Barry Morphew Case Explained: Husband Charged in Wife Suzanne's Murder for Second Time

Colorado was rocked by the vanishing of Suzanne Morphew in May 2020: A 49-year-old mother of two who seemingly disappeared into thin air during a bike ride in Chaffee County on Mother's Day.

Suzanne's husband, Barry, made national headlines with his emotional pleas for his wife's safe return, offering a $100,000 reward for information, sharing her old love notes and declaring he would "do whatever it takes" to get her back. But one year after Suzanne went missing, Barry was arrested for her presumed murder, though her body had not been found.

A messy year-long legal battle ensued, ultimately culminating in the charges against Barry being dropped in April 2022, days before the case was set to go to trial.

While the case seemed to go cold, a major break came in September 2023, when law enforcement discovered Suzanne's remains while searching for a different missing woman. Now, authorities say the remains revealed evidence that once again points to Barry as the prime suspect.

Suzanne's bone marrow contained a chemical mixture known as BAM, which is a tranquilizer used for sedating animals, according to an affidavit from the Twelfth Judicial District Attorney's Office. Law enforcement had previously found a tranquilizer rifle in Barry's gun safe and Barry had admitted to using BAM for hunting purposes, the affidavit says.

"The prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM: Barry Morphew," the affidavit reads.

Barry was indicted on a first-degree murder charge on June 18. He was arrested in Arizona on June 20 and is now awaiting extradition back to Colorado. As the state awaits a second murder trial, here is a look back on the many twists and turns in Suzanne's case that have lead to this moment:

May 2020: Suzanne Goes Missing

Suzanne was reported missing by her neighbor at 5:46 p.m. on Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10, 2020. Barry told police he was in Broomfield for a work trip at the time she disappeared, claiming to have left home at 5 a.m. that morning while Suzanne was still asleep, the affidavit says.

Investigators found no signs of forced entry at the Morphew home at 19057 Puma Path near Salida. Suzanne's bike was missing from the property, and found later that evening less than a mile away, down a hillside off a dirt road between the house and Highway 50. Four days later, on May 14, Suzanne's bike helmet was found off the side of Highway 50, around 1.52 miles from the house and 0.84 miles from her bike.

One week after Suzanne vanished, Barry posted a video of himself in tears, pleading for her safe return. He offered a $100,000 reward for information in the case, which a family friend doubled to $200,000.

Over the next month, authorities received hundreds of tips and conducted nearly a dozen large-scale searches for Suzanne, including tracking dogs, water rescue teams and tactical mountain rescuers. Investigators spent days searching the Morphew home and a residential construction site near Salida that Barry had recently been hired to lay dirt at.

The searches yielded few results. Barry avoided speaking to the media for weeks, but in a secretly recorded conversation with an amateur sleuth, Barry suggested that his wife was abducted.

August 2020: Barry Blames Investigators

A couple of months later, Barry conducted his first media interview since the day of Suzanne's disappearance, claiming that the sheriff's office "screwed up" the investigation and "now they are trying to cover it up and blame it on me." He alleged that his friend witnessed deputies mishandle the crime scene when they found his wife's bike, saying they "destroyed" the evidence. Barry now speculated that Suzanne was attacked by an animal or struck by a vehicle while biking.

Other people also began speaking to the media around this period, including Suzanne's brother — who accused Barry of denying polygraph tests and being uncooperative with the investigation — and two of Barry's coworkers, who said Barry behaved strangely on May 10, before Suzanne was reported missing. (At the time, Barry denied that he refused to take a polygraph, but an affidavit released in 2021 revealed that Barry did refuse to take the test when requested by law enforcement three days after Suzanne was reported missing.)

That October, Barry listed the family's house for sale, telling media outlets that his daughters were afraid to stay at the home because they believed Suzanne was kidnapped there. It sold for over $1.6 million in March 2021.

May 2021: Barry Charged With Murder

Nearly one year after Suzanne vanished, Barry was arrested on May 5, 2021, for charges of first-degree murder after deliberation, tampering with physical evidence and attempting to influence a public servant; the latter charge stemmed from Barry allegedly providing false information to investigators to conceal Suzanne's murder, the affidavit says. Though Suzanne's body had still not been found, investigators said they believed she was killed, and District Attorney Linda Stanley said she was confident they had sufficient evidence to prosecute Barry.

Prosecutors later added charges against Barry, including tampering with a body. In a separate case, he was also charged with forgery after election officials discovered that Barry had illegally cast Suzanne's ballot in the 2020 presidential election, months after her disappearance. Barry reportedly told investigators he did it because he "wanted Trump to win," and he "figured all these other guys are cheating."

August 2021: Marital Problems Revealed

Affidavits and preliminary court hearings revealed that the Morphew marriage was rife with conflict leading up to Suzanne's disappearance, despite Barry telling investigators they had a "perfect" relationship. Suzanne had been having an affair for two years and suspected Barry was as well, even planting a "spy pen" recorder in Barry's truck in an attempt to catch him in the act.

Though the pen did not uncover evidence that Barry was unfaithful, investigators testified that deleted search history on Barry's phone revealed visits to the dating website Ashley Madison. An affidavit revealed that Barry began a relationship with another woman shortly after Suzanne went missing, possibly as early as July 2020, two months after his wife vanished.

Evidence provided in court showed that Suzanne seemingly told Barry she intended to end their marriage just four days before she was reported missing, texting her husband on May 6: "I'm done. I could care less what you're up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly." That same day, Barry texted Suzanne, apparently suggesting he would commit suicide: "Going to see my savior. This life on earth is a mear [sic] grain of sand compared to eternity."

Two days later, on May 8, Suzanne texted her sister, claiming that Barry was abusive: "It’s been hard dealing with the harsh abrasiveness and having to show respect. He’s also been abusive, emotionally and physically," she wrote.

The preliminary hearing also revealed that investigators found a tranquilizer dart cap in the dryer in the Morphew home; that Barry was seen on surveillance cameras on May 10 driving around to various locations and discarding unknown items in separate trash cans; and that investigators found male DNA in Suzanne's car that corresponds with partial DNA profiles from sexual assault cases in different states. Barry's defense argued that the DNA suggested a stranger may have attacked Suzanne; in Barry's arrest affidavit, investigators say the DNA profile mixtures were "consistent with what would be expected" in a vehicle and "did not lead to any stranger or intruder suspects."

December 2021: Case Begins to Unravel

Cracks began to show in the prosecution in December, when the judge who had been overseeing the proceedings recused himself from the case. Judge Patrick Murphy stepped down at the request of Barry's attorneys because Murphy had a long personal relationship with a partner in the firm representing Barry's girlfriend, who was expected to be called as a witness in the case.

The same month, a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent who testified in the case resigned from the agency amid an internal affairs investigation into the accidental discharge of a gun. Former agent Joseph Cahill accidentally shot himself in the hand while he was off-duty at his home, and reportedly lied to investigators looking into what happened.

In January, the case was moved into Fremont County on the grounds that Barry could not receive a fair trial in Chaffee County because of the extensive media coverage and community awareness.

April 2022: Murder Charge Dropped

Prosecutors dropped charges against Barry on April 19, 2022, nine days before the case was set to go to trial. This move came weeks after the judge denied Barry's attorneys' request to dismiss the case over comments former CBI agent Cahill made about Barry's arrest being "premature."

Though Judge Ramsey Lama had decided to move forward with the case, he prohibited expert testimony from most of the prosecution's key witnesses after prosecutors repeatedly failed to follow rules for turning over evidence in Barry's favor. District Attorney Stanley said they dropped the charges partially because of the exclusion of their witnesses, but also because investigators felt they were close to finding Suzanne's body.

The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could still re-file charges against Barry at a later date. If the case went to trial and Barry was acquitted by a jury, the government would not be able to charge him again.

The separate voter fraud case against Barry continued. In July of 2022, he pleaded guilty to forgery for using Suzanne's ballot to vote for Trump twice in the 2020 election. Barry was sentenced to 32 hours of community service.

May 2023: Barry Sues for $15 Million

Just over a year after the charges were dropped, Barry filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Chaffee County, DA Stanley, several law enforcement officers and agencies, and other parties. The lawsuit sought $15 million for Barry's "irreparably tarnished" reputation and emotional distress, alleging that authorities conspired to wrongly arrest him, fabricated evidence and conducted a reckless investigation into Suzanne's disappearance.

One month prior, Barry's attorney filed a complaint against Stanley and the other prosecutors who worked on the case against Barry, accusing them of unethical conduct such as presenting false information and concealing evidence.

September 2023: Suzanne's Remains Found

Law enforcement officials discovered Suzanne's remains on September 22, 2023 — nearly three-and-a-half years after she was reported missing. Though investigators said they were close to finding Suzanne in April 2022, the actual discovery happened on accident, while authorities searched for a different missing woman in an unrelated case.

Suzanne's remains were found in and around a shallow grave down a dirt road off of Highway 17 near the town of Moffat in Saguache County, according to an affidavit. The grave was less than an hour drive from the Morphew house. Authorities recovered the majority of her bones, in addition to a cancer port and items of clothing.

April 2024: Death Ruled a Homicide

The autopsy report for Suzanne was released on April 29, 2024, officially declaring her death a homicide by “undetermined means." The autopsy identified the presence of BAM, the tranquilizer chemical mixture, in Suzanne's bone marrow. According to an affidavit, the autopsy also found evidence that Suzanne's body had begun to metabolize the drug, meaning her death was not immediate after she was exposed to BAM.

September 2024: District Attorney Disbarred, Barry's Lawsuit Dismissed

The district attorney who brought the criminal charges against Barry was disbarred on September 10, prohibiting her from practicing law in the state. A panel under the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to disbar Stanley following a complaint from the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel in October 2023, partially regarding her behavior during the Morphew case.

The panel found that Stanley had made inappropriate comments to the media about the Morphew case and an unrelated case. In addition, it concluded that she launched a "baseless" investigation into the judge in the Morphew case, calling it an "abuse" of power. That investigation looked into an unfounded online conspiracy theory that the judge abused his ex-wife; the investigation began shortly after the judge ruled to exclude most of the prosecution's expert witnesses.

Two of the prosecutors who worked with Stanley to charge Barry were later publicly censured as a punishment for the complaints.

The same month that Stanley was disbarred, a federal judge dismissed Barry's $15 million lawsuit. The judge ruled that even though there was misconduct among the prosectors, authorities did have enough reason to arrest and charge Barry in Suzanne's death. 

June 2025: Barry Charged With Murder, Again

Barry was arrested during a traffic stop in Arizona on June 20, after a grand jury returned an indictment charging him with the first-degree murder of Suzanne two days earlier.

The ten-page affidavit alleges that Barry lied to law enforcement about where he was when Suzanne was reported missing, when he left their home, and the state of their marriage. It says one of Barry's employees reported that Barry unexpectedly left town to go to their Broomfield job site in the early morning of May 10, numerous hours before the pair were scheduled to drive to Broomfield together.

Though he was in the Broomfield area for nearly ten hours the day Suzanne was reported missing, surveillance footage showed Barry spent less than thirty minutes at the job site, the affidavit says. Instead, Barry was seen "driving around to various locations and discarding unknown items in separate trash cans."

While searching the Morphew home, law enforcement found a tranquilizer dart cap in the dryer and a tranquilizer rifle in a gun safe in the garage. Barry confirmed to investigators that he used the tranquilizer chemical mixture BAM for hunting purposes, the affidavit says. The same mixture was found in Suzanne's bone marrow during the autopsy. Records showed Barry was the only private citizen or business within the county or adjacent counties that had purchased BAM prescriptions from 2017 to 2020, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit also points to evidence that Suzanne's remains were moved before they were discovered. It claims that experts observed a lack of bug activity, clothing decomposition and animal predation on the bones, making it "unlikely Suzanne decomposed from a fresh body to a skeleton at this location."

Barry is currently in custody in Arizona as he awaits extradition to Colorado. When he is transferred, he will be held on a $3 million cash-only bond. Court hearings won't be scheduled until he arrives in Colorado, which is expected to happen within thirty days.