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00:09I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, a mother out for a bike ride vanishes on Mother's Day.
00:17Where is it? Where's the bike? Oh, it's right there. Where was it?
00:20He was very emotional and said she went out on a bike ride. She didn't come back.
00:25He sounded frantic. Yes, frantic.
00:27This is my sister, and there was nothing more important to her than her marriage and those two girls.
00:34Please, we'll do whatever it takes to bring you back.
00:38There's a .22 caliber round by her side of the bed. You begin to wonder, what in the world is
00:44going on here?
00:46The husband comes under immediate suspicion.
00:49The investigators told him, we don't believe you did it, but we have to check everything out.
00:55Inside that Range Rover, there is DNA.
00:58That is not Barry Morphew's DNA.
01:01It's incredulous. This is not him.
01:04He would never be capable of doing something like this.
01:07Unless they had some big dark secret.
01:10That's why they call them secrets.
01:22Here's Keith Morrison with Echoes in the Canyons.
01:31These mountains don't give up their secrets easily.
01:35Oh, you can look, bring an army to search if you like, along trails that climb and twist and disappear.
01:44And the mountains look down from their majesty and give up nothing.
01:49Perhaps you think you know how it will end.
01:57This is where it happened, among the extraordinarily beautiful mountains outside Salida, Colorado.
02:02They were not lit up for fall just then, because it was Mother's Day, 2020, when the sheriff got a
02:10call.
02:10A 49-year-old mother of two had taken her bike for a ride in the rugged pathways over there.
02:19And she didn't come back.
02:23Her name was Suzanne Morphew, and she loved the outdoors.
02:28But now she'd vanished into the thin mountain air.
02:31Her brother, Andy Moorman.
02:33I looked around me, and I was just surrounded by huge mountains.
02:36And I started crying right away.
02:38I thought, oh, my God, this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
02:44It was some kind of magic that had drawn them to this place.
02:48They knew right away when they moved from Indiana, this was perfect, this mountain house.
02:56Suzanne lived here with her husband, Barry Morphew, and their two daughters.
02:59And that Mother's Day, Barry was working at a landscaped job site 150 miles away.
03:07The girls, 20-year-old Mallory and 16-year-old Macy, were on a camping trip up in Idaho.
03:14In the morning, Mallory, Macy, and Barry texted and called Suzanne to wish her Happy Mother's Day.
03:23They got no response.
03:26By afternoon, Mallory and Macy began to worry and called a neighbor.
03:30Goes over next door, looks, knows Suzanne's not there.
03:34Both cars are in the garage.
03:37Then the neighbor called Barry.
03:39He asked her if the bicycle was home.
03:42So she went back over into the garage and looked, and her mountain bike was gone.
03:46The Morphew's neighbor called the sheriff's department.
03:49Suzanne!
03:50A deputy's body cam captured the search.
03:53Can you try to call the husband and see what type of bike she has?
03:58Before very long, they found Suzanne's mountain bike.
04:01It wasn't far from home.
04:03Down an embankment off a secluded mountain road.
04:09Something's up with this front tire.
04:12At the house, deputies encountered Macy's boyfriend.
04:15He'd been out looking for Suzanne, and he told them what little he knew.
04:19So the two daughters are gone right now at the moment.
04:23The dad is in Denver for a job.
04:26Though by that time, Barry Morphew was in his truck, rushing home, phoning his sister, Marcy McLaughlin, as he drove.
04:32And he was very emotional and said, I don't know what's happening.
04:37I'm driving there now.
04:39She went out on a bike ride.
04:41She didn't come back.
04:42The girls have been calling her, texting her.
04:43I've been calling her, texting her.
04:45She hasn't answered all day.
04:46He sounded frantic on the phone.
04:48Yes, frantic.
04:50Back home, Barry went straight to the deputies, still frantic.
04:54Where is it?
04:55Where's the bike?
04:56Oh, it's right there.
04:57Where was it?
04:57It was like just right down here in this little embankment.
05:00Friends came.
05:02Friends who heard Suzanne was missing.
05:04Barry embraced them, then went right back to the investigators.
05:08Was it a crash?
05:09I mean, the bike looked, the way it was laid, it kind of looked like it, but there's not really
05:13that much damage to the bike.
05:16Lion?
05:16Yeah, it was just like lion.
05:17Was that Noah Lion?
05:18Mountain lions?
05:20Such attacks are vanishingly rare, but a lion had been spotted recently nearby.
05:27Hey, Barry, then I'll probably need your help to kind of tell me some of the trails that she frequents.
05:32Then, questions.
05:34When did he last see Suzanne?
05:37And just a confirmation, you left this morning at 5.
05:40She was asleep.
05:41So she was asleep in the bed when you left.
05:43Did you say bye to her or anything?
05:44No.
05:45Feels like the top of the bike was like up this way.
05:47So it may be flipped.
05:50Sir, will we go inside?
05:52Later that evening, Barry brought Sheriff's deputies into that beautiful mountain home where he said he'd last seen her.
05:59Have you got a plastic bag?
06:01They collected some of Suzanne's clothes.
06:04The scent would help the search dogs.
06:06They looked around for personal things.
06:08They couldn't find her phone anywhere.
06:11But her wallet and ID were in her car.
06:15And while they went about their work, what little news there was made its awful way to family around the
06:21country.
06:23Suzanne's sister, Melinda Moorman, lives in Tennessee.
06:25She got a call from their dad.
06:28And he said, honey, your sister, Suzanne, is missing in Colorado.
06:32And I said, what?
06:33He said, your sister is missing in Colorado.
06:37And I am not a profane woman by any stretch of the imagination.
06:41But I said three cuss words following those remarks.
06:46I had a terrible feeling.
06:49Someone called Troy Skinner in Indiana, a friend to Barry and Suzanne for more than 30 years.
06:55They thought maybe a mountain lion was involved.
06:58And that was really all I had heard at the time.
07:01What was that like to hear?
07:02It was very disturbing.
07:05Very disturbing.
07:07In the days that followed, there was no sign of her.
07:10Not a word.
07:11Nothing.
07:12No one heard from Suzanne.
07:15The whole community rallied to help find her.
07:19As the search dragged on, Suzanne's brother huddled with Barry.
07:23I said, Barry, it's not a mountain lion.
07:25This is done by a human being.
07:27He said, I don't want to hear that.
07:28I don't want to hear that.
07:30That means somebody's done something to her.
07:32A week went by.
07:34Barry posted an emotional plea on Facebook.
07:37Suzanne, if anyone is out there that can hear this, that has you, please do whatever it takes to bring
07:46you back.
07:47We love you.
07:47We miss you.
07:48Your girls need you.
07:51Barry and a family friend offered up a $200,000 reward.
07:58Somebody had seen a suspicious vehicle on the road near where Suzanne's bike was found.
08:03Nothing came of that.
08:06Friends began to lose hope.
08:09I went upstairs on the bed and my wife walked in and she said, are you okay?
08:14And I just start crying.
08:15I just start crying.
08:19So investigators also began looking 1,200 miles away where the story really began.
08:28When we come back, could clues from the past hold the key to this mystery?
08:34Barry was a Tom Cruise kind of guy.
08:36A storybook romance, then a devastating illness.
08:41What was that like to have your little sister so terribly afflicted?
08:45Oh, just unbelievable.
08:47Barry was the hero.
09:03In a way, there were two searches for Suzanne Morphew after that Mother's Day 2020.
09:09One of them was the needle in the haystack search up and down the mountains around Salida, Colorado.
09:16The other was 1,200 miles away in a Mayberry kind of place, Alexandria, Indiana, where Suzanne and Barry grew
09:24up
09:25and seemed somehow destined to help each other survive adversity.
09:29Barry was already a local star years before he met Suzanne.
09:34Here's Suzanne's sister, Melinda.
09:36Barry was a Tom Cruise kind of guy.
09:39I mean, he had it going.
09:40The beautiful car, you know, he had money.
09:43He was a very, very hard worker.
09:44He still is.
09:45A star athlete in the local high school.
09:49And all the girls...
09:49Boy, that combination is pretty hard to beat.
09:51Exactly.
09:52And all the girls wanted Barry Morphew.
09:54But he was going places.
09:57Barry was a baseball player, so talented, he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays.
10:02But it didn't last.
10:04He was injured, came home to Alexandria, where Suzanne, three years younger, was still in high school and very popular.
10:14Guys in her class were smitten.
10:16Like this kid in the high school yearbook, a talented golfer named Jeff Libler.
10:21Might want to remember that name.
10:23Was he a good guy, too?
10:25Absolutely.
10:26The Liblers are a great family.
10:29Wonderful reputation.
10:31We admire them.
10:32I believe they admire us.
10:35And then, at a local golf club, quite by chance, Suzanne met Barry.
10:40And that was it.
10:42She made him feel a lot better about things.
10:44Yes.
10:44And they became close.
10:47They confided in each other.
10:48They fell in love.
10:52And then, at just 20, Suzanne was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma.
10:58What was that like for you, to have your little sister, that sweet little sister, so terribly afflicted?
11:04Oh, just unbelievable.
11:06Suzanne is and was the darling of our family.
11:11Did Barry step up himself to do what he had to do?
11:14Yes.
11:15Remarkably so.
11:17Remarkably so.
11:18Most guys would have considered maybe changing course at that time.
11:23Sure.
11:2323 years old, whatever it was he was, he could have walked away and not be blamed for it.
11:28That's not who he was.
11:29When my sister became very ill with chemotherapy, Barry was the hero of our family.
11:35When she got so weak she couldn't walk, he carried her.
11:38He carried her in his arms.
11:40Wow.
11:41Really?
11:41When her hair started to fall out, he cut her hair for her.
11:47Suzanne finally recovered.
11:50And in 1994, she married Barry.
11:53And she wanted a family quite desperately.
11:56Was afraid that cancer treatment might prevent pregnancy, but she hoped and prayed.
12:02Prayed a lot.
12:03And now we have Mallory and Macy.
12:05And for my sister, that was a profound faith-building experience for her, to be able to conceive those beautiful
12:14girls after chemotherapy.
12:17They were both doting parents.
12:19They were both doting parents.
12:19She a stay-at-home mom.
12:21He started a landscaping business.
12:23He worked his butt off and learned the trade.
12:25And then after a couple years, he started to make some real money, and he used it to pay the
12:30house off.
12:30Barry Morphew was solid.
12:33He is a very self-disciplined man.
12:35You know, he was extremely good at whatever he did.
12:40He's a marvelous hunter, a trapper.
12:45Barry loved the outdoors, and they both loved their family and their faith.
12:52Barry and Suzanne have always had a very strong, wonderful relationship.
12:59God was the center of their lives and of their marriage, and for that reason, it was a strong one.
13:05Then, in 2018, two years before Suzanne vanished, their eldest, Mallory, was ready for college.
13:11She wanted to go west, to Colorado, which gave Suzanne a very big idea.
13:18And Suzanne told me in her own words, she went to Barry and said,
13:22I need to be close to her.
13:24You've always wanted to move out west.
13:26Let's go.
13:27Now's the time.
13:27Let's go.
13:29She found the house on the Internet, three bedrooms, 3,200 square feet, on seven acres, 1.5 million.
13:36But there was very bad news before they got to Colorado.
13:42Suzanne's cancer had come back, and the news wasn't enough to make her say,
13:47No, that did not dissuade her, which I, you know, I thought it might, but it didn't.
13:52She forged ahead.
13:55To Colorado.
13:56Her cancer was successfully treated, and she began a whole new life,
14:01just not one anyone expected, for more reasons than you might imagine.
14:07Coming up, tough questions for Barry Morphew.
14:11When a wife goes missing, a husband comes under immediate suspicion.
14:15The investigators told him, listen, we don't believe you did it,
14:19but we have to check everything out.
14:21When Dateline continues.
14:35All through the spring and summer of 2020,
14:38friends and family like Barry's sister Marcy
14:41were consumed by the search for Suzanne Morphew.
14:45What was Barry telling you about the search?
14:48That they were going sunup to sundown, he and his friends.
14:53In July, two months after Suzanne disappeared,
14:57friend Troy Skinner traveled from Indiana to Colorado
15:00to support Barry and the girls.
15:03Mallory Macy came up and hugged me, I bet, for five minutes,
15:07and those girls just bawled their eyes out.
15:09When Barry and I would just get out, ride around, and run errands and stuff,
15:13he was okay.
15:14But when we were at the house, he was more quiet than I'd ever seen him.
15:19That house must have seemed very strange without her in it.
15:21I'm sure it did.
15:22Barry wouldn't sleep in the bed.
15:23Barry slept in the couch outside the bedroom.
15:25I don't think he ever slept in the bed again.
15:28By the end of summer, there was still no news.
15:32Suzanne's brother Andy, back in Indiana, was frustrated.
15:36It's torturous.
15:37Not knowing is horrible.
15:39We need closure.
15:40You can't go to bed.
15:41You can't wake up.
15:42You can't even take a nap without thinking about this.
15:44And it's just horrifying.
15:47So Andy took matters into his own hands.
15:50Four months after Suzanne's disappearance,
15:53Everybody get your phones out.
15:55Andy went to Colorado.
15:57Watch your step.
15:58Don't twist your ankle.
16:00Dateline went along as he led his own search party of volunteers
16:04with help from the Sheriff's Department
16:06and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
16:09The searchers combed the Morpheus property
16:11and hundreds of acres of surrounding wilderness.
16:14They found some shreds of clothing,
16:17debris they thought could be important.
16:20But most of all, the search reignited interest in the case.
16:24This story kind of went lame for a while,
16:26and it's back on the front page now.
16:28Finding Suzanne Orton.
16:29Was it ever.
16:30Today, a renewed search is happening in Chafee County.
16:33The Morpheus property has been searched multiple times.
16:37Troy said Barry was in a kind of constant anguish
16:41and was doing whatever he could to help the police.
16:44He told me that he had done approximately 30 hours of interviews with law enforcement.
16:49It was my understanding from the girls that law enforcement was coming by on a regular basis
16:54and would actually hang out with them a little bit.
16:57There's always an undercurrent.
16:59A spouse goes missing and the other spouse, especially when a wife goes missing,
17:04a husband comes under immediate suspicion by the police, by the public.
17:09Did that concern you at all at the time?
17:11Did that occur to you that that would happen?
17:13It did not concern me.
17:16We were aware of it because the investigators told him,
17:20listen, the husband is always the first suspect.
17:23We have to watch you closely.
17:25We have to check everything out.
17:26We don't believe you did it, but we have to check everything out.
17:30Troy told investigators he thought the Morpheus had an ideal marriage.
17:34There's no hint of any trouble at all.
17:37I never saw any.
17:38I never saw a hint of problems.
17:39Did you get a sense at all that here was a man who was trying to cope with something he
17:44had done?
17:45No.
17:46I got a sense of a man that was trying to cope with the reality his wife is missing.
17:53But over time, a slow, steady drumbeat of suspicion echoed across the Colorado Canyons.
18:01I never knew the true crime community was out there like it is,
18:05how there's just groups of people that follow these cases.
18:08Barry was getting hate mail.
18:09I was there with him at the park one day,
18:11and some kid's riding his bike and stop and lips off to him.
18:16The online world, as everybody knows, can be scathing.
18:20Armchair detectives went after Barry from the start.
18:23I'm from Arizona.
18:25One guy drove in from out of state, confronted Barry at his house,
18:29posted it on YouTube.
18:35For Troy, for Barry, for Suzanne's daughters, Mallory and Macy, and other people,
18:41the rush to judgment was beyond unfair.
18:43It's just very disheartening to see so many people make conclusions based on so much wrong information.
18:53And that stuff spreads.
18:54Yeah, it spreads like Wi-Fi.
18:56People would post things to Facebook and social media.
19:00He was at Walmart today, or they'd take a picture of him eating breakfast or eating dinner somewhere.
19:05The guy couldn't go anywhere without being hounded.
19:09In fact, the speculation became so intense that Barry tried to help by showing the media his love letters to
19:15and from Suzanne.
19:17And in September 2020, he talked to a reporter from Fox 21 in Colorado Springs, Lauren Scharf.
19:24Put it on record, Barry, right now.
19:27If people think that you did it, what would you tell them?
19:30Absolutely not.
19:31I love my wife.
19:33I would never hurt my wife.
19:35She is the light of my and my daughter's life.
19:39But out of the public eye, it wasn't just outsiders asking questions about Barry.
19:46Some of Suzanne's family members also had doubts.
19:52Coming up.
19:53What have the investigators learned from you?
19:56I've spoken to them a great deal.
19:58Had Suzanne revealed a secret?
20:01My sister was a trophy for Barry Morphew.
20:03She wanted more than just to be a trophy.
20:06And she wanted down off the wall.
20:22The not knowing was terrible.
20:26In the fall of 2020, half a year after Suzanne Morphew vanished, there was not a word from the search
20:33or the investigation.
20:35How were their daughters taking it?
20:37How can you take it?
20:38You just have to get up every morning and survive.
20:40I don't know how they did, except for through God's strength, but they got up every morning and lived.
20:46And that's about all they could say for a little while.
20:50Innuendo filled the empty space.
20:53They knew rumors were out there.
20:55They were getting hate mail and stuff in their social media accounts.
20:58But it was made very clear that they didn't know the rumors and they didn't want to hear them.
21:02That's a pretty awful spot to be in, isn't it?
21:04It's a terrible spot.
21:08The girls and Suzanne, I mean, they were her whole life.
21:11She loved those girls and they loved her.
21:13So I can't imagine the pain they've gone through.
21:18It was agonizing.
21:20But over time, even Suzanne's siblings began asking questions.
21:24Questions about the brother-in-law they loved.
21:27Barry was the go-to, take-charge guy who treated Suzanne so well.
21:34But remember that big search run by Suzanne's brother, Andy?
21:39Barry never showed up to help and didn't come to this vigil.
21:43We ran into him up on the mountain.
21:46I don't know why I'm standing here and he's not.
21:48I don't know why there's a prayer vigil for my sister and Barry's not standing here.
21:53Getting the support from all the wonderful people that want to know what happened to her.
21:56I can't understand it.
21:58It just tells me something.
22:01And from the beginning, Suzanne's brother, Andy, and sister, Melinda, had been talking to authorities.
22:07What have the investigators learned from you that's helped in this investigation?
22:11I've spoken to them a great deal about the dynamics of Suzanne and Barry's relationship.
22:16I call it the imbalance of power.
22:19And that imbalance of power was there for many years.
22:23Melinda said Barry's exemplary behavior during Suzanne's first cancer bout decades earlier might have played a role.
22:31I think that she entrusted herself in a very unique way to Barry because of that cancer journey.
22:40After the cancer, said Melinda, things just kind of went on that way.
22:45Barry in control of decision-making, of money, of pretty much everything.
22:51And Suzanne wanted to take back the power of her own life because she'd given it away.
22:57I spoke with him a lot about that because, for me, that is very key in this whole case.
23:05Barry Morphew was an avid hunter.
23:08He had beautiful trophies in his home.
23:11My sister was a trophy for Barry Morphew.
23:13And my sister didn't want to be a trophy anymore.
23:17She wanted a life.
23:19She wanted more than just to be a trophy.
23:22And she wanted down off the wall.
23:24In fact, Melinda wondered if that move to Colorado was, in part, Suzanne's attempt to reset the relationship, save the
23:31marriage.
23:32Suzanne seemed to think Barry had been cheating on her.
23:35I said to her, you know, Suzanne, that's a big move.
23:41She alluded to me that there were problems in the marriage.
23:45There were infidelity problems in the marriage.
23:49And as her older sister, with some experience, I said to her, you know, Suzanne, if a man is unfaithful
23:57in Indiana, he will be unfaithful in Colorado.
24:01You will only take this problem with you.
24:04Well, true, her words were never spoken.
24:06But how did she take that?
24:09She listened.
24:10She listened.
24:14Couples have their secrets.
24:15Was there any hint, though, that either one of them had been straying at all, had been seeing anybody else?
24:21There was never a hint.
24:22And I never witnessed it in the way they behaved toward each other.
24:26I know that's the rumor and the insinuation from some people.
24:30But it's not anything I ever witnessed myself, not anything any of my friends ever witnessed with them.
24:38As winter rolled in, snow piled high on the mountains.
24:43And by the time it melted again, a pile of evidence had grown.
24:49It was May 2021, the one-year anniversary of Suzanne's disappearance, approached.
24:56All along, we'd made regular trips to Salida to keep track of the search, of course, and to listen to
25:01the talk around town and to check or try to on an investigation as carefully secret as any we'd seen.
25:07And then, on the 5th of May 2021, we had just arrived in town, and there was an announcement.
25:20Coming up, new pieces of the puzzle, a bullet casing, a tranquilizer gun, a dumpster run.
25:29Barry Morphew went to five separate dumpsters.
25:32To stop once to dump trash, I'd say, okay, five times?
25:37That's ridiculous.
25:39When Dateline continues.
25:53May 5th, 2021, as we rolled into Salida, Colorado, phone chirped, a text.
26:00There was about to be an announcement.
26:03Sheriff John Speezy.
26:05That at 09.15 hours this morning, the Chafee County Sheriff's Office arrested Suzanne Morphew's husband, Barry Morphew.
26:14Barry Morphew, arrested, booked, jailed, charged with murder in the first degree.
26:20He pleaded not guilty.
26:23Suzanne's sister, Melinda.
26:25You're not at all surprised that he was charged with first degree murder?
26:28I've struggled deeply to believe this.
26:31I did not want to believe this, but I live in reality.
26:35But Barry's family and friends staggered at the news, including Barry's sister, Marcy.
26:42It was not a kind of an expectation that this was going to happen?
26:45No.
26:47No.
26:48Devastated.
26:48I mean, as if we weren't devastated enough that we can't find Suzanne.
26:52No, we did not expect it at all.
26:54It was a shock to us.
26:57What had investigators discovered?
26:58Three months later, at the preliminary hearing, which determines if there's enough evidence to go to trial,
27:05Prosecutor Linda Stanley assembled the pieces.
27:08You would try to get the jury or the judge to see a puzzle, which some pieces may be missing
27:13in the puzzle,
27:14but generally speaking, they can tell what the puzzle is.
27:18Connecting the dots, putting the puzzle together without all the pieces.
27:21Puzzle pieces, connecting dots, incomplete, perhaps, but pointing at Barry, she said.
27:29Dot number one, unknown to most, a collapsing marriage.
27:35Prosecutors played this video.
27:37Remember Macy's boyfriend who police talked to the day Suzanne went missing?
27:42There's a hint of revelation in that interview, when he was joined by his dad.
27:48Did Barry and Suzanne get along pretty well?
27:53Uh, you can answer, Ross.
27:55You know, I think they've had some problems.
27:57Okay.
27:58Yeah, in the past.
27:59Like, just normal?
28:01Normal husband and wife type deal.
28:03Oh, they like talk about separating or anything like that?
28:06They have, yeah.
28:09Separating?
28:10Well, more than that.
28:12Investigators had also dug up scores of text messages suggesting Suzanne was about to walk out on Barry.
28:19One, from Suzanne to her best friend in Indiana, a few days before she disappeared.
28:24I wouldn't feel safe alone with him.
28:27Another, to Barry himself on May 6, 2020, four days before she vanished.
28:33I'm done.
28:35I could care less what you're up to and have been for years.
28:38We just need to figure this out civilly.
28:41Then, two days before she disappeared, to her sister, Melinda.
28:46He's also been abusive emotionally and physically.
28:50I feel more angry now.
28:52Anger at what I've allowed.
28:54I could tell she was ready to take some action.
28:58That she was no longer willing to compromise her life, to be in a relationship with Barry.
29:05Two days after that, Suzanne was gone.
29:09Suspicious?
29:10Yes.
29:11But grounds for a murder charge?
29:14From the start, Barry insisted he never abuse Suzanne, not physically, not emotionally.
29:20But investigators thought they saw a pattern.
29:24Ex-Colorado prosecutor George Brockler, though not involved in the case, has followed it closely.
29:30To get to the point where you can allege a husband has murdered his wife, you've got to
29:35have a pretty compelling motive.
29:37And it's not going to be, hey, honey, dinner's burnt.
29:40And now, the investigators were alleging that Barry couldn't keep Suzanne from leaving him.
29:45Couldn't control her anymore.
29:47So, he resorted to something he had done his entire life.
29:50He hunted her, they said, like he had hunted animals.
29:57Their proof of that?
29:59Well, there were circumstantial bits and pieces.
30:03Prosecutors showed evidence of Barry's cell phone pinging in a hurried and, to them, suspicious
30:08pattern around the house the day before Suzanne vanished.
30:12So, was he chasing her?
30:13There was also damage to the master bedroom door frame.
30:18You seize on a fact like that and say, obviously, she barricaded herself in the bedroom to protect
30:25herself from Barry.
30:27Other bits and pieces, dots to connect, an unspent bullet casing inside the bedroom, a
30:34tranquilizer dart gun elsewhere in the house, and a tranquilizer dart cap in the clothes dryer.
30:41Legal analyst and defense attorney Scott Robinson also followed the case.
30:46One of the many pieces of evidence that casts enormous suspicion on Barry Morphew is the
30:53probable use by him of a tranquilizer gun at some point for some purpose.
31:00But what purpose?
31:03The implication from prosecutors was that Barry shot Suzanne with a gun he used to sedate
31:09deer.
31:10There was no bike ride, but he went about the job of getting rid of her body.
31:16Between 3 and 4 a.m. that Mother's Day morning, electronic sensors showed the doors of Barry's
31:22truck opening and closing multiple times.
31:26Then he drove to a job site 150 miles away.
31:30And on the way, his cell phone stopped five times at five different dumpsters.
31:36To stop once to dump trash, I'd say, okay, twice, maybe the other dumpster was full or inaccessible.
31:45Five times?
31:46That's ridiculous.
31:49Later that same day, Barry joined his employees at this hotel, again, 150 miles from home.
31:56This is from a surveillance camera.
31:59Barry in the hallway.
32:01He went in and out of the hotel, carrying something.
32:04He stayed part of the day here in room 225.
32:07Co-workers told investigators the room reeked of chlorine.
32:13To clean things up, implied the prosecution.
32:17In a lot of these no body cases, you will still have, well, in the bathroom, we found
32:23her DNA and copious amounts of it in and around the tub.
32:26Or we found a big blood pool in the carpet with the victim's DNA.
32:31This one lacks all that stuff.
32:33And so the prosecution's tried to make up for it by saying the reason there's no forensic
32:37evidence is dude covered it up in the hotel.
32:40Well, maybe.
32:42But it was the pattern that mattered, said the prosecutor.
32:46Connect the dots.
32:48It's the cumulative effect of each of these things in the context of what happened that
32:52makes them seem incredibly suspicious.
32:55Oh, but there was more evidence.
32:58And it was a bombshell.
33:00Maybe the most explosive secret of all.
33:05Coming up, what had Suzanne Morphew been hiding?
33:10I was shocked.
33:11I was surprised.
33:12I did not see that coming.
33:13And a stunning DNA twist.
33:17The unexplained DNA gives the defense lawyers an enormously powerful argument.
33:37Barry Morphew had been charged with murder, accused of killing his wife, Suzanne.
33:44But he insisted he never harmed her, never cheated on her, had nothing to do with her disappearance.
33:51And family and friends continued to support him.
33:54Can't imagine that man being guilty of such crime, can you?
33:57No.
33:58Not this guy.
33:59Because I never saw him capable of it.
34:01Their relationship was the type of relationship anybody would want.
34:04Which makes me think he would never be capable of doing something like this.
34:08Unless they had some big dark secret we don't know about.
34:11That's why they call them secrets.
34:14Oh, there were secrets, all right.
34:17During the preliminary hearing, the prosecution dropped a bombshell that Suzanne was so suspicious,
34:23Barry was cheating on her, that she bought this spy pen, recording device.
34:29Investigators downloaded the data, and indeed, they found incriminating audio.
34:41The idea that she gets discovered using the same method she was trying to discover her husband
34:47in an affair with is just incredibly ironic.
34:52Suzanne had reconnected with an old high school friend on Facebook.
34:56You might remember his name, Jeff Libler, the high school golfer, now a married father of six.
35:04I was shocked.
35:05I was surprised.
35:06I did not see that coming, given everything else surrounding this case.
35:10According to the prosecution, Suzanne and Jeff's affair lasted two years.
35:15They met up in six different states, exchanged nude photographs.
35:19Suzanne even looked into running off to Ecuador with Jeff.
35:24And she'd apparently kept it secret from everyone she knew.
35:28Never a hint of this long-term affair.
35:31Never.
35:34On the day before she went missing, prosecutors said, Suzanne and Jeff exchanged 59 messages.
35:40Then Suzanne took a picture of herself sunbathing and sent it to her lover.
35:44It was the last proof of life from Suzanne, prosecutors said.
35:49That photo was sent Saturday, May 9th at 2.19 p.m.
35:54Barry arrived home at 2.43 p.m.
35:57Prosecutors could not show if he ever found out about the affair.
36:01If Barry Morphew knew that his wife was carrying on with another man and had been doing so for two
36:07years,
36:08that would certainly create a significant motive on his part.
36:11I've been having an affair with another guy for a couple years, and we've been doing it all over the
36:15country,
36:16and you had no idea.
36:18Imagine what that would do to someone's emotions, their passion.
36:20But Barry's defense attempted to rip that theory apart, said Barry loved his wife and family,
36:28and didn't know anything about the affair.
36:31Not until January 2021, when an investigator told him.
36:37If he didn't know about it till January of 2021, and she went missing on May 10th of 2020...
36:442020.
36:46It's...
36:46Not a motive.
36:48No, it's not a motive.
36:49He was unaware of this completely?
36:51He had no clue.
36:54None of us had any clue.
36:56The defense took aim at all of the prosecution's points, including the tranquilizer gun theory.
37:03Got an investigator to admit it didn't look like it had been used for some time,
37:08and might not even work at all.
37:11Those cell phone pings all around the house?
37:14Barry said he might have been going after chipmunks
37:16that were a constant nuisance on the property.
37:19An expert also testified the data didn't make any sense.
37:24And the damaged door frame?
37:26All we know is it looks like the door jam was damaged in a way consistent with someone who tried
37:31to force the door open.
37:32Don't know when, don't know how, don't know why.
37:35The defense said Barry opening and closing his truck stores was just him loading equipment for work.
37:42And those five dumpster runs?
37:45Barry was a landscape contractor.
37:48He was always disposing of trash.
37:51The explanation here is, look, this is a guy whose habit and practice is to dump stuff out of his
37:56truck when he's done doing construction work.
37:58He's got to find him until he gets it all done.
37:59That's not weird.
38:00That's just what he does.
38:02That chlorine smell in the hotel room?
38:05Well, that room, it turned out, is just above the pool.
38:08In the midst of a pandemic, a hotel room that smells of chlorine and has wet towels means close to
38:16nothing.
38:18So, those dots the prosecutor tried to connect?
38:22Each one looked suspicious, yes.
38:25But what they don't have is any evidence that a homicide actually occurred.
38:30There is no body, no weapon, no blood.
38:36And the defense did have something.
38:40Explosive evidence pointing away from Barry.
38:44DNA found in Suzanne's Range Rover.
38:47It was a partial match to an unnamed man connected to three sexual assaults in Arizona and Illinois.
38:54The defense team pounced.
38:56That DNA could prove Barry was innocent, they said.
38:59And they angrily accused prosecutors of conspiring to cover up the fact it even existed.
39:04The prosecution vigorously denied that.
39:07But...
39:08The unexplained DNA in Suzanne Morphew's vehicle, linked to unsolved sexual assaults in two other states,
39:18gives the defense lawyers maybe the greatest tool in the defense lawyers' toolbox.
39:23It's an enormously powerful argument in a case where proof has to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
39:30But even considering the DNA, the judge ruled there was enough probable cause to put Barry on trial for first
39:37-degree murder with no body.
39:41But the judge granted bail, and even said the case could go either way in front of a jury.
39:49So Barry Morphew, his daughters by his side, walked out of jail on $500,000 bail.
39:55Barry's daughters, Suzanne's daughters, are very much with their father.
39:59They believe him, they're sticking with him, they have no doubt that he is an innocent man.
40:04Yes.
40:05I mean, what do you do with that?
40:06Well, the girls love their dad.
40:10And they've lost their mother.
40:12They have one parent.
40:14I understand that.
40:17Just yesterday, Barry's lawyers announced they filed a motion to dismiss the case.
40:22For now, a jury trial is scheduled to decide if he will still be able to spend time with his
40:28daughters or face a mandatory life sentence.
40:31Barry Morphew will learn his fate later this year.
40:36That's all for this edition of Dateline.
40:38We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central.
40:42And, of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.
40:45I'm Lester Holt.
40:47For all of us at NBC News, good night.
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