The Suzanne Morphew Case: Nothing Is What It Seems | Full Episode

foreign [Music] when something like this happens somebody goes missing you want answers but this case is incredibly unique when you started to dig a little bit deeper thing is what it seems Dan Murphy went missing on Mother's Day in May of 2020 and from there on out it became a nationwide search for her Suzanne morphew left for a bike ride and she never came back she has two beautiful daughters the family looks to be perfect from the outside every picture you saw of them they were smiling they're laughing they're looking like they love each other she grew up in Indiana she came to Colorado and she began to mountain bike we see pictures of a beautiful woman an active physically fit woman taking advantage of the mountains Barrymore few was a business owner he was an avid Hunter and a man's man on May 9th Barry was very happy because there had been some marital tension but not on May 9th all you would have to go on is what Barry says occurred that's right Barry says they had a nice dinner together they even made love and then they went to sleep and she was still sleeping the next morning when he left for work so the next day Mother's Day the daughters are out on a camping trip did that strike people as odd family had told not be with their mom she didn't have anything else to do and all of a sudden her daughters and her husband are both gone Barrymore fusetti texted his wife Suzanne to wish her a happy Mother's Day he received no reply he had contact with his daughters back and forth can't get a hold of mother and then someone contacted a neighbor right the neighbor had told Barry that her car's here she was not home and Barry says well maybe go look for her bike because she's an avid mountain biker the neighbor said he could not find it local law enforcement responds to the scene and they do find her bicycle where was that bike it's right over here Peter the bike was found at the bottom of this Ravine right here the initial thought is kidnapping oh Suzanne if anyone is out there that can hear this that has you will do whatever it takes to bring you back so about 10 days into the investigation they learn about piece of technology that we have an example of right in front of you what is that right so they find a spy pin it looks something like this and they find it in the master bedroom of the morphew home it's like James Bond it's a pen that looks like a regular pen and it records conversations this my pen was given to Suzanne to record Barrymore few in hopes of catching him and an affair it backfired in fact as a matter of fact it backfired captured on the spy pen is a conversation between Suzanne morphew and somebody named Jeff and it's clear that Jeff is her lover they did not know who Jeff was but it put a new wrinkle into the case for sure thank you [Music] foreign [Music] what happened on this road is a real mystery no one knows where is Suzanne in the days weeks and months after Suzanne morphew was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020 her Trail went cold but the mother of two's disappearance had become the biggest story in Colorado 49-year-old Suzanne morphew remains missing home of a missing woman from Chaffey county is now being searched teams are combing the terrain even brought in boats to search the local waterways and we're going to Fan out and we're going to work that area very carefully okay sin Suzanne's brother Andrew Mormon organized a citizen search he said he felt he had to do something anything I'd hope to find her alive and at some point you have to realize when somebody's missing after so long that the chances of that diminished erratically the thought that Suzanne may have been abducted hit the peaceful picturesque town of Salida hard I came home every day and my wife asked me had they found her yet Dan Ridenour has covered the story for his local Morning Show hippie radio 97.5 with Dan Argo morning 8 27 now Barry and Suzanne morphew were not known well in Salida Colorado they had only been here for a couple of years [Music] moving to Colorado in 2018 Barry and Suzanne grew up in the small town of Alexandria Indiana where they met in high school Suzanne competed for homecoming queen Barry was a star baseball player who was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays injury ended Barry's dreams of a Major League career they both attended Purdue University and married in 1994. he started a landscaping business Suzanne taught middle school before becoming a full-time mother they had a couple of daughters one in college and they had a daughter in high school Macy 16 years old when her mom disappeared lived at home her sister Mallory attended college and the morphews told some friends they moved to a home just outside of Salida to be closer to their older daughter but there were also Rumblings about the state of the morphew's marriage maybe a new place a new home new scenery around them would strengthen their family and therefore strengthen their marriage did not appear to improve the relationship it was a tough time says her sister Melinda Mormon my sister had sent me a text message it was very lengthy it was very powerful it was very revealing in this Zoom interview Melinda said she received Suzanne's text two days before she disappeared and it was boiling over with anger toward Barry the text read in part he's also been abusive emotionally and physically I feel more angry now anger at what I've allowed Barry was very dominant in the relationship and my sister was a very passive gentle soul he had a great tendency to overpower and intimidate people to get what he wanted and what kind of boss was he you know he was real quiet Stern he knew what he was doing because that's what he did in Indiana Cody Cox was part of Barry's Landscaping crew for nearly two years when Barry first arrived in Colorado I talked pretty highly about Mary because I was with him all the time and he's like inspiration to me almost he was a real cool guy Cody said he regularly heard Barry talking to Suzanne as they drove in Barry's truck they seem to communicate pretty well she's a sweetheart she is a real kind lady she's almost like an angel like something you'd see off a Hallmark movie you know it was like real nice almost too perfect so when I heard about the news I didn't believe it I heard it actually on the radio and I was like did they just say Suzanne and I was like oh my gosh who would even want to hurt her the first state authorities searched for Suzanne they found her mountain bike close to the morphew home where was the mountain bike found it was found right over this little Cliff right here resting on these Boulders she was new at mountain biking so an accident is certainly plausible I would only ask where Suzanne she would have been injured yeah she would have been injured investigators believe the scene was staged and days later they discovered Suzanne's helmet roughly a mile away off Highway 50. the helmet was found on the south side of the road with this side of the road which would be to our left so was the thought somebody threw it out of a window perhaps that's the thinking yes it appeared as though Suzanne could have been abducted and that's when Barry made that public plea please do whatever it takes to bring you back in those early days Barry had a theory about what happened to Suzanne that he shared with Tyson Draper who has his own YouTube channel they happened to meet at the site where Suzanne's mountain bike was found and Tyson secretly videotaped Barry the first night there was a mountain lion the officer seen it walked by the car so we thought maybe she got attacked by a lion a mountain lion killed her if that happened there would have been signs of that and there would have been blood there would have been struggled so that was a very short-lived speculation authorities began to doubt that Suzanne even took a bike ride especially after her sunglasses and hydration backpack were found in her car investigators also found her driver's license and credit cards in her Range Rover but her cell phone was missing did Barry morphew cooperate with investigators during the course of this he had been interviewed by investigators through the course of it and he talked to investigators almost every time eleven news reporter Ashley Franco is live at the Chaffee County Court Ashley Franco who reported on the case for the CBS affiliate in Colorado Springs has read the police documents and she says Barry has repeatedly told the same story he came home around 3 P.M on May 9 2020 and had a pleasant evening with Suzanne the next morning Mother's Day Barry says he drove to a job some three hours away he says the last time he sees his wife is when she's sleeping in their bed as investigators began trying to verify Barry's Alibi they were polled in a New Direction Suzanne's spy pen had surfaced with that intimate conversation now they needed to figure out the identity of Jeff Suzanne's lover could this man have had something to do with Suzanne's disappearance [Applause] it was just days after Suzanne morphe went missing when investigators make that intriguing discovery they discover a spy pen a spy pen a spy pen IA Gruber is a professor of law at the University of Colorado and a former defense attorney she has closely studied all the public investigative files in the morphew case she knows it was not easy for investigators to find Suzanne's secret lover a man named Jeff she hid that Affair so well that it took agents six months to find the man she was having an affair with Jeff turned out to be Jeff libler and he had a wife and six children in Michigan where he lived he and Suzanne had a one-time fling After High School decades passed until Suzanne reached out to Jeff out of the blue in 2018. when Suzanne and Barry moved to Colorado Suzanne messaged him on Facebook and what did she message him howdy stranger and from that moment they had talked almost every single day non-stop in the months after Suzanne went missing Jeff kept quiet he only began cooperating after he was located by investigators who learned Jeff had taken steps to hide the nearly two-year Affair what he did was delete all his social media accounts that he had used to communicate with Suzanne he's got a lot to lose if Revelations of this affair come out Jeff told agents he only took those steps because he did not want to tarnish Suzanne's memory and worried he might lose his family and job he was also worried agents considered him a suspect he asked the agents am I a Target although he did not come forward on his own Jeff did assist agents after they found him he agreed to provide access to his DNA phone records and his passwords for those deleted accounts by looking through the couple's iCloud accounts and phone records agents were able to piece together their relationship including the times they met in person investigators also found that Suzanne on several instances had gone on vacation to meet up with Jeff in many different states ranging from Louisiana to Florida investigators also discovered they'd sent intimate photos to each other talked of becoming husband and wife and even mentioned leaving the United States Jeff and Suzanne had talked about moving away moving to Ecuador at one point if you were an investigator instead of a law professor what would you want to know about this Jeff libler everything I'd want to know everything about what he was doing what he was somebody who arguably had the last communication with Suzanne before she went missing the love affair between Suzanne and Jeff became a key part of the investigation as agents tried to figure out what happened to her on that Saturday May 9th the day before Mother's Day records show that Suzanne and Jeff messaged each other 59 times that day much more than usual authorities say at one point Suzanne sends Jeff this selfie investigators dubbed her last proof of life photo Barry was not home as The Lover's tax heat up at 205 PM Suzanne writes I'm just in love with you what you up to Jeff's response at 206 PM want to strip down and get naked LOL she responds by saying she'll load up her WhatsApp account and then at 211 Suzanne writes okay I'm on wa then at 2 26 PM Suzanne gets a text from Barry that he's heading home done headed back no one knows if Suzanne saw that text or was preoccupied with Jeff but she does not answer Barry follows up appearing to wonder where Suzanne is did you leave there was still no response from Suzanne and investigators speculate the next few moments are when Barry returned home they noticed that Barry's cell phone appears to be pinging all around the outside of his house was he chasing Suzanne before a final and fatal confrontation investigators asked Barry to explain that unusual phone activity and he says well let me think about that I was probably walking around my house shooting Chipmunks you heard right it was perhaps the world's first Chipmunk Alibi Barry says the Chipmunks were a constant nuisance at his house and he'd been running around shooting them that day and then that confession to shooting Chipmunks becomes a major piece of incriminating evidence against him there was no evidence of any chipmunk shootings around Barry's house part of his problem Aya says is that Barry granted between 30 and 40 interviews all without a lawyer to everyone from a county detective to members of the FBI would you have allowed him to do all these interviews yeah absolutely not meanwhile Jeff libler was cleared he told agents he was in Michigan that weekend and his Alibi checked out when investigators tell Barry of the affair he denies knowing anything about it but if Barry knew nothing about Suzanne's Affair what motive would he have to kill her one clue may be a deleted text that investigators found on Barry's phone sent by Suzanne just days before 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 so the only thing that makes sense is that Barrymore if you lost it when Suzanne finally said I'm leaving him Barry knew that his daughters would be away on their camping trip that Saturday afternoon and authorities say he took advantage of that opportunity to kill Suzanne and clean up the crime scene from 2 47 PM until 10 17 p.m just under eight hours Barry's phone goes into airplane mode what do authorities believe was happening during that time say that they believe when his phone went into airplane mode that he was disposing of possible evidence unable to track Barry's cell phone investigators tapped into a relatively new investigative technique vehicle forensics to pull a stream of data out of Barry's Ford truck and Barry's truck told a different story than what he was telling investigators they were using Barry's own car Ben Lemire is an expert in the new field of vehicle forensics give me a sense of how your technology from your company helps solve criminal cases so a lot of times it's used to you know locate bodies lemir is the CEO of the burla corporation helps get people convicted and it's helped get people not convicted [Music] investigators from Scotland Yard to the FBI have learned how to use burles software to tap into the dozens of computers in a car it's accurate enough to be used as evidence in court cases correct yes sir it's uh it's used every day in cases around the world cases like The Disappearance of Suzanne morphew investigators created a burla report meaning they tapped into the data in Barry's Ford truck to track its movements after his cell phone went into airplane mode a couple of the pieces of evidence that I think are very harmful to his case come from the data in the car the prosecution's case is that Barry snapped at one point the day before Mother's Day authorities believe Barry killed Suzanne that afternoon he told agents he went to bed around 8 PM that night but the data pulled from the truck shows that the truck was put in reverse and moved some 96 feet closer to his house around 9 30 pm investigators think that's when he could have loaded Suzanne's body initially Barry told police that he set his alarm for 4 30 a.m on Mother's Day and left the house by five to drive to a job site in Broomfield a town near Denver 150 miles from Salida but the truck's computers show that someone was opening and closing the truck's doors around 3 30 a.m investigators believe Barry began driving toward Broomfield much earlier than he claimed but there is a four-hour window approximately 4 a.m to 8 A.M when no activity was recorded by the vehicle's computers there are events in the car that aren't recorded so they can't give sort of a full chronological picture and if Barry hid Suzanne's body during that four hour window the truck's data does not provide answers why is data missing sometimes what gets overwritten you know it is a computer and you know log files they only last so long but Barry helped fill in some of the missing data he told agents he took a left upon leaving his home instead of a right because even though it was dark he remembered seeing some elk he saw a herd of elk and he's a hunter so he was interested and he wanted to get an up close look that admission was significant to agents because it put him in an area where a key piece of evidence had been recovered investigators found Suzanne's bike helmet up that road so they believe at that point when he turned left instead of turning right that he could have been ditching her bike helmet at 8 10 on Mother's Day morning the truck's computers again began recording data and by then Barry's cell phone had also come back to life agents are able to track Barry's cell and truck movements and can see that he first pulled over at this Broomfield bus stop where he discarded something in a garbage can and then he moves on to a hotel trash can a McDonald's trash can a dumpster in a Men's Warehouse parking lot and then back to the hotel and dump stuff in a dumpster there investigators believe that during these trash runs he was disposing of evidence in different places within the Denver area this is a surveillance shot of Barry on one of those trash runs but investigators could not see what he was throwing away it may have looked incriminating but Barry claims it was just another day at the office he told agents he was merely being cheap not Criminal and his claim why just always have a lot of junk in in the vehicle I don't like to pay to have it disposed at a landfill I this is just what I do but it's suspicious that you would go to five different trash areas to dispose of several things why not just do it at one after checking out the work site Barry headed back to his room at the Holiday Inn and investigators say he stayed there from 1242 to 603 PM by then he'd already spoken to older daughter Mallory who told him she could not get in touch with her mother that's when the more few neighbors were contacted and could find no sign of Suzanne Barry asked him at that time if the bike was there to go check on her her bicycle is not here Barry asks his neighbor to call 911 and that's when the call to 9-1-1 was placed that Suzanne is missing Barry doesn't head home immediately and he is dropping some tools off for his co-workers tools including a shovel with Suzanne now officially reported missing Barry tells his workers there's a family emergency and arranges hotel rooms with one of those workers taking over Barry's room when the employee was interviewed he told investigators that the room that Barry checked out of it had a strong smell of chlorine or bleach which suggests what that he could be cleaning up a crime scene just after 6 PM Barry starts driving back to Salida on the way Barry speaks to sheriff's deputies who advise him they found Suzanne's bike and he arrives at that Ravine at around 8 40 pm and investigators say that when he arrived there he was pretty emotional for a few minutes by Sunday night Suzanne's daughters were back home but Suzanne is nowhere to be found no questions asked however much they want Barry offered a 100 000 reward for information that was later doubled to two hundred thousand dollars investigators later discovered many texts from Suzanne to a close friend that apparently revealed her tormented feelings about Barry he won't speak of divorce I feel no peace when he's here I wouldn't feel safe alone with him Barry became the prime suspect and investigators think they know how he killed Suzanne [Music] the large morphew home remains sealed off while investigators searched the morphew home and the family's cars and trucks Barry continued to talk seemingly to anyone with a badge weeks and months went by and Barry remained at the center of the investigation police are absolutely correct as a statistical matter to look at intimate Partners when they suspect that a woman might have been harmed or murdered it's something like eight out of ten times when a spouse dies the other one's involved absolutely sometimes the smallest item will turn an investigation and in this case agents seized on this clear plastic cap that a forensics team had found in the family's dryer prosecutors believe the cap was from a syringe used to fill a tranquilizer dart how do prosecutors interpret that the prosecution's theory is that at some point when Barry came home on the ninth and snapped and decided to murder Suzanne he used a tranquilizer dart that you would use on animals there was no working tranquilizer rifle found in the morphew's home but Barry told investigators he was an experienced tranquilizer dart gun shooter he knew how to load darts with paralyzing chemicals having used them to illegally sedate deer and remove their antlers to sell this is a photo of the inside of Barry's garage with his collection of deer heads and a pile of antlers we asked Dan Ridenour to read some of what Barry told investigators Barry said the first thing I thought of when I came here and saw deer in my yard with big horns I'm like I'm getting them horns and I'll tell you exactly what I did I shoot him they go to sleep I cut their horns off it's totally illegal but you're going to find tranq darts around my property because I've done that experts say it can take between 4 and 20 minutes for an animal the size of a deer to drop after being shot with a tranquilizer dart agents theorize that Barry's phone had ping from various locations around the house not because he was shooting Chipmunks but because he was chasing Suzanne after he shot her and what are you holding what I'm holding is a teledot model 706 rifle they use this a lot in Parks throughout the country Andrew caters owner and CEO of animal care and Equipment Services showed us a tranquilizer rifle he'd typically use on animals so if Suzanne had been struck by one of these darts it's right here would she have time to run around try to escape she could but I don't think she would get very far for a human being it could be lethal for sure bolstering the theory that Barry and Suzanne had a confrontation the day she disappeared where apparent scratches seen on Barry's left arm agents took the circumstantial evidence they gathered Barry's apparent suspicious Behavior his contradictory statements the puzzling data from his truck Suzanne's disturbing texts and those five trash runs and brought it all to the district attorney on nearly the anniversary of Suzanne's disappearance Barry is arrested the moment captured on a cell phone by a passerby in May 2021 tonight the husband of Suzanne morphew is behind bars accused of killing her the Chaffey County Sheriff says Barry morphew was arrested this morning Suzanne's body has never been found and prosecutors assume she's dead despite the lack of a body Barry was charged with first-degree murder tampering with physical evidence and a variety of other allegations he was held without bail and eventually pleaded not guilty in their arrest affidavit prosecutors spelled out what they believe happened to Suzanne it had become clear that Barry could not control Suzanne's insistence on leaving him and he resorted to something he has done his entire life haunt and control Suzanne like he had hunted and controlled animals Suzanne's sister Melinda reacted to the news of Barry's arrest there are no winners and Dory there are two families who are suffering suffering very ultimately hired high-profile lawyers from Denver and in the summer of 2021 judge Patrick Murphy heard the prosecution's evidence in open court he decided to hold a preliminary hearing to see if this case had enough evidence to go to trial [Music] defense tried mightily to blunt the state's case countering that the clear plastic cap found in the dryer means nothing because no one could say how long it had been there furthermore Barry's DNA was not found on that cap and asked for that chlorine smell in Barry's hotel room one of the managers from the Holiday Inn had actually communicated to agents that this smell of chlorine existed before Barry Murphy was there because that room's directly above an indoor pool and there was one more crucial issue the prosecution had to deal with one that its own forensic team uncovered DNA evidence made public for the first time now threatened to destroy the case against Barry this DNA Discovery is so significant the agents swab the inside of Suzanne morphew's car and they found male DNA on the glove box and it wasn't barimorphous DNA he was eliminated the DNA also did not match Suzanne's lover Jeff libler but it was a partial match to the DNA of an unknown male who had attacked other women and it raised a disturbing question had Suzanne fallen into the hands of a sexual predator go inside the Suzanne morphew case at 48hours.com [Music] in September 2021 at the Chaffey County Courthouse in Salida judge Patrick Murphy heard arguments about whether there was enough evidence to try Barry morphew for murder the judge named off three different scenarios saying Suzanne morphew left willingly Barry morphe could have killed his wife or someone else abducted Suzanne and killed her he said it was unlikely Suzanne had run off on her own even though she and lover Jeff libler had discussed moving to Ecuador the judge says that because of the evidence that's been presented about how loving Suzanne was toward her daughters and toward her family that she could never do that but the abduction Theory could not be so easily dismissed especially after that mysterious DNA was found in Suzanne's Range Rover investigators learned that DNA at least partially matched the profile of an unnamed man connected to three unsolved sexual assault cases in Tempe Phoenix and Chicago so how can that DNA end up in her car well that DNA can end up in her car if she was the victim for example of a serial killer or if there could also be potentially an innocent explanation but it is very very curious very more few can stand up and say I'm not your killer the man whose DNA is in my wife's car tied to past sexual assaults that's your killer Barrymore if you absolutely could say that and that's what his defense is banking on in this case in Frank language judge Murphy gave his opinion of the state's evidence I find that the proof is not evident nor is the presumption great that Mr morphew committed first degree murder despite that the judge ruled there was probable cause to go to trial but this judge was very careful to say look I'm finding probable cause here but it's only because I am looking at all the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution at that point Barry had spent months in jail the judge says five hundred thousand dollars cash only Bond and are they monitoring him in some fashion Barry morphew is wearing an ankle monitor for them to track him to make sure that he is staying in Chaffey County a few days later on September 20th 2021 Barry more few and daughters Mallory and Macy are all smiles as they leave the jail Barry how does it feel they stand firmly behind their dad Barry declined our request for an interview Barry morphew's homicide trial was to begin on April 28 2022 but in the months leading up to that date judge Murphy recused himself and judge Ramsey Lama replaced him and Barry's defense team led by attorney Iris Eton filed motions asking that prosecutors be sanctioned for failing to produce Discovery in a timely manner including some potentially exculpatory evidence like the male DNA found in Suzanne's Range Rover there's DNA on all the critical items of evidence in this case on the bike on the bike helmet in the house in the car that is linked to unknown males in April 2022 judge llama ruled that prosecutors repeatedly had missed deadlines and had failed to turn over important information in the discovery phase the judge wrote that while he did not find those actions quote willful the court does find this pattern to be negligent bordering on Reckless unquote the judge's penalty was to knock out 14 prosecution witnesses including experts in DNA and cell phone and vehicle data recovery they would not he said be allowed to testify this case is incredibly unique law professor Aya Gruber said the case was going to be an uphill battle for prosecutors even before she heard about the most recent sanctions there are not many murder cases where the defendant has been charged with first degree murder where there is nobody no blood evidence of any Foul Play No eyewitnesses on April 19 2022 as a pre-trial hearing was about to begin district attorney Linda Stanley filed a motion to dismiss the murder charges against Barry morphew without prejudice meaning the case could be refiled at a later date in her motion the D.A pointed to the Court's decision to Bar several key Witnesses without this crucial evidence and without the victim's body the people cannot move forward at this time in good faith neither Barry his daughters nor his lawyer had any advance warning I didn't know a dismissal was coming today although the writing was on the wall in her motion for dismissal D.A Stanley told the judge that officials believe investigators are close to discovering the location of Suzanne morphew's body court papers specifically mention a remote and mountainous region nearby the more few residents that will be excavated after five feet of snow melts where is Suzanne morphew's body that is the million dollar question remember there was an approximate four hour gap not recorded by the computers in Barry's truck on Mother's Day morning 2020. whether investigators ultimately were able to recover some of that missing data or received a tip about the location of Suzanne's remains is not known the San Isabel National Forest again is 1.1 million Acres there's plenty of places to dispose of the body defense attorney Eton denies Barry has any involvement in his wife's disappearance Barry Murphy loves Suzanne morphew he loves her and he misses her and he wants to know where Suzanne morphew is after the judge granted the motion to dismiss homicide charges against Barry he walked out of court a free man flanked as usual by his loyal daughters Mr Melinda says she agrees with the request to dismiss charges against Barry at this point she said she hoped that with more time Searchers will find Suzanne's body and win a solid conviction in her murder this would dispel all rumors of her whereabouts and whatever else happens with the case Melinda says she hopes her nieces keep one thing in mind Mallory Macy your mother would have laid down her life for you girls she would never leave you she would never forsake you she loved you with her whole being [Music] accused of his mother's murder at 14. what kid could commit a crime that violent and not leave any forensic evidence then sentenced to life the state never really had any case against this kid was he wrongfully convicted she was very close with Michael he was her baby 48 hours Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus

Channel: 48 Hours

Views: 4,257,303

Keywords: 48 hours, cbs news, suzanne morphew, colorado, colorado bureau of investigation, mother's day, crime, full episode, 48 hours full episode, disappearance, Barry Morphew, Chaffee County, moffat, true crime, mothers day

Id: Br5YebY2mWE

Length: 42min 46sec (2566 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2023