DENVER — (AP) — The husband of a woman whose remains were discovered over three years after she was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020 has arrived in Colorado to face a first-degree murder charge in her death for a second time.
Barry Morphew was being held in the small city of Alamosa on Monday, 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne E. Kelly said in a statement.
Morphew was arrested June 20 in Arizona after being newly indicted in the death of Suzanne Morphew, three years after the initial case against him was dropped because of prosecutorial issues with evidence. He waived his right to challenge his extradition and has been waiting to be transported from a jail in Phoenix to Colorado.
Morphew is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Colorado in the new case on Tuesday afternoon, Kelly said.
A 2024 autopsy report said Suzanne Morphew died of “unspecified means” but ruled her death a homicide. While her remains showed no signs of trauma, investigators found in her bone marrow a drug cocktail used to tranquilize wildlife that her husband had a prescription for, according to the indictment.
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 at the time. “Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed, and the outcome will not either.”
Beller didn't immediately return an email or a telephone message seeking comment on Monday.
The mystery surrounding Suzanne Morphew began when the 49-year-old mother of two daughters, who lived near the small mountain community of Salida, Colorado, was reported missing on Mother’s Day 2020.
Her mountain bike and helmet were found in separate spots not far from her home, but investigators suspected the bike was purposefully thrown into a ravine because there were no indications of a crash. A week after his wife went missing, Barry Morphew posted a video on Facebook pleading for her safe return and the case quickly drew attention.
In May 2021, prosecutors charged him with murder. They dropped the case the following year just as Morphew was about to stand trial.
A judge had barred prosecutors from calling key witnesses after the attorneys repeatedly failed to follow rules for turning over evidence in Morphew’s favor.
The judge allowed prosecutors the option of filing charges against Morphew later.
Barry Morphew had filed a $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.
The district attorney who prosecuted him the first time, Linda Stanley, was later ordered disbarred by regulators who found she mismanaged the case and made unethical comments to the media about it and other cases.
Suzanne Morphew's body was not found until September 2023, when Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents stumbled upon her skeletal remains in a shallow grave during an unrelated search near the small southern Colorado town of Moffat, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of the Morphews’ home.
The majority of Suzanne Morphew’s bones were recovered and many were significantly bleached, according to the indictment.
Investigators found at the site a port through which Suzanne Morphew could receive medicine to treat follicular lymphoma, a type of blood cancer that she had. They also found biking clothes similar to what she was known to wear.
Based on the condition of the remains and clothes, a forensic anthropologist theorized that the body likely decomposed elsewhere, the indictment said, before being moved to the site.
Toxicology testing revealed that three drugs found in a sedative used for wildlife called “BAM” were in her bone marrow.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of death was “homicide by unspecified means” through intoxication of the three drugs, butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine.
Barry Morphew obtained and filled several prescriptions for BAM while living in Indiana, shortly before the Morphews moved to Colorado in 2018. He was a deer farmer in Indiana and allegedly told investigators he used BAM to tranquilize deer in Indiana and Colorado, according to the indictment.
In the area surrounding their home, 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.
“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.
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This version corrects that Morphew's attorney spoke about indictment June 20, not last week.
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