CHAFFEE COUNTY, Colo. — Barry Morphew posted a $500,000 cash bond and was released from jail Monday as the affidavit for his arrest, which details the allegations into why he was arrested for the murder of his wife, was released to the public.
The affidavit details the months-long investigation into Mother’s Day 2020 disappearance of Suzanne Morphew from her home in Chaffee County and numerous interviews with Barry Morphew, her husband, conducted over the past year and a half by investigators.
Barry Morphew faces first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the case.
The affidavit contains some new details not previously discussed during the four-day preliminary hearing held in August, and over its 130 pages details why local, state and federal investigators believe Barry Morphew killed his wife and arrested him on charges of first-degree murder in early May — nearly a year after Suzanne Morphew was last seen alive. He also faces charges of tampering with physical evidence, attempting to influence a public servant,tampering with a deceased human body, and possession of a dangerous weapon. In a separate case, he wascharged with forgery after he allegedly submitted a mail ballot in his wife's name in last year's election. Suzanne Morphew’s body has not been found as of Monday morning.
Barry Morphew posted bond and was released from the Chaffee County jail on Monday. A judge in the case ruled Friday there was enough evidence to continue the case forward to trial, but not enough to hold Barry Morphew without bond, setting his bond at $500,000 cash.
The affidavit says Barry Morphew “took steps to control her, incapacitate her, stage a crime scene and create his alibi for her disappearance” in the days leading up to her alleged death on either May 9 or 10. Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on May 10, 2020.
In the affidavit, 11th Judicial District Attorney’s Office Chief Investigator Alex Walker IV wrote that Barry Morphew fabricated stories to fit into evidence that investigators told him about throughout a series of interviews over the year after his wife’s disappearance.
On the afternoon of May 9, investigators allege, as Suzanne Morphew was messaging with Jeff Libler, the man with whom she had been having a multi-year affair, Barry Morphew got back to their home and is thought by investigators to have used a tranquilizer dart to incapacitate Suzanne Morphew around 2:44 p.m.
His phone records showed him running around their house at that time, and his phone went into airplane mode 3 minutes later and did not come out of it for nearly eight hours.
The affidavit details the accounts Barry Morphew gave local, state and federal investigators -- that he and Suzanne Morphew ate steaks that night, that she washed their daughter’s sheets, and that they had sex that night before Barry Morphew awoke the next morning around 4:30 a.m. to go to a job site in Broomfield.
But it also pushes back against those narratives -- saying that Barry Morphew could not describe the steaks they ate, that the daughter had said her bed was made, that Barry Morphew could not describe what he and Suzanne Morphew apparently did after sex, and that no alarm had been st on his phone early the next morning. Phone and truck records also showed he was moving in the 3 a.m. hour.
The affidavit also worked to poke holes in other parts of Barry Morphew’s stories — about chasing chipmunks around the house and shooting them at the same time that his phone went on airplane mode, about why a tranquilizer dart sheath was found in their dryer, and about why he turned up Highway 50 in Chaffee County on the morning of May 10 and ended up near where Suzanne Morphew’s bike helmet was found when he was supposed to be heading in the other direction toward Broomfield. Barry Morphew claimed he was tracking an elk whose antler sheds he wanted to find.
It details Barry Morphew’s recounting of the last time he saw his wife — out of the corner of his eye, allegedly snoring in their bedroom as he got ready for work the morning of the 10th. But Walker, the district attorney’s office investigator, wrote in the affidavit that did not add up either.
“Barry cannot provide a last sighting of Suzanne Morphew, only labored breathing similar to a snore, which is consistent with being tranquilized. Barry describes her as being drunk that afternoon, which matches the effects of the tranquilizer after a few minutes. He says he is running around the house, most likely chasing Suzanne Morphew while she is conscious,” Walker wrote in the affidavit.
“...By around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 9th, it had become clear that Barry could not control Suzanne’s insistence of leaving him and he resorted to something he has done his entire life — hunt and control Suzanne like he had hunted and controlled animals.”
The affidavit says that Barry Morphew tried to blame his wife’s growing distance from him on alcohol, drugs and chemotherapy and blamed God for her death after being told of her affair.
“Barry told FBI and CBI numerous times, ‘No evidence exists,’ which infers he knows what happened to the evidence in this case,” Walker wrote.
He went on to say that Barry Morphew’s alibi on the day that Suzanne Morphew was reported missing did not match up between his stays at a hotel room and his being at a job site, and details numerous trash dumps he made along the way on May 10. The affidavit says that investigators believe Barry Morphew already knew what had happened to his wife.
“Barry made very little attempt to contact Suzanne on his way home, or look around his house or the bike scene because he already knew what happened to her,” Walker wrote in the affidavit.
Additionally, according to the affidavit, investigators allege that Barry Morphew may have staged his wife’s bike on a nearby hill -- noting both that most of her personal belongings were still discovered in her car and that a Chaffee County sheriff’s deputy said he had “started to question if something criminal had occurred as it looked like the bike was purposely thrown in this location.”
Breakdown of the Barry Morphew arrest affidavit
The affidavit claims that Barry Morphew took steps to conceal Suzanne Morphew’s murder in the days afterward and his statements about his actions in the days before and after the murder “have proven to be false and misleading by this investigation.”
Suzanne Morphew was seeking to separate or divorce Barry Morphew in January 2020, the affidavit read, and told family and close friends about her intentions.
However, when investigators talked to him, he initially said their marriage was perfect and she didn’t have any desire to leave according to the affidavit.
“Barry knowingly destroyed evidence that his relationship with Suzanne was deteriorating and that he was involved in her disappearance and homicide,” it reads.
On May 10, 2020, the same day she was reported missing, investigators would find her bicycle. It didn't show signs of an animal attack, or indicated that she had run away, killed herself, or was abducted by a stranger, the affidavit says.
The document reads that based on legal supposition and lack of proof of life, Suzanne Morphew has died.
Background on case
The Morphew family moved to Colorado from Indiana in April 2018.
Within a month or so, Suzanne Morphew had reached out to Jeff Libler, a friend from high school with whom she would go on to have an affair. He lived in Michigan as of that time.
The two ended up meeting in 2019 in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Dallas, Michigan and Florida.
The affidavit reads that by September 2019, “Barry took clear steps to determine if Suzanne was having an affair by stalking her at her own residence” in Salida, according to Sheila Oliver, a close friend of Suzanne Morphew. In January 2019, Barry Morphew took Suzanne Morphew’s phone but couldn’t identify who Libler was.
In May 2020, Suzanne Morphew saved a note on her phone where she said Barry Morphew accused her of having a boyfriend on May 6, 2020. Three days later around 2 p.m., she sent a selfie to Libler — the last proof she was alive. She did not respond to his messages at 2:44 p.m. or 2:46 p.m. that day, which was around the same time Barry Morphew put his phone on airplane mode and claimed he was running around the property with a gun, according to the affidavit.
According to data collected from Barry Morphew’s truck and cell phone, and statements to authorities, investigators believed “that from 2:47 p.m. on May 9, 2020 until 5:37 a.m. on May 10, 2020, he took steps to dispose of evidence in Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance and death, create a false alibi for himself and sage a crime scene,” the affidavit reads.
Since his initial interviews with authorities, Barry Morphew has changed his story — and critical details — several times to match the evidence, according to the affidavit.
Initial investigation into Suzanne Morphew's disappearance
At 5:58 p.m. on May 10, 2020, Damon Brown, a deputy with the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, received a call to contact a man who had called to report that his neighbor was possibly a missing person. Dispatch told Brown that Suzanne Morphew’s husband was driving back from Denver and did not have cell service, but he was actually at a hotel in Broomfield, where there was service, the affidavit reads.
The neighbor said one of Suzanne Morphew’s daughters, who was in college, had contacted him because she couldn't reach her mother and wanted him to check on her. The neighbor’s wife looked around the residence, but didn’t find Suzanne Morphew, so the neighbor called Barry Morphew, who said he couldn’t reach Suzanne either and asked the neighbor to call 911.
Deputy Brown contacted Barry Morphew at 7:10 p.m. and Barry explained he had last seen his wife at their home at 5 a.m. that morning and that she had been sleeping. He also said Suzanne Morphew had become an avid mountain biker and described the color of her helmet. He provided her cell phone number to Brown.
He told Chaffee County Sgt. Lamine Mullenax that she typically leaves between 8 and 9 a.m.
Around 7:31 p.m., Deputy Brown and Mullenax drove to the Morphew home and followed the route they believed Suzanne Morphew took that morning along County Road 225. They spotted a blue mountain bike near a ravine closer to the bottom of a hill. It didn’t have evidence of a crash — the bike was not damaged and the dirt of the road didn’t show any skid marks.
Brown noted in his report that after seeing where the bike was, he started to question if anything criminal had occurred, since it appeared the bike had been purposefully thrown in that spot.
The two called for Suzanne Morphew as they walked around the area.
They learned her cell phone had last pinged at 4:23 a.m. that morning about 11.5 miles west of a cell tower in Poncha Springs.
At 8:42 a.m., Barry Morphew arrived to where investigators were waiting with the bicycle and confirmed it belonged to Suzanne Morphew.
At the Morphew home, Brown found the house “well-kept and orderly,” with the exception of a stripped bed in one of the daughters' rooms, the affidavit reads. In the main bedroom, he found one .22-caliber round of ammunition (unfired) on the floor and a rifle storage case under the bed. In the garage, Brown found two SUVs, one of which belonged to Suzanne Morphew. The inside of her car had several items, including her Camelbak, spa chemicals and a jacket. In a search of Barry Morphew’s vehicle, investigators said it was cluttered with personal belongings and was dusty and dirty, which conflicts with his later statements about driving to Broomfield to clean his truck, according to the affidavit.
The home had surveillance cameras on its exterior that would show anybody coming into or leaving the home.
Barry Morphew was brought into the home around 9:37 p.m. to point out a piece of Suzanne Morphew’s clothing for search dogs to use.
Deputy Brown was also told that there were barefoot marks inside the bucket of a Bobcat skid-steer loader and found the cutting blade of the bucket appeared “to be newly replaced, along with the nuts and bolts.”
In her report, Chaffee County Sgt. Claudette Hysjulien said she learned that the Morphew parents argued frequently. She also learned that texts wishing Suzanne Morphew a happy Mother’s Day were not answered. After talking with others, Hysjulien said she learned Suzanne Morphew typically rides in the afternoon and brings her cell phone, sunglasses and blue hydration pack.
In an interview with one of the Morphew daughters, Hysjulien said she learned the couple argued often and the daughter feared they would divorce and that it was for the best for them to separate. One of the daughters also told Hysjulien that Suzanne Morphew would never leave her, and if she did, she would have reached out to her daughters to let them know she was OK, according to the affidavit.
Three days after Suzanne Morphew was reported missing, authorities found what they believed was her helmet about 0.84 miles northwest of where the bike was and 1.52 miles from the Morphew home.
FBI, CBI interviews with Barry and searches of Morphew home
On May 11, 2020, Barry Morphew was interviewed by the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office about Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance.
He told the investigators that he had left the home around 5 a.m. on May 10 to drive to Broomfield for a construction job, and Suzanne Morphew was still asleep. He said he texted Suzanne Morphew to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and did not get a response, but noted the cell service in the home was poor. A follow-up text also went unanswered, he said, according to the affidavit. He said she planned to clean the house on May 10 and get a spare bedroom ready for their two daughters and possibly their friend.
He specified his route to Broomfield and never stated he turned west on Highway 50, toward where Suzanne Morphew’s helmet was found.
Barry Morphew told the investigators that his firearms and ammunition are stored in a locked gun safe. However, law enforcement found two firearms unlocked and in the home on May 11.
After authorities obtained a search warrant, they began to scour through the home. They found “what appeared to be suspect blood” on the apron of the garage. They also looked into a Bobcat skid-steer loader in the driveway on the west side of the house. A trailer was next to it. Authorities determined the Bobcat’s bucket had been recently replaced, as it had no wear and tear.
Barry Morphew was interviewed again on May 13, 2020. He confirmed he is the owner of Sunset Farms, LLC, a landscaping company and works as a subcontractor for Diesslin Structures, Inc., a general contracting company, both based in Salida. He’s also a volunteer firefighter with the Chaffee County Fire District. While Suzanne Morphew was not employed, she’d do invoicing work for Sunset Farms, he told authorities.
He said on May 9, 2020, he worked on a job site in Salida and when he came home, they had “one of the best nights we’ve had in a while actually,” according to the affidavit. They went to bed around 8 p.m.
Barry Morphew said he woke up at 4:30 a.m. to head to a job site in Broomfield, saw Suzanne sleeping, and left the house by 5 a.m., taking Highway 50 to Highway 285 to E-470, I-76 and then US 36. He checked in at a Holiday Inn, rested after the drive, and then went to the worksite. Hee told authorities he went back and forth between the site and the hotel, and stopped at a Mcdonald's to clean his windshield.
He then explained the unanswered Mother’s Day texts and how he drove straight home around 5 p.m.
He told investigators that sometimes when Suzanne Morphew would consume alcohol, they would argue and she would become “hateful,” according to the affidavit.
He denied any physical abuse.
Throughout this May 13 interview, he asked several times why he had not been cleared. He was denied a polygraph examination. He told a CBI agent that scratches on his arm seen in the interview were from a tree while they were hiking.
In a May 21 interview with CBI, Barry Morphew started by saying, “I just wish that you knew how amazing she was,” and the investigators noted his use of past tense.
He said on the evening of May 9, they ate grilled steaks and didn’t use their phones much, if at all.
Contradictory to his previous interview, he said he woke up on his own at 4:30 a.m. — without an alarm — on May 10, according to the affidavit.
On May 28, Barry Morphew was interviewed a third time. This was about 10 days after authorities found a tranquilizer dart cap in the dryer of the Morphew home. Barry Morphew said he uses darts to tranquilize bucks and sell them. He said he had never used the tranquilizer or darts in Colorado.
In a June 2 interview with CBI, Barry Morphew agreed with investigators that it seemed unlikely that Suzanne Morphew was missing due to an animal attack or accident. He said he thought she may have been abducted. A Special Agent told Barry Morphew that based on the time and location that Suzanne Morphew had been riding her bike, as well as other factors in her life, this seemed like an “intimate partner homicide,” to which Barry Morphew did not object.
When asked when he last saw his wife, his story changed again — he told authorities he had not seen Suzanne Morphew on the morning of May 10, despite describing her sleep clothes in a previous statement.
He was also interviewed on June 3 and June 17.
On the 17th, Barry Morphew told CBI in an interview that Suzanne Morphew had started using THC/CBD edibles and oils, and provided a name for a person in Westcliffe who sold her drugs “off the street,” adding that that person was a viable suspect, according to the affidavit.
On June 25, Barry Morphew provided CBI investigators with the person’s contact information in Westcliffe. In this interview, he also suggested that Suzanne Morphew’s family, the Moormans, were “involved in marijuana” and may be responsible for her disappearance. He suggested that when people are guilty, they point fingers at others.
He claimed the data from his truck and phone would match what he said in his interviews.
At some point in this interview, he also said, “they (women) give us sex. That’s all we ever want or need.”
In a July 8 interview, he said he remembers traveling between the Brookfield hotel and worksite, plus a stop at a McDonald’s, but didn’t recall going anywhere else. He also stated that he didn’t recall Suzanne Morphew ever texting him, “I’m done.”
In regards to the steak cooked on the evening of May 9, Barry Morphew stated they ate off separate plates. A CBI agent said there was only one plate in the dishwasher and Barry Morphew said he must have hand-washed his.
In multiple interviews between late January and late April of this year, FBI agents repeatedly talked with Barry Morphew about the case and worked to pin down details about what he had previously told investigators. His story changed numerous times, according to the affidavit.
On Jan 27, 2021, Barry Morphew told the FBI in an interview that Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance might be a “form of God’s judgement for the affair,” according to the affidavit. He said he had not heard of the affair before and wanted to know who the other man was.
“I had no idea they were communicating,” he said in the interview “And if, if you guys are trying to tell me that I found out about thighs and did something, that’s completely wrong.” He continued: “And as soon as they find out, they’re gonna say, ‘Old hot head Barry found out and killed is wife.’”
He said Suzanne Morphew was insecure and always thought he was the one cheating.
He once again claimed that nothing abnormal happened on Saturday, May 10, 2020.
Suzanne Morphew started asking about Libler, with whom his wife was having an affair, in the Jan. 28 interview, and at that point still said he was bothered by Libler telling investigators he wondered if their affair had “caused her homicide” because he did not believe there was evidence that Suzanne Morphew was dead.
“That’s very troubling to me,” he said.
By the end of February, Barry Morphew had “significantly” changed his prior accounts to match evidence that had been provided to him, according to the affidavit. A footnote for the affidavit said by that point, Barry Morphew had claimed at least 13 times that he had no idea about the affair prior to Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance, which investigators said contradicted previous statements he had made to the FBI and actions he had made in 2019 to find out who she was seeing on numerous trips, including to New Orleans, Florida and Indiana.
In a March 1 interview, Barry Morphew asked investigators for immunity and again claimed there was no evidence and said Suzanne Morphew had “made him a monster and things ‘just blew up.’” When asked why he wanted immunity, he told investigators, “I think in case somebody falsely convicts me or something.”
When FBI agents asked Barry Morphew why he stopped searching for this wife after 3-5 months, he told them he felt like she was gone, that somebody had taken her and left the area, and then that he believed her body was in the nearby river.
As to Barry Morphew’s claims he had been following elk up the wrong direction of Highway 50 the morning she was reported missing, investigators wrote that the intersection of Highway 225 and Highway 50 to Garfield, at more than 2 ½ miles, was “an impossible distance to see an elk at or around 4:32 a.m. and follow it in a short period of time.”
The investigators also uncovered that Barry Morphew had “articulated numerous times he has considered suicide, has liquidated his assets and plans to leave town.” At one point, Barry Morphew told investigators he sometimes shoots his tranquilizer darts at animals through a breezeway in the home that was directly next to where Suzanne Morphew was sunbathing and messaging with Libler around 2:44 a.m. on May 9, 2020. She would not talk to him again after that.
Barry Morphew claimed that perhaps Suzanne Morphew had taken his phone off airplane mode that ight in the 10 p.m. hour, but an FBI agent said that would have been odd because her phone showed no more activity. He also made contradictory statements to the FBI about whether or not he had told his daughters about Suzanne Morphew’s affair, according to the affidavit.
During an April 22, 2021, audit of the case and Barry Morphew’s statements, he agreed that evidence in the case made him look bad. He also said, “I don’t recall,” to numerous questions, which agents took to believe was a phrase he used when he was lying.
At one point in the audit, he told investigators he would have written Suzanne Morphew a check “for half and let her on her way” if she had pushed for a divorce, which investigators said contradicted text messages he had sent to Suzanne in which he threatened suicide.
When an FBI agent told Barry Morphew it was impossible that Suzanne Morphew would not have been using her phone to communicate on the afternoon and evening of May 9, and into the morning of May 10, had she been conscious, Barry Morphew said, “Yeah,” then shrugged his shoulders and looked down, the affidavit said.
A retired Colorado Parks and Wildlife field veterinarian with decades of experience told investigators that a sedative solution Barry Morphew had discussed using could have caused complete sedation of a human within minutes-to-hours and would have made a person make a noise that “sounds like a snore,” depending on their body position, and could also cause brain damage or death.
The affidavit also details an alleged intimate relationship Barry Morphew was having following his wife’s disappearance, which the woman denied. But investigators also wrote she deleted things from her phone in front of investigators and “was evasive in answering questions.”
Numerous Salida residents reported that the woman and Barry Morphew were having a relationship, and an FBI camera installed near her home captured his truck “consistently coming and going from [the woman’s] residence, often between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., sometimes staying through the night.”
The two were also found to have checked into a hotel in Colorado Springs on Feb. 12 of this year and checked out on Valentine’s Day, with Barry Morphew carrying her luggage and the woman holding a bouquet of flowers. His cell phone was either off or in airplane mode for the “majority” of the trip, investigators said.
Friends, family of Suzanne Morphew's describe her attempts to leave
To learn more about Suzanne Morphew’s efforts to separate from her husband, investigators spoke with her friend, Sheila Oliver, who lives in Indiana.
Oliver said she had constant communication with Suzanne Morphew until May 9 and became worried after Suzanne did not respond to three messages that day.
Oliver provided authorities with various text conversations with Suzanne Morphew. In a discussion from March 25, 2020, Suzanne sent her texts that read, “He won’t speak of divorce. Begging for another chance. I’m so torn. But I’m (sic) my heart I know who he is.”
Oliver told detectives that she became so worried she bought Suzanne Morphew a spy pen designed to record conversations.
Melinda Baumunk, Suzanne Morphew’s sister who lives in Tennessee, spoke with an FBI Special Agent about her concerns, detailing how Suzanne had said things were “getting tense” between her and Barry Morphew and that they were putting up a front that they were happy.
“Baumunk described Barry as one who lives a double life, a liar, an adulterer, a bully, one that has to have control, cunning, ‘fools a lot of people,’ loves money, and treats his wife and daughters as trophies,” according to the affidavit.
She showed the FBI a text Suzanne Morphew had sent her on May 8, 2020 at 9:28 a.m. that read: “It’s hard dealing with the harsh abrasiveness and having to show respect. He’s been abusive, emotionally and physically. There’s so much… I went thru a period of acceptance and I feel more angry now. Anger at what I’ve allowed.”
Baumunk said she had not discussed abuse with Suzanne Morphew before, but knew Suzanne had been submissive to Barry Morphew for a long time.
Suzanne Morphew described her own reasoning and attempts to leave Barry Morphew on her phone. Some of the excerpts read:
- “Phys abuse”
- “Mental abuse while drinking NYE - name-calling/said I only need for $”
- “Lies about deer - pants unzipped”
- “Stalking Sheila and me in house without telling:
- “Took phone”
- “Not safe with you. Can’t be trusted”
- “Slam on brakes when angry”
- “Gun”
- “Shame and guilt for not meeting expectations”
- “Nothing to do with infidelity - everything to do with your character and who U are at core”
- “Your lack of control over me = insecurities = a sick relationship”
- “Wiring money from inv acct without asking or discussing”
- “Hot tub talking to self?”
During the investigation, authorities found a deleted text from Suzanne Morphew to Barry Morphew on his phone, which read, “I’m done. I could care less what you’re up to have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly.” The text was sent on May 6, 2020.
Discovery of Jeff Libler
Once investigators discovered an affair between Suzanne Morphew and a man named Jeff, they spent months tracking down who the man was. On Nov. 4, 2020, they were able to identify Jeff Libler and interviewed him on the phone.
According to Libler, when he found out Suzanne Morphew was missing, he figured “there’s no way she’s alive,” the affidavit reads. While not proud of not coming forward, he said he has a wife and six kids, and was afraid he would lose his job and didn’t want the Morphew daughters to find out about the affair.
He was interviewed again on Nov. 13, 2020, where he called his own actions “disgraceful,” but described how the two built their relationship over various social media channels. They met up several times out of state, according to the affidavit.
“Here’s what she told me about her relationship with Barry: not good, lot of fights, very argumentative. Um, felt like it was horrible for her health, mentally,” Libler said.
He said Suzanne Morphew told him Barry Morphew would never hurt her — “He’s learned,” she told Libler — which he took to mean that something had happened previously.
Libler said they loved one another and called each other “soul mates,” according to the affidavit. He thought she might separate from Barry Morphew in February 2020, but knew she wanted to wait until her youngest daughter graduated. Libler said Barry did not want a divorce because, in Suzanne Morphew’s words, “He wants everything to look perfect on the outside,” the affidavit reads.
When he learned she had disappeared, he said he believed Barry Morphew had found out about the affair and snapped, or she had told him she was leaving him.
Libler gave authority consent for his DNA and logins for his social media accounts.
Libler’s messages to Suzanne Morphew from May 7-11 were from Michigan and his credit card charges from those days lined up with a dock project he had previously told Suzanne Morphew, and investigators in the interview, about.
Collected evidence
Authorities have gathered various pieces of evidence since Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance.
Below are the highlights, which are explained in more detail in the arrest affidavit:
- Tire impressions near where Suzanne Morphew’s helmet was found
- Telematic data from Barry Morphew’s Ford F350
- Search of Morphew home
- Spy pen recording of conversation with Jeff Libler
- Spy pen recording of argument with Barry Morphew
- Tranquilizer dart box and cap
- Search of County Road 105 on May 22, 2020 (where Barry Morphew had been conducting earth work since April 2020. There was no evidence of Suzanne Morphew)
- Facebook business record for Suzanne Morphew (out-of-the-norm number of friend requests from Suzanne for 23 people)
- Range Rovers and telematic data
- Barry Morphew’s cell records (deleting calls from Suzanne Morphew; all 11 calls between Barry and Suzanne Morphew came from Barry May 8-10; deleted messages, including one from Suzanne that read, “Oh I’m sure your mistress has you all happy now so you can say you love me but bully me when you’re with me...yeah that’s love”)
- Surveillance video in Broomfield
- Suzanne Morphew’s iPhone and iCloud accounts
- Suzanne Morphew’s Verizon account
- Suzanne Morphew’s Instagram account (she documented her rides)
- K-9 search of the Morphew home (three dogs alerted to Bobcat Skid Steer, but the machine does not appear to be connected to her disappearance)
- Morphew bank accounts
- FBI proof of life searches
- CBI lab results (no workable DNA recovered from the Bobcat, dart box, or dryer)
- Barry Morphew’s liquidation of assets (within a month of Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance)
The affidavit also details interviews with multiple people, including individuals who worked alongside Barry Morphew, Suzanne Morphew’s friends, Barry friends, Suzanne’s father, Suzanne’s brother, the man Barry accused Suzanne of buying THC/CBD from in Westcliffe, and mutual friends from church.
One of Barry Morphew’s coworkers told CBI that he said he could bury a body and it would never be found.
Looking ahead
Judge Murphy said Barry Morphew will need to surrender his passport and cannot travel or reside outside of Chaffee County. He is required to wear an ankle monitor. He pleaded not guilty and waived a speedy trial.
On Friday, Judge Murphy said Barry Morphew's trial is scheduled for May 3-June 1, 2022.
KMGH covered each day of Barry Morphew's four-day preliminary hearing. To learn about the court discussions in depth, click to read day one here, day two here, day three here, and day four here.
This story was originally published by Stephanie Butzer and Blair Miller at KMGH.
