The husband of Suzanne Morphew has been charged with murder for a second time, five years after the 49-year-old mom of two went missing in a cold case that had many stumped.
Barry Morphew was arrested in Cave Creek, Arizona, on Friday and charged with first-degree murder of his late wife. Police allege that Barry killed his wife on the morning of May 9, 2020, one day before her disappearance was reported, with the assistance of a powerful animal tranquilizer.
The drug butorphanol-azaperone-medetomidine (BAM) was found in Suzanne’s body, and the charging document released Friday suggested who put it there.
“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,” it read.
Barry will be extradited to the San Luis Valley, Colorado to face charges. His two daughters with Suzanne have yet to comment.
“Federal, State and local law enforcement have never stopped working toward justice for Suzanne,” Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly said Friday.
Incriminating evidence was found in the couple’s home shortly after Morphew vanished: a tranquilizer gun, a tranquilizer needle cap, and darts.
Morphew’s husband used to hunt deer using BAM while the couple lived in Indiana. They moved to Colorado in 2018.
By the time Morphew died in 2020, the two were having marital issues.
On May 6, three days before investigators believe Suzanne was killed, she texted her husband saying: “I’m done. I could (sic) care less what you’re up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly.”
Barry, however, claimed in a police interview that the couple’s marriage was “the best.” Investigators later discovered that Suzanne had been having a nearly two-year affair with an old high school friend.
During a subsequent police interview, officers noted that Barry had scratches on his hands and arms.
Suzanne vanished when the couple’s youngest daughter, Macy, was away for a few days. She was reported missing by her neighbor on Mother’s Day 2020 after Macy and her sister Mallory were unable to reach their mom via phone.
Barry was first charged with murdering his wife in 2021, though the case eventually collapsed and both of the couple’s daughters remained loyal to their father. Barry claimed that he left home early on the morning of May 10 to work in a town three hours away, and that his wife was asleep in their bed when he left. But at that point, she had been dead for hours.
Over the next 24 hours, Barry’s phone entered and exited airplane mode several times. The back of his truck was opened numerous times between about 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. and backed up into the home’s garage at least once.
Despite claiming that he had a landscaping job in Broomfield, he just spent 90 minutes on site and spent the rest in a hotel room that cleaners claimed smelled of chlorine when he checked out. He also made several trash runs around town.
Morphew’s bike was found abandoned down a steep embankment near the family’s home, but police believe the scene was staged.
Barry tearfully pleaded with the public for answers: “Suzanne, if anyone is out there that can hear this that has you, please, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back,” he said at the time.
Morphew’s body was discovered in 2023 on a rural road in Saguache County, Colorado, about an hour south of the family’s home, in a patch of land known as “The Boneyard.” Forensic experts quickly ruled that it was unlikely she died or decomposed there.
A 2024 autopsy did rule Suzanne’s death a homicide, though of “unspecified means.” The coroner’s report said she died with BAM in her system.
“Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence,” David Beller, Barry’s attorney, said in a statement to ABC News on Friday. “Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed and the outcome will not either.”
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