During a search of the Morphews’ home after Suzanne’s 2020 disappearance, law enforcement officials reported finding a tranquilizer dart gun, empty darts and a needle used to inject tranquilizer ch…
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Nearly four years after Suzanne Morphew disappeared from her Chaffee County home, the discovery that she
died with animal tranquilizers in her body has refocused attention on her husband’s use of such tranquilizers — an issue that has been woven into the investigation from the beginning.
During a search of the Morphews’ home after Suzanne’s 2020 disappearance, law enforcement officials reported finding a tranquilizer dart gun, empty darts and a needle used to inject tranquilizer chemicals into the darts, according to previous court testimony. They also found a cap used to cover the injecting needle in the clothes dryer at the house, along with bedsheets and clothes.
Why did Barry Morphew say he had tranquilizer darts in his house?
Barry Morphew first told investigators on May 28, 2020, that he kept darts in his home in order to tranquilize deer, transport the animals and sell them, though he said he’d only done so in Indiana, not in Colorado.
-Months later, in March 2021, Morphew told investigators he used the darts to shoot and tranquilize deer so that he could cut off their antlers, and said that he might have tranquilized two deer at his home in Colorado in late April. He said authorities would find spent darts around his property.
-In April 2021, Morphew told investigators that he uses what’s known as the BAM formulation —
a mixture of the three drugs found in Suzanne Morphew’s bones — to sedate deer. He told investigators he bought the chemicals in Indiana and kept them on his workbench in vials. He said he mixed the chemicals into darts himself, rather than using a licensed veterinarian, according to the affidavit.
-When investigators asked whether he could mix the tranquilizer without help from anyone, he said, “Yeah, absolutely.”
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An investigator asked Morphew in April 2021 whether he might have thrown those tranquilizers away in one of the
five “trash runs” he made in and around Broomfield on May 10, 2020, the day his wife was reported missing.
“Could’ve been,” Morphew said.
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What did Barry Morphew say about the tranquilizer needle cap found in the laundry?
Barry Morphew admitted to investigators in March 2021 that it looked “a little suspicious” that a tranquilizer needle cap was found with bed sheets in the dryer.
“Because it looks like if I did something, and ripped the sheet, and got blood on them and ripped ’em off and washed ’em — to me, lookin’ at it through a detective’s eyes, that would look a little suspicious,” he said.
-Are there any human uses for BAM?
No.
-How long would BAM stay in a person’s system after the drug was injected or ingested?
Boscan said he was surprised the drug was detected in Suzanne Morphew’s bones at all, let alone three years after her death.
If a person dies after being hit with a dart full of BAM, that person’s heart would stop and there would be no time for the drug to be carried through the body and absorbed through the bones. It is unclear how long a person with BAM in their system would need to remain alive for the drug to be absorbed into the bones, he said.
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in cheek!
