True Crime with Kendall Rae - The Suspicious Disappearance of Suzanne Morphew: Arrest FINALLY Made!
Episode Date: April 25, 2023Suzanne Morphew went missing on Mother’s Day in 2020. After she was reported missing, and an extensive search went underway, new evidence that came up all seemed to point to her husband, Barry, as h...er killer. Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Shop my charity merch! https://milehighermerch.com/ All profits from this charity merch will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: https://www.missingkids.org/ This episode is sponsored by: Nutrafol - promo code: KENDALLRAE Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - kendall@INFAgency.com
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Discussion (0)
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Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you all joining me today for another video.
Today I'm going to be talking about an ongoing case.
And I know some people find those videos
kind of frustrating, I do too.
Trust me, we all want the answers as fast as possible
these days, but with this case,
an arrest was just made recently,
and there is a lot of unknowns and a lot of questions
that we just don't have the answers to at this point,
but as time goes on, things will start slowly coming out.
And if you're watching this in the future, you know, there might be new updates at that point.
This is a Colorado case. I live in Colorado. If you didn't know that, I'm very proud of my state.
And I have been following it, you know, just on social media and my local news for the last year.
There's finally enough information to put together a video
and it's pretty shocking how all of this ended up. This case has had quite a
bit of media attention and a lot of interest online. So there have been a lot of
rumors, there have been a lot of speculation. Some of it, correct. So I'm just
gonna try to break it down as simply as I can, not get to speculative, stick to
the facts, what we know at this point,
and let you guys make your own minds up.
Well, let's go ahead and jump into the case.
Today we are talking about Suzanne Morpheu.
So Suzanne was born Suzanne Renee Mormon
on April 30th, 1971, the day of her sister Melinda's
15th birthday, and Melinda said that she always thought
of her baby sister as a's 15th birthday. And Melinda said that she always thought of her baby sister
as a birthday gift to her. She also grew up with two brothers David and Andrew and they were a
really close family. Growing up, Suzanne was adored by her friends and family. People describe her
as considerate and thoughtful even at a very young age. When she got older, she took on after
her mother. She was a very sophisticated and intelligent woman. She had a really good voice and she's
saying in the choir when she was in high school and singing was something that
brought her a lot of joy. Suzanne's family describes her as beautiful inside and
out. They said that she had a really calming presence and you can help it feel
safe when you were around her. She was a genuine kind person
and people said that she never had anything negative
to say about anybody.
In 1988, Suzanne met the love of her life.
His name was Barry.
Barry Lee Morphew.
He was from a wealthy Christian family
and his faith was really important to him
and Suzanne's faith was important to her.
So they were a perfect match.
They fell in love almost instantly, and they got married on August 6th, 1994 at Grace Baptist
Church in Anderson, Indiana. Suzanne had gotten her degree in education from Purdue University,
and she worked as a teacher for four years after she first got married. And Barry had hopes of
becoming a professional baseball player.
He was actually recruited out of high school
by the Toronto Blue Jays.
But he got injured and that cut
his professional baseball career short.
So instead, he also went to Purdue University
and he got his education in horticulture production.
He started his company, BLM Landscaping,
in Arcadia, Facken, Indiana in 2004. His company didM landscaping in Arcadia, Fackin' Indiana in 2004.
His company did traditional landscaping,
hard-scaping as well.
They also built like little sun rooms and off rooms.
They also had two daughters who are named Mallory and Macy.
And Suzanne was a really good mom.
She adored being a mom.
She wanted kids for a really long time.
And her girls loved her and loved Barry.
Barry was a good husband and father. He was hard working and disciplined.
One thing that he really loved was big game hunting and he would often take these retreats for weeks at a time.
Leave his family because he need to recharge.
So then in 2014, Suzanne started a nonprofit.
It was called the Suzanne R. Morefew Hope Foundation
and the mission was to address needs of children in various global locations by showing the love of Jesus Christ in tangible ways to address recognized needs.
In 2018, they decided it was time for a change, so they moved. That may they put their house up for sale
which also had 13 acres of land and they listed it for
$895,000. Then in April they bought their house in
Salida, Colorado, which was
$1.6 million is a beautiful house with a gorgeous view of the mountains. It is really pretty down in Salida. This house was built in
2008 and it was on over seven acres of land. It's right on the border of the San
Isabel National Forest, which is gorgeous. So Salada is in Chafee County. It's a very small town.
Just over 5,000 people and this is known as the heart of the Rockies. Now despite the distance
between houses in this county, most people are pretty tight knit in this community.
Most people in the town know each other most residents
and they look out for one another.
And the more fused neighborhood is considered
to be a very safe neighborhood.
So safe that people normally don't even
lock their doors there.
And as soon as they moved in,
the family really thrived in their new home.
The girls adjusted really well.
They met friends quickly and they loved their new home. The girls adjusted really well. They met friends quickly
and they loved their new home. I mean who wouldn't? That's a gorgeous house. They started making a lot
of friends and connections in the area right away and it wasn't long before they were real well-respected
members of the community. And they were also very involved in their new church, which is called
Grace Church in Slotia. Suzanne spent a lot of her time volunteering at the church.
She would make lunches for the youth group, help in any way she could, and Barry signed up to be a
volunteer firefighter in the area while also continuing his landscaping company. Suzanne really
prioritized staying in touch with all of her old friends, but she also made a ton of new friends
in Saladia. She made friends anywhere. She went. She was a very friendly person. And soon she
had a new circle of friends in Colorado. And another really interesting and respectable thing about
Suzanne is that she was a cancer survivor. She actually had Hodgkin's lymphoma twice. Once before
she had her kids and then once right before they moved to Colorado. Her last treatment was October
1st, 2019. Her family had a big celebration for her.
They were really proud of her for making it through it.
It was difficult for her, of course,
but she remained really positive throughout it.
She made friends through her cancer treatments
and people that did treatments with her
said that she was always cheerful and positive during them.
No matter what Suzanne was going through,
she seemed to really keep a positive outlook. At least one or sometimes both of her daughters would go to her treatments
with her every time. They were really, really close with their mom. But Barry didn't go very often.
And when he did, he kind of seemed out of place. He would kind of shut down and not really talk
to anyone. Now, of course, it is understandable for
something like that to be traumatizing on a partner too. But other survivors who are there
said that he just seemed really uncomfortable being there. But Suzanne made it through and she
had scheduled maintenance appointments throughout 2020, which brings us to May of 2020. Her next
appointment was supposed to be
the Monday after Mother's Day.
Now of course where they lived was absolutely gorgeous
and they had tons of trails accessible to them
just from their house.
And so Suzanne loved to go for an early morning bike ride
every Sunday morning.
It was kind of her thing.
Then after she got home, they would all get ready
and they would go to church together
and sometimes go out to lunch, you know,
spend the day as a family.
And so Barry tried his best not to work on Sundays
so that he'd give the day to his faith and his family.
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But for Mother's Day that year, which was May 10th 2020, they decided to do
something different.
Macy and Mallory were planning to go on a camping trip that weekend together, but they
were planning to return home early on Sunday so they could spend the day with their mother.
And surprisingly, even those mothers' day, since the girls were going to be home on Sunday
with Suzanne, Barry decided he was going to drive to Denver to do some work.
And driving from Salada to Denver is anywhere from
about two and a half to three hours, so it was a full day thing. Later on the girls realized that
they were gonna be coming home a lot later than they thought, so they texted their mother. Just a
short message saying happy mother's day, but then they didn't hear back. And they actually got worried
so they contacted a neighbor and had her go over
and try to check on Suzanne.
When the neighbor went over there,
they saw Suzanne's car, but no one answered the door.
So they all assumed she was on a bike ride,
but hours went by.
There was no way that she was still biking.
It was pretty hot that day too.
So Suzanne was officially reported missing at 5.46 p.m. So the Sheriff's Office organized a
search right away. They got the Chaffee County search and rescue team involved. They also had eight
tracking dogs from the Department of Corrections and several drones as well. And they began searching
the area immediately after she was reported missing. More than a hundred people were brought in
to search for Suzanne. And people were frantic because, of course,
as the sun is setting, there's a big concern
that if she's out there and she's injured somewhere,
that something could happen to her.
And, of course, with any disappearance,
time is the essence.
And they ended up having a professional only search.
They didn't involve the public, possibly because of COVID,
and they also blocked off the road to the family's home so they could search that area as well.
And at the time, they believed that Suzanne would be
in the area around County Road 225
and West Highway 50 in Meesville.
And they searched as long as they could.
And by the next morning, they had searched
pretty much the whole area.
So they brought in even more professionals,
even more search teams and looked
into more tricky places. area. So they brought in even more professionals, even more search teams and looked in some
more tricky places. You know, like steep drop-offs, areas along rushing water, and keep in
mind they have to look out for wildlife in the area as well. There are a lot of mountain
lions here. But even with all these professional searches being done, there was not a single
trace of Suzanne found. Later that day, the sheriff sent out a press release asking anyone
in the area with information about Suzanne Morphew to call the tip line. But what really frustrated
people is there was no mention of what she was wearing that day or the makin' model of her bike,
literally nothing useful other than call us if you have information. But after they reached out
to the community, over 600 tips were called in.
And at that point, the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation also joined in and started
going through the tips and possible leads. Now, you might be wondering what's Barry doing during
all of this? Well, when Suzanne first went missing, Barry was 150 miles away. He was in Broomefield,
Colorado, which is past Denver. So when he heard that she was
reported missing, he rushed home in his home by 9 o'clock PM that Sunday. Now Barry tells a few
different versions of why he was out of town that weekend. The first was that he had a volunteer
firefighter training thing. But then the county fire chief said that there was no training
that weekend. That yes, Barry was a volunteer firefighter, but nothing was scheduled. In fact,
they weren't doing trainings at the time because of the pandemic. So then Barry ends up telling
investigators that he was actually out of town to set up a job site for his business. He was
getting it done over the weekend because the job was supposed to start on Monday.
Family members confirmed that Barry did have to work in Denver
and that he had cleared it with Suzanne before he left.
And again, he said he was comfortable leaving on Mother's Day
because his daughters were supposed to be coming back early
in the day to spend the day with their mom.
So all of them, Barry and the girls,
were asked to stay out of the home while they searched it, of course. Now, often this doesn't take too long, but in this case,
it took a long time. They weren't able to return until the end of May. And keep in mind, she disappeared
or was reported missing on the 10th. Investigators also took Barry's cell phone and his vehicle so that
they could search that thoroughly as well. And while the house was being searched,
Barry stayed with a friend.
And this friend claims that while Barry was staying with him,
he was pacing around the house nervously,
looking out the windows, which is understandable considering his wife is missing.
But he said that his behavior was a bit odd and that he would go in these long drives.
And when he was on these drives, he said he was trying to spot vehicles that he thought
could have possibly picked up Suzanne vehicles that he claimed he remembered seeing around
their neighborhood around their house before Suzanne went missing.
And from the beginning of the case, the police have really kept things as on the deal as
they can while still trying to keep the public informed enough to get leads.
So it's kind of hard to know the exact details of this case at this point, but we do know that
they took bags of evidence from the Morpheu home. They also asked neighbors to give them any
surveillance footage they had, any ring doorbell footage, and they asked for it from the dates of
May 8th to May 12th. And a lot of people were quite frustrated with this
because they just trusted people to give that footage up
instead of going and obtaining it themselves.
Now, like I said, there are a lot of mountain lions
in this area, but investigators were able to rule out
the idea of a mountain line attacking Suzanne pretty early on.
But at first Barry was very set on the idea that a mountain line could have attacked Suzanne or even have taken her.
One officer has stated that Barry stated that he believed a mountain line took her off into the forest and like stashed her somewhere to eat her later. And that was his
explanation for why there was no trace of blood. I mean, with any wildlife attack, normally you
find clothing, a shoe, some blood, some hair, something, you know, it's not going to just be a
clean scene. And this officer said that that was one of the moments that he felt like there was more
that Barry wasn't sharing, because that was odd for him to keep pushing this idea when it
really didn't make a lot of sense. And Barry is a guy who spends a lot of time
outside in the wilderness in Salida. And he also knows a lot about hunting and
wildlife in general. So come on, it seems like he would be able to roll this
out himself pretty quickly, but he really stuck with that theory for a while.
Her brother also says that at one point they were looking over this area.
Barry was kind of pointing down saying, you know, I think maybe she was like dragged down here by a mountain line, taken off, and
her brother said that at that point he really started to question Barry because he just knew that made no sense that there would be a blood trail. But the whole mountain lion theory was put to rest pretty early on. It just makes no
sense. And at that point Barry started to push the idea that maybe she was kidnapped and he started
looking at vehicles and stuff like that. So after they spent time questioning family, friends,
neighbors, other witnesses, they came to the conclusion that the last time anyone had spoken with
Suzanne was on May 9, Saturday. As far as what's reported right now, there was no witness of her on her bike the
following morning. So they felt like they hit a dead end, so they needed to look more into Barry. His behavior was
weirding them out. I'm sure there is even more that we don't know about yet. They were kind of looking at him behind the scenes of the whole time and not
really feeding much to the public. There was silence for a while, but they
decided to collect surveillance footage from the businesses around the
holiday and express where Barry had stayed in Brumfield that weekend. And before
Barry rushed home that Sunday, he had asked a worker of his Jeff Puckett to come
and take over for him. And according to Jeff,
when he arrived at the holiday and he went up to his room, and
he noticed that it smelled like chlorine. And this is the room
that Barry had been staying in. The entire room smelled
strongly of chlorine. And there were towels all over the place.
And the bed, I guess, was made, but it didn't look
like it was made by the hotel staff. It looked like someone had possibly slept in it or gotten into it
or at least messed it up and then kind of remade it. So they check with the hotel and they confirmed
that they don't use chlorine to clean the hotel rooms. And also, the pool was closed at the time
due to COVID, even though Barry tried to say that the chlorine smell
Could be from the pool. And then Jeff also found a pile of mail including a letter about property insurance
And he ended up handing all of this over to the FBI. Now obviously
Investigators are really starting to look at Barry. It seems like he may have had some involvement
But Barry's friends and family all really rallied
around him at this time and continued to talk super highly
of him.
I mean, a lot of people, that they interviewed people in the town,
people he worked with, just said he was this upstanding guy.
He, there's no way he did anything.
One of his childhood friends got on the medians
so that Barry was absolutely devastated by the loss of his wife and there's just no way he had any involvement.
He said everyone got along in their family so well they were the perfect family.
So backtracking a little bit within the first few days of her disappearance, Barry offered a $100,000 reward and that a friend matched it and so it was $200,000 total. Then it came out that on May 12th,
Barry had given a very weird note to a local storage manager and the note said,
baby blue by CalMit, biker's clothing, no phone number, no name, nothing about her hair color.
Now Barry tries to say that at first his story of where he was was inconsistent because he was so shocked about what happened to his wife. He was
confused, which is understandable in that situation, of course. And then a week
after Suzanne first went missing, Barry posted this video to Facebook. And it is
I don't know, gives me a very eerie feeling. Oh, Suzanne, if anyone is out there I'm not going to be I'm not going to be going.
If anyone is out there, I
can hear this that has you.
Please, we'll do whatever it
takes to bring you back.
We love you and we miss you.
Your girls need you.
No questions asked.
However much they want.
I will do whatever it takes to
get you back.
I love you.
I want you back.
So.
It seemed like Barry was trying to make this pre-recorded
statement, pulling people's heart strings a little bit,
and that way he could also avoid talking to the media
and doing interviews.
He can just point to his Facebook page.
If you wanna know what I have to say,
go to my video.
It gives him control of the situation.
Just days before that video clip was recorded, they had actually found Susanne's
bike, which of course it's very unusual that they missed it the first time. It was closer her home off of
County Road to 25 down this hill, kind at the bottom.
Investigators spent a lot of time searching in this area. And this YouTuber named Tyson Draper, who I believe lives
in the area, started recording the area. So here's some of his footage. You can
see the bridge and the road leading to her house, you can see the hill and the
area where the bike was found. And according to the Sheriff's Office, the bike
was not damaged and they thought it was really strange that when they brought
dogs to that area.
at all. So that led them to
was actually thrown there
not Suzanne and it was ma
in accident. And the in
said that they found this
of Suzanne's. They won't s
family what it is, but they found it on the road going west.
We've run foot searches using air support, canine support, swift water support, and we've also utilized countless hours of drone searches.
We've used well over 200 personnel and over 2,000 man hours have gone into this search, but unfortunately we haven't found Suzanne yet.
And as I stated before, that is our top priority. Yesterday afternoon, which is Thursday, in
the area of County Road 225 in Highway 50, we did find items that we believe were
personal items of Suzanne Morpheu, and that launched a bigger search we had today,
which included the full closure of US Highway 50 on Monarch Pass.
In that search, we used today well over 90 searchers that are well-trained individuals from both our local agencies,
as well as the FBI and CBI. We searched over two and a half miles using grid patterns. Unfortunately,
we found no other items in that area at this time. We're in the process right now of re-evaluating where we are with the information where you see.
I want to let everybody know that we are receiving information and so we're constantly re-evaluating that information.
And based on that, it will determine what our actions are tomorrow searching.
However, I want to remind everybody that while we're doing this, the investigation continues.
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Now what's crazy is that YouTuber I mentioned Tyson Draper was searching in the area for
Suzanne and filming when he actually ran into Barry. And he ended up starting a recording
on his phone and putting it in his pocket.
So he had record of his whole exchange with Barry.
And in the recording, Barry talks about how emotional
the search has been for him,
how exhausting it have been for him
because it covered a 200 mile radius.
And we searched a 200 mile radius.
What, Shirley?
All of the mountains have been covered so far. But obviously,
we're going to miss them. He said during the search, an officer had seen a mountain lion,
and they had thought that maybe she was dragged away. 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.
We thought maybe she wrecked coming down this hill, a car coming around the corner fast. Maybe it was
disoriented and gotten a river. We've covered that. He pointed out all the areas
that they searched and where they found her bike. And then he told him that his
private investigators believe that she may have been abducted from the bridge.
And he also said that when the bike was found, it was found in a ditch with the wheels facing up.
He said it looked like it had tumbled down the hill
and that the front wheel was mangled.
But the police said that it wasn't damaged.
And then he proposes the theory that Suzanne
had fallen off the bike, hit her head,
gotten disoriented, wandered further into the woods,
and then eventually got swept up by the creek.
Barry also said he was upset with how the bike was handled. He thought that the officer should
have left it alone until it was processed as evidence. To him, he thought that maybe Suzanne's
abductors DNA would be on the bike somewhere, and according to him, up to 10 other people
had touched the bike.
He was also angry that there were search teams being allowed to just walk in the area and vehicles being brought in
which he felt like could cover up any potential footprints.
So in the recording Tyson asks how he can help and Barry said that if he's a hiker he can continue to just search the area
and if he finds any evidence he emphasized not to touch it.
But then things kind of took a turn and Barry kind of makes a threat to Tyson.
He made a little threat there at the end. I don't know if the camera picked it up or not,
but he said, if I'm with the news media, he's going to come after me.
So that definitely ended very strangely. So Suzanne's nephew Trevor Noel actually was the one
who confirmed the media that
her bike had been found. He also lived in Colorado and he sort of became the unofficial spokesperson
for the family to the media. He helped organize Aiko Funmi to raise money for additional searches
and help the family members pay for travel food and housing. This Go Funmi was created on May 13,
2020. Three days after Suzanne was reported missing.
The campaign raised over $33,000 from over 341 donors before it stopped accepting donations.
Every morning, early we've been gathering and creating a game plan and we just sent a bunch of
teams out. We have our biggest crew yet today going out again. We're working all day
from when the sun comes up until the sun comes down, scouring every hill, every
creek, every watershed looking for our beloved family member and my aunt,
too thin. I know it must be really difficult. Is there is there any clue as to what
might happen? Are there any theories that you're working on? Yes there are, but I think it's best for the investigation and for the family and for
the progress that we keep it close and maybe not discuss it live right now, but we're
making progress and we are so far from giving up.
So for weeks and months after Suzanne first went missing, the public continued to search
for her hike around and see if they could find her.
People would put signs all around, you know, at trailheads anywhere where they might catch someone's eye.
Neighbors and friends put up these teal and yellow ribbons along the road that led to the family's property.
So then towards the end of the month, a woman named Mary Branson came forward with new information. She said the property next door to hers
was under construction with plans for a 5,000 square foot home
to be built there.
And guess whose crew had been hired to work this spot?
Berries.
And this woman Mary claims that shortly before Suzanne went
missing, she heard the sound of construction happening
in the middle of the night in the middle of the night.
The middle of the night over Mother's Day weekend. She claims that she heard what she first thought was
just a truck backing up or something because it was the middle of the night. But then she realized
it was the sound of construction equipment coming from the work site. Now Mary is hard of hearing,
so she knows that if she can hear it it must be really really loud.
She said she laid there awake for a half hour listening to the noises just confused and annoyed that this was happening in the middle of the night.
And later on she went up to the crew and asked them if it was possible if they left their keys behind and maybe some teenager came in the middle of the night and was like messing with their stuff, but they said, no. They said they do leave their keys there,
but they're always really well hidden.
So this was unlikely.
And then we find out that that weekend,
the crew had laid dirt and also put down concrete.
Any case with concrete and it just scares me.
So with this new information,
investigators planned an immediate search of this area,
obviously.
They used equipment to check for disturbances within the concrete, and they tore like half of it out.
They searched the garage on the property and the entire surrounding area and found nothing.
As far as we know, they may have found something, but they said that they did not find Suzanne.
So then on June 1st, 2020, about three weeks after Suzanne had first gone missing,
Barry filed for legal guardianship of his wife.
And this request was apparently related to some real estate that he was trying to sell.
So she was listed as an incapacitated adult in the Indiana court system.
And once that was approved, Barry was able to sell any properties that they owned together without Suzanne being present.
And then in October 2020, the family's home in Salada was put up for sale,
and it sold this past March 21. So by August of 2020, the public is definitely very suspicious
about Barry. There were a lot of rumors online at this point, and a lot of things being said. And even
some of Suzanne's family members were starting to think
that Barry really could have been involved. Barry had allegedly refused to take polygraphs
on two different occasions. He disputes this. And there were a lot of rumors starting to go
around about how Barry had another side to him and how he had a really bad temper that could just
come out of nowhere. And his employee started saying that he was difficult
to work for.
And there was even a rumor going around
that he may have had a mistress.
Barry ended up responding to all this
by talking to the media for the first time.
He ended up giving an exclusive interview
to Fox 2, a local station,
and it was over 25 minutes long.
But he asked them not to air the recording of the interview for whatever reason.
During the interview, he talks a lot about his family's deep faith and their trust in God.
He's quoted as saying, Suzanne trusted the Lord and if one person got saved from this, she would think it was worth it,
which I don't really understand what that means. Then he also said, we don't know why God does what he does, but we have to trust him. Very explained how he stayed out of the media
because they were casting a negative light onto him. And he also criticized how
the Sheriff's Department had handled the case. He said that they made mistakes
from the very beginning and we're now trying to pin the crime on him. So he can
tell he's freaking out. He also talks about how a friend was with him when he found the bicycle and how the police just destroyed the evidence right in front of him.
And Barry had three main theories for what he thought happened to Suzanne. One, a wild animal
attack, I don't know why he was still hung up on that because it was pretty much debunked. But two,
she could have been the victim of a hit and run, which also doesn't make a lot of sense.
And three, she was abducted. He also implied that maybe this person who kidnapped her could have been someone that she knew.
Someone who could have just ran into her while she was out on her bike ride and took advantage of the opportunity.
He also vowed to continue searching for Suzanne every day for the rest of his life.
He also said that he was never asked
to take a polygraph test.
He doesn't know where that rumor came from.
And he says he has cooperated with the police
and that he's done over 30 hours of interviews.
On July 9th, investigators did a second search
of the Morpheu home is not been released
what they were looking for if anything specific
and they have not released any information about anything that they found. And people have been very frustrated with the lack of
information being put out to the public in this case because it is leading people to speculate
quite a bit. At that point, pretty much all the details of the case were being kept from the public.
People started commenting on the J.V. County Sheriff's Department website, their Facebook page, saying that they were sending incredible tips that were being ignored
and they were just frustrated that they weren't putting information out that it could possibly
help. Now during all this time, police are working on the case behind closed doors. They
told their family that they are working around the clock, trying to figure out what happened,
but they weren't able to release
information for whatever reason. Maybe this will all make sense one day, but in the meantime,
rumors are flying online. And one rumor started about Suzanne's nephew, Trevor Noel, who became
like the spokesperson he did the GoFundMe. There were claims that he had actually tried to hit
on his aunt, and that she rejected him. And people also started saying that he set up the GoFundMe
for his own financial gain.
And then it got even crazier.
People started speculating that he helped hide Susanne's body,
that he could have been involved in her disappearance.
So obviously there was no information to back any of this up
and it was really intense for their family.
There were a lot of reports going around about Barry
being seen at a local dumpster,
and that maybe he threw her body into the dumpster. There was also theories about Suzanne being held
hostage at a neighbor's house. Another one that her body had been put through a wood chipper and
put into the Arkansas River, and there were even rumors that she was buried and put into their
family garden. So I can't imagine how her daughters are feeling
at this point.
I'm sure they're totally overwhelmed
and don't know what to think.
None of it has been verified.
All of that is local gossip.
But of course, this is what happens
when people are passionate about a case
and really want to know what happened
and there's no information being given.
People start to just make things up.
So then in September of 2020, Suzanne's brother Andrew,
who lived in Indiana, came out to Colorado
to organize a search with hundreds of volunteers.
And he raised $18,000 to search this property,
this plot of land near Pontius Springs,
that was owned by Barry.
There were some media reports that a dog had picked up
her scent in a wooded area about 15 miles
from the Morpheu home at this plot of land that he owned.
And Barry did not participate in the search, but he did allow them to access it. And her brother,
by this point, Andrew, started saying that he believed that Suzanne was murdered and that her
body was somewhere near her home. So he recruited volunteers to dig up possible grave sites.
They even investigated bodies of water with sonar
equipment. They brought in monitor drones and then they also searched the area with dogs as well.
The sheriff's office assisted by sending out their own crews to process any evidence that may have
been found. And at this point, Andrew tells the media that he heard an investigator say to him
that when they first searched Barry's
house, it smelled like chlorine, which definitely makes you think back to his room at the
holiday inn.
He also claimed that the CBI is investigating several items of evidence, including a towel,
a tarp, and a blanket.
And he also said that he thought it was very weird that investigators did not find any
coolers in Barry's house because
Barry was this big hunter. It's weird for him not to have any coolers. So where are his coolers?
What else could they have been used for? So then in November of 2020, Suzanne's family had another
blow. Her father died from cancer and he never found out what happened to his daughter.
Around this time, the rumor that Barry could have been having a fair start to pop up again. Specifically, a woman named Morgan Gentile was accused of being
his mistress and the reason he may have murdered his wife. Now Morgan was actually working on the
crew with Jeff Puckett, the worker who smelled the chlorine in the hotel room over Mother's Day.
Morgan had also gone into the hotel room,
and she confirmed Jeff's story that it did in fact smell like chlorine in the room.
And she said this wasn't just a hint of chlorine. I mean, her eyes were burning because it was so
strong. She also said the towels on the floor were soaking wet and she couldn't make sense of the
scene. And according to Morgan, Barry was acting very strange that weekend.
On Friday and Saturday,
she said that he was working a local job
off County Road 105 in Salida.
She said that Barry seemed stressed
and was acting really strange.
On Saturday around 11 a.m.,
he told her to go home early
and that he had to go home and make his wife happy.
He said that he was going to take Susan on a bike ride
or a hike.
But later on Morgan heard that Barry had actually stayed
in town the whole day and was out shopping alone.
The job that was happening in Burnfield,
which was building a retaining wall,
had already been put off for weeks.
At this point, Barry and Morgan were supposed to be
the only ones on the crew that day,
but last minute Barry asked her to put together a full team.
And Morgan also said that she talked to Barry on Mother's Day
and that he seemed frantic.
And this was way before he would have known
that his wife had gone missing.
So that stuck out to her.
After she talked to him, Morgan picked up the other worker Jeff
and they went to the hotel room
and that's where they smelled the chlorine.
And what was really weird to them as well
is Barry said that he was gonna leave all the tools that they needed at the site room and that's where they smelled the chlorine. And what was really weird to them as well is Barry said that he was going to leave all the tools
that they needed at the site to build a retaining wall. But when they got there, there were no tools.
It seemed like he was very scattered. And then early on Monday morning, after he already knows
his wife has gone missing, Barry takes the time to call them and let them know that there's
going to be a delivery of bricks. And they waited for it to come, but it didn't.
And when it didn't come on Tuesday either, they eventually just went home.
So then Morgan goes back to Salada.
And when she gets there, two friends of berries come up to her and tell her, you know, you
really don't need to give your phone number to the police.
And they also made a comment about people thinking that her paycheck was
hush hush money. Morgan thought that was weird and of course she did give her
phone number to the police and cooperated fully with them. And she was actually
interviewed five times. However, she did refuse to take a polygraph test.
Somehow Barry probably heard that she was working with police because he
randomly decided to fire her over text. Then in an interview, he called Morgan a meth head and implied that anything that she said about him was false,
because she was just mad at him for firing her. Morgan said that the rumors about the affair,
which have never been confirmed, have really hurt her family. She said that she had trouble
finding work because of it and that her family ended up moving. She also said that she is afraid of Barry and hopes that she never sees him again.
So there wasn't a lot of information coming out about this case for a few months there
and then finally this past May. May 5th, 2021, days before the first anniversary of Suzanne's
disappearance. Barry Morphew was arrested on the side of the road near his condo in Pontius Springs. To reach this point, over 70 investigators had worked
on the case. They had served over 135 search warrants and interviewed over 400
people and they claimed that they followed up on more than 1400 tips. It turns
out that investigators had actually brought the case to the district attorney in
April and laid out all the evidence for why they believe very more few killed Suzanne more few that weekend.
According to people who were there, the presentation lasted hours and it seems like they have a very
solid case against Barry.
Still, we don't know everything.
It is frustrating at this point.
There's just a lot that's not being released
But it will come out. But Barry was officially charged with murder after deliberation
tampering with physical evidence and attempting to influence a public servant and Mallory and Macy were actually in the courtroom
When their father was charged with murder of their mother. They cried during the hearing and at one point one of them held up a heart to bury and pulled down her mask and said, I love you. I'm sure they're very confused
and torn apart at this time. I feel so badly for them. Of course, we don't know if bury is really
guilty yet. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, of course. But a few weeks later,
additional charges were added. This time it included tampering with a court of law, of course. But a few weeks later, additional charges were added.
This time it included tampering with a deceased human body, which they claim happened between
May 9th and May 10th, 2020. He was also charged with possession of a dangerous weapon and with submitting a
fraudulent vote in the 2020 presidential election. It turns out very actually cast a vote for Donald Trump
in the 2020 presidential election, it turns out Barry actually cast a vote for Donald Trump for his wife. And he claims he had no idea that that was illegal to do. Now, court records in
criminal cases are normally available to the public, but in this case, they're not being made available.
The defense has actually requested that the court limit public access to the arrest warrant.
And this, they claim is to protect Susan and
Berry's daughters and to protect Berry's right to a fair trial. Judge Patrick
Murphy agreed to seal the warrant mainly to protect Mallory and Macy. And this
has apparently been done to give them time to process what is going on and
allow them to see the evidence for why they think their father murdered their
mother in their own time and not just find out when everyone else finds out. So and allow them to see the evidence for why they think their father murdered their mother
in their own time and not just find out when everyone else finds out.
So that definitely leads me to believe they've got something pretty solid.
And I guess the decision to seal the records is also because the affidavit is really, really long.
It's 130 pages and it's the longest and most detailed document that has come through the Colorado Court system in over 30 years.
So there is a lot we don't know right now.
So basically they're saying that if the information was given up to the public, Barry would probably
be deemed guilty by the general population way before the trial even started.
Now of course, people want the redacted version which is where some important
crucial information that needs to be made private is left out and they just release kind of the
bare minimum. But the judge decided not to do a redacted version because it would be too time-consuming.
That's how long this thing is. Not only that the prosecution and the defense would be able to
go through it and redact what they want so it would just take a really long time to get it done.
So as of now, when I'm recording this, all of the records remain sealed.
And they definitely will be sealed till at least August,
not probably longer than that. People are very angry about this decision that
media has openly said they don't agree with this decision. And the media
actually put in an appeal to the judge asking him to reverse this decision.
And the media's argument is basically that it doesn't make sense to
just make this decision based on the document being too long and it being too
time consuming to go through it. They argue that this is just not a legitimate
reason to take away the public's right to review public information. So I don't
know what's gonna happen as of right now. Judge Murphy may reverse his
decision or this could go all the way up to the Supreme Court.
But if and when, eventually, this information is released,
a lot of stuff is gonna come out about Barry,
and I think everyone's gonna see this case
in a whole new light.
There's probably some major elements to this
that we are missing.
District Attorney Linda Stanley says
that they are confident with the evidence
that they have confident with the evidence
that they have against
Barry and doesn't expect
there to be any more arrest
in this case.
For those that didn't hear
the question, he said,
we're not releasing the
affidavit and we don't have
a body, so how can I
convince the public that we
have a strong case?
That's my job. I'm the one
that considers how strong my
case is before I bring
charges and I wouldn't
bring charges unless I was
confident.
So it sounds like they know that Barry did this.
It sounds like they knew for a while
and they were just collecting a massive amount of evidence.
Why would he kill his beautiful life?
They had this perfect life.
Well, a lot of people believe
that it could have been due to financial stress
because Barry and Suzanne owned a couple properties
back in Indiana and when they moved to Colorado,
one of those sales fell through.
And so at one point, they were paying two mortgages,
which could cause stress.
It's also possible maybe Barry had planned to cash
in a life insurance policy on Suzanne.
But it's only possible to do that if she is legally dead.
Like I said earlier, there have been a lot of rumors
about Barry cheating on Suzanne.
Maybe he had a mistress in February 2021. Like I said earlier, there have been a lot of rumors about Barry cheating on Suzanne.
Maybe he had a mistress in February 2021.
He was photographed with a woman who had red hair.
I'm not sure who that is.
Morgan has denied having a affair with Barry and Barry also denies having a affair with
her.
So if he really was having a affair with another woman, maybe that could explain why he would
want to kill his wife.
Maybe he thought the divorce would be really messy and costs a lot of money and this would be easier. And if she was still alive
he would probably have to pay Alimony. Then there's the possibility that Barry snapped
on Suzanne. That maybe he could be violent with her. An anonymous person who worked for
Barry for years claimed that he was the worst person he had ever worked for and that he
had a terrible temper.
He actually called him an extreme classic narcissist. Other former employees have talked about his
temper as well and saying that he was very quick to anger all of the sudden. And then after
Barry's arrest, Melinda Mormon, who is Suzanne Sister, called into Heart of the Rockies Radio,
which is a local Colorado radio station to talk about the case. And she said that Susanne and Barry's relationship had deteriorated over the years, and that
she believed Susanne was afraid of him.
She said that she has proof, a text message, that they're not sharing with the public
at this point, but she said from this message, it was clear what her state of mind was,
and she actually said that the text was very profound and very transparent.
So after Zarez Barry decided not to cooperate
with place anymore.
He refused to answer any questions.
He asked for a lawyer immediately,
and at this point he has not yet entered a plea.
We know that investigators have not found Suzanne's remains
and that they cannot release a cause of death
because they don't have her body.
But they did say that they believe they know the details of the incident that led to her death.
But that is pretty much all we know at this point.
And it seems pretty obvious that Barry did this.
Of course, in a central proving guilty, there's always possibility that he didn't.
I would like to hear your thoughts, of course, maybe you don't think he did it.
I'd like to hear that.
Any other theories that you may have,
I remember this case first breaking on the news
around Mother's Day and thinking,
how sad for someone to go missing on Mother's Day.
I just can't believe that now here we are a year later
and it turns out her husband did it,
but how many cases end up like that?
I mean, it's so, so common.
That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode,
and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out.
If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel,
which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode
soon, but until then, stay safe out there. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash
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