Barry Morphew was the only private citizen in the south-Central Colorado counties — where the Suzanne Morphew death investigation unfolded — who had access to the mix of drugs in her system when she died, according to a new indictment that accuses Barry Morphew of his wife's murder.
Friday's indictment, filed by a 12th Judicial grand jury, comes more than three years after the first murder case against him was dismissed and 21 months after Suzanne’s remains were found.
The indictment also details cell phone and vehicle telematics data from Barry Morphew's truck that contradicts the story he told law enforcement after his wife went missing and that includes outages at key times of the investigation, as well as evidence that Morphew's body was moved to the Saguache County location where it was found back in 2023.
Morphew was taken into custody in Maricopa County, Arizona on Friday, according to the DA’s office, which said it would try to have him extradited back to Colorado.
- Authorities were scheduled to speak about the indictment at 6 p.m. Friday in Alamosa. Denver7 has a crew on the way and will provide coverage of that news conference.
Suzanne Morphew went missing on Mother’s Day in 2020 after leaving for a bike ride. Barry Morphew was arrested roughly one year later on charges of first-degree murder after deliberation, tampering with physical evidence and an attempt to influence a public servant.
In April of 2022, a judge granted a request by the prosecution to dismiss the case less than two weeks before his trial was set to begin in Fremont County. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning Barry Morphew could be tried again if charges were refiled.
Prosecutors said at the time that a ruling by the judge that they could not call their most expert witness at trial due to discovery violations meant Suzanne’s body needed to be found in order to prove the case. They said they believed her body was in a hard-to-reach mountainous area that was covered in snow at the time.
Suzanne’s body was found in a shallow grave in a Saguache County field during an unrelated investigation 17 months later in September of 2023.
An autopsy ruled her death a homicide. A powerful mix of sedatives – butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine, or BAM – was found in her system. BAM is commonly used to "sedating animals for medical treatment or movement," according to a medical expert cited in Friday's indictment.
BAM is only available by veterinarian prescription, according to the indictment. Records showed only Barry Morphew, along with Colorado Parks & Wildlife and the National Parks Service, had been issued prescriptions of the sedative in the years leading up to Suzanne Morphew's disappearance.
Barry Morphew last purchased multiple kits of the chemical compound in Indiana in 2018.
"Ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM: Barry Morphew," the indictment reads.
The indictment also details evidence that suggests Suzanne Morphew's body did not decompose in the shallow grave in Saguache County: A lack of bug activity or "animal predation" on the remains and a lack of decomposition in her clothing.
Morphew’s attorney, Iris Eytan, has maintained his innocence in the years since he was arrested. When the case was dismissed, she said there was no physical evidence linking Barry to Suzanne’s death and accused the prosecution of dismissing the case because of their misconduct.
Linda Stanley, the lead prosecutor in the case, was disbarred after state disciplinary authorities accused her of a slew of violations during the case, including making inappropriate comments to the media during the prosecution.
Barry Morphew filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against a host of parties in Chaffee County, including Stanley in May of 2023. That lawsuit was dismissed, with a federal judge saying prosecutors acted badly in his case, but authorities still had enough reason to arrest and charge him, according to The Associated Press.
- Denver7 has closely followed every turn in this case. In the timeline below, see what led up to this week’s indictment of Barry Morphew.