Suzanne Morphew’s husband was paid to lay dirt at the building site Colorado cops are searching

Suzanne Morphew’s husband was paid to lay dirt at the residential building site where Colorado cops are now focusing their search for the missing mom-of-two who vanished without trace on Mother’s Day. 

Barry Morphew, 52, had worked at the Salida property laying dirt on the riverfront land, around 12 miles from the couple’s home, before his wife’s mysterious disappearance almost two weeks ago, the property owner told CBS4.  

Morphew, who made an impassioned social media video pleading for his wife’s return, has said he was away on a training course for his job as a volunteer firefighter in Denver when his wife vanished. 

Agents from the FBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office were pictured Friday sifting through buckets of newly-laid dirt and rubble they had dug up from the site’s ground.

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said the search ended at 5p.m. Friday but that it will resume Saturday at the construction site.    

Authorities said the search had shifted to the address based on ‘information developed during the Suzanne Morphew missing person case.’  

‘In response to widespread rumors, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office relays that Ms. Morphew has not been located and there have been no arrests in the investigation,’ the Sheriff’s Office said following Friday’s search. 

A white tent was erected at the property Friday and officers were seen digging through the dirt for clues of Suzanne’s whereabouts. 

A chunk of cement had been removed from the foundation of the property and an evidence response team truck was stationed nearby.  

The person who owns the property has been cooperative and is not connected to the mother’s disappearance, authorities have said.

Suzanne, 49, has not been heard from since May 9. A bike owned by the mother-of-two was recovered from a bridge close to her home on May 10, according to local sources – the same day she was reported missing. 

On Tuesday, as seen in exclusive photos, cops were seen carrying evidence bags and equipment into Morphew’s $1.5million three-bedroom home just outside Calida.  

A CSI photographer was also seen at the home, which has been taped off. 

Evidence bags were spotted being brought out and loaded into a van. 

DailyMail.com has learned it was her daughters Mallory and Macy who first raised the alarm after they were unable to get hold of her on Mother’s Day as they made their way back from a camping trip in Idaho.

Friends said they asked neighbor Jeanne Ritter, 70, to check on Suzanne when they couldn’t get hold of her and it was Ritter who later called the police to report her missing.

Ritter declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com. 

Summer Stehle, 43, the stepmother of 17-year-old Macy’s best friend, said: ‘The neighbors up there are spread pretty far apart but the only reason they found out [she was missing] is because the girls called the neighbors and said, ”we never heard from Mom – can you go check on her?”

‘Nobody actually saw her on her bicycle, sadly.’    

On Sunday, Morphew made an impassioned plea for his wife’s safe return in a video released via social media.  

‘Oh Suzanne, if anyone is out there and can hear this, that has you, please, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back,’ Morphew says in the video.

‘We love you, we miss you, your girls need you. No questions asked, however much they want – I will do whatever it takes to get you back. Honey, I love you, I want you back so bad.’ 

He has also offered a $200,000 reward. 

But DailyMail.com can now reveal that Morphew has not been allowed to enter the home he shared with Suzanne since he returned from his trip to Denver.

Police also have his car and his cell phone – leaving the businessman and volunteer firefighter to communicate through his close friend George Davis, 33.

Davis declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com, saying he is too busy ‘with stuff’ to talk.

Morphew’s fire department colleagues have been ordered not to take part in the search by police, although locals said Morphew and his friends have been out looking for Suzanne.

The 52-year-old is currently staying at a property close to the marital home and has been joined by friends who have flown in from his native Indiana. 

A woman at the house on Monday declined to give her name but said she and her husband had come to support Morphew and look for Suzanne.

It is not known where the couple’s daughters are currently staying.  

Morphew was pictured leaving the property along with Davis shortly before the CSI investigators arrived to search his home on Tuesday.

The search comes just two days after police divers drafted in from neighboring Pueblo County were seen scouring a reservoir less than a mile from Suzanne’s property.

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Department had been looking for Suzanne in two-mile ‘targeted blocks’ on either side of her home but did not conduct a search on Monday.

Suzanne, who had just received the all clear following a cancer diagnosis, has now been missing for at least nine days.

No trace of the mother-of-two has been found apart from the bike and ‘a personal item’ – despite Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze bringing in 90 extra officers to help with the search.

Her three-bedroom home sits just off a remote mountain pass approximately nine miles outside of Salida in rugged terrain.

Drones have been used to comb the area, along with search and rescue K-9s and cadaver detection dogs brought in from nearby Buena Vista. 

Morphew’s colleagues from the Maysville Fire Station have also been attempting to help with the search, although one told DailyMail.com they have been warned off by police.

Tim Nelson, 33, said: ‘The Sheriff’s office, they told us none of the fire guys are allowed up there.

‘They can’t keep us out of the forest so that’s what some of the others have done – they set up their own little search party.’

Nelson added: ‘It’s a bad deal you know. They aren’t telling us anything. We got excluded from everything.

‘George [Davis] put together a search team of friends – I was going to go but pretty much all our fire guys are on it so I decided to step away just in case we get something [a fire].

‘Barry was very understanding from what I got from George. I know he’s not allowed to go home. He’s at a neighbor’s. I guess they got him there until he’s cleared or…’

Other friends spoke of the family in glowing terms, noting that Suzanne had been happy living in Colorado since moving to the state from Alexandria, Indiana, in July 2018.

Fire Chief Robert Bertram, 40, said he and his colleagues are still hoping she will be found alive and added that he doesn’t believe she would have left by herself.

He said: ‘She loves where she lives up in the mountains, she loves mountain biking and all that kind of stuff.

‘This is not a normal thing. She’s a very happy person. Any time you meet her, she walks up, talks to you and makes you feel welcome.’

He has known Suzanne and her husband for two years since meeting them at a firefighter recruitment drive in Maysville.

Speaking about Morphew, he said: ‘It’s tough for him. Right now, as far as communications, he doesn’t have his phone – it’s being relayed through firefighters and that’s how we’re getting information.

‘He’s been trying to keep busy – he can’t sit still and keep hoping something will show up.’

Stehle added: ‘Her family’s wonderful, her daughters are wonderful. It’s really sad that something like this has come to such a good family.

‘Unfortunately, now the girls feel partly to blame because if they hadn’t taken their trip, maybe they would have been there and she wouldn’t have gone out.’ 

Barry’s uncle told Fox21 that he believes his nephew is innocent, saying: ‘They’re a loving couple and I’ve never seen any kind of unhappiness with each other or produced by either one of them.

‘What you saw on that video from Barry the other day that’s exactly Barry and that’s exactly how he feels. He loves her and he wants her back, he wasn’t putting on. 

‘I think anybody that ever knew them at any point in their married life would tell you that they were as loving of a couple as you would find anywhere.’ 

Source: dailymail US