All Episodes

May 3, 2024 27 mins

Sheryl McCollum and Nancy Grace dive into the Suzanne Morphew case, providing their insights and opinions on the evidence and potential suspects. Although Barry Morphew has not been named a suspect or person of interest, Nancy Grace explains why the evidence points towards him. The autopsy results revealed that Suzanne had been shot with animal tranquilizers, and a tranquilizer cap was found in the Morphew's dryer. Barry had initially suggested that Suzanne went out for a bike ride and was possibly eaten by a mountain lion, but this theory is highly unlikely. The investigation and legal proceedings are ongoing.

Today Nancy and Sheryl discuss these topics in today’s crime round-up:

  • Latest on Suzanne Morphew's disappearance - death has been determined a homicide 
  • New Jersey father Christopher Gregor is accused of killing his 6-year-old son Corey Micciolo

Show Notes:

  • [0:00] Welcome! Sheryl introduces this week’s crime roundup   
  • [0:30] The latest on Suzanne Morphew's disappearance  
  • [1:30] The mountain lion theory  
  • [5:30] Details of the crime scene in Suzanne’s home 
  • [10:00] Personal stories from Nancy
  • [14:00] Barry's lack of emotional reaction when Suzanne was missing
  • [15:00] Analyzing other evidence like Suzanne's clothes
  • [20:00] Lamenting failures to protect children from abusive situations
  • [20:30] Christopher Gregor to face murder charges after his six-year-old son died in 2021 from 'chronic abuse'

---

Nancy Grace is an outspoken, tireless advocate for victims’ rights and one of television's most respected legal analysts. Nancy Grace had a perfect conviction record during her decade as a prosecutor. She is the founder and publisher of CrimeOnline.com, a crime- fighting digital platform that investigates breaking crime news, spreads awareness of missing people and shines a light on cold cases. 

In addition, Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a daily show hosted by Grace, airs on SIRIUS XM’s Triumph Channel 111 and is downloadable as a podcast on all audio platforms - https://www.crimeonline.com/

Connect with Nancy: 

X: @nancygrace

Instagram: @thenancygrace

Facebook: @nancygrace

Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. 

Connect with Sheryl:

Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com

X: @ColdCaseTips

Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum

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 (00:09):
Welcome to the crime round up, y'all. I just want
to give y'all a brief reminder. May tenth, twenty twenty,
Susanne Morphew allegedly went out for a bike ride and
never returned home. Her husband, Barry was arrested. But then
they dropped that and said, Nope, we're not going to

(00:30):
go with it. Now. We'll go and pick this back
up if we get new evidence. They found her body.
The results of that autopsy are back, and we have
got the one and only top prosecutor, Nancy Grace with us.
Nancy that autopsy results.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Honey, you know what, let me quote one of my
favorite characters, and that would be Batman in the Lego movie.
I hate everything you just said. Number one, She did
not go out bike riding as her husband first suggested.
That was his idea when he had a neighbor called
nine one to one instead of himself. He was out

(01:09):
of town on a hurriedly thrown together work trip that
nobody knew about but him. She was not eaten by
a mountain lion, another theory put out there by her
husband Barry. More few and let me just say for
the record, he is not a suspect. He has not
been found guilty, and he has not been named a
person of interest this time. Yes, he was charged before,

(01:33):
but the state asked for charges to be dropped. The
state asked for those charges to be drapt after the
defense claimed the state had not handed over crucial evidence.
He introduced the idea that a mountain lion had eaten
his wife, really, and then the mountain lion shot up

(01:56):
with tranquilizers and then buried her body in a shallow grave.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
And it just is fantastical. But I want to again reiterate,
he has not been named a suspect again or a
person of interest again. He has not been tried or convicted.
He remains innocent under the law. But I'm telling you,
Cheryl McCollum, the fact that her body was found and

(02:21):
they had to extract DNA from her kneecap the top
of her femur to get tranquilizers, animal tranquilizers, very powerful tranquilizers.
He admits he was using an animal tranquilizer gun and
there was a tranquilizer cap in their dryer at the time.

(02:45):
He had been using it at the time. It's insane.
It's a mouth and of circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
It is absolutely insane. So again, he admits he had
the tranquilizer gun. He admits he was running around the house.
He admits he was hunting. He just says chipmunk instead
of Suzanne.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Have you ever tried to shoot a chipmunk? I have not.
Oh my gosh, They're like grease lightning, and they switched
directions like squirrels for no reason.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
And at the exact same time he's running. That is
so astronomically not possible that he would be able to
shoot a chipmunk if he was standing still, much less
if he was moving too in the house, inside the house.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I hate it when you have to chase a chipmunk
in your house and shoot it. Please let me give
the opening end closing statements. Somebody hear me.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
That would be such. I mean, that would be like
the super Bowl for me. Cheryl.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
I'm so contorted right now over this. But I'm just
I'm thinking about the trial strategy and the facts and
the arguments that could and should be made to a jury.
But hold on, wait a minute. Think about it. She
was trying to get a divorce, she wanted out, she
stayed in it for her children to grow up and

(04:04):
go away. She raised healthy, happy, fulfilled girls. Now she
wanted a new life and I guess, so, I guess
she did. Do you blame her? And then out of
the blue, in the middle of trying to escape? And
isn't that what the stats tell us The most dangerous

(04:25):
time for a woman is when she tries to leave
an abusive or manipulative relationship.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
That's right, absolutely, And you know, Nancy, I had the
good fortune of watching you in court, watching you in action, baby,
and you always, without question would pull that jury in
with something nobody could say, well, there's another way to
look at it. You never did that. You had some

(04:55):
statement or some photograph or something, and you would put
it in front of it.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I got something and I cannot take credit for it
because a friend of Suzanne's told me, Okay, see at
our house, the twins and David and I each have
a king sized bed organic. Can I tell you I
had to put that on a payment plan? Those organic mattresses.

(05:22):
I'm like, you're kidding. No, they weren't kidding anyway. That said,
but each bed and my mom my mom has a
queen and the guest bed are dubbed their doubles. No, yeah,
they're doubles. The point is, Cheryl, each bed has its
own sheets. Lucy has sheets that match her a little

(05:47):
cover that she specifically picked out at target. John David's
is blue, so he has, you know, sheets that go
with that. Long story short, the friend told me that
the sheets in the washer or the dryer were Mallorie's.
Mallorie wasn't home. It fits with and you know the

(06:10):
cap to the dark gun was in there. It fits
with the running around the house and possibly shooting Suzanne
in Mallorie's room as Suzanne ran to barricade herself somewhere.
Mallory wasn't there. Why were her sheets being washed?

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Excellent points.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
She didn't live there anymore, and that was in detail.
I didn't understand Now all of these details, someone may say,
and rightfully true, what does that matter? What sheets were
in the washer dryer? I can tell you something. It
matters because if I could match that up with his
last movements being near Mallorie's room, that gives.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Me one more brick in the wall. Amen. And you
know there's that video where Barry is taking law enforcement
into the home to get something that Suzanne recently wore
for tracking dogs. If you watch him now she's missing,
He's just gotten home. He has no idea where she
might be. They tell him we found her bike down

(07:11):
this ravine. Now legedly, that's all he knows. If you
watch him on that video, he walks in that door,
walks straight to the master bedroom and points to the
dirty clothes hamper. He never looks around. He never calls
her name. He never says, hey, this is out of place,
or this has been moved. What has driven me crazy

(07:34):
is there is a drinking glass on the bar right
at the kitchen. Never refers to it, never looks at it,
never says anything. Nancy again, I know your morning routine.
You vacuum the guinea pig cage, you let fat boy out,
you cook for your mama. You have a routine. If

(07:55):
I went down into my kitchen and they said Walt's
been missing, I'd look straight at that coffee pot. I
would be able to tell you where's Traveler. I would
be able to tell you what walk did, at least
at some point that morning. He never even tries to
do that on that video.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
I want to tell you something else, and I've never
ever told this story. It's never been relevant to any
case that I was working, be at trial or coverage.
I remember after Keith, my fiancee, was murdered, we had
had the funeral. I was almost stars. It's like a
horrible blur. I would still go back every weekend to

(08:37):
Athens to be with his family as mom and dad.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
I didn't know what else to do, and so I
remember Cheryl. The first time I walked into his room
after he had been murdered, I took a step in
and just stopped. I can feel it right now. It
was like he was in there, this feeling of a presence.

(09:03):
It was heavy in the air, and I looked around
and I could barely step forward. Now that was I'm
projecting again. I would think that he would walk in
and have some emotion, some something, a flicker, nothing, nothing.

(09:27):
And I got to tell you something else. I want
to find I want to get a hold of the
alleged girlfriend and find out and go through credit cards,
phone records, everything to find out when exactly that relationship started.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
People ask me all the time, what do you think
Nancy Grace would do? And I said, I tell you
one thing, I think she would do because I know
her and I know how she operates. The videos were
the young officers the bicycle. They are scurrying around that
whole area. Every single one of them are calling her
name over and over. It's fantastic video. Barry pulls up,

(10:12):
gets out of the truck, never once says her name,
never once calls her. Walks in the house, never once
calls her. Could she had you know, had this bike
accident or be run off the road and somehow got
back home and was upstairs hurt. He never looked. And
to me, that's one of those things like when oj
Simpson was told about Nicole, he never asked about the children.

(10:36):
To me, that signified because he knew he didn't kill them.
Barry never looked for her because he knew there was
no reason to look for her.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
You know about when John David snack Away when he
was about three years old and the baby's the rust warehouse. Yes,
I was all squatted down like a big idiot on
the bottom layer. You know, they've got the bottom shelf,
they've got shelves from Florida Sea, and to crawl repel
up the side to get something. And this mom had

(11:05):
shamed me at the community pool talking about she made
her own sun tan lesion. I'm like, hell, I'm giving
the cancer. Why up some suntailload.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
So I went, that's never gonna happen. Got to do
that in the cross pud.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
So I go to Babies r Us and I've got
the children. I still remember what I had on because
I looked down and saw my feet running. I was
so out of it. I was working nights at hl
N and getting up all night long, and so I
had them in tow. I didn't have on any socks.

(11:48):
I had the worst effect. I don't one of David's
solid white T shirts. It was old and some horrible
I don't know what they were, capri workout pants. And
my hair was like crazy. And I was down there
looking for organic sunscreen for babies. I blamed that mother made.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
You rotten hell.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
But anyway, and she's so perfect at the pool, you know,
with a lily pulitzer if I'm pronouncing it correctly, swimsuit
and the sun hat and the glasses and the children
were matching. And I'm like, oh, anyway, and I had
come up with a big trash bag full of swim toys,

(12:32):
you know, with a whole lot it dragging it along anyway.
So I was looking for this and I stood up.
I said, well, they don't have you. I turned around
and there was Lucy. I'm like, I grabbed Lucy like
a football and start running. Guess I had practiced this
many times about getting the children out of a fire
or this or that, how to do it, how to
carry both of them at the same time. And I

(12:54):
had Lucy under one arm like I was, you know,
running for the heisman. I was screaming and crying, which
you know I try to never do. Screaming locked doors,
my son is missing, w screaming it because you know

(13:15):
what I could think about it was out of Waltz, right,
and so I like, ah, I ran to the front. No,
Jehan David. I was looking down the sides. I turned
around and threw running back, you know, grazed the parking lot,
started running back. Oh I found him. He was hidding
down somewhere, laughing his little two year old head off
or three year old head offs. Oh my stars. When

(13:37):
I saw him, Okay, I flashed back to that moment,
and I imagine John David or Lucy lost in the
woods and screaming and crying and just wandering and probably just.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Laying down on the ground and crying. What he what
was he doing?

Speaker 3 (14:02):
He was standing going, well, maybe a mountain lion eight or.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Went right to what had to be a mountain lion
that got her. I mean, it couldn't have been anything more,
you know, close to hememe, and then.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Put her helmet and threw it. How far away?

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Oh yeah, a couple miles in the opposite direction of
where he said he went. Of course, Okay, we need
to get off the whole mounta line thing.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
That's just one point. We need to move on to
what we can prove now. Now, you were hung up
on her clothes for good reason. I was, and I'm
just wondering, see if any of his DNA is on
the clothes, which I doubt, but you know, you never know,

(14:44):
you never know, you never know.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
But I'll tell you what is a possibility his DNA
under her nails, because remember his arms looked as though
those could have been scratch marks on his arm skeletonized.
I know, but remember we got DNA off Mary Sullivan
from Boston strangler after all that time. Yep, yep, So
it's a possibility that it's still there.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Now, you'd have thought that they would have done that
if her body, if her remains allowed it, you'd think
they would have done it, and it would be in
the autopsy report. Because in autopsy reports typically you see
that the hands were bagged. What does that mean? You
use paper, usually brown paper bags, not plastic, because that

(15:29):
can mess up your results, can destroy evidence. You put
brown paper bags over the hand. Hopefully you can put
the hand in a fist so none of the DNA
under the fingernails is lost on the bag. Then you
put rubber bands or something like a rubber band around

(15:53):
the wrist so the fingernails are not contaminated. That's to
save anything under the nails. And it's so that when
you receive the body at Theme's office that you received
this bone, that bone, that bone, this bone. Hands backed.
I didn't see that, and I looked. There may be
a supplemental autopsy report that we haven't seen yet.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yep, And that could be deliberate. There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Why can't we just bust up in there and try
this case.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
For those of y'all that don't know, me and Nancy
went boots on the ground we went there, and you
had to fly in to Colorado then take a small
or airplane near Chaffee County. But then you had to
drive several hours. When I tell you, you're in the
middle of this vast, open, gorgeous, mountainous area, y'all. Everywhere

(16:43):
you looked was a good place to hide a body.
I mean, Nancy and I spent a solid three or
four days out there, and word got out that Ms.
Gray's was there. Let me tell y'all, everybody knew it.
Every church knew it. People at the grocery store knew it.
If we went anywhere, they were like, hey, are y'all
some of those people with Nancy Grace.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
And the people at the Battered Women's Center you too,
Oh yes, absolutely, And they got worried to us, which
has not been cross examined. It has not been tested
by cross examination. Let me just point that out, that
Susanne had been attending a group class at the Bettered
Women's Center, and I've got to verify that. But I

(17:25):
was told that by a couple of.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
People, reliable people, I'll add, no doubt about it. And
you know the other thing that always bothers me, Nancy,
because We've seen this every time.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Bothers us.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Everything about this bothers us. Yes, but one thing specifically,
because we've seen it over and over is here she's
missing and he attempts to sell her house.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
That just reminds me of Scott Peterson so much. He
tried to sell the house, he tried to sell Lacey's car,
and he immediately ordered the porn channel like he knew
she wasn't coming back home. Because can you imagine me
coming home and finding out David Lynton ordered the porn.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Cow Yeah, well that wouldn't be a cold case. I
think we'd be pretty sure what happened there.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
You better have my back when he goes missing.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Oh absolutely, y'all. This David Lynchch just walked away, y'all.
That's all I can tell you. Well, listen, people are
always asking me Nancy about tell us more stories about
Nancy Grace, tell us more stories about Honey. I tell them.
I was like, look, the twins are still too young.
I can't tell y'all any of those Atlanta stories.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
I was just telling somebody the other day, Oh, i't
want stars. It was John David. Because now you know,
when you go to Centennial Park for a concert or something.
It's like, oh, let's go to Centennial Park.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
I remember being there the night of the bomb and
immediately interviewing witnesses till like five o'clock in the morning
with my good friend Al Dixon.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
May rest in peace. And now it's like a water fountain,
and I look at these crime scenes and now they're
all gentrified. Speaking of a crime scene, I'm sitting outside
of Starbucks watching all the soccer moms go in there
and pay ten dollars for their drinks. I've got my
throw myself folgers. Yeah, you on that, lady, I'm all

(19:25):
tacked up. Oh by the way, I'm back on the coffee, Cheryl.
I'm off the tea and on the coffee. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
I knew you sounded happier.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
You know what, we did not talk about that pos
technical legal term that forced his little six year old
boy to run on the treadmill. Oh my god, now
the boy's dead. But I guess we can talk about
that next time you're running off to do something glamorous.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
I mean, that video is so gut wrenching, and when
that little fellow just falls over and over and just
is flung off that move and treadmill. He just picks
him back up and just forces him back on there.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
I'd love nothing more than to also blame the mother.
But the mother tried to get an emergency custody hearing.
She tried to get Corey back. She made one hundred
calls in twenty months complaining about Corey having bruises and
scrapes and cuts, and the little boy would and ran

(20:31):
out his dad. He finally did tell the teacher. The
first grade teacher called and made a conflict. It didn't matter,
and now Corey's did. What will it take, Cheryl, before
people and authorities and defects and judges start protecting children.
What will it take?

Speaker 1 (20:51):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
It's just well not helping me. You keep quit saying
one hundred percent, Haancy, one hundred percent. People say give
me an idea. Don't just say yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right,
give me something for Pete.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Say use that noggin, Nancy. It would take more personnel,
more money, we owe. The answer. The answer is when
an allegation like that is made by family, and especially
the addition of a teacher, that child should have been
interviewed that very day and if need be removed. The

(21:25):
mother should have been given the child. The fact of
the matter is that can't happen right now. They don't
have the personnel to make it happen. I got to
tell you something, Cheryl, I'm so worried. A friend of
mine call me.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
We know each other because her twins were extremely premature
as her mind, and when we met at some twin
thing when they had just come out of the hospital,
and these other two moms they both had premature twins
and we're all dealing with issues related to that. But
I'm so upset, Cheryl, because her sister is having to

(22:01):
allow the ex husband we can visit, some ahole judge
is allowing it, and like Corey, the dad has had
nothing to do with the child, and the judge wasn't listening,
and we're saying, what can we do to stop it?
What can we do to stop it? And I'm seeing
it happen right now. You know how much I hate

(22:25):
to go have lunch or have a you know, I
hate that. But I was sitting there eating my sandwich
and listening to this story and trying to think of
a way for this little girl not to have to
go with the dad and I'm just it happens every day,

(22:46):
and you're fighting the system, and you're fighting judges on
the bench who really don't care and they're not educated
in domestic law.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
I don't understand why more people don't just say, Okay,
I'm going to be in contempt, I am not going
to take my child to this.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Vision be in jail, and then the offending partner would
have full access to the baby, ding Dong.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
That's why, well, I understand that part. What I'm saying
is if you make a stand, if you make it
so public that judge, I'm not doing it, because whether
I'm in jail or not, you're going to give the
child to this person. Nancy. You remember Judge Jackie Barrett.
That's the first judge that ever held me in contempt.
She told me to shut up and sit down, and

(23:33):
I stood up and started talking because that's how much
I believed in that case. To me, if you make
a stand, you want to use the criminal justice system,
let's use it. You can lock me up, but it's
going to be on the record what I said.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
I remember the first time I was telling contempt. I
have fond memories of it. It was Judge Wayne Presley,
God Rest his soul aka Barney Rubble. I don't know
why everybody called him Barney Rubble. I think as of
his haircut, but that's or could maybe he had square feet.
I never saw his feet, but everyone called us party rubble.
Hell me ain't cons him on a double chamelus station case.

(24:11):
There you go, and the mother was in cahoots with
a molester. You know how crazy that gets me? Anyway? Okay, Cerrol,
what are we going to do about miss Morphew? I
guess we need to go back out to Salida.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think we do. I think it makes a good
impression when people see somebody like you right there in
front of God and country to say this is not okay.
We're going to see this through.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Can I trust David to feed the twins at Lno?
You know, when I come home, it looks like a
bunch of bears have been living there, and I'm like,
what happened? You know what? He says, They're alive.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Hey, he did his part. Baby.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
They're absolutely ok and they're happy to be happy with that.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
We were celebrating Shelley turning sixty. We were celebrating the
new you know, Grand nephew coming, and we were mostly
going to say celebrates Sheila because she finished her fourth
chemo treatment and as you know, honey, she has been
fighting that thing with such a tremendous attitude. And you
face timed her. You face timed her, and you were

(25:14):
so hilarious and you were uplifting and you were encouraging,
and I just wanted to tell you personally that it
just inspired Sheila. She was telling everybody Nancy Grace FaceTime
ma because she wanted to see my ball head. You know,
she just loved it and it meant so much to her, but.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
You know what it meant to Meyl McCollum. Shut up, David,
you have to tell them, Okay.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So I was leading up to that part. So Nancy's
in the car.

Speaker 5 (25:46):
Facetiming Sheila, David is driving, and David says to her, Nancy,
you're just screaming, you know, like, please don't talk so loud,
and Nancy, without missing a beat, went shut up, David.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Well, all five of us just fell out. So now
that was our tagline for the whole weekend. If somebody
didn't want to do something. So they were like, my
sisters are always they're all older and much much older
than me, and they were like, Cheryl, will getting there
and you got to help us cook and get that,
you know, salmon in the oven. And I'm like, shut up, David,
and people were I'm strolling out. Oh. It was just fabulous.

(26:26):
But I just love you for that, and I appreciate
you and you have just been such a remarkable friend
to me for a long time, since we were in
our twenties, you know, burning Atlanta down, baby, But I
just appreciate it, and it meant the world to Sheila.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
God willing, We'll be able to fight crime for many,
many more years and see our children have their grandchildren.
God willing.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Okay, Cherl, I gotta go.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Thank you, Nancy Grace. Okay, I'm Cheryl McCollum. And this
is the Crime round Up with zones. Have the tape

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Remained that the Atta
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