I certainly never saw coming. Having been once burnt, I am prone to sit back and let this thing unfold on it's own schedule. IMO

Respectfully, I don't think that that is a void that was not poured as you can visually see the concrete slabs that were cut out from that area. The are littered right by the cut out area.

Or are you saying the contractor poured it 100%, then spent time cutting out those 10 pieces of slab and put them by the cut out which is perhaps 12 feet by 12 feet or so for utilitarian purposes in what appears to me is obviously for the floor of a garage next to the house by the floor plan I'm looking at.






Photos from Media only links at

Search for missing Chaffee County woman focuses on residential property in Salida 9:24 PM MDT May 22, 2020

Article with video and drone shot of cut out concrete - all screen shots from link

View attachment 248166

and map of 10 miles from house, search area per article and video

View attachment 248167

and looks like the media has found a new vantage point for today

View attachment 248168

Finding Suzanne Morphew: Investigators Search For Missing Mom On Residential Property In Salida

Article with video, screen shots of property on Arkansas River from video

View attachment 248170

View attachment 248171

View attachment 248172

 

[Inthedetails]

It's not a remote location. The property is close to the road, not in the middle of the woods. I can't imagine anyone thinking this is a "good" spot to dispose of a body. It seems the opposite to me.

Yet the FBI is there searching.

jmo