OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
4:44 PM PT – Monday, April 29, 2024
An autopsy revealed Suzanne Morphew, a mother of two who went missing nearly four years ago, died by homicide with several different drugs in her system.
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The Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) released Morphew’s autopsy on Monday.
The report concluded that the 49-year-old mother died by “undetermined means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone, and medetomidine intoxication. These drugs are marketed as a compounded injectable chemical immobilizer for wildlife providing pharmacologically reversible analgesia, sedation and immobilization.”
Morphew’s remains were discovered in Saguache County, Colorado last September. She was first reported missing on Mother’s Day in 2020 after she went on a bike ride and never returned.
Her husband, Barry Morphew, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 2021, but the charges were dropped a year later. His legal team later filed a $15 million lawsuit alleging prosecutors and investigators violated his constitutional rights.
Barry and the pair’s two daughters have maintained his innocence.
“They’re wrong,” Morphew said during a May 2023 interview. “They’ve got tunnel vision and they looked at one person and they’ve got too much pride to say they’re wrong and look somewhere else.”
The Denver Gazette noted that Barry Morphew previously told investigators he used the same sedatives named in the autopsy report to shoot deer with a tranquilizer gun.
Prosecutors argued he shot Suzanne with a tranquilizer dart on the day of her disappearance.
Barry’s attorney’s said investigators also located an unknown male DNA where Suzanne’s bike was parked, but authorities refuse to tell the Morphew family whether her clothes have been tested for DNA.
“Barry Morphew is innocent and he could not have killed his wife,” said one of Morphew’s attorney’s, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen. “She got up the morning of Mother’s Day, had her cup of coffee, that is now confirmed with the autopsy report. Also confirmed with the autopsy report is that she put on her bike clothes. She was on a bike ride and abducted. The tranquilizer that was found in her bones, allegedly, is a very common animal tranquillizer that could be used on farms or by hunters, which are people who are very prevalent in that area of Salida.”
A bullet was also found with Morphew’s remains, but it’s unclear whether that has been tested either.
Nearly four years after the 49-year-old mother’s death, no other suspects have been arrested in the case.
“The Colorado Bureau of Investigation and our law enforcement partners understand and appreciate the public interest surrounding this case,” said CBI Director Chris Schaefer. “The investigative team assembled to work this case continues to follow the evidence and only the evidence as we seek justice for Suzanne’s death.”
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