Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #22

[Gigi3]

I concur with what you say - there's also the point that this woman made about going to see the site work staff (the following day?) ask them whether keys to vehicles being used to work the site were left in vehicles overnight, and she also conveyed the site worker/s response/s (that they were left on site, but hidden). All this information she disclosed can easily be (and no doubt has been) corroborated by LE interviews.
What is striking, IMO, is that we are only now hearing this information, which upholds the theory that LE is running a very tight investigation, as yet uncompromised by information leaks. I find this impressive.

The woman reporting the unusual time for the noise of a truck or similar engine to be running at the site also mentioned that she had been interviewed by LE after reporting it. She had the nouse to ask workmen at the site next day because she realized something was amiss (I'm not suggesting that her suspicions were related to BM, but rather that she was being a good neighbor, concerned generally to know why trucks were being started up in dead of night - she might have thought they were being stolen).

I would have to go back some way to dig out the original source of info that quoted the owner of the worksite as getting in touch with police soon after BM had been at his property on MD -Sunday to lay earth foundations that day in time for concrete delivery the next day. The owner was reported to have contacted the police soon after this when he realized it was BM's wife who was missing. The owner made other points in this same interview (if the information source is to believed - it was reported in a newspaper within a week of the site search by LE and the FBI); these points included that he didn't know BM and that BM had approached the owner and priced and started the work within a short time span. BM had also contacted him just before to explain why he wanted/needed to work at the site on Mother's Day. BM was reported to have been there on his own.
So there are (at least) two separate accounts where unconnected individuals contacted police about activities occurring at different times on that same worksite.
None of us has any entitlement to information that LE has unless there is a risk to the public, in which case they would have to share it, proportionate to risks involved. It is only my opinion, but I do believe that LE has amassed a considerable amount of evidence - whether empirical, circumstantial, or, more likely, a complex mix. Not having found SM's body makes their job much more difficult, but not impossible.
I have little time for the guy who conducted an impromptu "interview" with BM close to his house, simply because I don't believe that he is being authentic when he says his primary concern is to search for SM. He's after a story, first and foremost. That said, he's opportunistically provided LE with potential clues in at least two key areas. The first was when BM relayed information to him about the position of the bike when it was found (wheel upturned?), then abruptly stopped himself mid-sentence and changed the subject. The second point was about seeing/meeting BM when he was soaking wet. He didn't elaborate whether he was soaking wet with sweat or looked like he'd been swimming/in water in his clothes. This information made me sit up immediately: if the latter, where had BM been/what had he been doing? DNA evidence is washed away when bodies are immersed in water, a fact known by some murderers. Also, gases produced by decomposing bodies can aid their buoyancy. Unless a body is adequately weighted down it is liable to shift, or even rise to the surface days after being submerged.
I recall a case in the UK in 2014 (Alice Gross murder) where it transpired that the murderer returned to the crime scene on at least three occasions within a month of murdering his victim. He killed her on land, then hid her body underwater in a river, weighing her body down with tree logs. He knew that submerging her would wash away a lot of vital DNA evidence. He reportedly returned to the crime scene to pile more logs on her, because he knew there was a risk of her body shifting as buoyancy potentially increased.
We live in a world where such facts are readily accessible to the curious, whatever their motives. Anyone with the wherewithal to access such information as part of a premeditated crime can do so if they have the IT resources.
But most behaviors leave some form of audit trail...

Informative post. Thank you!

 

[Dave F.]

Educate me please. Why would the FBI and CBI be necessary for a simple local homicide, especially if they had solid evidence very early on? Just because of a small police force?

The legislated purpose of the CBI is to assist small police forces in the state, and CCSO instantly qualifies. In my opinion, CBI can occasionally be very heavy-handed in their assistance, quickly dominating the investigation, but I see no evidence of that here. We do not know the reason that they were called immediately, and responded immediately. My guess is that SM had been recently threatened by an out-of-state individual or entity, and CCSO found the threat to be credible; so they immediately asked for FBI assistance; which automatically triggered the invitation of the CBI and the rapid response. It's only a guess, nothing more.
I do not believe that the CCSO focused immediately on the husband. I think he was completely vetted, which is just good investigative procedure. As the "Profiling Evil" guys explained, good investigators do look at the odds; such as the percentage of crimes committed by a significant other..........but they do it in a formula that; when applied to this case, comes back full circle. The odds are great that IF she was killed at home, doing her normal home routine, someone in the family killed her; but IF she was killed away from the home, the opposite is true.....a stranger more likely got her. We have no idea where she was killed. We don't know for sure that she was killed, but I think it was appropriate for the PE guys to discuss it in that context to demonstrate the standardized methodology of determining the odds of one scenario or another. Basically, if the CSSO formed an opinion from the moment of the call based on probability, they didn't do it "by the book" because the formulae would not have led them to a conclusion at that time. IMO

 

[Puzzles8]

Except it has never been reported anywhere that officials indicated that the spouse of the missing person was not responsible for her disappearance. That is why it was new. That is why LS said she was shocked (& probably thinking she was scooped by IDD).

IDD either pulled that out of thin air or they have a source.

Have been trying valiantly to catch up.

Can anyone help me with who ID and IDD are?

 

[Dr.StClements]

Informative post. Thank you!

That's a kind thing to say - thank you

 

[OldCop]

and could the second warrant be due to evidence tested from the first warrant which would require them to return to the house for more collection - or is a whole new situation ?

Actually, it could be either or. We don’t know what was in the first warrant, so it’s hard to know if they got something in the first search to build off of. LE may feel that the house is a crime scene based on something they found out very early in their investigation. What they knew then was enough to have probable cause for the first search warrant. Some new evidence gathered since then led to the second warrant, so yes it could be results of lab work. For instance, in the course of the first search they seized something that they believed to contain blood evidence, (a piece of carpet, a bedspread, a section of drywall). Lab tests confirmed that it was human blood that matched SM’s dna. LE may be allowed to go back and check for more blood, under floor boards, mattresses, etc now that they know the original stains were in fact blood and did match SM. (This is just hypothetical.). On the other hand, the second warrant could have been based on entirely new evidence that LE gathered during the course of their investigation and since the first warrant was executed. It would have to be something that fulfilled the requirements of any search warrant.

 

[oviedo]

Have been trying valiantly to catch up.

Can anyone help me with who ID and IDD are?

It’s the Investigation Discovery channel I think?

 

[Puzzles8]

It’s the Investigation Discovery channel I think?

Thank you!

I'm going to assume this is an approved W/S site.

 

[Dave F.]

I concur with what you say - there's also the point that this woman made about going to see the site work staff (the following day?) ask them whether keys to vehicles being used to work the site were left in vehicles overnight, and she also conveyed the site worker/s response/s (that they were left on site, but hidden). All this information she disclosed can easily be (and no doubt has been) corroborated by LE interviews.
What is striking, IMO, is that we are only now hearing this information, which upholds the theory that LE is running a very tight investigation, as yet uncompromised by information leaks. I find this impressive.

The woman reporting the unusual time for the noise of a truck or similar engine to be running at the site also mentioned that she had been interviewed by LE after reporting it. She had the nouse to ask workmen at the site next day because she realized something was amiss (I'm not suggesting that her suspicions were related to BM, but rather that she was being a good neighbor, concerned generally to know why trucks were being started up in dead of night - she might have thought they were being stolen).

I would have to go back some way to dig out the original source of info that quoted the owner of the worksite as getting in touch with police soon after BM had been at his property on MD -Sunday to lay earth foundations that day in time for concrete delivery the next day. The owner was reported to have contacted the police soon after this when he realized it was BM's wife who was missing. The owner made other points in this same interview (if the information source is to believed - it was reported in a newspaper within a week of the site search by LE and the FBI); these points included that he didn't know BM and that BM had approached the owner and priced and started the work within a short time span. BM had also contacted him just before to explain why he wanted/needed to work at the site on Mother's Day. BM was reported to have been there on his own.
So there are (at least) two separate accounts where unconnected individuals contacted police about activities occurring at different times on that same worksite.
None of us has any entitlement to information that LE has unless there is a risk to the public, in which case they would have to share it, proportionate to risks involved. It is only my opinion, but I do believe that LE has amassed a considerable amount of evidence - whether empirical, circumstantial, or, more likely, a complex mix. Not having found SM's body makes their job much more difficult, but not impossible.
I have little time for the guy who conducted an impromptu "interview" with BM close to his house, simply because I don't believe that he is being authentic when he says his primary concern is to search for SM. He's after a story, first and foremost. That said, he's opportunistically provided LE with potential clues in at least two key areas. The first was when BM relayed information to him about the position of the bike when it was found (wheel upturned?), then abruptly stopped himself mid-sentence and changed the subject. The second point was about seeing/meeting BM when he was soaking wet. He didn't elaborate whether he was soaking wet with sweat or looked like he'd been swimming/in water in his clothes. This information made me sit up immediately: if the latter, where had BM been/what had he been doing? DNA evidence is washed away when bodies are immersed in water, a fact known by some murderers. Also, gases produced by decomposing bodies can aid their buoyancy. Unless a body is adequately weighted down it is liable to shift, or even rise to the surface days after being submerged.
I recall a case in the UK in 2014 (Alice Gross murder) where it transpired that the murderer returned to the crime scene on at least three occasions within a month of murdering his victim. He killed her on land, then hid her body underwater in a river, weighing her body down with tree logs. He knew that submerging her would wash away a lot of vital DNA evidence. He reportedly returned to the crime scene to pile more logs on her, because he knew there was a risk of her body shifting as buoyancy potentially increased.
We live in a world where such facts are readily accessible to the curious, whatever their motives. Anyone with the wherewithal to access such information as part of a premeditated crime can do so if they have the IT resources.
But most behaviors leave some form of audit trail...

TD's comments about "shirtless" and "possibly soaking wet" are his recollections of seeing BM's truck, with Indiana license plates, drive by the day before they met. All of the glass of the truck is tinted, making it challenging for TD to actually see anything inside the cab. TD openly stated that he could not tell how many people were in the cab.
So, was it:
"TD, how many fingers am I holding up?"
and TD's response:
"I don't know how many fingers there are, but the one I think that I can see is all wet and not wearing a ring."
IMO

 

[oviedo]

Actually, it could be either or. We don’t know what was in the first warrant, so it’s hard to know if they got something in the first search to build off of. LE may feel that the house is a crime scene based on something they found out very early in their investigation. What they knew then was enough to have probable cause for the first search warrant. Some new evidence gathered since then led to the second warrant, so yes it could be results of lab work. For instance, in the course of the first search they seized something that they believed to contain blood evidence, (a piece of carpet, a bedspread, a section of drywall). Lab tests confirmed that it was human blood that matched SM’s dna. LE may be allowed to go back and check for more blood, under floor boards, mattresses, etc now that they know the original stains were in fact blood and did match SM. (This is just hypothetical.). On the other hand, the second warrant could have been based on entirely new evidence that LE gathered during the course of their investigation and since the first warrant was executed. It would have to be something that fulfilled the requirements of any search warrant.

Hmm well now I want to make a list since we aren’t getting even a snippet of a leak from LE which is fine - thanks your insight is much appreciated
IMO

 

[Gigi3]

Have been trying valiantly to catch up.

Can anyone help me with who ID and IDD are?

Once again @oviedo beat me to it! LOL
It was a video ID put out on Twitter that had some inaccuracies in it, IMO.
A few pages back!

 

[Dave F.]

FWIW, probably zero, I went back to the news station helicopter footage of the area which was taken in May and I can't see any Dumpster or likely place to locate one. Not saying it isn't there, just saying ... well, I guess I'm just saying that was a waste of 13 minutes. Younger eyes might have better luck, though. There is a nice wide angle at the 9 minute mark. IMO

Thanks! You did get a chance to review some fine footage from a unique drone-like helicopter, though. So there's that. IMO

 

[OldCop]

Hmm well now I want to make a list since we aren’t getting even a snippet of a leak from LE which is fine - thanks your insight is much appreciated
IMO

You’re welcome, @oviedo.

 

[Dave F.]

Hmm well now I want to make a list since we aren’t getting even a snippet of a leak from LE which is fine - thanks your insight is much appreciated
IMO

Keep in mind that a warrant to search the residence includes the property.....nearly eight acres of mountain woodland with substantial frontage on the South Arkansas River, and possibly a very hard to find dumpster. IMO

 

[Dr.StClements]

Hmm well now I want to make a list since we aren’t getting even a snippet of a leak from LE which is fine - thanks your insight is much appreciated
IMO

It is puzzling in many ways. Information mostly seems to surface serendipitously. It says a huge amount about that police team and its leadership if they have managed to keep key information so well contained. And it's to be commended because so much gets leaked to the public via all manner of sources these days, regularly compromising investigations.
I have no idea how this investigation will pan out. I sincerely hope that whatever happened is eventually uncovered and that there is justice for SM and some kind of closure for her loved ones.

 

[oviedo]

It is puzzling in many ways. Information mostly seems to surface serendipitously. It says a huge amount about that police team and its leadership if they have managed to keep key information so well contained. And it's to be commended because so much gets leaked to the public via all manner of sources these days, regularly compromising investigations.
I have no idea how this investigation will pan out. I sincerely hope that whatever happened is eventually uncovered and that there is justice for SM and some kind of closure for her loved ones.

I do as well and because many of us at WS have followed a few CO cases and feel like we know the LE team - something is definitely going on and it’s big IMO

 

[Gigi3]

Keep in mind that a warrant to search the residence includes the property.....nearly eight acres of mountain woodland with substantial frontage on the South Arkansas River, and possibly a very hard to find dumpster. IMO

Serious question and I’m tagging @OldCop too.

I thought a search warrant had to be specific. So, would that include the property along with the house?

 

[Moonchime]

They have a FB page. You could ask them on there. IMO

Nobody seems to be monitoring the Find Suzanne Morphew Facebook page. I doubt you can get any answers that help the investigation from there. That, in and of itself is extremely sad. MOO

 

[OldCop]

Keep in mind that a warrant to search the residence includes the property.....nearly eight acres of mountain woodland with substantial frontage on the South Arkansas River, and possibly a very hard to find dumpster. IMO

You are referring to curtilage. From Wikipedia:
In common law, the curtilage of a house or dwelling is the land immediately surrounding it, including any closely associated buildings and structures, but excluding any associated "open fields beyond", and also excluding any closely associated buildings, structures, or divisions that contain the separate intimate activities of their own respective occupants with those occupying residents being persons other than those residents of the house or dwelling of which the building is associated.[1] It delineates the boundary within which a home owner can have a reasonable expectation of privacy and where "intimate home activities" take place. It is an important legal concept in certain jurisdictions for the understanding of search and seizure, conveyancing of real property, burglary, trespass, and land use planning.

In urban properties, the location of the curtilage may be evident from the position of fences, wall and similar; within larger properties it may be a matter of some legal debate as to where the private area ends and the "open fields" start.[2]
ETA. Also information for @Gigi3

 

[Dr.StClements]

I do as well and because many of us at WS have followed a few CO cases and feel like we know the LE team - something is definitely going on and it’s big IMO

That's reassuring to know (re your insight into the LE team).
I have a belief that I'd be comfortable with placing my trust in this LE team to do their best were it something to do with my family. I was also impressed with how quickly other agencies were engaged and what appeared to be constructive collaboration from the get-go. There are plenty of examples where professional rivalry and jealousy get in the way of productive inter-agency working. There's no room for ego foot-stamping in any investigation, but it seems conspicuous by its absence in the SM case. Another cheer for LE.
It's really very enlightening and helpful hearing your insightful opinion of this LE. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[kkdj]

I do as well and because many of us at WS have followed a few CO cases and feel like we know the LE team - something is definitely going on and it’s big IMO

ITA.