Suzanne Morphew’s husband was taken into custody again, charged with first-degree murder, after her remains were found over three years after her disappearance on Mother’s Day 2020, according to authorities.
Barry Morphew was apprehended in Arizona following a Colorado grand jury’s indictment on Wednesday, three years after the initial case was dismissed due to issues with the evidence presented by prosecutors.
His bond was set at US$3 million, cash only, according to court documents.
Initially, when Barry Morphew was charged, an arrest affidavit detailed that his wife wanted to leave him, but his account changed as new evidence emerged.
Morphew, an avid hunter, did not initially tell investigators that he went out of his way as he left for work on Mother’s Day, driving toward the place where his wife’s bicycle helmet was eventually found.
Later, he said he went that way because he had seen an elk cross the road, according to the initial arrest affidavit.
Suzanne Morphew’s remains were found in 2023
Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents stumbled upon Suzanne Morphew’s skeletal remains in September 2023 in a shallow grave during an unrelated search near the small southern Colorado town of Moffat, about 65 kilometres south of the Morphews’ home.
Most of Suzanne Morphew’s bones were recovered, and many were “significantly bleached,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators removed a port through which Morphew could receive medicine to treat follicular lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and found clothing similar to bicyclist clothes she was known to wear.
Based on the status of the remains and clothing, a forensic anthropologist theorised that the body decomposed elsewhere, the affidavit says.
Toxicology testing revealed all three drugs in a sedative used for wildlife called “BAM” were in the bones.
The presence of a metabolite for one of the drugs, butorphanol, suggested the remains would not have been contaminated with BAM after death, the affidavit says.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of death was “homicide by unspecified means” through intoxication of the three drugs, butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine.
Investigators linked Barry Morphew to the drugs
Barry Morphew obtained and filled several prescriptions for BAM while living in Indiana, shortly before the Morphews moved to Colorado in 2018.
Barry Morphew was a deer farmer in Indiana and allegedly told investigators he used BAM to tranquilise deer in Indiana and Colorado, according to the indictment.
In the area surrounding their home in Colorado, no private citizens or businesses, only Colorado Parks and Wildlife and National Park Service officials, had obtained BAM between 2017 and 2020, records show. No government officials reported missing BAM supplies.
“Ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM: Barry Morphew,” the indictment concluded.
