Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOMBSHELL: BARRY MORPHEW CHARGED FOR SECOND TIME WITH WIFE SUZANNE’s MURDER

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

A Colorado husband and father arrested again in connection with the murder of his wife years after previous charges were dropped, a grand jury indicts Barry Morphew on first-degree murder. In 2021, Morphew was charged with first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence after his wife, Suzanne, went missing on Mother's Day in 2020, but those charges were later dropped before his trial date and a year before Suzanne's remains were found. Suzanne Morphew, 49, was last seen on Mother's Day, May 10, 2020, in Maysville, Colorado, after leaving her home for a bike ride. Later that evening, Suzanne's mountain bike is found near the home, and her helmet is found in a different location nearby a few days later. A massive search for Suzanne spans over a three-year period until her remains are uncovered in a shallow grave in Saguache just a few hundred feet down a dirt road, the indictment states. An autopsy report states drugs typically used to tranquilize animals were found in her system. Morphew was all smiles at his court appearance.  Join Nancy Grace to unfold what's next for Barry Morphew. Joining Nancy Grace today: Tisha Leewaye- Friend of Suzanne Morphew  Dr. Bethany Marshall –  Psychoanalyst, Author: “Deal Breaker,” and featured in hit show “Paris in Love” on Peacock; Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive Chris McDonough – Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective [worked over 300 Homicides in 25-year career], Trained the First Native American Homicide Task Force; Host of YouTube channel, “The Interview Room” Dr. Thomas Coyne – Chief Medical Examiner, District 2 Medical Examiner’s Office, State of Florida; Forensic Pathologist, Neuropathologist, Toxicologist; X: @DrTMCoyne Derek Smith - Criminal Defense Attorney, website: dwsmithlegal.com   Dave Mack - Crime Stories Investigative Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell and a stunning twist. Barry Morphew is charged again in the murder of his wife, Suzanne Morphew. I spent days tromping around the entire area and realized very quickly how difficult it would be to find Suzanne Morphew's remains. But guess what? They were found in a remote area and those remains really cracked this case wide open. Take a listen to Ann Kelly, District Attorney

to the 12th Judicial District. Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on Mother's Day five years ago. Law enforcement has never stopped working to obtain justice for this mother of two, this daughter, this sister, and this beloved member of the Chaffey County community. Through the tireless efforts of the Chaffey County Sheriff's Office, the Sawatch County Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I can announce today that the 12th Judicial District Grand Jury returned an indictment. The Grand Jury has indicted Barry Morphew on the single count of murder in the first

degree. Many of us thought this day may never come, but held out hope for justice for Suzanne. As you will all recall, he, the husband, Barry Morphew, had been indicted before and the case was thrown out of court on alleged prosecutorial misconduct. Now, years have passed and the case has been revived, brought back from the dead. Straight out to a very special guest joining us is Tisha Leeway, a very dear friend of Suzanne Morphew. Tisha, it's wonderful to see you. I wondered if we would ever speak on this occasion.

Tell me your response, your reaction, when you learned Barry Morphew had finally been indicted a second time in Suzanne's murder. I was shocked, honestly. I knew, I was hoping that the day would come, obviously, but I didn't even know I was working and my phone was just going crazy. And then all of a sudden I had to stop and just look.

And I honestly started crying because I was so shocked and happy. And I mean, I'm glad this day has finally came. You stated that you always thought it would happen. After the first indictment was thrown out for alleged prosecutorial misconduct, many people thought it never would, that the case was so tainted, there was no way to get a grand jury indictment or conviction.

Why did you always believe it would happen? I just know that, you know, things work in mysterious ways and I feel like she deserves the justice. So I think after, honestly, after they found her body in a different county, I felt like we were in good hands. Not that Chaffey County, you know, most of them, you know, are worked with Swatch County anyway, but once the body was found, obviously that gave us way bigger hopes and then once the autopsy came out, that was even bigger.

Tisha Leeway, a very dear friend and confidant of Suzanne Morpheus, what was your reaction when you realized, when you first realized that Suzanne was missing and couldn't be found. What did you think? I just kind of just followed the news a little bit, but you know, it was a little strange just the way she went missing. So obviously I kind of thought something else happened. Guys, we are joined by an All-Star panel and we are trying to make sense

of what we are learning now. I want you to take a listen to what happened around the time Suzanne seemingly vanished into thin air, all alone in her home on Mother's Day. And according to her husband, Barry Morphew, she decided to go on a Mother's Day bike ride. Listen after a missing person's report was called in by a neighbor, investigators responded to the Morphew's residence. The house was locked. Suzanne's vehicle was in the garage with no signs of forced entry.

Suzanne and her bicycle were missing. The bike was found less than a mile from her home down a hillside off a dirt road. Joining me, investigative reporter with Crime Stories, Dave Mack. Dave Mack, we all flew out to the location and spent days looking for evidence reviewing the location where her bike was found and I recall distinctly at the time that Barry Morphew said his wife must have been eaten by wild animals. I guess what? As she went by on the bike, a wild animal just jumped and attacked her mid-bike ride and then dragged her body away. Her bike helmet was found about a mile away. I guess the wild predator dragged her helmet a mile away. But then that theory was

scuttered when her body was found in another county. That's a long way for a mountain lion to drag a dead body, isn't it? Well, you know, Nancy, it's a long way for any animal to carry a body but to actually his theory of the bobcat he threw that out there right over a mountain lion he threw that out there right away and anybody in the area that knew anything about mountain lions were like no that they don't work like that there might be one out here somewhere but they're not gonna do that and when they found her remains Nancy if you remember the remains that they found were bleached and almost complete.

You know, they found almost a complete set of bones of her and that's not common when you find a body out in an area like where she was found. It's very uncommon. They're usually parts of the body because if wild animals get it, they carry it away. Parts of it and they're all scattered, but that didn't happen here. Now I'm looking back over what happened that morning, that Mother's Day morning to Dr. Bethany Marshall

joining us, renowned psychoanalyst out of the LA jurisdiction. She's the author of Deal Breaker. So you can see her now on Peacock and you can find her online at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, her daughters were camping on Mother's Day and they called her relentlessly to talk to their mom on Mother's Day. Interesting that prior to that weekend Barry Morphew, according to reports, did not have a construction job planned.

But suddenly, that morning around, I guess, four o'clock in the morning or so, he put together a crew for an out of town job and took off on Mother's Day morning, leaving, according to him, his wife alone on Mother's Day, still asleep in bed. Thoughts? Nancy, that's so suspicious. Who was pulled together a crew at the last minute? And if he did, is there a homeowner or a business owner who requested for him to come in at the last minute and if he did, is there a homeowner or a business owner who requested for him to come in at the last minute? Perhaps they had complaints about the plumbing or the tile or something like that. I mean, I think we'd really want to show that there was a reason that he would pull together that crew. Secondarily, Nancy, mothers, as you know, because you have beautiful Lucy, they want to be in contact with their children

on Mother's Day. The fact that she would not pick up the phone is very odd. I mean, this was her reason for being in life, was to be in contact with her children. And lastly, the idea that her bones were found so far away, bleached, preserved, not eaten by animals. And the fact is that if she had died of natural causes out in the wild, her body would have been scavenged. So there's just so many things that are missing about this story. You know, I want to follow up on something that you just said. Joining me is Dr. Thomas Coyne, Chief Medical Examiner, District 2 Medical Examiner's Office,

state of Florida. He is a forensic pathologist, a toxicologist and a neuropathologist and you can find him on X at Dr. T.M. Coyne. Dr. Coyne, thank you for being with us. What does it mean that there was no hair attached to her body. Well, if she did die or her body was placed outside and she decomposed outside, there would have been a hair mass. Not only the hair mass, you would have seen in the soil evidence of decomposition because

all of those body tissues, your body fluids had to go somewhere as they begin to denature and liquefy. And so, you would have had in conjunction with the skeleton, you would have had her hair mass, you would have also had evidence of decomposition or fluid, especially if she was wearing clothing, the clothing I'm sure would have been tattered, would have had evidence of decomposition fluid or fluid within those tissues or clothing for that matter. We learn more about the discovery of her body. Listen.

When Suzanne's body was found, the majority of her bleached bones were recovered, along with a cancer port and items of clothing matching bike clothing Suzanne was known to wear. There was a lack of bug activity, inconsistent with the remains decomposing where they were found. There was also a lack of animal activity on the bones

and no hair mass found. These features would have been expected where the body was found if it had been the original gravesite where decomposition occurred. Dr. Coyne, when you refer to a hair mass, you're referring to the hair that would have been on her head. That's correct, yeah. What a sloth off of her head. I don't understand again what that means that no hair mass is found. What does that mean? Sure. Well, if her body was left outside, she would have decomposed outside and that's a meal for bugs, for animals. You would have had scavenging activity, animals would have come in to sort of gain access to the tissue, they would have walked away with certain body parts.

But the hair on the head, as the tissue begins to decompose, it sloughs off of the skull leaving that matted hair behind. Very often that hair is full of waxy tissue, bugs, maggots, other types of a cupid that may be present. So, it forms almost like a matted mass of hair and that would have been present there with the skeleton. So, that means that's not where she decomposed originally? Is that what you just said means? Yep, absolutely. And also when you have bleached skeleton like that, a body that's outside weathers, so that body would, those bones would not be bleached. That tells me that more than likely the body was kept somewhere else and then placed there after it had become a skeleton.

Dave Mack, could you tell me about the area where her remains were found, her skeletal remains, Dave Mack? In a really remote area, about 40 miles south of where her home was, down off of Highway 17, down a dirt road, off into a remote area that is actually referred to as the boneyard to a degree. It's such a remote area that it wasn't someplace you would just arbitrarily think of getting rid of a body. It's something that was so remote and planned

that it would have had to have been thought out in advance to figure out exactly where to place the remains so that they would be out, where you wouldn't just trip over them on accident. In the last hours, Barry Morphew now accused formally in the murder of his wife, Suzanne. In court, smiling. Smiling. Why? joining me is a renowned criminal defense attorney and you can find him at his website dwsmithlegal.com joining us is Derek Smith Wow that must have been a really smart mountain lion to drag her body after it soared through the air and attacked her and yanked her off

of her bike and then dragged her to the next county to a known disposal site called the Boneyard. That's some mountain lion, Derek. Yeah, he seems to have a good lay of the land too. I guess if this Boneyard is something of an area that has been used for this type of purpose before, how did it get its name? You know, it does seem a little questioning to me when you're talking about the body is decomposed and it has an outside agent on it such as bleach or something of that. It doesn't seem like that's going to come

from the animal kingdom. It seems like some kind of being of higher intelligence was involved here. It doesn't necessarily mean it was somebody close to her though. It still could be a random act of violence and a way of getting rid of the evidence in a certain situation like this. Derek, do you know how remote their home was? Who's going to just drive by and see her? I mean, I practically had to hike to get to it when I went out there looking. It's very remote, which in my mind,

reduces the likelihood of stranger on stranger. Well, yeah, of course, you definitely have a smaller population to go, I guess, and target if you're somebody looking to do this, but that also could be part of it. You want to go target somebody in a remote area because you have some kind of fascination for them. I've seen the pictures of this woman. She seemed, she looked attractive. It could have been appealing to somebody just passing by

or someone that shouldn't have been there in the first place. It could have been what? Wait, what did you just say? She's attractive, so it could have been what? It could have been just someone passing by and taking a look at her and saying, you know what, I'm gonna take advantage

of her being in a remote situation and nobody being around, and I'm gonna go ahead and abduct her. As opposed to her being really, really ugly? Well, I don't, what? Because she's pretty? Strangler and stranger, someone said, wow, she's a looker, let me kill her.

It adds to the likelihood that it could be somebody else, Nancy. That's kind of what I'm trying to say here. Okay, you know you're getting in trouble right now. You got a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on and you can't let go. So you're saying because she's attractive that ups the ante and the likelihood that it was a stranger on a stranger attack.

Somebody drives by and goes, wow, she's pretty. Let me kill her. Okay, you know what? Let's see what Derek Smith has to say about this. Investigators learned BAM was sold by only one company in the United States and could only be obtained by prescription from a veterinarian. Barry Morphew filled several prescriptions for BAM. Ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only

one private citizen living in the entire state had access to BAM. Barry Morphew. Okay, did you hear that, Derek? Only one person in the whole state had butorfenol BAM, B, brother, A, alpha, M, mother, butafenol, and two others. One person in the whole state and her remains were saturated with it. And lo and behold, Barry Morphew is the only person in the state that has it. So is this something that can't be acquired by anybody else out of a state? I mean, you think he'd be foolish enough to use something that he knows is this something that can't be acquired by anybody else out of a state? I mean, think he'd be foolish enough to use something that he knows is this strictly regulated? You know, there's plenty of other states, other people that can have access to these things. And it seems like it's a pretty good agent to incapacitate a victim.

So it seemed like it would be a pretty good cocktail to use if you're going to target somebody. You know what? you really are amazing how you just um you get damning evidence. You're like Rumpelstiltskin I don't know if you're familiar with that story. He gets straw moldy damp yucky straw that's been stored in a barn gotten wet and he spins it into gold. That's amazing what you just did there. But let's go to a veteran homicide detective joining us. Not a hired gun. No offense, Derek, but you are your hired gun. If you get paid enough money, you'll defend anything. And let me be clear, Derek Smith has won a lot of cases doing what he just did right in front of you. I threw a whole bale of wet smelly

hay at him and he spun it into gold. Joining me right now is Chris McDonough. He is the director at the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective. Around 300 death investigations under his belt and he's the star of the interview room on YouTube. Chris McDonough. Try to wipe everything that Derek Smith just said out of your mind. Don't be brainwashed. Barry Morphe is the only person in the state that has a prescription, which is really hard to get, for bam, main ingredient, butorfenol.

He's the only one. So if we follow Derek Smith, it sounded like a good argument to start with, that it was stranger on stranger, and then he threw in, well, it's because she's attractive. That this stranger happens to be driving through, and it's a very small and remote area. Very small and remote.

Happens to be there, why I don't know, maybe a traveling salesperson. Why don't we throw that in? They see Suzanne Morphew attack her and kill her and drag her to a place only known to locals as the Boneyard. And then amazingly this unknown assailant has butorfenol BMA, which is only prescribed by vets. And the only other person in the whole state that has it is her husband, Barry Morphew. Quite the co-inquiring, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, what a coincidence, right? And let's add into this mix the fact that he used to use BAM in Indiana when he would hunt deer and animals, and he would use that to incapacitate them to take their antlers because he knew it wouldn't kill them. But however, in this situation, Suzanne is found in a grave site, possibly moved. The indictment is given us indication that she was moved. So now going back to that argument of a stranger, well, the guy must have picked her up, you know, did whatever he needed to do, bury her somewhere, come back, dig her back up, and move her back down to the location she was ultimately dumped in.

Not happening. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, what did you make of it, Chris McDonough, because I was just, it was like a kick in the stomach. I was stunned when the first indictment was thrown out based on alleged prosecutorial misconduct. And I'm going to go to Dave Mack in a moment for him to explain why that first indictment was thrown out.

And Barry Morphew, as I recall—and I'm going to go to Dave on this, too—sued people that suggested that he was guilty after that indictment got thrown out. When that indictment was thrown out, many people believed Chris McDonough the case would never be revived again. That was the death knell for the case. But somehow through meticulous investigation, and I am talking about meticulous, can you imagine how many man hours it took to determine who, if anyone in the entire state had a prescription for a BAM, butorfenol. That must have taken hundreds and hundreds of man hours to figure that out and to go all the way back to his home state of Indiana to

find out that he had a prescription for it. They are through a vet to shoot deer and get their antlers, I guess, is why he says he had it. I mean, that's very damning evidence, Chris McDonough. Totally agree, Nancy. And in fact, you know, there's a saying in homicide, our day begins when your day ends. And they never gave up. And even though there was a curve ball thrown with, you know, the situation there with the

district attorney's office, they were pressing forward and when the body was found, all this other evidence now presented itself and they could take a different direction. I want you to hear about how Suzanne's remains were saturated with BAM. Listen, the El Paso County coroner's testing found Suzanne's remains were saturated with BAM. Listen. The El Paso County Coroner's testing found Suzanne's bone marrow contained all three of the individual chemicals that comprise BAM.

BAM did not contaminate the body after death. Suzanne's body had begun to metabolize the drug before she died. The coroner's ruling, homicide by unspecified means in the setting of butorfenol, azaparone, and metatomidine intoxication. Bombshell Barry Morphew back in court on new formal charges. He murdered his wife Suzanne. Does anybody remember the name Jodi Arias? I'm afraid to actually say it out loud, it might conjure her up. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, remember Jodi Arias murdered her lover Travis Alexander after an all day sex marathon.

She murdered him when after all the sex and the photos of the sex and the blah and the blah he went, yeah I'm not canceling that date where I'm taking the other woman, my date, to Cancun. She wanted him to call off that date. They were broken up, by the way. So he asked another lady to go on this trip. And Arias drives across the state with gas cans full of gas in her car so she doesn't have to stop and leave a trail at a gas station.

And gets there, has a sex marathon, and it didn't change his mind. So she killed him. I think it was 28 or 29 stab wounds. There was an argument about that because some of the stab wounds were overlapping in his shower, left him to decompose and then for good measure shot him in the head over that. But then she went so far as to leave her digital camera in the home right I think she washed it in the washer and it was found in the washer her digital camera where she was trying to get rid of evidence and oh there you go that's one of my favorite photos ever in life there's's the Digicam. We had to go back and dig

around. Oh wait a minute is that the picture of her foot? There's actually a picture of her foot, her pants, at the murder scene. She takes an unintentional selfie at the murder scene. But the Digicam is found in the washer. Do you remember that, Dr. Bethany? Nancy, I remember that story so clearly, driving all the way to visit the victim. Didn't she use gas cans instead of pumping gas at a gas station?

At one point she was stalking him and she like hid behind a Christmas tree. So what I think is so interesting in these two cases is that rejection or the perception of rejection is often at the core of domestic homicide. Now in the case of Jodie Arias, she did not prepare a dump site, right? The dump site was the shower and she thought nobody would ever figure it out. Now in this case with Suzanne Warfew, somebody prepared a dump site. They took her body, bleached her bones. There's a BAM, you know, in the bone marrow, meaning that it

was metabolized before her death. And then later on her body is moved to the bone yard. So to me that so much speaks, although with Jodie Arias I also think it was premeditated, but especially in this case somebody premeditated this. I mean, where do you put a body for months before you secrete it somewhere else? before you secrete it somewhere else. A freezer, I don't know, in your backyard. This body was somewhere being preserved before it was dumped. Again, it tells me just how much time and attention and detail went into the commission of the crime.

You know, Dr. Bethany, I did not want to interrupt you because I learn so much every time you go on a roll, but I want you to hear this. This is where I was going. Sadly, I meandered. But remember we were talking about Jodi Arias leaving the digital camera with incriminating photos on the digital camera and they hatched it. I guess they put it in a bag of rice because somehow they saved what was on the digital camera.

Okay, I hope you're sitting down. You may need to lay down for this, listen. Officers find a locked gun safe in the Morpheus garage. Inside that gun safe, they find a dart rifle or tranquilizer rifle and packages of new dart brand tranquilizer darts. The packages include capped hypodermic needles designed to load the darts.

Law enforcement also finds one of these needle caps in the dryer among men's shorts. No tranquilizer formula was found. It was in his dryer, in his underwear. How apropos. In his underwear, in the dryer. It's just like Jodie Arias. Is J Jodi Arias. I mean, he leaves the tranquilizer needle cap in the dryer and they can't find the liquid because it's obviously in Suzanne Morphew's body. It's gone. It's long gone. I mean, in the dryer.

What an idiot. I'm so happy. Okay, so This is random, but with Jodi Arias and Barry Morpheus I'm gonna guess that this was the first time they ever Stripped the sheets and put them in the washing machine because they you know How you like check the pockets to make sure there's no Kleenex or you you make sure that their socks are not in the sheets They just stuff the sheets in camera, dart gun, whatever, dart gun cap and all, which I think is hilarious. It says something about, well, homicide's not hilarious, but it does say something about the domestic routine they were in

with their partners, where the partners maybe did everything and at this point they were just very hasty and didn't think about what they were doing. Now Jackie here in the studio wants me to point out, according to her, the needle cap was found in the men's shorts, not underwear. Okay. How that makes a legal difference, I don't know, but they're so noted. So you know, now to Chris McDonough, we have him not just the only person in the whole state, according to the records that has BAM, butorphenol, but the needle cap is in his

shorts, in his dryer. At the time, the home is searched when she goes missing. I mean, I wanna scream idiot. Okay, I will, idiot! But, I mean, the evidence is damning. Just, what do you make of it? And you know, another thing, I haven't even gotten into this yet,

is the activity of the phone. I mean, as Coburger, all over again, your specialty, Coburger, who turns his phone off, as he, according to the state, leaves the murder scene and travels home and then turns it back on. Here, Barry Morphew did something very similar, and let me just state, he is innocent. He is innocent until he is proven guilty in a court of law. But I mean, do people never learn? I hate to give criminals any

tips, but leave your phone at home just this one time. Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, it's job security, unfortunately. But let's take this cap for a moment. If he's the only guy in the state of Colorado that has access to this chemical, that cap is going to be a high wall that the defense is going to have to jump over. And then let's take the fact that she has a cancer port on her body. Imagine this for a moment, Nancy. If he injected her, he shoots her with a dart and now he has access to even more of this chemical and I'll let Dr. Cain talk about that a little bit deeper. But the fact that they found it so ingrained into her bone marrow? Did he inject it and froze her in time? That's going to be a question I think a lot of people are going to be asking. And if in fact he did that, remember he tells

the authorities, one of his first statements is, well, we made love all night. Really? In the last hour's alleged killer, Barry Morphew in court, smiling for the crowd. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, Dave Mack, let me ask you a couple of things. Number one, why was the state's case thrown out on alleged prosecutorial misconduct? I want to hear that. And then I want to talk to you about what the cell phone activity and movements reveal.

But first, the alleged prosecutorial misconduct, what was it? All right, well Nancy, one week before the initial first degree murder in Suzanne's death was set to hit court, they dropped the charges without prejudice so it can be brought out again later. And the reason for that was they believed they had zeroed in on where her remains would be found, but due to weather conditions, at that time, they could not get to the area where they believed they would find her body. So they rather than moving forward with a no body trial, they felt it wiser to move forward and wait until they could actually find the remains. That coupled

with the fact that the original prosecutor was a woman named Linda Stanley. Now she was not removed from the case because specifically of the very Morphew investigation. But there were plenty of problems with Linda Stanley that led to her being taken off the case and later disbarred for a series of ethical violations and misconduct related to her handling of the Morphew case among others. So there was a number, if you want me to go into them, there was inadequate supervision of the case with those investigating. They were saying that Linda Stanley issued extrajudicial statements that she made publicly multiple times that were

inappropriate, made to the media about the murder case and potentially prejudicing future jurors. She claimed that she launched a baseless investigation into the district judge presiding over the case without any credible evidence whatsoever. And her office then allegedly caused numerous discovery violations as well. Couple that with abuse of power. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, Dave Mack.

You can't just throw out discovery violations. I asked you specifically, what was the alleged prosecutorial misconduct? Now, from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, is that she, Linda Stanley, the former district attorney, was sanctioned for missing deadlines. Let me get Derek Smith in on this.

Derek Smith is a veteran defense attorney, okay? The one I accused of being Rumpelstiltskin a few moments ago. I remember many, many, many nights, more than I can count, at the district attorney's office after midnight on Friday nights, because the trial was gonna start 10 days later, on a Monday, right?

Count it out. And that discovery had to be post-marked 10 days before trial. I would normally send it out far ahead of that, but if I had other things I had discovered, I'd be at the Xerox machine, which of course around 10.30 would break down, and I'd be fighting with this massive Xerox machine,

trying to copy the discovery and race to the Atlanta Airport where I could still get something time-stamped at before midnight. Good times. The point is you have to give the other side their discovery at a certain deadline and if you don't, Derek Smith, you can't bring that evidence into trial, period. Derek Smith Oh, absolutely not. I mean, that's the part of a trial that gets really complex, especially when new evidence is discovered during the trial and things of that nature during the proceedings are going on. You have to give

the other side, especially if there's exculpatory evidence, I mean, there's local rules that codify all that as well, a chance to review what you just found out. You have to be open with discovery. That's just number one in these cases. You cannot hide the ball and show up at trial and say, hey, look, here's some evidence I'm gonna present. The judge won't allow it. And you can also risk a mistrial. Nobody wants a mistrial. Yeah, it's not worth it. You gotta to follow the rules because if you don't, a, it's going to get found out. Okay, it's an ethical violation. Who wants that? I don't want an ethical violation. And then when it's found out, your case gets reversed. And the problem with a case getting reversed because of an ethical violation or misconduct is it can very well be reversed with prejudice, which

means you can't try it again. That was your one shot. I mean, people get reversals all the time. The judge can have a slip of the tongue in giving a jury instruction. There can be a million things that on appeal, the appellate court says,-uh and it's reversed and you have to retry it. But if it's reversed with prejudice, the person is acquitted and you don't want that. Now Dave Mack also, you know, I just heard Derek Smith and he's right. If there's any Brady material, Brady v. Maryland, it's the United States court case, went to the Supremes when the state did not hand over some, let me just say, exculpatory. I don't think exonerated the defendant, but it was exculpatory.

It tended to suggest the defendant was not guilty and they didn't hand it over. Was there a Brady violation in this case or not Dave Mac? Was there evidence about an unknown male's DNA in Suzanne's SUV? DNA from an unknown male found in Suzanne Morphe's SUV. That was the discovery violation, the biggest one. Okay, so that's the big one. And you know, Derek Smith, what finally happened was the state, as Dave Mack just accurately reported, withdrew the case. And they did that in the hopes of not getting thrown out of court with prejudice. And by withdrawing that case on their own, they had the opportunity to re-bring it, because there is no statute of limitations on murder.

Okay, that, do you agree with at least that much, Derek? Absolutely, yes I do. Does anybody remember the name Alex Murdoch, may he rot in hell, convicted in the double murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul? Well, guess what bit him in the rear end trial? His gas guzzling, massive, honking SUV. Guess what it had? A state-of-the-art nav system. Listen.

Analysis of Barry Morphy's electronic devices including the infotainment system in his truck and cell phone showed Morphy returned home at 2 43 p.m. on Saturday May 9th 2020 and according to the data, his phone or truck never left the residence again until the next morning, Sunday, he left for Broomfield, Colorado. The data also shows Morphew's phone turned off for most of this time frame. It was turned on for a while in the late evening. Barry Morphew's cell phone was again turned off at 4.32 a.m. and wasn't turned on again until 5.37 a.m.

when location information showed him on the road already in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado. The SUV infotainment system is biting Morphew in the rear end. Explain, Dave, Matt, what does this mean? Because in the Murdoch case, what it meant was you could tell exactly when Alex Murdoch left the scene of the double murder.

You could tell when he let his window down on the passenger side of the car to throw out Maggie's cell phone, which was found in that location on the side of the road. When he accelerated, when he let the window up, when he put the car in park, drive, reverse, you name it, as he hid out at his mother's house to create an alibi. That was a tactic trial with the navigation system

evidence from the SUV. Who'da thunk it, right Dave Mac? Same thing here. What does the nav system show about Morphew? It's actually, it is showing that during significant periods of time related to this case on May 9th and May 10th, that his phone was just arbitrarily turned off at odd times and inconsistent with previous behavior that they were able to download. It was turned off like at 2 47 p.m. right after he got home.

Right after he sees her in the backyard on her phone, he gets home, turns his phone off. His phone stays off until 10, 15 p.m. that night. It gets turned back off at 4.32 a.m. So to be clear, he gets home, turns his phone off. About bedtime, 10, 15, he turns it back on. Turns it back off when he gets up at 432 a.m., May 10th. And the phone is turned back on at 537 a.m., May 10th. And it shows his location as if he was driving in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado.

So it's documenting where he is and how he's trying to disguise himself. He's trying to use some form of masking to prevent them from knowing where he is and what he's doing at those given times. It makes me want to just scream out Brian Coburger because again, on the way home, according to the state, from the murder scene, he turns his cell phone off only to turn it back on when he gets home to his Pullman apartment. And you know, Chris McDonough joining me, director of the Cole Case Foundation and star of the interview room on YouTube, former homicide detective,

that again must have been an incredibly brilliant mountain lion because it, I guess it ate Suzanne Morphew's cell phone because that's never been found. Dr. Reagan Yeah, I mean, and to think that that pattern of life would also be consistent with that mountain lion as well, Nancy. You know more than anybody on this panel as a former prosecutor, the one thing that law enforcement wants to present at all times is everything. And in this situation, Barry has a very uphill battle with the circumstantial case that's building, and that digital footprint could be potentially very dangerous for him. We wait as justice unfolds. Again, in a bombshell development in the Barry Morphew prosecution, Morphew charged again and died in the murder of wife Suzanne five years after she goes missing on a Mother's

Day bike ride all alone. This is an iHeart podcast.