The husband of US woman Suzanne Morphew, whose remains were discovered over three years after she was reported missing on Mother’s Day 2020, was arrested again Friday on a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.
Barry Morphew was arrested on Friday in Arizona after a Colorado grand jury returned an indictment Wednesday, three years after the initial case was dropped because of prosecutorial issues with evidence.
His bond was set at US$3 million, cash only, according to court documents.
The 12th District Attorney’s office said in a statement that it is seeking to bring him back to Colorado.
District Attorney Anne Kelly declined to elaborate beyond the indictment at a news conference, saying only that her office never gave up on getting justice for Suzanne Morphew.
“We have worked very hard to move forward in this case,” Kelly said.
A 2024 autopsy report said Suzanne Morphew died of “unspecified means” but ruled it a homicide.
While there was no indication of trauma in her remains, a drug cocktail used to tranquilise wildlife was found in one of her bones, the report said.
A tranquiliser gun and accessories were found in the Morphews’ home, according to investigators.
Barry Morphew has maintained his innocence since his wife disappeared, and his attorney David Beller blasted the new indictment.
“Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence,” Beller said in a statement.
“Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed, and the outcome will not either.”
The first case was dropped in 2022
Morphew was first charged with murder in May 2021, but prosecutors dropped that case the following year just as Morphew was about to stand trial.
A judge barred prosecutors from calling key witnesses for repeatedly failing to follow rules for turning over evidence in Morphew’s favor.
That included DNA from an unknown male that was found in Suzanne Morphew’s SUV.
At the time, prosecutors said they wanted more time to find her body.
The judge agreed to drop the case against Morphew but allowed prosecutors the option of filing charges against him later.
Barry Morphew filed a US$15 million lawsuit against county officials, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights.
His lawyers also filed a complaint asking that the prosecutors be disciplined for allegedly intentionally withholding evidence.
Iris Eytan, who was Morphew’s attorney in 2021 but no longer represents him, said prosecutors “fumbled” the case.
“Not only is he is a loving father, but he was a loving husband,” Eytan told The Associated Press on Friday.
The previous district attorney who oversaw Morphew’s prosecution, Linda Stanley, was ordered disbarred partially because of her mismanagement of the case.
Stanley, then-prosecutor in the 11th District where the Morphews lived, made inappropriate comments about the case to the media, a state regulatory panel concluded.
Suzanne Morphew disappeared on Mother’s Day
The mystery surrounding Suzanne Morphew began when the 49-year-old mother of two daughters, who lived near the small town of Salida, was reported missing on Mother’s Day 2020.
Suzanne Morphew’s mountain bike and helmet were found in separate spots not far from her home, but investigators suspected the bike had been purposefully thrown down into a ravine because there was no indications of a crash.
A week after she went missing, Barry Morphew posted a video on Facebook pleading for her safe return.
“No questions asked, however much they want, I will do whatever it takes to get you back,” he said.
When he was initially charged, the arrest affidavit laying out investigators’ case against Barry Morphew said his wife insisted on leaving him. He later changed his statements as evidence developed.
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.
