Found Deceased CO - Suzanne Morphew, 49, did not return from bike ride, Chaffee County, 10 May 2020 #8

[LietKynes]

^^ YES! Not one page goes by without this being asked. Like minds...

Ita.

Imo--- That makes that "Missing banner" made by BM's family/friends feel misleading.

 

[MyBelle]

Maybe it was the neighbor who called in the tip. I'm pretty sure they were the ones who told LE in the first place that BM had been hired three weeks ago to move dirt on the property. Jmo

How would their neighbor lady know about the moving of dirt and laying of concrete? With all the remote, wide open spaces of Colorado where the couple's home is located, I don't believe BM would be that reckless to transport and dispose of a dead body at a work site or someone else's property. He wouldn't need to do so.

JMO

 

[BeckyF]

Edited to eliminate my typo.


I too read that in the first week of the investigation. I will try and find it. I believe it was around the time the helicopter footage of the home was released.

I did read this, it stated the cameras had been malfunctioning and inop for 4-5 days prior to her disappearance. Sadly, searching for it seems to be like getting info on the bike or SM herself! I must withdraw my comment after an unsuccessful search for the MSM article. Anyone?

Just FYI: I posted something a few pages back, last thread I think, about how it was so suspicious that security cameras were not working and was quickly notified by another member that that has not been confirmed. So I must have read it somewhere other than WS but I don't remember now.

 

[MsBetsy]

How would their neighbor lady know about the moving of dirt and laying of concrete? With all the remote, wide open spaces of Colorado where the couple's home is located, I don't believe BM would be that reckless to transport and dispose of a dead body at a work site or someone else's property. He wouldn't need to do so.

JMO

I assumed the owners knew because they were the ones who hired him to do the work.

 

[Hoosierfan72]

BBM- I believe her too, no doubt JC is telling the truth. She is obviously an excellent neighbor, not a peep out of her in the media. That's very honorable in this day & age.

IMO, she was contacted by the daughter(s) and told about the bike ride. IMO, the daughter(s) received that suggestion/information from BM.

My basis for not believing she went on a bike ride comes straight from CCSO. The only time a bike ride was mentioned was in the May 11th & May 13th press releases.

There have been 15 subsequent press releases since May 13th, not one of them mentions a bike ride or even a bike for that matter. If LE felt this was key in Suzanne's disappearance, wouldn't they reference it in their press releases?

Great point!

 

[AmandaReckonwith]

Suzanne Morphew Case Archive:
Suzanne Morphew -CO- by amanda reckonwith

Cellphone users, try this and scroll through.
Suzanne and Barry

 

[Juvenile]

Possibilites are:

• voluntarily missing
• accident
• kidnapping
• murder

The first three options seem to be ruled out. She isn't missing by choice. There was no accident followed by a wild animal experience. I think we know that she wasn't kidnapped. That leaves one option.

Respectfully,
What evidence is there to rule out the top three options? What evidence is there to suggest that murder is the case?
I agree that the focus of (an apparently capable) LE leads us in one “laser focused” direction; a direction that most of the commenters on this thread already put BM in prison for life.
But we know nothing, because no evidence has been released to the public.
I don’t know why, but I think there is more to this case than a “controlling” husband killing his wife of 30 years over a suggested divorce.
I also don’t put any merit in anyone’s analyzation of his 27sec video. Maybe that’s a result of the Shane Carey social media criticism.
Anyway, I don’t speak up often but I’m surprised on the lack of differing opinions on this thread. Until we get any real evidence, it might be worth exploring.

 

[kkdj]

Ita.
The money aspect is interesting.
Maybe a clue there ?
Theory : Who had the money in their marriage ?
BM ? SM?
Did one person come into the marriage with more $$ than the other, and a divorce would be catastrophic for the other person ?
Wondering out loud and speculating.
Imo.

Im just going from my gut on this.
We won't divorce because of assets.
I think money might be the root of evil here.
jmo

 

[pepper 34]

Wow! Thank you! What an awesome find. It does not appear secluded at all out there!

I had the opposite reaction. I wouldn't go bike riding in that area alone. Google Earth makes everything so flat. One of my thoughts was, that if the video maker took the path where SM used to ride, I think she was in pretty good shape and must have been feeling much better. She had to have worked hard to get to where she was physically and it's just so sad that she's not there to enjoy herself anymore.

 

[Seattle1]

BBM:

I think it's more likely than not that there were texts and/or phone calls by the daughters on Sunday wishing SM a happy MD.

I think those initial outreach attempts may have begun by late morning, and that there were subsequent attempts made that day.

Assuming that neither of them received any type of acknowledgment or response from her after several hours, they may have grown increasingly worried.

I don't believe that the first person they contacted when they couldn't get hold of SM was the neighbor.

JMO.

^^bbm
It makes my teeth hurt to even consider the possibility of a father whose already distanced himself from the missing person event, could have also ignored or downplayed to them that their mom was not "missing." And if dad was also behind the reason the daughters were out of town, ouch!

MOO

 

[MyBelle]

This is a link to a nine minute cell phone video of the drive from Fooses Lake Dam along CR 226 to CR 225, then along CR 225 to the stop sign at US 50, then up US 50 for about three miles. This is truly amateur video, but it's an excellent opportunity to see the search area. Both the road bridge over Fooses Creek and and the S. Arkansas bridge are shown, plus some spots where markers remained after the search:

April Isaacs, MS, RPT
38 subscribers
We drive from Fooses Dam back out to HWY 50, then to CR 226 which was the location of the search for personal items after finding something that was possibly Suzanne Morphew’s. Law Enforcement closed the Hwy on May 15th to search further. This is the area they searched, including crime scene tape area.

Thanks, Dave. That was very helpful. Also explains why FBI is involved. Parts of the search area are in a National Forest.

JMO

 

[GordianKnot]

Respectfully,
What evidence is there to rule out the top three options? What evidence is there to suggest that murder is the case?
I agree that the focus of (an apparently capable) LE leads us in one “laser focused” direction; a direction that most of the commenters on this thread already put BM in prison for life.
But we know nothing, because no evidence has been released to the public.
I don’t know why, but I think there is more to this case than a “controlling” husband killing his wife of 30 years over a suggested divorce.
I also don’t put any merit in anyone’s analyzation his 27sec video. Maybe that’s a result of the Shane Carey social media criticism.
Anyway, I don’t speak up often but I’m surprised on the lack of differing opinions on this thread. Until we get any real evidence, it might be worth exploring.

BBM:

What do you think happened to SM?

 

[katydid23]

I agree that it shouldn't be taken as fact, but I think it's fair to make some assumptions about the general character of Suzanne's bike rides based on what has been reported, and nothing suggests she would've gone on any kind of unusually extreme or long-distance ride that weekend.

My main point is just that she wasn't likely to have been doing anything particularly risky outdoors that weekend, and especially not an activity that could make it difficult or impossible to locate remains.

A case that comes to mind is Michelle Vanek, who disappeared years ago while climbing Mt. Of the Holy Cross. Hiking a 14er like that is objectively a bit riskier than taking an easy MTB trail ride. It's also generally going to be much more difficult to find and recover remains on that terrain. In all likelihood, Michelle's remains are somewhere up there tucked into some rocks at high elevation. There's a difference between vanishing in the mountains and ON an actual mountain, though.

At this point it seems unlikely that Suzanne had some kind of recreational misadventure, IMO.

I think we can assume that she did often go for morning bike rides. Here is why:

---I am sure that her daughter's know if that is a true statement or not. No one corrected the Fire Chief's public statement.


---Either [A] she went for a bike ride that morning OR that bike was staged.

----No matter which of the above ^^ statements is true, it would mean she routinely went for bike rides.
MOO

 

[otto]

Respectfully,
What evidence is there to rule out the top three options? What evidence is there to suggest that murder is the case?
I agree that the focus of (an apparently capable) LE leads us in one “laser focused” direction; a direction that most of the commenters on this thread already put BM in prison for life.
But we know nothing, because no evidence has been released to the public.
I don’t know why, but I think there is more to this case than a “controlling” husband killing his wife of 30 years over a suggested divorce.
I also don’t put any merit in anyone’s analyzation his 27sec video. Maybe that’s a result of the Shane Carey social media criticism.
Anyway, I don’t speak up often but I’m surprised on the lack of differing opinions on this thread. Until we get any real evidence, it might be worth exploring.

Voluntarily Missing

There's nothing to support this idea. Not even the family thinks it is a possibility.​

Accident - investigated and rejected by Sheriff

"May 11: CrimeOnline has viewed a message that was sent to members of the Morphew’s former church in Indiana, requesting prayers following the news of her disappearance. The message notes that Morphew’s bike was found “crashed,” and mentions that a mountain lion had been seen in the area where the bike was discovered. ...

Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said during the first week of the search that investigators believed it was unlikely Morphew was the victim of an animal attack. (link)​

Kidnapping

$200,000 no questions asked reward for safe return. Kidnapper could get rich, yet no one has come forward.​

Murder

No evidence that we know of.​

 

[Mind your biscuits]

You can add traffic cams to that list;. I believe there are two of them on the east slope of Monarch Pass. There is no wire or cable phone service, that I know of, and as I've posted twice now, only A,T&T and Verizon have cellular phone coverage on the east slope. A,T&T's is a cell that is mounted on a high mountain some distance away. Service is "spotty" due to obstruction of the other mountains. Verizon is reported by cell phone users to have good 4G coverage all the way up the east slope to the top, ON HIGHWAY 50. As I pointed out earlier, the Verizon cell is long and thin, aimed strictly to provide coverage on Highway 50. According the Verizon's own engineering drawings, coverage should be good at SM's house, but might be intermittent at her neighbor's.
Using cell phone coverage to locate people holding the phone gets dicey in the mountains. for example, let's guess that the neighbor's call to report SM missing went through the Verizon cell. Equipment would log the call, including the exact time, the duration of the call, and the line-of-sight distance from the tower. That can be plotted as an arc of a circle with the radius being the distance, and the arc being only as long as the width of the cell at that point. The actual cell is recorded, and LE can use the Verizon engineering. The accuracy is incredible, having a tolerance of plus or minus 15 ft (literally a 30 foot circle on the ground. Because the Monarch cell is pencil-thin, creating a very short arc, and the two houses are staggered distances away from the tower, LE could literally use cell data to verify whether the neighbor was at her house or SM's house when she called.
But let's imagine that the neighbor didn't know if the call was going to go through or not so she hopped in her car and started riding down the pass; looking for a cellular hot spot. If her phone "pinged" the A,T&T tower, she would have that hot spot, but due to the location of that tower, the tracking arc could be several miles long. They could say they heard car noise on her call, so she was on a road, and assume she was at the point where the arc crossed Highway 50.
What LE could not do, in this case, is plot where that neighbor was if she started hiking upward and connected with the A,T&T tower. Her phone may have pinged both A,T&T and Verizon during her walk, and they could plot her path looking for intersecting arcs. The one thing that LE can't do, in this situation, is triangulate exact positions..............simply because they only have two towers to work with.
All of this is totally my opinion. I welcome the posting of better explanations. IMO

Excellent post, even I could follow your explanation.

 

[TKG]

Que the question about the bike.

We don’t know!

 

[moslym3]

If it weren't for the bike found at the bridge, I would lean toward a stuck in the chimney, fell into a rolled up wrestling mat, got stuck behind the refrigerator kind of situation. (these were all actual cases) Maybe she fell into an unknown well or old mine-shaft on her property.

The condition of the bike is what I want to know. And if the bike was in normal condition, was the water below the bridge raging enough for it to be an actual or believable suicide location? Is it a case of her wandering from her bike just far enough off trail for her become injured and blend in with the rugged terrain?

If her bike was in normal condition, did someone she know pull over to say hi and grabbed her, leaving her bike behind? Maybe a townie had noticed her in town recently and she's pretty hard to miss riding her bike on the roadways of such a small community.

I do think accident, getting lost or injured or willful disappearance are still possibilities.

 

[Seattle1]

Agreeeeeeeeed. If my adult child tried to call or text me on Mother’s Day and couldn’t reach me, the first thing she would do is call my husband, and say “Dad have you spoken to Mom? I can’t get her to answer.” His response would be “I haven’t, let me see what I can find out. Don’t worry, I’ll find her.” The call to the neighbor would’ve come from him, and he would have been front and center with LE trying to find out what happened, and begging for any word as to my whereabouts.

I asked how he would make a plea or offer a reward if he thought someone took me-he said “It damn sure would’ve been longer than 23 seconds, and it would’ve been with LE and a press conference-not some fb video-I would be everywhere on every station, trying to find you.” He’s normally a very private man, but when it comes to finding your loved one, things change.

Just an outside perspective and my own opinions. JMO MOO IMO

Clearly, your dad and I attended the same school.

 

[Dave F.]

The property owners called LE and informed them BM had worked there over MD weekend after hearing SM was missing. I think both that and the facts that LE stated they were not connected to her disappearance is crystal clear.

Police and FBI wrap up search at property where missing mom Suzanne Morphew's husband worked | Daily Mail Online

I sincerely do not believe that the property owners were the informant, either. In fact, I would bet on it. JMO

 

[Feistyomi]

Especially during this particular year, I think we need to know more about the family dynamics and attitudes about holidays together to come to a conclusion on MDay. With COVID19; I cancelled MDay for, imo, the safety of my kids and myself. I also recently was given my second "clear MRI" ... my daughter has MS... my son works in a hospital... but, we spoke by phone and we enjoyed that while making plans to go out to eat whenever this virus gives up.

SM's daughters tried and couldn't reach her by phone. And they were concerned when phone calls failed. Maybe they were on their way and their plan was to arrive on Monday. We have no way to know if BM tried to call or not and we don't know if BM was in touch with his daughters or that day. It's the same old story by now... we know zip about almost everything.

I was suprised by the home returning to the family, but I believe that's somewhat the norm - once the search warrant has been fully executed, LE can't keep it on lockdown.

Gannon...If there was significant evidence a crime occurred there, could the release be delayed? IANLE, just curious?