Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #33

[Moonchime]

I wonder if LE has any video of BM driving towards where the bike was found.

I really, really hope so! This helps their case if they do.

 

[Moonchime]

I’d bet money they have him on camera somewhere with a cooler in his truck. Of course they would have asked him about where it is now at some point during the 3-30 hours of interviewing him. I wonder what he said.

I've been thinking this as well. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have heard that LE asked Andy Moorman about coolers owned by BM. MOO

 

[VanillaSky1970]

I was watching HGTV (dont judge me)and a contractor was building a wall with old bricks. He had to dip each brick in acid first. Does acid have a smell?

I would be interested to know why a contractor would dip bricks in acid, but suspect it might have something to do with removing residue from old mortar. If so, the acid would be muriatic/hydrochloric. And the smell that would result from the reaction between the acid and mortar would be far more pungent, and burning, and would not resemble bleach or chlorine.

I work with masonry quite a bit, and cannot think of an application where chlorine would be used. People sometimes used to use bleach to remove mold or algae, but that's less common than it was, say, 20 years ago.

 

[Tate123]

I would be interested to know why a contractor would dip bricks in acid, but suspect it might have something to do with removing residue from old mortar. If so, the acid would be muriatic/hydrochloric. And the smell that would result from the reaction between the acid and mortar would be far more pungent, and burning, and would not resemble bleach or chlorine.
I work with masonry quite a bit, and cannot think of an application where chlorine would be used. People sometimes used to use bleach to remove mold or algae, but that's less common than it was, say, 20 years ago.

That's exactly right! They were removing residue from old bricks they found and wanted to use.

 

[enelram]

I would be interested to know why a contractor would dip bricks in acid, but suspect it might have something to do with removing residue from old mortar. If so, the acid would be muriatic/hydrochloric. And the smell that would result from the reaction between the acid and mortar would be far more pungent, and burning, and would not resemble bleach or chlorine.

I work with masonry quite a bit, and cannot think of an application where chlorine would be used. People sometimes used to use bleach to remove mold or algae, but that's less common than it was, say, 20 years ago.

good post-

I keep thinking about the stepping stones in the back area of the M home that were roped off w/ crime tape.
IMO, something could have been on those flat rocks or they may have been cleaned w/ chlorine recently. It would be a likely route to drag a body outside to put in truck or did she
take off and run out there to get away when
the craziness started?
There's something about those rocks that are
another clue, IMO.

moo

 

[Hoosierfan72]

There are times I feel like details in cases get blown out of proportion, this is not one of them.

It seems like Andy is gaining courage with all the support he's receiving. Telling us small things that paint a picture of the marriage which contrast with the pretty pictures.

I don't think Barry was a wife-beater, but there are other ways a man can treat their wife that are just as bad. Isolating Suzanne from her lifelong friends and family, maybe even poisoning the girls minds against them seems possible here.

I also think he used Christianity to manipulate Suzanne.

BBM. Interesting thought. I was really bothered by his "if one person is saved, it would be worth it" (not a direct quote, but that's how I took it). This is not a criticism of anyone's faith, but there are fundamentalist sects within Christianity that that preach and teach submission on the part of wives toward their husband. There are plenty of examples where this works fine in a marriage, but it can also lead to abuse if the husband isn't a humble, caring, loving person. MOO, JMO.

 

[LietKynes]

But he did nothing wrong at the hotel!

Ita.
What a slip of the tongue.
B-splaining.
"...at the hotel..."
But-- did he do something 'wrong' elsewhere ?
And he wonders why LE seem to be focusing on him.
Afaik, BM has retained a lawyer.
That lawyer must be cringing every time BM opens his mouth !
Imo.

 

[Birmingplumb]

Does anybody else think it will snow when the hero's arrive?

 

[Hair of the Dog]

I don't think we are going to place him at a car wash. How would a contractor explain washing his truck BEFORE he started a job involving dirt? That would be yet another enormous red flag to have to explain away.

Maybe if he used chlorine to clean out the bed of his truck? Undiluted chlorine is so harsh I think it could fade a bedliner, especially if it was exposed to sunlight for any length of time. That same bedliner might also reek of bleach necessitating a trip to the car wash. Wash it out then load up some dirt to obfuscate any trace evidence that might remain? MOO

 

[nyvictoria]

What does everyone think is the holdup with an arrest? Is it the DA? I’m not impatient and I know there’s no statute of limitations on murder. Just wondering what everyone’s thoughts are.

 

[Diddian]

I’m curious as to what people are thinking. SM is somewhere. Where is she?

1) At the home property?
2) At or near the Salida job site?
3) Somewhere close to home?
4) Somewhere between home and Broomfield?
5) Elsewhere?

I most strongly suspect #1, the one place that BM fully controls, that LE needs a detailed search warrant with probable cause to search for specifically identified items, and AM's hundreds-strong search crew is forbidden to look without BM's permission.

Of course, I cannot imagine any valid reason why BM would deny permission to conduct a thorough search there. After all, BM was away setting up a job near Denver, so for all BM knows, SM's stranger-abductor or person-SM-is-familiar-with-abductor might have buried SM right there on the property and staged her bike and personal items where they were found to throw everyone looking for SM off. I would think BM would want the place he says he last saw SM alive searched with a fine-toothed comb.

If there were such an abductor, that person would have had hours (from when BM says he left at 5AM until about 12 hours later) to kill SM, stage her bike, and hide her remains. Admittedly, those would be daylight hours when such a person would risk being seen by a witness tossing a bike over the side of the road or transporting a body-sized bundle or tossing it somewhere. And that person likely would not have access to heavy machinery, so if he buried her onsite the Morphew property, he would have to dig and/or move heavy stones using hand tools.

By contrast, if the disappearance of SM were planned and managed by BM, he would have had the entire week the girls were away camping to use his heavy machinery and hardscaping experience to prepare a burial site on his own property without any suspicion whatsoever. He'd just have to call it something else. "Listen, while the girls are away this week, I'm going to work on that dry creek bed feature we've been talking about. Oh, Suzanne, don't tell the girls if you talk to them this week, let's keep it a surprise!"

I wonder if BM checked SM's social media because he was curious whether she had told any friends about Barry doing some hardscaping at the house that week. Maybe that was information he wanted to make sure was kept between himself and SM.

MOO and speculation.

 

[Hoosierfan72]

In terms of where SM could be, here is how my mind works (MOO):

I can't imagine how stressful having a body to hide might be.... I would think the overriding thought would be "I can't get caught with this" which is why I think it would be unlikely to take the body all the way to Broomfield. I think you would want to hide it as soon as possible, and somewhere that you feel reasonably sure you won't get caught in the act. This is why I think she is somewhere BM has been before. Unfortunately, as a hunter, there could be a lot of places.... but if I were LE, I'd want to know where his favorite hunting spots were and start with the closest.....

I think both those thoughts would override the thought of putting her someplace that isn't connected to him.

JMO

 

[Dalgliesh]

I wonder if the "wall repair" part of the story of BS's job in Denver relates to the 2019 collapse of a retaining wall on the Boulder Turnpike (U.S. 36) near the Church Ranch exit in Westminster - a city adjacent to Broomfield. The cause appears to be a problem of water drainage. If RTD wanted to protect the retaining wall at its nearby Flatiron Park and Ride from a similar collapse, and if BS was working on that project, the two issues may have been conflated as the story was told and retold. MOO of course.

 

[Barry]

In terms of where SM could be, here is how my mind works (MOO):

I can't imagine how stressful having a body to hide might be.... I would think the overriding thought would be "I can't get caught with this" which is why I think it would be unlikely to take the body all the way to Broomfield. I think you would want to hide it as soon as possible, and somewhere that you feel reasonably sure you won't get caught in the act. This is why I think she is somewhere BM has been before. Unfortunately, as a hunter, there could be a lot of places.... but if I were LE, I'd want to know where his favorite hunting spots were and start with the closest.....

I think both those thoughts would override the thought of putting her someplace that isn't connected to him.

JMO

Same thoughts here. Did that first, then cooked up all the other stuff. MOO.

 

[MassGuy]

In terms of where SM could be, here is how my mind works (MOO):

I can't imagine how stressful having a body to hide might be.... I would think the overriding thought would be "I can't get caught with this" which is why I think it would be unlikely to take the body all the way to Broomfield. I think you would want to hide it as soon as possible, and somewhere that you feel reasonably sure you won't get caught in the act. This is why I think she is somewhere BM has been before. Unfortunately, as a hunter, there could be a lot of places.... but if I were LE, I'd want to know where his favorite hunting spots were and start with the closest.....

I think both those thoughts would override the thought of putting her someplace that isn't connected to him.

JMO

Agreed. I think she’s a decent distance from the house, but not as far as Broomfield. I imagine investigators have talked to his hunting buddies, and asked about locations where he has either shown interest, or hunted in the past.

 

[Hair of the Dog]

DH and I (and our dog) lived in a Holiday Inn Express for 6 weeks last spring while we were waiting for our house to be ready. The bathroom had a passive type ventilation system with a small 6x6 vent in the wall, no exhaust fan that a guest could activate, no window to open. Strong chlorine fumes would have taken a long time to dissipate. MOO

 

[Stripehaven]

I just can’t get over the idea of taking anything from a crime scene to a secondary location, complete with security cameras and potential witnesses, to clean or get rid of it. I’m thinking more and more that this must have been an attempt to set “look-alike” JB up as a patsy.

I keep thinking about the Mark Sievers case, with his twin buddy.

 

[303gmf]

Tools or no tools, I have a feeling LE has a nice crisp photo of BM entering the Holiday Inn Express with a bag of some kind.

What's in the bag, BM?

If he says it's tools, I say it's not. (Unless he had some to clean.)

So.... what might be in the bag?

A baby blue bike helmet? Biking clothes? Bike shoes?
We can guess some important property papers.... (clue: they were addressed to BM, according to JP, not to Suzanne, not probably to both of them either)
A ruined cellphone?
A partial bottle of chlorine to pour down a hotel drain?

Nothing left to do but shower and catch some quick zzzzzz's?

I wish JP could go back to the Holiday Inn Express and go through more than the room trash.

I wonder what evidence may have met a dumpster...

I'm still thinking he thought the room would be cleaned before JP arrived.... but between Mother's Day and Covid, housekeeping may have prioritized cleaning only for changeovers, leaving his room untouched.

Bring on LS's timeline!!!

JMO

OT Megnut, but I have say I’ve felt like a creeper on your posts liking every one of them !! Each one excellent IMO
Thank you

 

[LietKynes]

I’d bet money they have him on camera somewhere with a cooler in his truck. Of course they would have asked him about where it is now at some point during the 3-30 hours of interviewing him. I wonder what he said.

Agreed.

Doubtful AM would know what coolers the Morphews had if they were somewhat estranged ?
However a cooler seen on camera would have piqued LE's interest right away.
How many semi-truths or outright lies have LE documented by now ?
If you tell the truth from the beginning, you have one story and you stick to it.
Imo.

 

[Topppps]

What does everyone think is the holdup with an arrest? Is it the DA? I’m not impatient and I know there’s no statute of limitations on murder. Just wondering what everyone’s thoughts are.

Covid, interim DA, still searching for the body.