A Colorado man has been indicted for the murder of his wife, who vanished five years ago. This comes four years after he was initially charged with the crime.
Suzanne Morphew, aged 43, was reported missing on May 10, 2020, after she went for a bike ride and did not return to her beautiful home in rural Maysville, about 150 miles from Denver.
Her husband, Barry Morphew, aged 56, has been indicted for first-degree murder and was arrested in Arizona on Friday. He is being held on a $3 million bond.
Barry denied all knowledge of the killing – but was quickly named the prime suspect and charged with Suzanne’s murder.
Prosecutors’ initial case against Morphew collapsed over claims a district attorney had withheld information from the court and talked to true crime prosecutors.
But the case was revived in fall 2023 after Suzanne’s remains were finally found in a remote area near the town of Moffatt.
The couple are said to have endured a turbulent marriage with Suzanne having an affair and Barry accused of being an abuser.
Their daughters Mallory and Macy stuck by Barry throughout the initial charges brought against him and pushed back against claims that he killed their mother.
A press briefing is due to take place at 6pm MT (8PM) ET Friday.
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Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on May 10, 2020. Her husband Barry Morphew has been charged with first-degree murder
Barry denied all knowledge of the killing – but was quickly named the prime suspect and charged with Suzanne’s murder
Their daughters Mallory and Macy stuck by Barry throughout the initial charges brought against him and pushed back against claims that he killed their mother
Suzanne was reported missing by her neighbor on Mother’s Day 2020 after Mallory and Macy were unable to reach her on the phone.
Her bike was found abandoned down a steep embankment close to the family’s luxury $1.5 million home that same day, in a scene police believe was staged.
Her helmet was discovered days later, roughly a mile away, at the side of a highway.
Barry told police he was out of town for a landscaping job three hours away in Broomfield, just outside of Denver.
He had spent the night before her murder in a cheap hotel room that his coworker later found scattered with wet towels and stinking of chlorine.
Barry claimed he left the family home in the early hours of the morning and last saw his wife sleeping in bed.
But suspicions quickly mounted, and a media firestorm was ignited. A tearful Barry even released a brief video appeal to the public asking for information.
‘Suzanne, if anyone is out there that can hear this that has you, please, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back,’ Barry said.
Meanwhile, a huge manhunt was launched, with authorities scouring rural terrain, diving in lakes, and deploying K9 units to find Suzanne – but there was no trace.
Barry and Suzanne Morphew are pictured with daughters Macy and Mallory
When Barry was questioned by police two days after Suzanne disappeared, police noted he had scratches on his hands and arms.
A search of the Morphew home found a live .22 caliber bullet by Suzanne’s bed, and a needle cap from a tranquilizer dart was found in the dryer, tangled up among washed bed sheets.
Investigators also recovered empty tranquilizer darts, a needle used to inject tranquilizer chemicals into the darts, and a dart gun.
Barry Morphew admitted to using a tranquilizer gun to shoot deer so he could harvest their horns, but said he was unsure how the cap got in the dryer, court records show.
Although she wasn’t reported missing until the afternoon of May 10, investigators accused Barry of murdering Suzanne sometime in the evening of May 9 and disposing of her body in the early hours.
The last communication from Suzanne’s phone was made at 2.13pm on May 9, roughly 30 minutes before Barry returned home from work.
Barry’s phone entered and exited airplane mode several times over the next 24 hours, authorities said.
The door of his truck was opened numerous times between 3.25am and 5am and was backed up into the home’s garage at least once.
Further arousing suspicion was Barry’s activity in Broomfield. He was captured on surveillance making several trash runs at numerous locations around town, but appeared to be doing little work, police noted.
In a stunning development, Barry was arrested and charged with Suzanne’s murder in May 2021, but the case would collapse before making it to trial, with prosecutors deciding to withdraw the charges until Suzanne’s body could be found.
Barry had pleaded not guilty.
Barry made a series of trash dumps in Broomfield on the day Suzanne was reported missing
Suzanne’s remains were finally discovered in a shallow grave, in a dumping ground known as ‘The Boneyard’, in September 2023.
Her corpse was in such a poor condition that investigators were unable to determine precisely how she was killed.
But her death was ruled a homicide in April after an autopsy found a cocktail of drugs that are used to tranquilize wildlife was found in one of her bones, suggesting she had been sedated before her death.
A grand jury on Wednesday indicted Barry on a charge of first-degree murder.
He was taken into custody in Arizona but will be extradited to the San Luis Valley in Colorado to face charges.
‘Federal, State and local law enforcement have never stopped working toward justice for Suzanne,’ Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly said Friday.
‘The Twelfth Judicial District Attorney’s Office stands in solidarity with Suzanne’s family and the citizens of Chaffee and Saguache Counties in pursuing the Grand Jury’s indictment.’
