Still Missing CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, Chaffee Co, 10 May 2020 *arrest* #86

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It all depends on how detailed the prosecution wants to get with motive. It's not required of course, but the jury likes to know why a crime occurred.

Its absolutely clear to me that Barry knew Suzanne was having an affair, which was alluded to quite a bit in both the affidavit and preliminary hearing.

Barry would have been both furious that Suzanne was having one, and fearful that she was dead serious when she asked for a divorce that week (he may have thought she had a place to go, and thus means to pull it off).

So JL may be quite important, and it's possible that the defense would call him if the prosecution did not.

I think we hear from him.
When do you think Barry learned of the affair?
 
Interesting thought.....But before BM can marry SD...SM has to be declared deceased....that would eliminate the "gone girl" angle. BM would have to go to court to petition the death ruling, one would think. More scrutiny for him. I don't think he or his lawyers want the added scrutiny.

I also wonder if he could afford his attorneys to pursue the death ruling. His aging looks could partially be from financial stress as well. IMO, he seems to like to flaunt some and could very well be on a limited budget by now with the realization his finances are draining fast. I also think the listing of all the different banks could be there to paint a picture of the Morphew's financial situation if the prosecution needs to go down that path.
 
When do you think Barry learned of the affair?
He suspected it for a long time. I'd have to look back at the AA, but Sheila talked about Barry checking up on Suzanne during a visit, by making multiple phone calls to multiple people.

He also attempted to take Suzanne's phone during a vacation to Mexico.

This wasn't a new thing to him, but when coupled with the divorce discussion, was recipe for disaster.

ETA:

Suzanne began communicating with JL in April of 2018. Barry making those phone calls occurred in November of that year. So I think it's safe to say that Barry suspected something quite quickly.
 
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He suspected it for a long time. I'd have to look back at the AA, but Sheila talked about Barry checking up on Suzanne during a visit, by making multiple phone calls to multiple people.

He also attempted to take Suzanne's phone during a vacation to Mexico.

This wasn't a new thing to him, but when coupled with the divorce discussion, was recipe for disaster.
I keep going back and forth whether he knew before the day he killed her or just suspected. I'm seriously torn over when he found out. I am literally in the middle on this.
 
I also wonder if he could afford his attorneys to pursue the death ruling. His aging looks could partially be from financial stress as well. IMO, he seems to like to flaunt some and could very well be on a limited budget by now with the realization his finances are draining fast. I also think the listing of all the different banks could be there to paint a picture of the Morphew's financial situation if the prosecution needs to go down that path.

The whole reason I started a list of things I found notable on the witness list was the number of financially related entries, which really surprised me. We know they did not have any sort of publicly recorded mortgage on Puma Path, so it seems like a lot of financial institutions for someone we'd heard didn't like owing anybody money and referred to himself as the ATM. And oops, drives around with six grand in his truck. (WHO DOES THAT?!?)

moo
 
July-August Public Doc batch: Pgs 31-41/101 - Defense Motion [D-17]

The above motion pretty much clarifies what Eytan spent 3+ hours arguing during the hearing on 11/9 where a quick glance reveals that the CODIS Match letter by CBI dated May 19, 2021, was received by the defense in discovery on 7/22/2021.

The defense was outraged that this letter and the information about the Tempe, Phoenix, and Illinois, CODIS Matches were not detailed in the AA, and instead, the AA included other details they didn't find important.

Pgs. 47-49/101 - Peoples response to CODIS leads.

https://www.fox21news.com/wp-conten...blic-Documents-July-2021-thru-August-2021.pdf
Thanks for this! It really advances and informs the discussion.

Can you tell us what authority the defense cites, that required the prosecution to include the CODIS match information in the AA?
 
Thanks for this! It really advances and informs the discussion.

Can you tell us what authority the defense cites, that required the prosecution to include the CODIS match information in the AA?
Did it need to be in the AA? I am thinking it did not need to be in the AA but should have been in the disclosures turned over to defense. AAs are generally much, much shorter than what prosecution produced and only enough to get the arrest warrant signed off.
 
If (speculation/pondering) LE got DNA swabs from all the likely people who might leave fingerprints on SM's car's glove box -- oil change person, tire change people, Range Rover dealership staff, car wash folks, etc -- would they be able to affirmatively match the DNA found with the person giving the swab?

And if so, shouldn't they have done that, so the glovebox DNA can be definitively ruled out?

Or maybe they have identified the person but don't need to make that known yet?
I don't think they can require someone to give a DNA swab without some reason to believe that particular individual's DNA is in the car. LE also has to conserve resources.

The prosecutors aren't required to eliminate every other conceivable possibility to prove that BM committed this crime. They focused on him early for sound reasons, and they have the proof they need to convict him IMO.

Nor were investigators obliged to search for every possibility once they had reasonable suspicions about BM. Tracking down the mechanic who left DNA in the car and investigating his alibi is the defense's job IMO.
 
I don't think they can require someone to give a DNA swab without some reason to believe that particular individual's DNA is in the car. LE also has to conserve resources.

The prosecutors aren't required to eliminate every other conceivable possibility to prove that BM committed this crime. They focused on him early for sound reasons, and they have the proof they need to convict him IMO.

Nor were investigators obliged to search for every possibility once they had reasonable suspicions about BM. Tracking down the mechanic who left DNA in the car and investigating his alibi is the defense's job IMO.

Courts have held that during an interview or interrogation, DNA swabs may be requested and do not violate the 5th amendment. But, you're right that some something has to trigger probable cause. Since the partial DNA pointed to thousands of people, I don't think most judges would find that to be probable cause to choose one of them to compel to come to a police station.
 
Courts have held that during an interview or interrogation, DNA swabs may be requested and do not violate the 5th amendment. But, you're right that some something has to trigger probable cause. Since the partial DNA pointed to thousands of people, I don't think most judges would find that to be probable cause to choose one of them to compel to come to a police station.
I'm trying not to get sucked into the DNA identity but how in simple jargon did they get a name if it matched thousands of people? I'm not understanding that end of it. If it's a name it would be so simple it seems to find out if that person or any family members was in Colorado on May 10th and all this discussion is wasted energy.
 
I don't think they can require someone to give a DNA swab without some reason to believe that particular individual's DNA is in the car. LE also has to conserve resources.

The prosecutors aren't required to eliminate every other conceivable possibility to prove that BM committed this crime. They focused on him early for sound reasons, and they have the proof they need to convict him IMO.

Nor were investigators obliged to search for every possibility once they had reasonable suspicions about BM. Tracking down the mechanic who left DNA in the car and investigating his alibi is the defense's job IMO.
It's just so dumb.

So some random sex offender causes Suzanne to drop off the grid on Saturday afternoon, right when Barry arrives home.

He manipulates Barry's phone and truck, while Barry claims to be sleeping.

As Barry is leaving, he turns Suzanne's phone off for the last time.

He forces Barry to make a turn in the opposite direction, right where the helmet was located.

He forces Barry to dump at least 5 bags of trash, spend 11 minutes at a job he left a day early for, and then lie about doing work, and where he was when he received that phone call.

He stages a bicycle, inexplicably enters Suzanne's vehicle, and takes nothing from her purse.

I guess he must have forced Suzanne to ask for a divorce earlier in the week, and made Barry delete those texts and lie about them.

Or something.

This is lunacy. Anyone who believes this nonsense needs to be committed.
 
i have been trying to follow along in this case but i think i'm missing something because the only "black hole" i see so far is in the logic team barry is using to tell us what happened to suzanne. previously he was positive someone who looked suspicious somehow restrained suzanne while she was taking a bike ride. the kidnapper threw the bicycle off the road and drove off with her and tossed her riding helmet out as they left. now it seems whomever did this also left dna on suzanne's glove box. so is he saying after the kidnapper restrained her and got her into the vehicle suzanne must have asked the kidnapper to drop by her house so he could get her prescription sunglasses out of her glove box so she could read the maps while the kidnapper is driving? or, has the whole alternate theory changed? cause i would think the defense has to produce a plausible explanation as to why that specific dna sample shows someone else murdered suzanne and they have not even come close to doing that unless i missed something. MOO
 
When do you think Barry learned of the affair?

He had suspicions for a while imo - he chased her round on a vacation wanting her phone to see who she was talking too, then Suzanne and JL stopped talking and switched to LinkedIn/WhatsApp in case he found out - in the AA he asked LE, after finding out from them of the affair, if it was someone from Arizona iirc and again, iirc, also asked if it was a boyfriend from high school - which for me, could indicate he had considered JL as he and Suzanne 'hooked up' at a party when BM was in college.
When he actually realised not got a clue, for all we know, she told him, and that got deleted too, but, if BM did arrange the camping trip for the girls - it would be interesting to me to find out when he organised that, cos that could maybe narrow down things a little?

moo
 
I agree. I think BM knew she was having an affair, but I don’t think he knew who it was with. And…., it absolutely drove him nuts. After LE told him she was having an affair, he started asking who it was with and, if I recall, he even started throwing out some names for confirmation. (And none was JL’s). To me it’s clear that he had been trying to figure out who it was for a while.
JL ‘s very existence can show motive on BM’s part.
Absolutely. The cool part in regards to the AA is that it's incredibly easy to see when Barry is lying, vs when he's telling the truth.

He genuinely had no idea who Suzanne was having an affair with.

On the other hand, it's clear that he was lying about not being aware of an affair at the time. He tells us this when he asks how many months it was going on, instead of just asking how long it was going on (like a normal person).

It was close to 2 years, but saying "months," made him seem completely ignorant of the timeframe. He thought that sounded better, but it was hilariously transparent.
 
Did it need to be in the AA? I am thinking it did not need to be in the AA but should have been in the disclosures turned over to defense. AAs are generally much, much shorter than what prosecution produced and only enough to get the arrest warrant signed off.
^^bbm

The CODIS match (partial) in Tempe, Phoenix, and Illinois was not only disclosed to the defense in discovery (July 22, 2021) but also discussed during the PH.

I believe the rub with the defense is that investigators swabbed the vehicle early in the investigation, had internal discussions about moderate stringency* hits, and whereby their collective decades of experience, they didn't go down a "black hole," and divert their time and resources searching for a suspect that would be a perfect DNA match to the foreign mixture located on the glovebox.

Based on the authors of the CODIS testing system, locating a suspect to match the sample from the glovebox is minute:

“Moderate stringency* CODIS matches, in general, have very low efficiency in locating true relatives in offender databases. There is little useful probative value in the majority of partial matches using the current CODIS searching rules and algorithms..."


There's no dispute that foreign DNA was located inside SM's vehicle that shares infinitesimal markers with offenders legally required to provide samples for the database, and clearly, the court acknowledged this when BM was granted bail.

However, to suggest that these very same "CODIS leads" would have been sufficient to cause a Judge to deny the arrest warrant or not bind BM over for trial is silly -- it's an empty argument and cause.

MOO

* CODIS and NDIS Fact Sheet — FBI
 
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It's just so dumb.

So some random sex offender causes Suzanne to drop off the grid on Saturday afternoon, right when Barry arrives home.

He manipulates Barry's phone and truck, while Barry claims to be sleeping.

As Barry is leaving, he turns Suzanne's phone off for the last time.

He forces Barry to make a turn in the opposite direction, right where the helmet was located.

He forces Barry to dump at least 5 bags of trash, spend 11 minutes at a job he left a day early for, and then lie about doing work, and where he was when he received that phone call.

He stages a bicycle, inexplicably enters Suzanne's vehicle, and takes nothing from her purse.

I guess he must have forced Suzanne to ask for a divorce earlier in the week, and made Barry delete those texts and lie about them.

Or something.

This is lunacy. Anyone who believes this nonsense needs to be committed.
And he manages to not leave another print ANYWHERE in the house or on the bike. Nice that he let her take her phone charger and journal.
 
He had suspicions for a while imo - he chased her round on a vacation wanting her phone to see who she was talking too, then Suzanne and JL stopped talking and switched to LinkedIn/WhatsApp in case he found out - in the AA he asked LE, after finding out from them of the affair, if it was someone from Arizona iirc and again, iirc, also asked if it was a boyfriend from high school - which for me, could indicate he had considered JL as he and Suzanne 'hooked up' at a party when BM was in college.
When he actually realised not got a clue, for all we know, she told him, and that got deleted too, but, if BM did arrange the camping trip for the girls - it would be interesting to me to find out when he organised that, cos that could maybe narrow down things a little?

moo
bbm
The camping-despite-Corona must have a meaning, absolutely, IMO.
 
I'm trying not to get sucked into the DNA identity but how in simple jargon did they get a name if it matched thousands of people? I'm not understanding that end of it. If it's a name it would be so simple it seems to find out if that person or any family members was in Colorado on May 10th and all this discussion is wasted energy.
If they have a name, the assaults aren't "unsolved" anymore - that's my part of non-understanding.
 
bbm
The camping-despite-Corona must have a meaning, absolutely, IMO.
If nothing else, I long believed it was a loud message of tension at home when both daughters opted to go away during Mother's Day weekend rather than spend the holiday with SM or invite her on the trip. And not just tension between the parents, but I'm certain the daughters picked up on changes in SM herself -- she was becoming braver, more confident than they'd ever known her to be. MOO
 
If nothing else, I long believed it was a loud message of tension at home when both daughters opted to go away during Mother's Day weekend rather than spend the holiday with SM or invite her on the trip. And not just tension between the parents, but I'm certain the daughters picked up on changes in SM herself -- she was becoming braver, more confident than they'd ever known her to be. MOO
Yup. This interview with one of the daughters on page 40 says it all. 4B0D4A6F-CE8B-48BF-9017-8CBD65E5D179.jpeg

This too.C1F8FE7B-DF15-4CC0-B3F2-C6CA74F87FFF.jpeg
 
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