Colorado man charged again with first degree murder of wife who went missing in 2020
A Colorado man suspected of killing his wife was charged Friday for the second time with first degree murder in her 2020 death, the Twelfth Judicial District Attorney's Office said in a release.
Barry Morphew was previously charged with first degree murder, among other charges, in May 2021 in the killing of his wife, Suzanne Morphew, who was last seen on Mother's Day in 2020. But those charges were dropped without prejudice — meaning charges could be filed again at a later date — in April 2022 as prosecutors were closing in on finding the woman's remains.
Officials took Morphew into custody Friday in Arizona, the District Attorney's office said, but the office is working to extradite the man back to the San Luis Valley in Colorado.
It was not immediately clear whether Morphew is being held in jail or he has obtained legal representation.
Iris Eytan, the attorney who represented Morphew in the earlier charges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if she is still representing him.
Suzanne Morphew was last seen on May 10, 2020, near County Road 225 and West Highway 50 in Maysville, about 100 miles west of Colorado Springs. She was on a bike ride at the time.
A 49-year-old mother of two, Suzanne Morphew was reported missing from her Chaffee County home that same day. Also that day, her mountain bike and helmet were discovered on the side of a county road in Salida, Colorado, near the family's home.
Her husband had repeatedly denied his involvement in her death and pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.
One week before Morphew was set to stand trial on the initial charge of first degree murder in his wife's disappearance, prosecutors dismissed the charges because they said they had zeroed in on an area where they believed her remains to be, but weather in the region was prohibiting officials from recovery efforts, slowing down the case.
Suzanne Morphew's remains were finally uncovered in September 2023, officials said at the time. They were found during an unrelated search near Moffat in Saguache County.
An April 2024 autopsy determined she died by homicide, which reported that drugs normally used as animal tranquilizers were found in her system.
Suzanne Morphew "died as a result of homicide by unspecified means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone, and medetomidine intoxication," the El Paso County coroner's report, obtained by NBC News at the time, said.
"The drugs are marketed as a compound injectable chemical immobilizer for wildlife providing pharmacologically reversible analgesia, sedation, and immobilization," according to the report.
Prosecutors had said they believed Morphew used a tranquilizer gun in his wife's murder. They had also said he was the only one with motive to kill Suzanne Morphew, because she was having an affair, believed her husband was having one, too, and had plans to file for divorce.
Days before her disappearance, Suzanne Morphew texted her husband that their relationship was "done," according to the initial arrest affidavit from 2021.
"Let's handle this civilly," she said, according to the affidavit.
"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 — hunt and control Suzanne like he had hunted and controlled animals," the affidavit said.
Morphew also filed a $15 million lawsuit against authorities who accused him of killing his wife in May 2023. At the time, the couple's daughters spoke in support of their father.
The District Attorney's office in the Friday release said the investigation into Suzanne Morphew's death has been ongoing.
"Federal, State and local law enforcement have never stopped working toward justice for Suzanne," said Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly.
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