Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #31

[MrsWatson]

My Learn Something New Today is that you can use an app on your phone to check into a hotel room.

I clearly need to get out of the house more.

 

[Seattle1]

I hope LS finds out the time and the location of BM and JP seeing each other on the Saturday.

If in the morning, interesting.

If later in the day, interesting.

Salida jobsite? Makes sense to me. (Is Salida the working-locally-for-the-next-four-days location AM related? BM, saying he was setting up in Denver/CS for his workers so he could work locally the next four days. What else was BM expected to do in Salida? More than just the backfilling? Did BM have reason to want to pull whoever was working in Salida and relocate them to another site? His vehicle and cellular data will be fascinating. Painful but fascinating.)
JMO

At about the .42 mark of LS video linked below, she cites JP met with BM in Salida on Saturday afternoon to talk about the wall job.

Suzanne Morphew’s husband left Denver hotel, contractor claims room was “reeking of chlorine” | FOX21 News Colorado

 

[Knox]

Well if Barry used his phone for check in, that means he had his phone with him. Damned if you do... Regardless of the method, Barry’s presence would be recorded and time stamped unless he had someone else check him in. In which case, they are recorded in one way or another. It’s the darned digital footprint.

I think Barry is a construction/landscaper guy first and a hunter second. I see him excavating and burying, not hacking his wife into little pieces or throwing her into a wood chipper.

I agree with you, he's going to do what he feels comfortable with. Though I think a shovel is much quieter than a machine.

 

[Knox]

They'd have a pretty good idea when you left the room (if not the property) for the last time based on keycard access records.

Ok, I didn't know the door registers when you leave the room (don't use the key card to leave).

 

[NuttMegg]

sbm

I think Barry is a construction/landscaper guy first and a hunter second. I see him excavating and burying, not hacking his wife into little pieces or throwing her into a wood chipper.

It's so easy to talk the talk re hunting. I could sit around and talk about my .06 and compare it to a .300 caliber, and I've never killed a game animal. (bad eyes from birth but great mental osmosis from hunting camps) Unless a person has actually been hunting with the IMO bragger, there's no way to tell, ie even from a full rack on the wall derived from a road kill, (which I don't believe anyway, no one would leave that rack behind if it were worth collecting and I don't think it was a road kill).

So, they could have had an argument at the time of the abruptly terminated texting, but nothing physical may have happened then. He could gone to prepare her grave, and returned with all sorts of sweetie pie BS and just grabbed her out of the house, killed her at the well prepared grave site, all at night. He had all afternoon to get pumped up with rage, he had time to contact employees for Monday, he had lots of time.

 

[JosieMae]

Given LE's early suspicions, I think they were at the Denver hotel very quickly. Is it possible JP was still there, waiting on BM, tools and work?

Maybe we'll find out in Lauren's interview tonight.

 

[Seattle1]

And look I used paragraphs!

Well done!

 

[MrsWatson]

Yeah, I'm not sold on BM with the wood chipper. Mostly because I don't want to think about the details, but I don't think he did something quite so calculated. I see him using the outdoors to his advantage, like a cliff, or a mineshaft, or who even knows what kind of hidey-holes he may have found or made out in the woods anywhere from there to Denver. Or wherever. He had a lot of rugged terrain to work with.

 

[happyday]

I think the bathtub soaking of something (in bleach) and then wiping that something off with towels is one of the tidier explanations.

I am not convinced LE has the actual towels used, as they would have been tossed in the laundry at the hotel by Tuesday night or Wednesday after JP left - I don't think JP had interacted with the FBI at that point.

I do think LE has looked into the drains, etc., of that room - but belatedly.

Some here have said that bleach doesn't destroy DNA - but it does if it is used directly and in strong enough solution. It breaks the bonds that hold the DNA together. It doesn't destroy hemoglobin proteins, but it can destroy/wreak havoc on DNA.

Effect of luminol and bleaching agent on the serological and DNA analysis from bloodstain - ScienceDirect

Species determination from remaining blood can apparently still be done, but profiling to whom the DNA belonged may be seriously inhibited by the use of (household) bleach.

Other chemicals work better, it's true - but bleach can do considerable damage to DNA evidence.

That makes sense—I can’t imagine bleach not at least damaging DNA. But any of us who follow true crime surely can think of all the times a killer uses bleach to clean up, but then luminol shows smeared blood everywhere. It’s not magic to making blood itself go away like many seem to believe.

 

[Tibeliz]

Given LE's early suspicions, I think they were at the Denver hotel very quickly. Is it possible JP was still there, waiting on BM, tools and work?

Maybe we'll find out in Lauren's interview tonight.

I was thinking the same thing and wondering if they might have told JP to stay a day or two to see how BM played out the rest of the ‘job’ story.

 

[Love Never Fails]

Believe it or not, this is no longer true. It's been about 4 years since I was able to bypass the traditional front desk check-in (and check-out). Use my phone app for elevator access, unlock doors, etc. This YT is dated Nov 2014.

It is still the same old style in some hotels. When I traveled in 2019, I was in Cincinnati, Dayton, Dallas, Atlanta and Austin. I have an iPhone but it was never used for check in. I had to register at front desk, showing my credit card and ID and get a key card.
I always stay at nice hotels. I’m kind of a clean freak and security freak and I love a comfy bed.
Just saying my experience was different from yours. Going to Atlanta in three weeks. Looking forward to what my check in will be like.

 

[happyday]

you could always get someone ELSE who worked for BM to check in for you, too, like another employee, perhaps a woman, that was supposed to be there for the "job" fixing the wall. if she was an employee, surely they would have let her sign into a room early, if her name was on the list of workers.

Lol

 

[ajaylee]

Well if Barry used his phone for check in, that means he had his phone with him. Damned if you do... Regardless of the method, Barry’s presence would be recorded and time stamped unless he had someone else check him in. In which case, they are recorded in one way or another. It’s the darned digital footprint.

I think Barry is a construction/landscaper guy first and a hunter second. I see him excavating and burying, not hacking his wife into little pieces or throwing her into a wood chipper.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Barry is described as a 'great hunter', but I have seen no actual evidence that anyone who hunted with him said that. Further, 'great hunter' can mean a lot of different things to different people. It might mean he's a fantastic duck hunter - but that certainly wouldn't give him skill bleeding and dismembering a large carcass. I know folks that hunt and field dress their own game. I know others who simply walk in to camps they set up and haul whatever they shoot to a butcher shop. In other words, some of the hunters I know have never butchered anything they've shot - so no experience in bleeding a corpse or dismembering it.

It might be nothing, but BM specifically complained about the authorities allegedly hassling him because he made a 'mistake' about the time when he fixed something on the bobcat.

I think he had two unexpected problems: 1) the girls getting worried and calling the neighbor and 2) some kind of 'problem' with the bobcat.

 

[Error505]

DBM

 

[EggSalad]

IMO- For all we know, perhaps BM actually DID leave cash for JP in the hotel room. He was quoted as saying he was paid. Maybe this is why JP stuck around for 2 days - paid to sit around and wait for the job.

That my thinking. If you had been paid and had a free hotel room to stay in, maybe you’d just burn some of that cash on whatever vice(s) you enjoy and stay at the hotel seeing if the job ever came about.

 

[Seattle1]

We check in at the front desk, get our key cards. But leave them in the room at check-out, no one would know when we left, but for the cameras.

Most hotels these days have exits onto the parking lots.

There was UT businesswoman missing in Florida in Jan 2020, and this is when we learned that most hotels now know every time you enter and exit your room-- including when the door is propped open. It's all digital evidence today.

(I previously believed hotels had digital evidence when your electronic key used to enter your room but confirmed they also have record of guests exiting room which does not require use of key).

 

[COHinkyMeter]

How soon was his phone in the possession of LE? Might be why there was no further communication between BM and JP.

Makes no sense to use a hotel room for bleaching tools and then direct LE to it. But then murdering your wife lacks all sense.

LE will know when he entered and left that hotel room. I speculate he left early in the morning on Sunday (though I can't fathom where he went -- did he perhaps complete the Bloomfielf job -- and was, in fact, working?).

He AND his tools go to jobsite Sunday. Before leaving, he leaves room key at the desk, says he's got his crew coming, requests housekeeping. Which because of Covid/staffing may have gotten skipped! Would explain why he left the room as he did. Towels, trash, housekeeping would handle all of that. Maybe he hoped the chlorine would dissipate naturally. Had JP entered a spotless room, with fresh towels, no trash, bet he'd have thought nothing of the excessive smell. Covid, you know.

This compresses the timeline for me.

Something bad happened on Saturday, after 12:30... quite a few daylight hours to plan. CYA. SOMETHING happened at 11:30 at the jobsite. Risky. Calculated risk, necessary enough. What we DON'T know is whether those heavy equipment sounds were limited to that 30 minute period. As others have noted, it may have taken time for the neighbor to awaken fully to the noise. It also could've recommenced later, unheard.

I can't not hear "got herself in the river" and not go to a bad place.

We know what equipment the firecamp has. We can imagine what equipment a hardscaper might have. We don't know what equipment might naturally have been at the jobsite. To dig, to push, to clear, to mulch.

There's a reason the hotel was in Bloomfield. And not Grand Junction or Denver proper or Pueblo or any number of Colorado cities. I think he needed to be in Bloomfield. Perhaps as part of a legitimate contract.

Might've had a room already booked. Apparently he talked to JP on the Saturday about it....

Call for a late check in. Arrive at 2-3 in the morning. Cart in tools. Bleach the life out of them.

It's possible he thought he was in the clear.

Did the worst of it under cover of night.

Free up Sunday to work like a horse. I'll be really surprised if he was anywhere near that hotel room all day -- or had any reason to believe JP would find it in the condition he left it.

And the "family emergency", perhaps it was TOO SOON to identify the nature of the emergency, waiting to see what direction the day would take it.

Regardless, it was an impossibly busy 24 hours for someone.

By his own admission about remembering things, he wasn't right in his head.

JMO

This scenario makes a lot of sense to me. A puzzlement, though, is why JP was supposedly called up to Broomfield at the last minute, on Sunday morning. IMO, BM must have had a need for JP to be there at the hotel - was it to reinforce the alibi, or was JP nefariously set up?

 

[GoJacks]

There was UT businesswoman missing in Florida in Jan 2020, and this is when we learned that most hotels now know every time you enter and exit your room-- including when the door is propped open. It's all digital evidence today.

(I previously believed hotels had digital evidence when your electronic key used to enter your room but confirmed they also have record of guests exiting room which does not require use of key).

Oh wow that's pretty interesting. Also kind of creepy, not going to lie.

I've learned a lot of new info about hotels today --had no idea about the online login/using your phone as a key.

 

[windrower]

Re the alibi statement by JP. If he did think “BM needs an alibi” at the time he was in the motel room, I wondered if the reason was because he knew or suspected BM was involved in some extra-marital activity.

Unlike we regulars here at WS, most people probably don’t think “murder” when they hear someone is missing. At this point, after four months of SUZANNE missing, sure, JP has realized something nefarious happened to her.

I’m holding on to the hope that BM will eventually reveal the story, simply because the daughters need for him to do that. They will never be whole again, but to not have their mother’s remains, is an added burden they shouldn’t have to bear.

 

[K9Enzo]

If SM was murdered by her husband, I really don’t think she was dismembered and put through a wood chipper. Strangled? Sure and her body most likely buried, whole, in a clandestine grave in a wooded area. This is, IMO, a high probability area for BM to consider. This location probably has subtle changes compared to the baseline environment because it’s... good. Of course over time, this filled in hole will most likely start to sink little. It will take a very skilled eye to uncover, perhaps a dog and a focused area of interest to be given by LE to search.

The business of dismembering a human body or using a wood chipper just can’t be an easy process, regardless if your stomach is made of rocks and you can hack away at an animal. Then you have the actual location to consider. I can’t see this being done anywhere that’s not a private/secluded location. Certainly not a place where the neighbor will be awaken in the middle of the night and be curious enough to look out her door because of the noise. Then you have the cleanup and I’m talking about human remains being down in the nooks and crannies of a machine, forget about the fluids that would have leaked out onto the ground, never mind what would be blown into the air. If LE is sifting through dug up concrete & serving two SW on the residence, searching undisclosed locations to the public, I don’t think this got past them. IMO