A Colorado man indicted again in connection with the murder of his wife in a homicide case that drew national headlines has been living in Arizona and was arrested in Gilbert by Arizona Department of Public Safety detectives.
It is unclear why Barry Morphew, 57, was living in the Phoenix area. He had an address at the Stardust Trailer Park in Cave Creek, tax records showed. Morphew was being held in Arizona while authorities sought to extradite him to Colorado to face first-degree murder charges in the death of Suzanne Morphew. She was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020 and later found dead.
Barry was indicted the first time in 2021 on charges of first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence after Suzanne, 49, was reported missing on May 10, 2020. Those charges were later dropped in April 2022 before Barry's trial date and before Suzanne's remains were discovered. The charges were dropped without prejudice, leaving the opportunity for prosecutors to charge him in the future with new evidence.
A district attorney for the San Luis Valley in rural south-central Colorado announced June 20 that on June 18, a grand jury had indicted Barry on a first-degree murder charge in Suzanne's death and that Barry had been arrested in Gilbert. Law enforcement in Colorado "has never stopped working to obtain justice" for Suzanne, the mother of two, and her family, Colorado 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne E. Kelly said at a June 20 news conference announcing the new indictment and arrest.
An Arizona DPS detective saw Morphew driving a black Ford pickup about 11 a.m. June 20 and conducted a traffic top near Civic Center Drive and Gilbert Road, according to court records. Morphew was taken into custody without incident on a warrant issued for his arrest issued following the indictment, court records said. A $3 million bond has been set, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office in Colorado.
The indictment came 21 months after Suzanne's remains were located on Sept. 22, 2023, in a shallow clandestine grave near Highway 17 in Saguache County, Colorado. The location where the remains were found is about one hour south of the Morphews' residence near Salida, Colorado, the indictment said.
There were no visible signs of trauma to the remains, the indictment said. Toxicology testing, however, found traces of a chemical mixture used to tranquilize deer called BAM in the bone marrow of the remains belonging to Suzanne, the indictment said. Several people told investigators that before moving to Colorado in 2018, Barry was a deer farmer in Indiana, where he used BAM to sedate deer, the indictment said. Prescription records also showed that Barry was the only private citizen in the entire state of Colorado who had access to BAM at the time of Suzanne's death, the indictment said.
Law enforcement officers also found a dart gun, a tranquilizer gun and tranquilizer darts stored in a gun safe at the Morphews' residence, the indictment said. Law enforcement officers also found the needle cap from a dart in a dryer in the home along with a pair of men's shorts that appeared similar to the shorts Barry was seen wearing on a video on May 9, 2020, the day before Suzanne's disappearance, the indictment said.
A forensic pathologist told investigators it was unlikely Suzanne's body decomposed at the location where it was found, the indictment said. Many of the bones were significantly bleached, there was no hair mass, and there was a lack of evidence of animal and bug activity in the area, the indictment said. The bike clothing found at the site matched clothing Suzanne was known to wear. However, the clothing, unlike the remains, was not decomposed, the indictment said.
"All these features would have been expected if this had been the original gravesite where decomposition occurred," the indictment said.
In early interviews, Barry told investigators his marriage to Suzanne was "the best" and the two had had a "wonderful weekend" before she went missing, the indictment said. But investigators learned that Suzanne had confided to people in the weeks and months leading up to her disappearance that she was unhappy with the marriage, maintained notes of problems in the marriage and had discussed plans with a close friend to divorce Barry, the indictment said.
What's more, Suzanne had been having a "secret affair" with an old acquaintance who lived out of state, the indictment said. She communicated with him daily over LinkedIn and WhatsApp, the indictment said.
Suzanne communicated with this person at 2:11 p.m. on May 9, 2020, just 32 minutes before Barry returned home that day. It was her last known electronic message to anyone, the indictment said.
A forensic download of Barry's phone showed he had deleted a text chain with Suzanne, the indictment said. Investigators found a screenshot on his phone of a single text that remained from the conversation with Suzanne that said, “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," according to the indictment.
Barry has heavily denied having anything to do with her disappearance. In May 2023, he filed a $15 million lawsuit against prosecutors and investigators, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights...
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