July 8, 2025 • 42 mins
A Colorado husband and father arrested again in connection with the murder of his wife years after previous charges were dropped, a grand jury indicts Barry Morphew on first-degree murder.
In 2021, Morphew was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence after his wife, Suzanne, went missing on Mother's Day in 2020, but those charges were later dropped before his trial date and a year before Suzanne's remains were found.
Suzanne Morphew, 49, was last seen on Mother's Day, May 10, 2020, in Maysville, Colorado, after leaving her home for a bike ride. Later that evening, Suzanne's mountain bike is found near the home, and her helmet is found in a different location nearby a few days later.
A massive search for Suzanne spans over a three-year period until her remains are uncovered in a shallow grave in Saguache just a few hundred feet down a dirt road, the indictment states. An autopsy report states drugs typically used to tranquilize animals were found in her system.
Morphew was all smiles at his court appearance.
Join Nancy Grace to unfold what's next for Barry Morphew.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Tisha Leewaye- Friend of Suzanne Morphew
- Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst, Author: “Deal Breaker,” and featured in hit show “Paris in Love” on Peacock; Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive
- Chris McDonough – Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective [worked over 300 Homicides in 25-year career], Trained the First Native American Homicide Task Force; Host of YouTube channel, “The Interview Room”
- Dr. Thomas Coyne – Chief Medical Examiner, District 2 Medical Examiner’s Office, State of Florida; Forensic Pathologist, Neuropathologist, Toxicologist; X: @DrTMCoyne
- Derek Smith - Criminal Defense Attorney, website: dwsmithlegal.com
- Dave Mack - Crime Stories Investigative Reporter
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace bombshell and a stunning twist.
Barry Morphew is charged again and the murder of his wife,
Suzanne Morphew.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I spent days.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Tramping around the entire area and realized very quickly how
difficult it would.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Be to find Suzanne Morphew's remains. But guess what.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They were found in a remote area, and those remains
really crack this case wide open. Take a listen to
Anne Kelly, District Attorney, twelve Judicial District.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on Mother's Day five years ago.
Law enforcement has never stopped working to obtain justice for
this mother of two, this daughter, this sister, and this
beloved member of the Chaffey County community. Through the tireless
(01:07):
efforts of the Chaffey County Sheriff's Office, the Sawatch County
Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, I can announce today that the twelfth
Judicial District Grand Jury returned an indictment. The grand jury
has indicted Barry Morphew on the single count of murder
(01:31):
in the first degree.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Many of us thought this day may never come, but
held out hope for justice for Suzanne. As you will
all recall, he the husband Bary Morphew, had been indicted
before and the case was thrown out of court on
alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Now years have passed and the case
(01:56):
has been revived, brought back from the dead straight out
to a very special guest joining us is Tisha Leeway,
a very dear friend of Suzanne Morphew. Tisha is wonderful
to see you. I wondered if we would ever speak
on this occasion. Tell me your response, your reaction when
(02:21):
you learned Barry Morphew had finally been indicted a second
time in Suzanne's murder.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was shocked, Honestly.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I knew I was hoping that the day would come, obviously, but.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I didn't even know.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
I was working and my phone was just going crazy,
and then all of a sudden, I had to stop
and just look, and I honestly started crying because I
was so shocked and happy, and I mean, I'm glad
this day is finally came.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You stated that you always thought it would happen after
the first and night was thrown out for alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
Many people thought it never would that the case was
so tainted there was no way to get a grand
jury indictment or conviction.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Why did you always believe it would happen?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I just know that, you know, things work in mysterious ways,
and I feel like she deserves the justice, so I
think honestly, after they found her body in a different county,
I felt like we were in good hands, not that
Chafe County, you know, most of them, you know, are
(03:35):
worked with Swatch County anyway, But once the body was found,
obviously that gave us way bigger hopes, and then once
the autopsy came out, that was even bigger.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Titia Leeway, a very dear friend and confidante of Suzanne Morpheus,
what was your reaction when you realize when you first
realized that Suzanne was missing and couldn't be found.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What did you think?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
I just kind of just followed the news a little bit,
but you know, it was a little strange just the
way she went missing, so obviously I kind of thought
something else happened.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Guys, we are joined by an all star panel and
we are trying to make sense of what we are learning.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I want you to take a Listen to what happened
around the time.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Suzanne seemingly vanished into thin air, all alone in her
home on Mother's Day, and according to her husband, Barry Morphew,
she decided to go on a Mother's day by cride.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
After a missing person's report was called in by a neighbor,
investigators responded to the Morphew's residence. The house was locked,
Suzanne's vehicle was in the garage with no signs of
forest entry. Suzanne and her bicycle, we're missing. The bike
was found less than a mile from her home down
a hillside off a dirt road.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Joining me investigative reporter with crime stories Dave mac Dave mac.
We all flew out to the location and spent days
looking for evidence. Reviewing the location where her bike was found.
(05:26):
And I recall distinctly at the time that Barry Morphew
said his wife must have been eaten by wild animals.
I guess what. As she went by on the bike,
a wild animal just jump and attacked her. Mid Bi
cried and then dragged her body away. Her bike helmet
(05:51):
was found about a mile away. I guess the wild
predator dragged her her helmet a mile away, But then
that theory was scattered when her body was found in
another county. That's a long way for a mountain lion
to drag a dead body, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
Well, you know, Nancy, it's a long way for any
animal to carry a body. But to actually his theory
of the bobcat, he threw that out there right or
a mountain lion, he threw that out there right away.
And anybody in the area that knew anything about mountain
lions were like, no, that, they don't work like that.
There might be one out here somewhere, but they're not
(06:36):
going to do that. And when they found her remains, fancy,
if you remember, the remains that they found were bleached
and almost complete. You know, they found almost a complete
set of bones of her, and that's not common when
you find a body out in an area like where
she was found, it's very uncommon. They're usually parts of
(06:59):
the body because if wild animals get it, they carry
it away parts of it and they're all scattered. But
that didn't happen here.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now I'm looking back over what happened that morning, that
Mother's Day morning to doctor Bethany Marshall joining us renown
psychoanalyst out of the LA jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
She's the author of deal Breaker.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You can see her now on Peacock and you can
find her online at doctor Bethany Marshall dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Doctor Bethany.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Her daughters were camping on Mother's Day and they called
her relentlessly to talk to their mom on Mother's Day.
Interesting that prior to that weekend, Bary Moore for you,
according to reports, did not have a construction job planned.
(07:48):
But suddenly that morning, around I guess four o'clock in
the morning or so, he put together a crew for
an out of town job. It took off on Mother's
Day morning, leaving, according to him, his wife alone on
Mother's Day still asleep in bed.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Thoughts, Nancy, that's so suspicious. Who was pulled together a
crew at the last minute? And if he did, is
there a homeowner or a business owner who requested for
him to come in at the last minute. Perhaps they
had complaints about the plumbing or the tile or something
like that. I mean, I think we'd really want to
(08:30):
show that there was a reason that he would pull
together that crew. Secondarily, Nancy, mother's as you know, because
you have beautiful Lucy. They want to be in contact
with their children on Mother's Day. The fact that she
would not pick up the phone is very odd. I mean,
this was her reason for being in life, was to
(08:50):
be in contact with her children and Leslie. You know,
the idea that her bones were found so far away, bleached, preserved,
not eaten by animals, And the fact is that if
she had died of natural causes out in the out
in the wild, her body would have been scavenged. So
there's just so many things that are missing about this story.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know, I want to follow up on something that
you just said.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Joining me is doctor Thomas Coin, Chief Medical Examiner, District
to Medical Examiners Office, State of Florida. He is a
forensic pathologist, a toxicologist, and a neuropathologist and you can
find him on x at doctor tm coin. Doctor Coin,
thank you for being with us. What does it mean
that there was no hair attached to her body?
Speaker 8 (09:39):
Well, if she did die, or if her body was
placed outside and she decomposed outside, there would have.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
Been a hair mass.
Speaker 9 (09:49):
Not only a hair mass, you.
Speaker 8 (09:50):
Would have seen in the soil evidence of decomposition because
all of those body tissues, your body fluids had to
go somewhere as they begin to denature and liquefy, and
so you would have had, in conjunction with the skeleton,
you would have had her hair mass. You would have
also had evidence of decomposition or fluid, especially if she
was wearing clothing. The clothing I'm sure would have been tattered,
(10:11):
would have had evidence of decomposition, fluted or deco or
fluid within those tissues or clothing for that matter.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
We learn more about the discovery of her body. Listen.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
When Suzanne's body was found, the majority of her bleached
bones were recovered, along with a cancer port and items
of clothing matching bike clothing Suzanne was known to wear.
There was a lack of bug activity, inconsistent with the
remains decomposing where they were found. There was also a
lack of animal activity on the bones and no hair
mass found. These features would have been expected where the
(10:43):
body was found if it had been the original gravesite
where decomposition occurred.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Doctor Colin, when you refer to a hair mass, you're
referring to the hair that would have been on her head.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
It's correct, Yeah, it would have floffed off of her hand.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And understand again what that means that no hair mass
is found.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
What does that main sure?
Speaker 8 (11:01):
Well, if her body was left outside, she would have
decomposed outside, and that's a meal for bugs, for animals.
You would have had scavenging activity. Animals would have come in,
uh to sort of gain access to the tissue. They
would have walked away with certain body parts. But the
hair on the heads, as the tissue begins to decompose,
(11:21):
it sloths off of the skull, leaving that matted hair behind.
Very often that hair is full of waxy tissue, bugs, magus,
other types of tepey that may be president so it
forms almost like a matted massive hair and that would
have been present there with the skeleton.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So that means that's not where she decomposed originally. Is
that what you just said means absolutely?
Speaker 8 (11:45):
And also when you have bleached bleached skeleton like that,
a body that's outside weathers, so that body would those
bones would not be bleached. That tells me that more
than likely the body was kept somewhere else and then
placed there after it had become a skeleton.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Dave Mac, could you tell me about the area where
her remains were found? Her skeletal remains, Dave.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
Mac in a really remote area about forty miles south
of where her home was, down off of the Highway
seventeen down a dirt road off into a remote area
that is actually referred to as the boneyard. To a degree,
(12:28):
it's such a remote area that it wasn't someplace you
would just arbitrarily think of getting rid of a body.
It's something that was so remote and planned that it
would have had to have been thought out in advance
to figure out exactly where to place the remains so
that they would be out where you wouldn't just trip
(12:49):
over them on accident.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
In the last hours, Barry Morphew, now accused formally in
the murder of his wife Suzanne in court smiling, smiling
why Joining me is a renowned criminal defense attorney and
you can find him at his website DW Smith Legal
dot com.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Joining us is Derek Smith. Wow, that must have been
a really smart mountain lion to drag her body after.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
It soared through the air and attacked her and yanked
her off of her bike and then dragged her to
the next county to a known disposal site call the boneyard.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's some mountain lion. Derek Yeah, he seems.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
To have a good lay of the land too. I
guess if this boneyard is something.
Speaker 11 (13:40):
Of an area that has been used for this type
of purpose before, how did he get its name? You know,
it does seem a little a little questioning to me
when you're talking about the body is decomposed and it
has an outside agent on it, such as bleach or
something that it doesn't seem like that's going to come
from the animal kingdom.
Speaker 10 (13:58):
It seems like some kind of being of higher intelligen
was involved here.
Speaker 11 (14:01):
It doesn't necessarily mean it was somebody close to her, though,
it still could be a random act of violence in
a way of getting rid of the evidence in a
certain sensuation.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Like this, Derek, do you know how remote their home was?
Who's going to just drive by and see her? I
mean I practically had to hike to get to it
when I went out there looking.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's very remote, which in my mind reduces the likelihood
of stranger on stranger.
Speaker 11 (14:31):
Well, yeah, of course, you definitely have a smaller population
to go I guess and target if you're somebody looking
to do this, but that also could be part of it.
You want to go target somebody in a remote area
because you have some kind of fascination for them. I've
seen the pictures of this woman. She seemed she looked attractive.
It could have been appealing to somebody just passing by
or someone that shouldn't have been there in the first
lay way, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It could have been what wait, what did you just say?
She's attractive? So it could have been what it could.
Speaker 11 (14:55):
Have been just someone passing by and taking a look
at her and saying, you know what, I'm going to
take advantage of her being in a remote situation and
nobody being around, and I'm going to go end up doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
As oppose to her being really really ugly, I don't what,
because she's pretty, uh, stranger someone said, Wow, she's a looker,
let me kill her it.
Speaker 11 (15:15):
As to the likelihood that it could be somebody else dancing,
that's that's kind of what I'm trying to say here.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Okay, you know you're getting in trouble right now. You
got a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on
and you can't let go. So you're saying because she's attractive,
that ups the ante and the likelihood that it was
a stranger on stranger attack.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Somebody drives by and goes, wow, she's pretty Let me
kill her. Okay, you know what, Let's see what Derek
Smith has to say about this.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Investigators learned BAM was sold by only one company in
the United States and could only be obtained by prescription
from a veterinarian, Very Moore. Few filled several prescriptions for BAM. Ultimately,
the prescription record show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only
one private citizen living in the entire state had access
to BAM, Barry Morphew.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Okay, did you hear that, Derek?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Only one person and the whole state had beut orphenol BAM,
b brother, a alpha M mother beutorphenol, and two others
one person in the whole state at her remains were
saturated with it. And lo and behold, Barry Morphew is
(16:30):
the only person in the state.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
That hasn't.
Speaker 11 (16:36):
So is this something that can't be acquired by anybody
else out of the state. I mean, think you'd be
foolish enough to use something that he knows? Is this
strictly regulated? You know, there's plenty of other states, other
people that can have access to these things, and it
seems like it's a pretty good agent to incapacitate a victim,
So it seemed like you'd be a pretty good cocktail
to use if you're going to target somebody.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You know what, you really are amazing how you just
you get damning evidence.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You're like runpel stillsk and I don't know if you're
familiar with that story. He gets straw, moldy, damn yucky
straw that's been stored in a barn, gotten wet, and
he spins it into gold. That's amazing what you just
did there. But let's go to a veteran homicide detective
joining us. Not a hired gun, no offense, Derek, but
(17:26):
you are your higher gun. If you get paid enough money,
you'll defend anything. And let me be clear, Derek Smith
has one a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Doing what he just did right in front of you.
I threw a whole.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Bell of wet, smelly hay at him and he spun
it into gold. Joining me right now is Chris mcdonna.
He is the director at the Cold Case Foundation, former
homicide detective, around three hundred death investigations under his belt,
and he's the star of the interview Room on YouTube.
Chris mcdona, try to wipe everything that Derek.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Smith just said out of your mind. Don't be brainwashed.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Barrymorphy is the only person in the state that has
a prescription which is really hard to get for bam
main ingredient betworphen all, he's the only one. So if
we follow Derek Smith, it sounded like a good argument
to start with that it was stranger and stranger, and
then he threw in, well, it's because she's attractive that
(18:29):
this stranger happens to be driving through and it's a
very small and remote area, very small and remote happens
to be there.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Why I don't know, maybe a traveling salesperson. Why don't
we throw that in?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
They see Susanne Morphew attack her and kill her and
drag her to a place only known to locals as
the boneyard. And then, amazingly, this unknown assailant has beut
orphanal b m A, which is only prescribed by Vince
(19:06):
and the only other person in the whole state that
has it as her husband, Barry Moore.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
For you quite the co inkyding, right, yeah, absolutely, I
mean what a coincidence?
Speaker 9 (19:16):
Right, And let's add into this mix the fact that
he used to use.
Speaker 12 (19:23):
BAM in Indiana when he would hunt deer, deer and animals,
and he would use that to incapacitate them to take
their antlers because he knew it wouldn't kill them. But however,
in this situation, Suzanne is found in a gravesite, possibly move.
Speaker 9 (19:46):
The indictment is given us indication that she was moved.
Speaker 12 (19:50):
So now going back to that argument of a stranger, well,
the guy must have picked her up, you know, did
whatever he needed to do, bury her somewhere, come back,
dig her back up, and move her back down to
the location she was ultimately dunked.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
It not happening.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
You know, what did you make of it, Chris McDonough,
Because I was just it was like a kick in
the stomach. I was stunned when the first indictment was
thrown out based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct. And I'm going
to go to Dave Mack in a moment for him
to explain why that first indictment was thrown out. And
(20:42):
Barry Morphew, as I recall, and I'm going to go
to Dave on this too, sued people that suggested that
he was guilty after that indictment got thrown out. When
that indictment was thrown out, many people believe Chris McDonough
the case would never be revived again.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That was the death knell for the case.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
But somehow through meticulous investigation, and I am talking about meticulous.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Can you imagine how many man.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Hours it took to determine who, if anyone in the
entire state had a prescription for bam be trophan.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
All that must have taken hundreds and hundreds.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Of man hours to figure that out, and to go
all the way back to his home state of Indiana
to find out that he had a prescription for it
there through a vet to shoot deer and get their antlers.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I guess is why he says he had it. I mean,
that's very damning evidence. Christmas Dinnah totally a great nancy.
Speaker 12 (21:50):
And in fact, you know, there's a saying in homicide,
our day begins when your day ends.
Speaker 9 (21:56):
And they never gave up.
Speaker 12 (21:58):
And even though they're was a curveball thrown with the
situation there with the District Attorney's office, they were pressing forward.
And when the body was found, all this other evidence
now presented itself and they could take a different direction.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I want you to hear about how Suzanne's remains were
saturated with BAM.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Listen the El Paso County Corners. Testing found Suzanne's bone
marrow contained all three of the individual chemicals that comprise BAM.
BAM did not contaminate the body after death. Suzanne's body
had begun to metabolize the drug before she died. The
coroner's ruling homicide by unspecified means in the setting of
beutrophenol a, zapparone and metatomidine intoxication.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Bob Sale Barry Moorephew back in court on new formal
charges he murdered his wife Suzanne. Does anybody remember the
name Jody Arius. I'm afraid I actually say that loud.
It might conjure her up to doctor Bethany Marshall, remember,
Jody Arius murdered her lover, Travis Alexander after an all
(23:06):
day sex marathon.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
She murdered him when after all the sex and the
photos of the sex, and the blaw.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And the blaw, he went, yeah, I'm not canceling that
date where I'm taking the other woman, my date to
ken kuon She wanted him.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
To call off that date.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
They were broken up, by the way, so we asked
another lady to go on this trip. And Arius drives
across the state with gas cans full of gas in
her car so she doesn't have to stop and leave
a trail at a gas station, gets there, has a
sex marathon, and it didn't change his mind, so she
killed him.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I think it was twenty eight or nine stab wounds.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There was an argument about that because some of the
stab wounds were overlapping in his shower, left him to decompose,
and then for good measure, shot him in the head
over that. But then she went so far as to
leeve her digital.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Camera in the home, right. I think she washed it
in the washer.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And it was found in the washer, her digital camera
where she was trying to get rid of evidence.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And oh, there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That's one of my favorite photos ever in life. There's
the digitcam. We had to go back and dig around.
Oh wait a minute, is that the picture off her foot.
There's actually a picture off her foot, her pants at
the murder scene. She takes an unintentional selfie at the
(24:36):
murder scene, but the digitcam is found in the washer.
Do you remember that Dr Bethany.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now see I remember that story so clearly.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Driving all the way to visit the victim, didn't she
use gas cans instead of pumping gas at a gas station.
At one point she was stalking him, and she like
hid behind a Christmas tree. What I think is so
interesting in these two cases is that rejection, or the
(25:05):
perception of rejection, is often at the core of domestic homicide. Now,
in the case of Jody Arius, she did not she
did not prepare a dump site. Right the dump site
was the shower and she thought nobody would ever figure
it out. Now, in this case with Susanne Warfew, somebody
prepared a dump site. They took her body, bleached her bones.
(25:29):
There's a bam, you know in the bone marrow, meaning
that it was metabolized before her death, and the later
on her body is moved to the bone yards. So
to me, that so much speaks. Although with Jody Arias
I also think it was premeditated, but especially in this case,
somebody premeditated this. I mean, where do you put a
(25:54):
body for months before you secrete it somewhere else? Freezer,
I don't know, in your backyard. This body was somewhere
being preserved before it was dumped again. It tells me
just how much time and attention and detail went into
the commission of the crime.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You know, doctor Bethany, I did not want to interrupt
you because I learned so much every time you go
on a roll.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
But I want you to hear this. This is where
I was going. Sadly, I meandered.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But remember we were talking about Jody Arius leaving the
digital camera with incriminating photos on the digital camera, and
they had to I guess they put it in a
bag of rice because somehow they saved what was on
the digital Okay, I hope you're sitting down.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
You may need to lay down for this listen.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Officers find a locked gun safe in the Morpheus garage.
Inside that gun safe, they find a Dart rifle or
tranquilizer rifle and packages of new Dart brand tranquilizer darts.
The packages include cap type of derming needles designed to
load the darts. Law enforcement also finds one of these
needles caps in the dryer among men's shorts. No tranquilizer
(27:04):
formula was found. It was in his dryer, in his underwear.
How appropro in his underwear in the dryer. It's just
like Jody Arius is Jody arias. I mean, he leaves
the tranquilizer needle cap in the dryer and they can't.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Find the liquid because it's obviously and Susanne Morphus body
is gone. It's gone, I mean in the dryer.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What an idiot. I'm so happy.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
Okay, So this is randomble with Jody Arius and Barry
more Fuse. I woul could have guessed that this was
the first time they ever stripped the sheets and put
them in the washing machine because they you know how
you like check the pockets to make sure there's no Kleenex,
or you make sure that their socks are not in
the sheets. Stuff the sheets in camera, dark gun whatever,
(28:04):
dark gun cap and all, which I think is hilarious.
It says something about well, homicit's not hilarious, but it
does say something about the domestic routine they were in
with their partners, where the partners maybe did everything and
at this point they were just very hasty and didn't
think about what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Now, Jackie here in the studio wants me to point out,
according to her, the needle cap was found in the
men's men's shorts not underwear. Okay, how that makes a
legal difference, I don't know, but they're so noted. So
you know, now to Chris McDonough, we have him, not
(28:40):
just the only person in the whole state according to
the records that has bam beutrphenal, but the needle cap
is in his shorts, in his dryer at the time
the home is searched. When she goes, miss I mean,
(29:01):
I want to scream idiot. Okay, I will's idiot, But
I mean the evidence is damning. Just yes, what do
you make of it? And you know another thing I
haven't even gotten into this yet is the activity of
the phone. I mean, it's Coburger all over again, your
(29:21):
specialty Coburger who turns his phone off as he, according
to the state, leaves the murder scene and travels home
and then turns it back on. Here Barry Morphew did
something very similar. And let me just state he is innocent.
He is innocent until he has proven guilty in a
(29:44):
court of law. But I mean, do people never learn.
I hate to give criminals any tests, but leave your.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Phone at home just this one time?
Speaker 9 (29:52):
Yeah you know, yeah, I mean it's job security unfortunately.
But let's take this cap for moment.
Speaker 12 (30:01):
If he's the only guy in the state of Colorado
that has access to this chemical, that cap is going
to be a high wall that the.
Speaker 9 (30:10):
Defense is going to have to jump over. And then
let's take the fact that she has a cancer report
on her body.
Speaker 12 (30:18):
Imagine this for a moment, Nancy, if he injected her,
he shoots her with a dart, and now he has
access to even more of this chemical. And I'll let
doctor Kine talk about that a little bit deeper.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
The fact that they found it so.
Speaker 12 (30:34):
Ingrained into her bone marrow, did he inject it and
froze her in time? That's going to be a question.
I think a lot of people are going to be asking.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
And if in fact he.
Speaker 12 (30:47):
Did that, Remember he tells the authorities one of his
first statements is, well, we made love all night, really in.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
The last hours.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Alleged killer Barry Morphew in Smiling for the Crowd Crime
Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, Dave matt let me ask
you a couple of things. Number One, why was the
(31:19):
States case thrown out on alleged prosecutorial misconduct? I want
to hear that and then I want to talk to
you about what the cell phone activity and movements reveal.
But first the alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What was it all right?
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well, Nancy, One week before the initial first green murder
in Suzanne's death was said to hit court, they dropped
the charges without prejudice so it can be brought again later.
And the reason for that was they believed they had
zeroed in on where her remains would be, but due
(32:01):
to weather conditions at that time, they could not get
to the area where they believed they would find her body.
So they rather than moving forward with a no body trial,
they felt it wiser to move forward to wait until
they could actually find the remains. That coupled with the
(32:22):
fact that the original prosecutor was a woman named Linda Stanley. Now,
she was not removed from the case because specifically of
the very more Few investigation, but there were plenty of
problems with Linda Stanley that led to her being taken
off the case and later disbarred for a series of
(32:45):
ethical violations and misconduct related to her handling of the
more Few case, among others. So there was a number.
If you want me to go into him, there was
an adequate supervision of the case with those investigator. They
were saying that Linda Stanley issued extra judicial statements that
(33:05):
she made publicly multiple times that were inappropriate, made to
the media about the murder case and potentially prejudicing future jurors.
She claimed that she launched a baseless investigation into the
district judge presiding over the case without any credible evidence whatsoever,
(33:28):
and her office then allegedly caused numerous discovery violations as well.
Double that with abusive power.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Hold on, Dave Matt You can't just throw out discovery violations.
I asked you specifically, what was the alleged prosecutorial misconduct? Now,
from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, is
that she, Linda Stanley, the former district attorney, was sanctioned
from missing deadlines.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Let me get Derek Smith in on this.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Derek Smith a veteran defense attorney, Okay, the one I
accused of being ropel steel skin a little a few
moments ago. I remember many many, many nights more than
I can count, at the District Attorney's office after midnight
on Friday nights because the trial was going to start
ten days later on a Monday, right counting out, and
(34:21):
that discovery had to be postmarked ten days before trial.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I would normally send it out far ahead of that,
but if I had.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Other things I had discovered, I'd be at the Xerox machine, which,
of course, around ten thirty would break down and I'd
be fighting with this massive Xerox machine trying to copy
the discovery and raise to the Atlanta Airport where I
could still get something timestamped before midnight.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Good times.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
The point is you have to give the other side
their discovery at a certain deadline, and if you don't,
Derek Smith, you can't bring that evidence into trial, period.
Speaker 11 (35:03):
Absolutely not. I mean it's the part of a trial
that it gets really complex, especially when new evidence is
discovered during the trial and things of that nature during
the proceedings are going on. You have to give the
other side, especially if there's exculpatory evidence. I mean there's
local rules that codify all that as well a chance
to review what you just found out.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
You have to be open with discovery. That's just number one.
In these cases.
Speaker 11 (35:28):
You cannot hide the ball and show up at trial
and say, hey, look here's some evidence I'm going to
present the judge won't allow it, and you can also
risk a mistrial.
Speaker 10 (35:35):
Nobody wants a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You got to follow the rules because if you don't,
a it's going to get found out. Okay, it's an
ethical violation.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Who wants that.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I don't want an ethical violation. And then when it's
found out, your case gets reversed. And the problem with
a case getting reversed because of an ethical violation or
misconduct is it can very well be re versed with prejudice,
which means you can't try it again. That was your
one shot. I mean people get reversals all the time.
(36:09):
The judge can have a slip of the tie and
giving a jury instruction. There can be a million things
that on appeal, the appellate courtse says, huh uh, and
it's reversed and you have to retry it. But if
it's reversed with prejudice, the person is acquitted, and you
don't want that now. Dave mac also, you know, I
(36:31):
just heard Derek Smith, and he's right. If there's any
Brady material. Bradyv. Maryland is the United States Court case
went to the Supremes when the State did not hand
over some let me just say exculpatory didn't I don't
think exonerated the defendant, but it was exculpatory. It tended
to suggest the defendant was not guilty, and they didn't
(36:53):
hand it over. Was there a Brady violation in this
case or not, Dave Mac? Was there evidence about an
unknown male's DNA in Suzanne's suv?
Speaker 6 (37:08):
DNA from an unknown male found in Suzanne Morphy's a SUV.
That was the discovery violations, the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Okay, So that's a big one. And you know, Derek Smith,
what finally.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Happened was the state, as Dave Mac just accurately reported,
withdrew the case.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And they did that in the hopes of not getting
thrown out of court with prejudice.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And by withdrawing that case on their own, they had
the opportunity to rebring it because there is no statute
of limitations on murder.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Okay, do you agree with at least that much, Derek absolutely?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Does anybody remember the name Alex Murdock Mayhee rotten Hill,
convicted in the double murders of his wife Maggie and
son Paul. Well, guess what bit him in the rear
end a trial is gas guzzling, massive honking suv because
guess what it had a state of the art nav
(38:07):
system listen.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
Analysis of Barry Morphu's electronic devices, including the infotainment system
in his truck and cell phone, showed Morphew returned home
at two forty three PM on Saturday, May ninth, twenty twenty,
and according to the data, his phone or truck never
left the residence again until the next morning, Sunday he
left for Broomfield, Colorado. The data also shows Morpheus phone
(38:30):
turned off for most of this timeframe. It was turned
on for a while in the late evening. Barry Morphew's
cell phone was again turned off at four thirty two
am and wasn't turned on again until five point thirty
seven am, when location information showed him on the road
already in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
The suv infotainment system is biding Morphew in the rear end.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Explain Dave Matt what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Because in the Murdock case, what it meant was you
could tell exactly when Alex MURDERA left the scene of
the double murder. You could tell when he let his
window down on the passenger side of the car to
throw out Maggie's cell phone which was found in that
location on the side of the road when he accelerated,
when he let the window up, when he put the
car in park drive reverse. You name it as he
(39:18):
hit out at his mother's house to create an alibi.
That was a tactic trial with the navigation system evidence
from the SUV who to funk it right, Dave mc
same thing here. What does the now system show about
more few.
Speaker 6 (39:34):
It's actually it is showing that during significant periods of
time related to this case on May ninth and May tenth,
that his phone was just arbitrarily turned off at odd
times and inconsistent with previous behavior that they were able
to download. It was turned off like at two forty
seven pm, right after he got home, right after he
(39:57):
sees her in the backyard on her phone. He gets home,
turns his phone off. His phone stays off until ten
fifteen pm that night. It gets turned back off at
four thirty two am, So to be clear, he gets home,
turns his phone off about bedtime ten fifteenth, he turns
(40:18):
it back on, turns it back off when he gets
up at four thirty two am May tenth, and the
phone is turned back on at five thirty seven am
May tent and it shows his location as if he
was driving in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado. So
it's documenting where he is and how he's trying to
(40:41):
disguise himself. He's trying to use some form of masking
to prevent them from knowing where he is and what
he's doing at those given times.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
And Mason want to just scream out Brian Coberger because
again on the way home, according to the State from
the murder scene, he turns a cell phone off, only
to turn it back when he gets home to his
Pullman apartment. And you know, Chris mcdunne joining me, director
of the Cold Case Foundation and star of the Interview
Room on YouTube from a homicide detective, that again must
(41:12):
have been an incredibly brilliant mountain lion because it I
guess it ates is Anne Morphy's cell phone, because that's
never been found.
Speaker 12 (41:20):
Yeah, I mean, and to think that that pattern of
life would also be consistent with that mountain lion as well. Nancy,
you know, more than anybody on this panel, as a
former prosecutor, the one thing that law enforcement wants to
present at all times is everything and in this.
Speaker 9 (41:40):
Situation, Barry has a very uphill battle with.
Speaker 12 (41:44):
The circumstantial case it's building and that digital footprint could
be potentially very dangerous for him.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
We wait as justice unfolds again and a bombshell development
in the Marry Morpheu prosecution. Morphew charged again indicted in
the murder of wife Suzanne, five years after she goes
(42:11):
missing on a Mother's day by ride all alone.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace bombshell and a stunning twist.
Barry Morphew is charged again and the murder of his wife,
Suzanne Morphew.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I spent days.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Tramping around the entire area and realized very quickly how
difficult it would.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Be to find Suzanne Morphew's remains. But guess what.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They were found in a remote area, and those remains
really crack this case wide open. Take a listen to
Anne Kelly, District Attorney, twelve Judicial District.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on Mother's Day five years ago.
Law enforcement has never stopped working to obtain justice for
this mother of two, this daughter, this sister, and this
beloved member of the Chaffey County community. Through the tireless
(01:07):
efforts of the Chaffey County Sheriff's Office, the Sawatch County
Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, I can announce today that the twelfth
Judicial District Grand Jury returned an indictment. The grand jury
has indicted Barry Morphew on the single count of murder
(01:31):
in the first degree.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Many of us thought this day may never come, but
held out hope for justice for Suzanne. As you will
all recall, he the husband Bary Morphew, had been indicted
before and the case was thrown out of court on
alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Now years have passed and the case
(01:56):
has been revived, brought back from the dead straight out
to a very special guest joining us is Tisha Leeway,
a very dear friend of Suzanne Morphew. Tisha is wonderful
to see you. I wondered if we would ever speak
on this occasion. Tell me your response, your reaction when
(02:21):
you learned Barry Morphew had finally been indicted a second
time in Suzanne's murder.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was shocked, Honestly.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I knew I was hoping that the day would come, obviously, but.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I didn't even know.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
I was working and my phone was just going crazy,
and then all of a sudden, I had to stop
and just look, and I honestly started crying because I
was so shocked and happy, and I mean, I'm glad
this day is finally came.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You stated that you always thought it would happen after
the first and night was thrown out for alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
Many people thought it never would that the case was
so tainted there was no way to get a grand
jury indictment or conviction.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Why did you always believe it would happen?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I just know that, you know, things work in mysterious ways,
and I feel like she deserves the justice, so I
think honestly, after they found her body in a different county,
I felt like we were in good hands, not that
Chafe County, you know, most of them, you know, are
(03:35):
worked with Swatch County anyway, But once the body was found,
obviously that gave us way bigger hopes, and then once
the autopsy came out, that was even bigger.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Titia Leeway, a very dear friend and confidante of Suzanne Morpheus,
what was your reaction when you realize when you first
realized that Suzanne was missing and couldn't be found.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What did you think?
Speaker 5 (04:05):
I just kind of just followed the news a little bit,
but you know, it was a little strange just the
way she went missing, so obviously I kind of thought
something else happened.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Guys, we are joined by an all star panel and
we are trying to make sense of what we are learning.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I want you to take a Listen to what happened
around the time.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Suzanne seemingly vanished into thin air, all alone in her
home on Mother's Day, and according to her husband, Barry Morphew,
she decided to go on a Mother's day by cride.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
After a missing person's report was called in by a neighbor,
investigators responded to the Morphew's residence. The house was locked,
Suzanne's vehicle was in the garage with no signs of
forest entry. Suzanne and her bicycle, we're missing. The bike
was found less than a mile from her home down
a hillside off a dirt road.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Joining me investigative reporter with crime stories Dave mac Dave mac.
We all flew out to the location and spent days
looking for evidence. Reviewing the location where her bike was found.
(05:26):
And I recall distinctly at the time that Barry Morphew
said his wife must have been eaten by wild animals.
I guess what. As she went by on the bike,
a wild animal just jump and attacked her. Mid Bi
cried and then dragged her body away. Her bike helmet
(05:51):
was found about a mile away. I guess the wild
predator dragged her her helmet a mile away, But then
that theory was scattered when her body was found in
another county. That's a long way for a mountain lion
to drag a dead body, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
Well, you know, Nancy, it's a long way for any
animal to carry a body. But to actually his theory
of the bobcat, he threw that out there right or
a mountain lion, he threw that out there right away.
And anybody in the area that knew anything about mountain
lions were like, no, that, they don't work like that.
There might be one out here somewhere, but they're not
(06:36):
going to do that. And when they found her remains, fancy,
if you remember, the remains that they found were bleached
and almost complete. You know, they found almost a complete
set of bones of her, and that's not common when
you find a body out in an area like where
she was found, it's very uncommon. They're usually parts of
(06:59):
the body because if wild animals get it, they carry
it away parts of it and they're all scattered. But
that didn't happen here.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now I'm looking back over what happened that morning, that
Mother's Day morning to doctor Bethany Marshall joining us renown
psychoanalyst out of the LA jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
She's the author of deal Breaker.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
You can see her now on Peacock and you can
find her online at doctor Bethany Marshall dot com.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Doctor Bethany.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Her daughters were camping on Mother's Day and they called
her relentlessly to talk to their mom on Mother's Day.
Interesting that prior to that weekend, Bary Moore for you,
according to reports, did not have a construction job planned.
(07:48):
But suddenly that morning, around I guess four o'clock in
the morning or so, he put together a crew for
an out of town job. It took off on Mother's
Day morning, leaving, according to him, his wife alone on
Mother's Day still asleep in bed.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Thoughts, Nancy, that's so suspicious. Who was pulled together a
crew at the last minute? And if he did, is
there a homeowner or a business owner who requested for
him to come in at the last minute. Perhaps they
had complaints about the plumbing or the tile or something
like that. I mean, I think we'd really want to
(08:30):
show that there was a reason that he would pull
together that crew. Secondarily, Nancy, mother's as you know, because
you have beautiful Lucy. They want to be in contact
with their children on Mother's Day. The fact that she
would not pick up the phone is very odd. I mean,
this was her reason for being in life, was to
(08:50):
be in contact with her children and Leslie. You know,
the idea that her bones were found so far away, bleached, preserved,
not eaten by animals, And the fact is that if
she had died of natural causes out in the out
in the wild, her body would have been scavenged. So
there's just so many things that are missing about this story.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know, I want to follow up on something that
you just said.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Joining me is doctor Thomas Coin, Chief Medical Examiner, District
to Medical Examiners Office, State of Florida. He is a
forensic pathologist, a toxicologist, and a neuropathologist and you can
find him on x at doctor tm coin. Doctor Coin,
thank you for being with us. What does it mean
that there was no hair attached to her body?
Speaker 8 (09:39):
Well, if she did die, or if her body was
placed outside and she decomposed outside, there would have.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
Been a hair mass.
Speaker 9 (09:49):
Not only a hair mass, you.
Speaker 8 (09:50):
Would have seen in the soil evidence of decomposition because
all of those body tissues, your body fluids had to
go somewhere as they begin to denature and liquefy, and
so you would have had, in conjunction with the skeleton,
you would have had her hair mass. You would have
also had evidence of decomposition or fluid, especially if she
was wearing clothing. The clothing I'm sure would have been tattered,
(10:11):
would have had evidence of decomposition, fluted or deco or
fluid within those tissues or clothing for that matter.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
We learn more about the discovery of her body. Listen.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
When Suzanne's body was found, the majority of her bleached
bones were recovered, along with a cancer port and items
of clothing matching bike clothing Suzanne was known to wear.
There was a lack of bug activity, inconsistent with the
remains decomposing where they were found. There was also a
lack of animal activity on the bones and no hair
mass found. These features would have been expected where the
(10:43):
body was found if it had been the original gravesite
where decomposition occurred.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Doctor Colin, when you refer to a hair mass, you're
referring to the hair that would have been on her head.
Speaker 8 (10:53):
It's correct, Yeah, it would have floffed off of her hand.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And understand again what that means that no hair mass
is found.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
What does that main sure?
Speaker 8 (11:01):
Well, if her body was left outside, she would have
decomposed outside, and that's a meal for bugs, for animals.
You would have had scavenging activity. Animals would have come in,
uh to sort of gain access to the tissue. They
would have walked away with certain body parts. But the
hair on the heads, as the tissue begins to decompose,
(11:21):
it sloths off of the skull, leaving that matted hair behind.
Very often that hair is full of waxy tissue, bugs, magus,
other types of tepey that may be president so it
forms almost like a matted massive hair and that would
have been present there with the skeleton.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
So that means that's not where she decomposed originally. Is
that what you just said means absolutely?
Speaker 8 (11:45):
And also when you have bleached bleached skeleton like that,
a body that's outside weathers, so that body would those
bones would not be bleached. That tells me that more
than likely the body was kept somewhere else and then
placed there after it had become a skeleton.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Dave Mac, could you tell me about the area where
her remains were found? Her skeletal remains, Dave.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
Mac in a really remote area about forty miles south
of where her home was, down off of the Highway
seventeen down a dirt road off into a remote area
that is actually referred to as the boneyard. To a degree,
(12:28):
it's such a remote area that it wasn't someplace you
would just arbitrarily think of getting rid of a body.
It's something that was so remote and planned that it
would have had to have been thought out in advance
to figure out exactly where to place the remains so
that they would be out where you wouldn't just trip
(12:49):
over them on accident.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
In the last hours, Barry Morphew, now accused formally in
the murder of his wife Suzanne in court smiling, smiling
why Joining me is a renowned criminal defense attorney and
you can find him at his website DW Smith Legal
dot com.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Joining us is Derek Smith. Wow, that must have been
a really smart mountain lion to drag her body after.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
It soared through the air and attacked her and yanked
her off of her bike and then dragged her to
the next county to a known disposal site call the boneyard.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's some mountain lion. Derek Yeah, he seems.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
To have a good lay of the land too. I
guess if this boneyard is something.
Speaker 11 (13:40):
Of an area that has been used for this type
of purpose before, how did he get its name? You know,
it does seem a little a little questioning to me
when you're talking about the body is decomposed and it
has an outside agent on it, such as bleach or
something that it doesn't seem like that's going to come
from the animal kingdom.
Speaker 10 (13:58):
It seems like some kind of being of higher intelligen
was involved here.
Speaker 11 (14:01):
It doesn't necessarily mean it was somebody close to her, though,
it still could be a random act of violence in
a way of getting rid of the evidence in a
certain sensuation.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Like this, Derek, do you know how remote their home was?
Who's going to just drive by and see her? I
mean I practically had to hike to get to it
when I went out there looking.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's very remote, which in my mind reduces the likelihood
of stranger on stranger.
Speaker 11 (14:31):
Well, yeah, of course, you definitely have a smaller population
to go I guess and target if you're somebody looking
to do this, but that also could be part of it.
You want to go target somebody in a remote area
because you have some kind of fascination for them. I've
seen the pictures of this woman. She seemed she looked attractive.
It could have been appealing to somebody just passing by
or someone that shouldn't have been there in the first
lay way, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It could have been what wait, what did you just say?
She's attractive? So it could have been what it could.
Speaker 11 (14:55):
Have been just someone passing by and taking a look
at her and saying, you know what, I'm going to
take advantage of her being in a remote situation and
nobody being around, and I'm going to go end up doctor.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
As oppose to her being really really ugly, I don't what,
because she's pretty, uh, stranger someone said, Wow, she's a looker,
let me kill her it.
Speaker 11 (15:15):
As to the likelihood that it could be somebody else dancing,
that's that's kind of what I'm trying to say here.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Okay, you know you're getting in trouble right now. You
got a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on
and you can't let go. So you're saying because she's attractive,
that ups the ante and the likelihood that it was
a stranger on stranger attack.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Somebody drives by and goes, wow, she's pretty Let me
kill her. Okay, you know what, Let's see what Derek
Smith has to say about this.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Investigators learned BAM was sold by only one company in
the United States and could only be obtained by prescription
from a veterinarian, Very Moore. Few filled several prescriptions for BAM. Ultimately,
the prescription record show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only
one private citizen living in the entire state had access
to BAM, Barry Morphew.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Okay, did you hear that, Derek?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Only one person and the whole state had beut orphenol BAM,
b brother, a alpha M mother beutorphenol, and two others
one person in the whole state at her remains were
saturated with it. And lo and behold, Barry Morphew is
(16:30):
the only person in the state.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
That hasn't.
Speaker 11 (16:36):
So is this something that can't be acquired by anybody
else out of the state. I mean, think you'd be
foolish enough to use something that he knows? Is this
strictly regulated? You know, there's plenty of other states, other
people that can have access to these things, and it
seems like it's a pretty good agent to incapacitate a victim,
So it seemed like you'd be a pretty good cocktail
to use if you're going to target somebody.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
You know what, you really are amazing how you just
you get damning evidence.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You're like runpel stillsk and I don't know if you're
familiar with that story. He gets straw, moldy, damn yucky
straw that's been stored in a barn, gotten wet, and
he spins it into gold. That's amazing what you just
did there. But let's go to a veteran homicide detective
joining us. Not a hired gun, no offense, Derek, but
(17:26):
you are your higher gun. If you get paid enough money,
you'll defend anything. And let me be clear, Derek Smith
has one a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Doing what he just did right in front of you.
I threw a whole.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Bell of wet, smelly hay at him and he spun
it into gold. Joining me right now is Chris mcdonna.
He is the director at the Cold Case Foundation, former
homicide detective, around three hundred death investigations under his belt,
and he's the star of the interview Room on YouTube.
Chris mcdona, try to wipe everything that Derek.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Smith just said out of your mind. Don't be brainwashed.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Barrymorphy is the only person in the state that has
a prescription which is really hard to get for bam
main ingredient betworphen all, he's the only one. So if
we follow Derek Smith, it sounded like a good argument
to start with that it was stranger and stranger, and
then he threw in, well, it's because she's attractive that
(18:29):
this stranger happens to be driving through and it's a
very small and remote area, very small and remote happens
to be there.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Why I don't know, maybe a traveling salesperson. Why don't
we throw that in?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
They see Susanne Morphew attack her and kill her and
drag her to a place only known to locals as
the boneyard. And then, amazingly, this unknown assailant has beut
orphanal b m A, which is only prescribed by Vince
(19:06):
and the only other person in the whole state that
has it as her husband, Barry Moore.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
For you quite the co inkyding, right, yeah, absolutely, I
mean what a coincidence?
Speaker 9 (19:16):
Right, And let's add into this mix the fact that
he used to use.
Speaker 12 (19:23):
BAM in Indiana when he would hunt deer, deer and animals,
and he would use that to incapacitate them to take
their antlers because he knew it wouldn't kill them. But however,
in this situation, Suzanne is found in a gravesite, possibly move.
Speaker 9 (19:46):
The indictment is given us indication that she was moved.
Speaker 12 (19:50):
So now going back to that argument of a stranger, well,
the guy must have picked her up, you know, did
whatever he needed to do, bury her somewhere, come back,
dig her back up, and move her back down to
the location she was ultimately dunked.
Speaker 9 (20:05):
It not happening.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
You know, what did you make of it, Chris McDonough,
Because I was just it was like a kick in
the stomach. I was stunned when the first indictment was
thrown out based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct. And I'm going
to go to Dave Mack in a moment for him
to explain why that first indictment was thrown out. And
(20:42):
Barry Morphew, as I recall, and I'm going to go
to Dave on this too, sued people that suggested that
he was guilty after that indictment got thrown out. When
that indictment was thrown out, many people believe Chris McDonough
the case would never be revived again.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That was the death knell for the case.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
But somehow through meticulous investigation, and I am talking about meticulous.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Can you imagine how many man.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Hours it took to determine who, if anyone in the
entire state had a prescription for bam be trophan.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
All that must have taken hundreds and hundreds.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Of man hours to figure that out, and to go
all the way back to his home state of Indiana
to find out that he had a prescription for it
there through a vet to shoot deer and get their antlers.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I guess is why he says he had it. I mean,
that's very damning evidence. Christmas Dinnah totally a great nancy.
Speaker 12 (21:50):
And in fact, you know, there's a saying in homicide,
our day begins when your day ends.
Speaker 9 (21:56):
And they never gave up.
Speaker 12 (21:58):
And even though they're was a curveball thrown with the
situation there with the District Attorney's office, they were pressing forward.
And when the body was found, all this other evidence
now presented itself and they could take a different direction.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I want you to hear about how Suzanne's remains were
saturated with BAM.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Listen the El Paso County Corners. Testing found Suzanne's bone
marrow contained all three of the individual chemicals that comprise BAM.
BAM did not contaminate the body after death. Suzanne's body
had begun to metabolize the drug before she died. The
coroner's ruling homicide by unspecified means in the setting of
beutrophenol a, zapparone and metatomidine intoxication.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Bob Sale Barry Moorephew back in court on new formal
charges he murdered his wife Suzanne. Does anybody remember the
name Jody Arius. I'm afraid I actually say that loud.
It might conjure her up to doctor Bethany Marshall, remember,
Jody Arius murdered her lover, Travis Alexander after an all
(23:06):
day sex marathon.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
She murdered him when after all the sex and the
photos of the sex, and the blaw.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And the blaw, he went, yeah, I'm not canceling that
date where I'm taking the other woman, my date to
ken kuon She wanted him.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
To call off that date.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
They were broken up, by the way, so we asked
another lady to go on this trip. And Arius drives
across the state with gas cans full of gas in
her car so she doesn't have to stop and leave
a trail at a gas station, gets there, has a
sex marathon, and it didn't change his mind, so she
killed him.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I think it was twenty eight or nine stab wounds.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There was an argument about that because some of the
stab wounds were overlapping in his shower, left him to decompose,
and then for good measure, shot him in the head
over that. But then she went so far as to
leeve her digital.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Camera in the home, right. I think she washed it
in the washer.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And it was found in the washer, her digital camera
where she was trying to get rid of evidence.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And oh, there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That's one of my favorite photos ever in life. There's
the digitcam. We had to go back and dig around.
Oh wait a minute, is that the picture off her foot.
There's actually a picture off her foot, her pants at
the murder scene. She takes an unintentional selfie at the
(24:36):
murder scene, but the digitcam is found in the washer.
Do you remember that Dr Bethany.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now see I remember that story so clearly.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
Driving all the way to visit the victim, didn't she
use gas cans instead of pumping gas at a gas station.
At one point she was stalking him, and she like
hid behind a Christmas tree. What I think is so
interesting in these two cases is that rejection, or the
(25:05):
perception of rejection, is often at the core of domestic homicide. Now,
in the case of Jody Arius, she did not she
did not prepare a dump site. Right the dump site
was the shower and she thought nobody would ever figure
it out. Now, in this case with Susanne Warfew, somebody
prepared a dump site. They took her body, bleached her bones.
(25:29):
There's a bam, you know in the bone marrow, meaning
that it was metabolized before her death, and the later
on her body is moved to the bone yards. So
to me, that so much speaks. Although with Jody Arias
I also think it was premeditated, but especially in this case,
somebody premeditated this. I mean, where do you put a
(25:54):
body for months before you secrete it somewhere else? Freezer,
I don't know, in your backyard. This body was somewhere
being preserved before it was dumped again. It tells me
just how much time and attention and detail went into
the commission of the crime.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You know, doctor Bethany, I did not want to interrupt
you because I learned so much every time you go
on a roll.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
But I want you to hear this. This is where
I was going. Sadly, I meandered.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
But remember we were talking about Jody Arius leaving the
digital camera with incriminating photos on the digital camera, and
they had to I guess they put it in a
bag of rice because somehow they saved what was on
the digital Okay, I hope you're sitting down.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
You may need to lay down for this listen.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Officers find a locked gun safe in the Morpheus garage.
Inside that gun safe, they find a Dart rifle or
tranquilizer rifle and packages of new Dart brand tranquilizer darts.
The packages include cap type of derming needles designed to
load the darts. Law enforcement also finds one of these
needles caps in the dryer among men's shorts. No tranquilizer
(27:04):
formula was found. It was in his dryer, in his underwear.
How appropro in his underwear in the dryer. It's just
like Jody Arius is Jody arias. I mean, he leaves
the tranquilizer needle cap in the dryer and they can't.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Find the liquid because it's obviously and Susanne Morphus body
is gone. It's gone, I mean in the dryer.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What an idiot. I'm so happy.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
Okay, So this is randomble with Jody Arius and Barry
more Fuse. I woul could have guessed that this was
the first time they ever stripped the sheets and put
them in the washing machine because they you know how
you like check the pockets to make sure there's no Kleenex,
or you make sure that their socks are not in
the sheets. Stuff the sheets in camera, dark gun whatever,
(28:04):
dark gun cap and all, which I think is hilarious.
It says something about well, homicit's not hilarious, but it
does say something about the domestic routine they were in
with their partners, where the partners maybe did everything and
at this point they were just very hasty and didn't
think about what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Now, Jackie here in the studio wants me to point out,
according to her, the needle cap was found in the
men's men's shorts not underwear. Okay, how that makes a
legal difference, I don't know, but they're so noted. So
you know, now to Chris McDonough, we have him, not
(28:40):
just the only person in the whole state according to
the records that has bam beutrphenal, but the needle cap
is in his shorts, in his dryer at the time
the home is searched. When she goes, miss I mean,
(29:01):
I want to scream idiot. Okay, I will's idiot, But
I mean the evidence is damning. Just yes, what do
you make of it? And you know another thing I
haven't even gotten into this yet is the activity of
the phone. I mean, it's Coburger all over again, your
(29:21):
specialty Coburger who turns his phone off as he, according
to the state, leaves the murder scene and travels home
and then turns it back on. Here Barry Morphew did
something very similar. And let me just state he is innocent.
He is innocent until he has proven guilty in a
(29:44):
court of law. But I mean, do people never learn.
I hate to give criminals any tests, but leave your.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Phone at home just this one time?
Speaker 9 (29:52):
Yeah you know, yeah, I mean it's job security unfortunately.
But let's take this cap for moment.
Speaker 12 (30:01):
If he's the only guy in the state of Colorado
that has access to this chemical, that cap is going
to be a high wall that the.
Speaker 9 (30:10):
Defense is going to have to jump over. And then
let's take the fact that she has a cancer report
on her body.
Speaker 12 (30:18):
Imagine this for a moment, Nancy, if he injected her,
he shoots her with a dart, and now he has
access to even more of this chemical. And I'll let
doctor Kine talk about that a little bit deeper.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
The fact that they found it so.
Speaker 12 (30:34):
Ingrained into her bone marrow, did he inject it and
froze her in time? That's going to be a question.
I think a lot of people are going to be asking.
Speaker 9 (30:46):
And if in fact he.
Speaker 12 (30:47):
Did that, Remember he tells the authorities one of his
first statements is, well, we made love all night, really in.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
The last hours.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Alleged killer Barry Morphew in Smiling for the Crowd Crime
Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, Dave matt let me ask
you a couple of things. Number One, why was the
(31:19):
States case thrown out on alleged prosecutorial misconduct? I want
to hear that and then I want to talk to
you about what the cell phone activity and movements reveal.
But first the alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What was it all right?
Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well, Nancy, One week before the initial first green murder
in Suzanne's death was said to hit court, they dropped
the charges without prejudice so it can be brought again later.
And the reason for that was they believed they had
zeroed in on where her remains would be, but due
(32:01):
to weather conditions at that time, they could not get
to the area where they believed they would find her body.
So they rather than moving forward with a no body trial,
they felt it wiser to move forward to wait until
they could actually find the remains. That coupled with the
(32:22):
fact that the original prosecutor was a woman named Linda Stanley. Now,
she was not removed from the case because specifically of
the very more Few investigation, but there were plenty of
problems with Linda Stanley that led to her being taken
off the case and later disbarred for a series of
(32:45):
ethical violations and misconduct related to her handling of the
more Few case, among others. So there was a number.
If you want me to go into him, there was
an adequate supervision of the case with those investigator. They
were saying that Linda Stanley issued extra judicial statements that
(33:05):
she made publicly multiple times that were inappropriate, made to
the media about the murder case and potentially prejudicing future jurors.
She claimed that she launched a baseless investigation into the
district judge presiding over the case without any credible evidence whatsoever,
(33:28):
and her office then allegedly caused numerous discovery violations as well.
Double that with abusive power.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Hold on, Dave Matt You can't just throw out discovery violations.
I asked you specifically, what was the alleged prosecutorial misconduct? Now,
from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, is
that she, Linda Stanley, the former district attorney, was sanctioned
from missing deadlines.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Let me get Derek Smith in on this.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Derek Smith a veteran defense attorney, Okay, the one I
accused of being ropel steel skin a little a few
moments ago. I remember many many, many nights more than
I can count, at the District Attorney's office after midnight
on Friday nights because the trial was going to start
ten days later on a Monday, right counting out, and
(34:21):
that discovery had to be postmarked ten days before trial.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I would normally send it out far ahead of that,
but if I had.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Other things I had discovered, I'd be at the Xerox machine, which,
of course, around ten thirty would break down and I'd
be fighting with this massive Xerox machine trying to copy
the discovery and raise to the Atlanta Airport where I
could still get something timestamped before midnight.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Good times.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
The point is you have to give the other side
their discovery at a certain deadline, and if you don't,
Derek Smith, you can't bring that evidence into trial, period.
Speaker 11 (35:03):
Absolutely not. I mean it's the part of a trial
that it gets really complex, especially when new evidence is
discovered during the trial and things of that nature during
the proceedings are going on. You have to give the
other side, especially if there's exculpatory evidence. I mean there's
local rules that codify all that as well a chance
to review what you just found out.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
You have to be open with discovery. That's just number one.
In these cases.
Speaker 11 (35:28):
You cannot hide the ball and show up at trial
and say, hey, look here's some evidence I'm going to
present the judge won't allow it, and you can also
risk a mistrial.
Speaker 10 (35:35):
Nobody wants a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You got to follow the rules because if you don't,
a it's going to get found out. Okay, it's an
ethical violation.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Who wants that.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I don't want an ethical violation. And then when it's
found out, your case gets reversed. And the problem with
a case getting reversed because of an ethical violation or
misconduct is it can very well be re versed with prejudice,
which means you can't try it again. That was your
one shot. I mean people get reversals all the time.
(36:09):
The judge can have a slip of the tie and
giving a jury instruction. There can be a million things
that on appeal, the appellate courtse says, huh uh, and
it's reversed and you have to retry it. But if
it's reversed with prejudice, the person is acquitted, and you
don't want that now. Dave mac also, you know, I
(36:31):
just heard Derek Smith, and he's right. If there's any
Brady material. Bradyv. Maryland is the United States Court case
went to the Supremes when the State did not hand
over some let me just say exculpatory didn't I don't
think exonerated the defendant, but it was exculpatory. It tended
to suggest the defendant was not guilty, and they didn't
(36:53):
hand it over. Was there a Brady violation in this
case or not, Dave Mac? Was there evidence about an
unknown male's DNA in Suzanne's suv?
Speaker 6 (37:08):
DNA from an unknown male found in Suzanne Morphy's a SUV.
That was the discovery violations, the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Okay, So that's a big one. And you know, Derek Smith,
what finally.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Happened was the state, as Dave Mac just accurately reported,
withdrew the case.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And they did that in the hopes of not getting
thrown out of court with prejudice.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And by withdrawing that case on their own, they had
the opportunity to rebring it because there is no statute
of limitations on murder.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Okay, do you agree with at least that much, Derek absolutely?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Does anybody remember the name Alex Murdock Mayhee rotten Hill,
convicted in the double murders of his wife Maggie and
son Paul. Well, guess what bit him in the rear
end a trial is gas guzzling, massive honking suv because
guess what it had a state of the art nav
(38:07):
system listen.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
Analysis of Barry Morphu's electronic devices, including the infotainment system
in his truck and cell phone, showed Morphew returned home
at two forty three PM on Saturday, May ninth, twenty twenty,
and according to the data, his phone or truck never
left the residence again until the next morning, Sunday he
left for Broomfield, Colorado. The data also shows Morpheus phone
(38:30):
turned off for most of this timeframe. It was turned
on for a while in the late evening. Barry Morphew's
cell phone was again turned off at four thirty two
am and wasn't turned on again until five point thirty
seven am, when location information showed him on the road
already in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
The suv infotainment system is biding Morphew in the rear end.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Explain Dave Matt what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Because in the Murdock case, what it meant was you
could tell exactly when Alex MURDERA left the scene of
the double murder. You could tell when he let his
window down on the passenger side of the car to
throw out Maggie's cell phone which was found in that
location on the side of the road when he accelerated,
when he let the window up, when he put the
car in park drive reverse. You name it as he
(39:18):
hit out at his mother's house to create an alibi.
That was a tactic trial with the navigation system evidence
from the SUV who to funk it right, Dave mc
same thing here. What does the now system show about
more few.
Speaker 6 (39:34):
It's actually it is showing that during significant periods of
time related to this case on May ninth and May tenth,
that his phone was just arbitrarily turned off at odd
times and inconsistent with previous behavior that they were able
to download. It was turned off like at two forty
seven pm, right after he got home, right after he
(39:57):
sees her in the backyard on her phone. He gets home,
turns his phone off. His phone stays off until ten
fifteen pm that night. It gets turned back off at
four thirty two am, So to be clear, he gets home,
turns his phone off about bedtime ten fifteenth, he turns
(40:18):
it back on, turns it back off when he gets
up at four thirty two am May tenth, and the
phone is turned back on at five thirty seven am
May tent and it shows his location as if he
was driving in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado. So
it's documenting where he is and how he's trying to
(40:41):
disguise himself. He's trying to use some form of masking
to prevent them from knowing where he is and what
he's doing at those given times.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
And Mason want to just scream out Brian Coberger because
again on the way home, according to the State from
the murder scene, he turns a cell phone off, only
to turn it back when he gets home to his
Pullman apartment. And you know, Chris mcdunne joining me, director
of the Cold Case Foundation and star of the Interview
Room on YouTube from a homicide detective, that again must
(41:12):
have been an incredibly brilliant mountain lion because it I
guess it ates is Anne Morphy's cell phone, because that's
never been found.
Speaker 12 (41:20):
Yeah, I mean, and to think that that pattern of
life would also be consistent with that mountain lion as well. Nancy,
you know, more than anybody on this panel, as a
former prosecutor, the one thing that law enforcement wants to
present at all times is everything and in this.
Speaker 9 (41:40):
Situation, Barry has a very uphill battle with.
Speaker 12 (41:44):
The circumstantial case it's building and that digital footprint could
be potentially very dangerous for him.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
We wait as justice unfolds again and a bombshell development
in the Marry Morpheu prosecution. Morphew charged again indicted in
the murder of wife Suzanne, five years after she goes
(42:11):
missing on a Mother's day by ride all alone.
Host
Nancy Grace
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