Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #25

[DizzyB]

I am waiting for a response/press release from Spezze. I’m hoping he continues to act as professionally and tight-lipped as he has been so far. I have not seen any missteps yet and I hope it remains that way.

On another note, from those that have watched many cases unfold-which tactic do you think works better, or is it based on the individual that LE is looking at: give the person a false sense of security, or make them nervous?

 

[swedeheart]

I am waiting for a response/press release from Spezze. I’m hoping he continues to act as professionally and tight-lipped as he has been so far. I have not seen any missteps yet and I hope it remains that way.

On another note, from those that have watched many cases unfold-which tactic do you think works better, or is it based on the individual that LE is looking at: give the person a false sense of security, or make them nervous?

well, it reminds me the most of the gannon stauch case, where they didn't release much info and let t-bag run around blabbing like a chicken with her head cut off. i personally think it depends on the individual they suspect, but i'm not LE or a detective. i just play one on fb.

 

[RickshawFan]

But it seems a lot less risky and complicated to not bother with the bike staging at all IMO. Just send LE to the house for a welfare check. Car is there, but no SM. BM could have maintained that she was plucked out of her isolated house, just as well as off her bike. Oh well.
I’m assuming LE didn’t leap ahead to “bike ride” no matter what they were told by the family. I don’t think they’d mount a serious search unless they were sure she wasn’t passed out in a closet. The house mustn't have raised alarm bells. But the missing bike set off a weeklong search. MOO

IMO BM made an oopsie and randomly settled on the bike ride thing on the spur of the moment because the neighbor couldn't make sense of the two cars. He could just as easily picked something else, e.g. a hike, but he had to come up with something on the fly. The staging could have been after he spoke to the neighbor.
SM's car should not have been in the driveway unless she was in the house, except, except, except, "ummm, ummm, oh oh ummmm [pause] ummmm, oh, she must be on a bike ride." Then scurry off to stage.
I suppose we can't fix a time when the bike was staged? It could have been right when it was found.... Or even BM "found it"?
Maybe BM was even in town (i.e. not in Denver) when he made the call to the neighbor? That would be such an obvious red flag that LE could have picked up right away from the GPS.

 

[oviedo]

airing today:

thank you - I'm going to go add this to all of their WS threads.

 

[Hoosierfan72]

I apologize if this has been brought up already, this thread is moving so fast I'm having a hard time keeping up.

Re: SM's "interrupted" texting (or FB messenger??) with her best friend, while they were talking about an upcoming wedding. That, on the face of it, seems odd to me (no "gotta go", no "my phone is at 5%", nothing to indicate a problem).

However, we also know that cell service was terrible at the house - so they had to use the internet to communicate via text/messenger/whatever.

So...... what if BM cut the internet? That would explain the sudden disappearance from the convo and certainly would be smart as it wouldn't allow SM to call for help, either. Does anyone know if an internet router would show if/when service was cut/disconnected/unplugged (I assume so)??

That would be strong circumstantial evidence against BM, and also toward some level of premeditation (not sure what the legal standard on that is?). If you are thinking clearly enough to cut the internet before attacking someone, does that rule out crime of passion?

 

[Ericthered]

The intent was never to put out a description, just a narrative IMO.

He writes a short description on this note of the bike and helmet, but nothing about her hair color, hair length, eye color, height, build, where ...

 

[EggSalad]

IMO BM made an oopsie and randomly settled on the bike ride thing on the spur of the moment because the neighbor couldn't make sense of the two cars. He could just as easily picked something else, e.g. a hike, but he had to come up with something on the fly. The staging could have been after he spoke to the neighbor.
SM's car should not have been in the driveway unless she was in the house, except, except, except, "ummm, ummm, oh oh ummmm [pause] ummmm, oh, she must be on a bike ride." Then scurry off to stage.
I suppose we can't fix a time when the bike was staged? It could have been right when it was found.... Or even BM "found it"?
Maybe BM was even in town (i.e. not in Denver) when he made the call to the neighbor? That would be such an obvious red flag that LE could have picked up right away from the GPS.

It would be interesting if the perp used SM’s car to stage the bike, perhaps because it had a bike rack on it and made for easy transport. And then LE looked into SM’s cars GPS and found it odd that it drove to the spot the bike was located late 5/9 or early AM 5/10 and then drove back to their house.

 

[Lilypad13]

airing today:

Oh wow! Starting to get more attention! Is Dr. Phil considered MSM and up for discussion? Curious what Dr. Phil thinks of BM. It might be just a regurgitation of old info for us.

Edit: is this an online YouTube show? Does anyone know what time? Went to set DVR but it said today’s Dr. Phil was on a different subject. TIA

 

[EggSalad]

I apologize if this has been brought up already, this thread is moving so fast I'm having a hard time keeping up.

Re: SM's "interrupted" texting (or FB messenger??) with her best friend, while they were talking about an upcoming wedding. That, on the face of it, seems odd to me (no "gotta go", no "my phone is at 5%", nothing to indicate a problem).

However, we also know that cell service was terrible at the house - so they had to use the internet to communicate via text/messenger/whatever.

So...... what if BM cut the internet? That would explain the sudden disappearance from the convo and certainly would be smart as it wouldn't allow SM to call for help, either. Does anyone know if an internet router would show if/when service was cut/disconnected/unplugged (I assume so)??

That would be strong circumstantial evidence against BM, and also toward some level of premeditation (not sure what the legal standard on that is?). If you are thinking clearly enough to cut the internet before attacking someone, does that rule out crime of passion?

An ISP would be able to tell if a modem stopped communicating to their network and when it came back online.

Good thought.

 

[oviedo]

I apologize if this has been brought up already, this thread is moving so fast I'm having a hard time keeping up.

Re: SM's "interrupted" texting (or FB messenger??) with her best friend, while they were talking about an upcoming wedding. That, on the face of it, seems odd to me (no "gotta go", no "my phone is at 5%", nothing to indicate a problem).

However, we also know that cell service was terrible at the house - so they had to use the internet to communicate via text/messenger/whatever.

So...... what if BM cut the internet? That would explain the sudden disappearance from the convo and certainly would be smart as it wouldn't allow SM to call for help, either. Does anyone know if an internet router would show if/when service was cut/disconnected/unplugged (I assume so)??

That would be strong circumstantial evidence against BM, and also toward some level of premeditation (not sure what the legal standard on that is?). If you are thinking clearly enough to cut the internet before attacking someone, does that rule out crime of passion?

You just have to unplug the router then plug it back in - I’m not sure if that action could be tracked though
Jmo

 

[Lilypad13]

IMO BM made an oopsie and randomly settled on the bike ride thing on the spur of the moment because the neighbor couldn't make sense of the two cars. He could just as easily picked something else, e.g. a hike, but he had to come up with something on the fly. The staging could have been after he spoke to the neighbor.
SM's car should not have been in the driveway unless she was in the house, except, except, except, "ummm, ummm, oh oh ummmm [pause] ummmm, oh, she must be on a bike ride." Then scurry off to stage.
I suppose we can't fix a time when the bike was staged? It could have been right when it was found.... Or even BM "found it"?
Maybe BM was even in town (i.e. not in Denver) when he made the call to the neighbor? That would be such an obvious red flag that LE could have picked up right away from the GPS.

Interesting theory...maybe he asked someone else to stage it? He would have had to be in Denver when the calls started wouldn’t he?

 

[GordianKnot]

airing today:

Thank you for this link, swede!

I see Sandra Crispo's picture on the screen there. Glad she's being featured, too.
Circumstances around her disappearance are definitely both mysterious and extremely suspicious.
I'm surprised her case hasn't gotten more traction here on WS.
Thread link to SC's case, for anyone who's interested in reading up on it:
MA - MA - Sandra Crispo, 54, Hanson, 7 August 2019

 

[EggSalad]

It would be interesting if the perp used SM’s car to stage the bike, perhaps because it had a bike rack on it and made for easy transport. And then LE looked into SM’s cars GPS and found it odd that it drove to the spot the bike was located late 5/9 or early AM 5/10 and then drove back to their house.

My post made me want to go back to an older DailyMail article because I thought I remembered a picture of a car in the M’s driveway with a bike rack on it.

article: Police search and carry out evidence bags from the $1.5M home of missing Colorado mom | Daily Mail Online

Pic attached to post.

My thoughts don’t prove anything but I thought they were interesting.

-it appears that there is a suburb outback with a trailer hitch bike rack
-There are two bikes on it. (One has red grips, the other is a baby blue mountain bike)
-Suburu outbacks do have gps tracking
-It’s rumored that SM’s bike is baby blue
-Its very hard to see but there might be damage to the front tire/fork/hub/brake. What leads me to believe that there might be damage is that the brake rotor does not look centered to where it should be on the wheel.
-Oddly enough, it looks like there is a Dasani or some type of packaged water bottle in the holder. This would not be common for a mountain biker, they’d use one of those bike water bottles that holds tightly into the bottle holder
-I wish there was a better pic angle so we could see that suburu’s license plate and a better shot of the bikes.
-I’m also curious about a second bike being on that rack.
-Would any aspect of that Suburu being in the driveway tie to PE’s assertion of two cars being a red flag?

 

[EggSalad]

You just have to unplug the router then plug it back in - I’m not sure if that action could be tracked though
Jmo

Good thought. A few follow up thoughts:

-If it was an all in one modem/router, you’d have to unplug the modem
-If not, unplugging the router would probably not be traceable.
-What might be traceable in that scenario is what devices were online and when, when were they offline and when did they come back online.

 

[NoSI]

My post made me want to go back to an older DailyMail article because I thought I remembered a picture of a car in the Mail driveway with a bike rack on it.

article: Police search and carry out evidence bags from the $1.5M home of missing Colorado mom | Daily Mail Online

Pic attached to post.

My thoughts don’t prove anything but I thought they were interesting.

-it appears that there is a suburb outback with a trailer hitch bike rack
-There are two bikes on it. (One has red grips, the other is a baby blue mountain bike)
-Suburu outbacks do have gps tracking
-It’s rumored that SM’s bike is baby blue
-Its very hard to see but there might be damage to the front tire/fork/hub/brake. What leads me to believe that there might be damage is that the brake rotor does not look centered to where it should be on the wheel.
-Oddly enough, it looks like there is a Dasani or some type of packaged water bottle in the holder. This would not be common for a mountain biker, they’d use one of those bike water bottles that holds tightly into the bottle holder
-I wish there was a better pic angle so we could see that suburu’s license plate and a better shot of the bikes.
-I’m also curious about a second bike being on that rack.

Great post! That pic of BM... I am sure he wore that particular t-shirt with thought behind it. A subliminal message to law enforcement etc. that he is one of them...

 

[Charlot123]

I apologize if this has been brought up already, this thread is moving so fast I'm having a hard time keeping up.

Re: SM's "interrupted" texting (or FB messenger??) with her best friend, while they were talking about an upcoming wedding. That, on the face of it, seems odd to me (no "gotta go", no "my phone is at 5%", nothing to indicate a problem).

However, we also know that cell service was terrible at the house - so they had to use the internet to communicate via text/messenger/whatever.

So...... what if BM cut the internet? That would explain the sudden disappearance from the convo and certainly would be smart as it wouldn't allow SM to call for help, either. Does anyone know if an internet router would show if/when service was cut/disconnected/unplugged (I assume so)??

That would be strong circumstantial evidence against BM, and also toward some level of premeditation (not sure what the legal standard on that is?). If you are thinking clearly enough to cut the internet before attacking someone, does that rule out crime of passion?

It is an interesting idea, and a valid point. I don’t know about the router - what info providers get.

I think if it is a communication system like Zoom or something that I use, it shows internet strength on the other side of communication, so you can get a message that there is no Inet. (I assume).

Even with regular ATT or Verizon texting, you can get a message that the message has not been delivered. So you know that your friend lost connection, or the phone is off.

Now, with all these message apps, IM, or any other commonly used - not sure. We have to ask people who use them consistently whether they get “message not delivered” texts. If they do, then it might be the indication, among other things, of Inet being down, or the adressee’s phone being off. And the time when the message “is delivered”, might show when the Inet is back on (alternatively it can also show when the phone is switched on, so you can not say what exactly happened, except for “something preventing messages from reaching the addressee”, but it should be enough for this case. )

I don’t like IM because there are so many spammers on FB, but maybe it is the question to ask regular IM users?

ETA: if the conversation was flowing smoothly, and then the character of messages changed, it could have still been SM signaling “danger” to her friend. And then she disappeared...

 

[10ofRods]

Oh hi @10ofRods! I had just answered too about the casings then started reading backwards to catch up and just saw some of these posts. I want to add one more thing about casings. If a gun is used to commit a murder and any of the ejected casings are found at the crime scene, I’m pretty sure (and @OldCop please correct me if I’m off base) LE has a way to match casings with the exact gun the bullet(s) were fired from. Every gun makes a different pattern of scrapes on the bullet casing when it’s fired sort of like a fingerprint. So, hypothetically, if BM shot Suzanne and there is no body but they found her blood in the home and they found a bullet casing(s) when they were sifting through the dirt at the dig site, LE could seize all of BM’s guns and see if the casing was fired from one of them. That’s why I thought the rumor about the gun being reported stolen was intriguing. But I have no link nor do I remember where I heard it so unless someone has a MSM link let’s not discuss an alleged potentially reported stolen or missing gun by the husband with an allegedly abducted and missing wife.

So, if someone had a gun that didn't drop casings, that would be a big advantage in a crime.

That's how they linked EARONS to the shooting in Visalia (gun casings - the owner of a stolen gun led police to casings from his use of the gun before it was stolen; casings matched those at the professor's murder scene).

I do wonder if the search warrants mentioned weapons.

 

[RickshawFan]

People are on the right track but to help clear up the proper terms.

The previous "revolver" discussion was about right, but the word "pistol" is really just a word meaning any handgun.

My Dad and family were a hunting family so I picked up some knowledge along the way about them. Lets have a quick Gun101 class to help get the terms right for this and future cases. Some other terms can be used for some of these. This gives a basic breakdown using the common terms I am used to IMO.

First,
there are 2 basic types of guns.
Either "Long Guns" (rifles, shotguns, etc.) or
"Handguns" / "Pistols".

Secondly,
in the Handgun variety specifically, there are also primarily 2 basic types of handguns.
Either "Revolvers" or
"Semi-Automatics"

The "Semi-Automatic" handguns are the type that have the clip in the handle and eject an empty shell casing after each shot.

The "Revolver" is the type of handgun that has a cylinder that rotates around the barrel where 1 shell always lines up with the barrel. As you squeeze the trigger on a double-action revolver, it will rotate the cylinder to line up the next round with the barrel. After firing, the empty shell casings remain in the cylinder. After firing all rounds (usually 5 or 6 in a revolver), you usually pull a small leaver which opens the cylinder to the side to dump out the empty casings. Then reload the entire cylinder with new shells and you are ready to go again.

With a "Semi-Automatic" handgun like the Glock 9mm, the shells are loaded into a "magazine" usually called a "clip" which goes into the bottom of the handle and shoved upwards till it locks in place. Then after "racking the slide" (puts 1 shell in chamber), you can fire, and it ejects the empty shell casing out the side and "auto-loads" the next shell into the chamber for you so all you have to do is keep pulling the trigger and it will keep firing shells until your clip is empty.

Last but not least, we must understand the terms of the "round" or "shell" itself. A live round consists of a "bullet" on the end (usually lead or copper-jacketed lead tip bullets). The "bullet" is the projectile that comes out and does the damage.

Behind the bullet is usally some form of "wadding" material or plastic separator to keep the bullet positioned properly over the top of the gunpowder. The gunpowder is near the bottom of the shell.

On the very bottom there will be a "Primer". The "Primer" is usually a small circular explosive that the "hammer" of the gun falls onto and it explodes upon impact.

The small explosion of the "primer" sets off the main charge of the gunpowder which gives you the big boom and all the explosive gasses force the top lead bullet portion to fly out of the shell casing and head for its target.

The "Shell casing" is usually made of brass or copper for regular bullets, but it can be plastic like in shotgun shells. Shotgun shells can have a single lead slug as a projectile, but typically they will have small BB's inside a shotgun shell and they scatter when leaving the shotgun to cause a "spread of damage".

Shotguns are long guns like rifles and they can be either Semi-automatic variety where the empty shell casings fly out of the gun, or they can be manual type action like a pump-action or lever-action or bolt-action where the person has to manually load the next shell by working the action. In most all cases with shotguns or rifles (either semi-auto or pump-action, bolt-action, or lever-action), they will eject an empty shell casing when loading the next round.

Sorry that kind of got long. Hope this helps some.

Wow. This is fantastic. Does WS have a "tools of the trade" section so we can come back to stuff like this?

 

[10ofRods]

ITA, no way you can get your gloves over that monster rock comfortably. I never wear mine while exercising period.

I do think the personal item found by LE was clothing or Ipods, If it were the helmet, I think the bike ride narrative would still be going strong.

Moo

Unless, of course, there's good evidence that Suzanne was dead before May 10. I'm beginning to think that one search (where they closed the whole highway) turned up grim evidence that is crucial to the case, but that we don't know.

If someone was trying to stage the crime as if it were an abduction, then I suppose it could have been her phone.

 

[TxGidget]

That’s so cool! Wish I could play even non-competitive tennis. ITA wearing jewelry, especially rings, while doing sports or exercise just feels yucky to me. You get it all sweaty and dirty and like you said your finger can swell and also you could damage the setting and lose the diamond(s) or scratch up the gold, silver or platinum in the band. As a Neonatal ICU RN we were not allowed to wear rings or watches because they can harbor bacteria so maybe I’m too germaphobic when it comes to getting nice jewelry dirty. But the biggest deterrent for me not wearing jewelry to workout was when my poor BIL was playing volleyball and got his wedding band caught on a pole in a freak accident while spiking a ball and it literally tore his ring finger off down to the bone!

AHHH, yet another reason not to play sports wearing jewelry. It’s never to late to take up tennis! Such a great sport. And I’m very awestruck by and appreciative of people in the medical profession. Such important work you do. Back to the case, I find the second picture on the flyer so interesting. I’d like to know the thought process behind choosing it.