← The Prosecutors
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Jessi Pere. And I'm Andy. Cassette. Welcome to Love Murder, where we unravel the darkest tales of romance turned deadly. Our episodes are long form, narrative driven and deeply researched. Perfect for the true crime aficionados seeking stories beyond the headlines. Like the chilling case of Blanche Taylor Moore, the so called black widow who left a trail of poisoned lovers. Or the shocking murders of Chad Shelton and Dwayne Johnson, where family ties masked a sin sinister plot. Subscribe to Love Murder on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
- [00:45]
B
I'm Brett.
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A
And I'm Alice.
- [00:48]
B
And we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, the Colorado mom goes for a bike ride on Mother's Day and disappears. Or at least that's what her husband says. Now the question remains, who killed Suzanne Morphy? Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my rejuvenated co host, Alice.
- [01:48]
A
Hello, Brett. Rejuvenated in that my children are stealing all of my youth from me. I'm just kidding. Before we started recording, I was telling how I. I'm learning so much about riot control by having so many small children, but that riot control may seep all of the youth out of me. So thanks for saying that. I'm rejuvenated because I don't feel it.
- [02:12]
B
Well, you know, this is our first episode after West Memphis three, so I thought, you know, maybe it's like a new life. You're reborn, a phoenix rising.
- [02:21]
A
Considering we ended the podcast and we're now back.
- [02:24]
B
So I know it's a new, brand new podcast. It's great. This is season two.
- [02:27]
A
So season two of forever.
- [02:32]
B
Oh, man. Yeah.
- [02:34]
A
Well, it's good to be back on another case that's probably only going to be about like 19 episodes instead of 24. You know I'm kidding, you guys. Don't leave. Please don't leave us.
- [02:43]
B
This one's going to be interesting. And I know those of you listening live are like, what are you talking about? We did two weeks of another case. We recorded that before we recorded the last West Memphis three episode. So for us, this is the first post West Memphis 3 episode. What's interesting about the one we're going to do today? The Suzanne Morphew case is. It is an ongoing case, which you don't typically do on the prosecutors. Usually we do that on legal briefs. And for those of you out there who are like, I wonder why they never covered the Delphi trial or why they never covered the second Karen Reid Trial because we do the breaking stuff, the ongoing cases on Legal Briefs. But this is one that we're sort of going towards trial and there's so much that's happened in this case that we thought, let's do some episodes on it, kind of prime the pump for you. And then when this eventually goes to trial, look for us on Legal Briefs to be covering it. Because this one has some twists and turns. It's got some real wacky legal stuff that went on and it's got a real tragedy at the heart of it. And just Alice and I, we're talking and I, you know, this may sound simple, but I just want to say to all of you out there listening, if your relationship isn't working out, just get divorced. Just get divorced. It's fine. It'll be fine.
- [03:57]
A
Fine. You know, stop talking to each other. Doesn't matter. Like, you'll figure it out. Do it the legal way.
- [04:02]
B
Yeah, people get divorced every day and it's fine. They move on with their lives. So that's my piece of advice to you.
- [04:09]
A
Life advice. It's legal advice, but it's also life advice.
- [04:12]
B
Yes, exactly, exactly. Trust me, divorce is far less expensive than a first degree murder trial, which is where we are headed in this case. This has been sort of a famous case. It's taking a lot of twists and turns. There are a lot of podcasts, have talked about it, lots of documentaries, 2020 type things, datelines, all that. So a lot of you may have some familiarity with it, but I'll just say diving in, reading the indictment, reading the affidavit, I was, I was shocked by a lot of what I learned and I think you are going to be as well. So I think that's enough build up. Let's talk about this case. So Suzanne Morphew was born April 30, 1971 in Alexandria, Indiana. And Susan and her husband, Barry Morphew, they had known each other their entire lives. They had met as teenagers in Indiana. They became sort of high school sweethearts and they had been married for 25 years, a quarter of a century at the time of her death. The Morphews raised their two daughters, Mallory and Macy in Indiana before moving to Salita, Colorado in 2018. Morphew, Barry Morphew was a former professional baseball prospect and he had made a life for himself. He owned his own business, sort of landscaping, construction type deal, contracting deal, and he also, while Indiana, he had owned a farm where they actually raised deer for I guess the booming deer meat business. I don't know. Anyways, it was something they were doing, and the family, frankly, appeared to be picture perfect. If you go out and you find pictures of Barry and Suzanne and their two daughters, it looks like the all American family, the kind of family that we all aspire to be a part of. But as so often happens in these cases, there was more than meets the eye. And things weren't always so easy in this family. So Suzanne had struggled with some health issues. She'd actually beaten cancer twice, and she was still receiving maintenance chemotherapy to ensure that the cancer wouldn't return. But that did not stop her from living her life. She was known to be very active, and she particularly enjoyed riding her mountain bike, which is perfect in Colorado. I love Colorado. Those of you in Colorado, you know this is a complete aside, but we're going to do it anyway. I totally understand why someone from Indiana would move to Colorado. The West. I feel the call of the west so strongly whenever I'm out there. I was in Utah last week. I'm just like this. I love this. I love it. I don't know what that is. Alice, I don't know if you feel the same way, but.
- [06:59]
A
Oh, absolutely. It's like we. I think we've talked about Alaska before. Where Alaska, I feel, is like the Grand West. Right. As far west as you can go in the United States. It's like you're a visitor in nature. That's how I feel in the West. Colorado, in the mountains, in Utah, Wyoming. It's so beautiful. And I really feel like you feel the bigness of the universe in those places. Whereas, you know, look, both of us have been on the other coast, the east coast, for a long time. It feels like people live there and the environment lives around us. Right. I mean, there's just tall buildings everywhere. Everyone's crowded. It's hard to find parking spots. Whereas in the west, it's big, it's open. Nature is king.
- [07:38]
B
Yeah, my kids and I were at the hotel playing Hacky Sack, and all of a sudden there was this. Not Hacky Sack, whatever that game. Cornhole. We were playing Cornhole. Hacky Sack's what the stoners college did.
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A
I was going to say, you were playing Hacky Sack with your kids. What are you trying to set them up for?
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B
Yeah, you know, we were in Colorado, Utah, to smoke a little weed, you.
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A
Know, winning Colorado, taking hockey. And.
- [08:01]
B
And all of a sudden there was this giant moose and her moose baby. And that was cool. I mean, we didn't get anywhere near it because they're Actually, really dangerous, whatever they are, are terrifying. I mean, they are like creatures from another world. They're so big, it's just stunning when you see them in person. But anyways, beautiful place. And she enjoyed it. To segue back into the story, she enjoyed it. She was really into the outdoors, and this was the perfect life for her. And according to Barry, her husband, that was her plan. On May 10, 2020, she was going to take a bike ride. So when she disappeared that very day and her bike was found discarded along the side of the road, it looked as if perhaps Suzanne got in some sort of accident or more likely, was the victim of an abduction. But as people started to look more closely at the lives of the Morphews, it revealed that the picturesque marriage that Barry wanted to portray, it was far from reality. And things in the Morphew household were not perfect behind closed doors.
- [09:13]
A
So if I get murdered, Brett, you're in charge of the timeline, because it's these timelines that once you break things down, things become so clear. And that's what we're going to do in this case, as we do in every case, is to start with the timeline, because usually the end is merely the beginning. You have to walk all the way back and see what signs point to the ultimate end. So let's go back to May 6, 2020. Barry and Suzanne engaged in a text conversation. Barry deleted this conversation, but he took a screenshot of a single message from Suzanne. It says, I'm done. I could care less what you're up to and have been for years when we just need to figure this out civilly.
- [09:55]
B
And I hate to go ahead and stop, but as Alice said, sometimes you're reading the timeline and it just immediately something jumps out to you. This one should jump out to everybody, because there are several things that are interesting about this. Look, people have conversations. They get mad at each other. That happens. But to me, there's something very striking about the fact that he deleted this text conversation. But before doing so, he took a screenshot of the, like, final statement, the moment where Suzanne tells him that their marriage is over. He didn't. I mean, he deleted that message, but for some reason, there was something inside of him that said, I want to capture this for all time. I want to have this.
- [10:38]
A
I want to capture it for all time. But no, it's not a text conversation that he screenshots. It's not them talking. It's just what she says. So it strikes me, because we know what's going to happen to Suzanne. These Are in some ways her last words right now. Does he know this? At this time, we can argue about that. But I do think that's incredibly striking. And the reason we know it is because he screenshotted it, because everything else is deleted. Right. So I agree with you, but you can hear there's no beating around the bush. It doesn't sound like it's fighting dirty, but it's very clear. I'm done. Have been for years. Don't care what you do. Let's just figure out how to end this civilly. She took your advice, Brett. She was trying to go about this the civil way. Sounds like she's saying, let's just have a divorce. So that's May 6th. May 8th, Suzanne saved a note in her cell phone listing out 60 issues she had with Barry. So I don't know about you, but I have an iPhone, so I have the notes function which transports now to like, you know, my MacBook and all my other Apple devices. But this is actually very convenient should I ever become a murder victim, because I make lists for everything. Grocery store. As I'm on a phone call, I'll just take notes. But interestingly, this note is a list of things that she has problems with with Berry. So these are pretty descriptive. This is from the victim herself. I'm going to go through some of this list, not reading all 60 of them, but I think this gives you a good representation of what's on her list. Physical abuse. Mental abuse while drinking New Year's Eve. Name calling. Said I only need for money. Chased me around the resort and threatened. Not safe alone with you. Can't be trusted. Oppressive slams on brakes when angry Gun. Shame and guilt daily for not meeting expectations. Verbal abuse. Wiring money from INV Account without asking or discussing. So whatever this list was for, and this is a lot of it is in like shorthand. It's like instead of physical abuse, it says phys abuse. That sort of thing. The New Year's Eve name calling thing seems to. It doesn't tell me what it is, but she probably knows what it is. What I read this list as, Brett, is it's been 25 years. She's been done for a while. That we'll see. This is not something coming out of the blue. You kind of have to work yourself up to ending a 25 year marriage where you have, you know, children that you've raised together. You've been together for really your entire life because they're high school sweethearts. This reads to me like a list of okay, if you ever doubt why you need to leave, Suzanne? This. This is it. This is. Right here. We have a running list. Lest you forget, I personally don't read this as a. If they find this note after I die. That's just me, though. I see this more of for me, if I ever get cold feet. This is the list in real time. Lest I forget what happened New Year's Eve. Lest I forget the fact that I'm in the car and he starts screaming at me and slams on the brakes, and it really scares me.
- [13:34]
B
Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that she. I mean, she's already decided she's going to get divorced, right? I mean, that's what that May 6th message sounds like. But she may have said that in sort of enrage and anger, and she may be reconsidering it. Maybe she even spoke to other people. This is all speculation, but I can imagine telling somebody to do something like this, you know, why don't you sit down and really think about it? Write down the things. What are the reasons you think this marriage has to end? Because, look, we all know now that this was probably a very toxic relationship that ended in a murder. We all know that now. But you can imagine family members, friends, mutual friends who really only see the outside, who see a marriage that's lasted for 25 years, two kids in college, two beautiful young women in college, and, you know, a life that seems perfect. You can imagine talking to somebody and saying, hey, don't make any rash decisions. Why don't you really sit down, think about it, maybe make a list. Good things and bad things. We only have the bad things list. Maybe there wasn't a good things list. Right. Or maybe it was just for herself. Maybe she needed to do this to really lay out for herself why she needed to take this step, which probably would have been pretty difficult for her. Or maybe she was thinking about a future divorce and having the reasons why sort of laid out that she could put in when she's seeking divorce if he didn't want to give her a divorce, which is quite possible. These may be all things she's thinking about. She may be thinking about, you know, support and all sorts of things. There's all sorts of reasons she may do this, but whatever the reason is, it's obviously not good for Barry because she's really laying bare in this document all of these issues that she has with the relationship. And it's rare that you have something like that two days. Well, arguably not even two days before she's going to disappear forever.
- [15:26]
A
I'll say one thing, though. We didn't read you the whole 60, but the majority of what I read to you, they're things that can be very personal in that relationship. They are objectively like verbal abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse. Those are all very objectively bad, no matter what kind of relationship you're in. Some of these things it's like, okay, that is clearly a quote that you're writing down. It says, like, can't be trusted. But the thing that really pops out at me in this bullet point list, there's just one word, and it's gun. It doesn't say anything about that. It doesn't. We can all draw from that what it means. But the rest of the list seems to be sort of like a this is my grievance list. Except for that one. That one does jump out at me because it tends to say, I am afraid of him. Like, this is not just slamming on the brakes in the car or belittling me or saying I don't meet expectations. Transfer money, taking money without telling me that. Even though there's no commentary around gun, the fact that it's just one word indicates to me that Suzanne is frightened of him. And maybe that's why this list exists to, depending on what kind of a petition she's going to file, to be able to have support for that petition. Because when you file, for example, a restraining order, you have to show, like, imminent harm, imminent danger. And usually, unfortunately, things of like marital distress that is not violent natured isn't enough to get a restraining order. So that one point really did stick out to me, especially the fact that it was not surrounded by commentary.
- [16:59]
B
So to go ahead and recap here, the first thing we had was that May 6th message saved by Barry. Then you have this May 8th list that Suzanne saves in her cell phone. That brings us to May 9, 2020 and 2:11pm 2:11pm is the last moment that we know Suzanne was alive. She sent a selfie to a man named Jeff Liebler, a former high school friend. Now, Liebler and Suzanne had actually been having an affair for about two years. And their text exchanges spoke of the time that they could be together and Suzanne could be free of Barry. So she sends this selfie at 2:11. She won't be reported missing for over 24 hours, but that is the last time she has any interaction with anyone in the outside world.
- [17:51]
A
So, okay, enter another huge flag in this case. Obviously, Suzanne has been unfaithful for two years, and two years is not a short amount of time. She's clearly using her phone to communicate with him. Obviously, we'll see. There are measures that are taken to kind of conceal this, but this is reached a level of at least boldness in terms of I'm totally done. Not only am I done with you, I have this list, but also I've moved on with my life already. And so again, this is like we're reading a novel as opposed to real life. So you can see already where things are tracking.
- [18:25]
B
So that's at 2:11pm 30 minutes later to 2:43pm Data from Barry's truck shows him arriving home from work at 2:44pm so one minute after Barry gets home, Liebler messages Suzanne. He also messages her at 2:46pm so just two minutes later, but she does not respond to either message. And then at 2:47pm Barry's phone is turned off or is put into airplane mode. Either way, his phone stops sending data. So 211 selfie. 2 43, Barry gets home. 244, Liebler messages Suzanne. 246, he messages her again. At 2 47, Barry turns off his phone. And as Heather Ashley from Big Man True Crime says, and I always want to give her credit for this because I think it's such a brilliant observation, if your phone is off, you are either murdering someone or being murdered. One thing we can say for certain is Barry was not being murdered.
- [19:34]
A
So at 10:17pm that night, what is that, a little over seven hours, Barry's phone is turned back on. Now, just note, those seven hours are not the typical sleeping hours. It's from about 3pm to 10pm at night. So those are prime. Being out and about in the world, having your phone on hours. May 10, 2020 is Mother's Day. At 3:25am to 3:49am there's activity at Barry's truck that's occurring at a GPS location consistent with his driveway. Now, despite him telling investigators that he was asleep at that time, I would be asleep at 3:30. So I would see why investigators may think, oh, yeah, of course you're asleep. But unfortunately we have GPS that shows that maybe something else is happening on the driveway. There was an inconsistency with the telematics of his truck after this point. Specifically, from 3:49am to 8:10am Barry's truck did not register any data, even though his cell phone was in Johnson County, Colorado at 5:37am and Barry reported being in his truck driving to Broomfield at that time. Now, one thing to note, we've said this before. People have now kind of learned to turn off their phones when they're committing a murder and that sort of thing. We've also talked about how nowadays cars, I think, after what, like, 2016, basically any car that's been made in the last 10 years has a bunch of telematics on it. That's essential, essentially, like a phone. It's typically not pinging towers like that. But if there's a crime, you can pull a lot of tracking data from your car. So the fact that this data is missing from his car is very interesting. Also very advanced, I'll say.
- [21:09]
B
And you may remember in the Murdaugh case, they had Murdaugh pulling his car into the yard, what doors were opening. They had a lot of information from his vehicle. And this is a question I am interested to see how it is answered at trial, because this could be a coincidence that it just so happens to do this. I assume the argument from the defense will be the 325 to 349 activity is a fluke. Something's wrong with a car. Like something wacky got struck by lightning or, you know, something happened. The car went crazy. Then its telematics just went off. And when Barry got up and got in his truck, it never came back on. And it just sort of pops back on at 8, 10am I assume that will be their argument. I assume the prosecution will try and say that he did this on purpose. I didn't even know you could do that. You know, this is.
- [22:04]
A
I actually was gonna ask you. I was like, I didn't know you could do that, and I don't know how to do it. So, yeah, it's not something that we're being trained in right now.
- [22:12]
B
I mean, I'll say this. I mean, Barry is more sort of a handy guy than I am. I mean, he's a contractor. He may have more knowledge about the way this stuff works than I do. I would not know how to turn off the telematics on my truck. And I think it's interesting that essentially, assuming it's not some sort of malfunction, you have the vehicle active for 24 minutes, and then they turn off. And to me, that is more consistent with someone turning on the vehicle, figuring out how to turn off the telematics because they know they need to do that and then turning it off. I would think if there was some sort of glitch, if it were struck by lightning, for instance. And I don't. I'm not saying that's what happened, but you know, if there was some sort of short or something, I would think if you saw activity at all, it would be very brief while whatever was happening to the truck and then everything would shut down. But you don't see that. So I will be interested to see how that is explained. So at 4:23am, Suzanne's cell phone, which unlike Barry's was not turned off, ceased connecting to any cell phone towers and it would never connect again. And it has never been found. So it seems like at this point, which is about 14 hours after the last data from it, it turns off, probably because the battery dies. This is interesting because I think it supports the notion that she wasn't using her cell phone. All of us know even the best cell phones these days, if you're using them, the battery runs down. If you were using it all day, you're using it at 2 o' clock in the afternoon. It's probably not actually going to last until 4 o' clock in the morning. But if you're not doing anything with it, which is consistent with the fact there's no connections, there's no responses from her, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, then it makes sense that it would last until the next morning. So that's at 4:23am At 4:32am, Barry's phone is turned off again, which why is this important? Okay, look, as I just said, phones die. So you know, maybe he was really busy. He's a working man, he's not sitting in an office next to a plug. So his phone, the battery died, he was too busy to really paying attention to it. He realized it at 10 o' clock at night, he turned it back on, plugged it in, whatever, right? I mean that's a rational, reasonable explanation. I don't buy it personally, but nevertheless, you could see someone saying that, but then you see it happen again. At 4:32, the phone turns off and you start to think, why is this phone not on? There just aren't that many people and I'm sure someone will email us and tell us that they turn their phone off every time they put it down. But there just aren't that many people who are turning off their phone at regular intervals. It just doesn't happen. But you're seeing it happen on this key day now twice from Barry Morphew.
- [25:02]
A
And at kind of strange times too, right? Like seven hour block time when he is working, he's coming home to dinner. You know, typical times you would be communicating with people and then at an hour that most people are sleeping. And even if he's not sleeping, like we'll see. He seems to be doing something that typically you would be using your phone for.
- [25:20]
B
Yeah, and it's interesting that his phone doesn't shut off while he's at work, which would be consistent with it just running out of battery because he's busy. He gets home, which you would think that's a good time to plug it in. And that's when it turns off. So just something to note, this episode is sponsored by Better Help. Guys. We all got problems and we're always looking to solve them. I don't know where you go. Maybe it's the group chat over sharing with strangers. They're the best people to talk to. Anything you can do to try and deal with life's stress? Well, you don't have to do that anymore. Enter BetterHelp. BetterHelp provides quality therapists who work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US and BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. Short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 10 years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate mean they typically get it right the first time. But if they don't and you're not happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. And they have over 30,000 therapists and BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.
- [26:44]
A
And it's convenient too. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of Expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp, our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com prosecutors that's betterhelp.com prosecutors Fall's here and with it comes cooler nights, heartier meals and the craving for something warm and satisfying. That's where HelloFresh comes in, bringing you comforting, chef designed recipes and fresh, savvy seasonal ingredients right to your door. This season they've taken things to the next level with their biggest menu refresh yet. Say hello to a whole new way to do dinner. HelloFresh has doubled its menu. Now you can choose from 100 options each week, including new seasonal dishes and recipes from around the world. Dig into bigger portions that'll keep everyone satisfied and I love that it's even healthier. You can feel great with their healthier menu filled with high protein and veggie packed recipes. HelloFresh now helps you e greener with new veggie packed recipes that have two or more veggies.
- [28:03]
B
Guys, you know how much I love HelloFresh. I haven't exactly made it a secret. I'm a huge fan, but I gotta say I was blown away by one of their new dishes, the Thai Ginger Peach chicken. We always get the four portions so the kids can eat some too. Not this time. This time I ate theirs and I'm not ashamed of it because it was that good. They got to eat noodles that night and they were fine with it. And I was happy too. And you will be happy if you get hello Fresh. The best way to cook just got better. Go to hellofresh.com prosecutors10fm now to get 10 free meals and a free item for life. One per box with active subscription free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only and it varies by plan. That's HelloFresh.com prosecutors10fm to get 10 free meals and a free item for life and find out for yourself why HelloFresh is America's number one choice for home cooking. So at 5am Barry would tell police that he left home for a pre planned work trip to Broomfield, Colorado. So this is 5am on Mother's Day on Sunday he's going to Broomfield, Colorado where he has a job site he's going to work at. And according to him, Suzanne was still asleep in bed when he left the house and she had planned to ride her bike that day. This is interesting because you're sort of thinking about what sort of things would people do now. Barry says they have the perfect relationship. You might think if they had the perfect relationship, would he really leave at 5am to go to a job site on Mother's Day or would he try and make other arrangements? Now it turns out they don't have a perfect relationship, so maybe that's not so suspicious. He doesn't care. She can do whatever she wants to him. Mother's Day, he's getting out of town.
- [30:07]
A
A little bit of a spoiler alert. He didn't need to leave at 5am that's another huge red flag. So why are you leaving on Mother's Day at a time you don't need to? In fact, it's highly inconvenient for his work purposes for him to be there at the time that he ends up getting there. He should have actually waited.
- [30:23]
B
Right. And we're going to talk about that in a second. But in any event, he says he left at 5am he's heading down to the workplace. Suzanne's going to ride her bike. He then gets to the work area and at around 5pm so 12 hours later, he gets a phone call from a concerned neighbor. And this person says they've been trying to get in touch with Suzanne, they can't and they don't know what to do and that this is the first time he knew anything was wrong. So at 5:37am so remember, his phone turns off at 4:32am he says he left his home at 5am At 5:37am so about an hour later, hour after it turned off, the Barry's phone is turned back on and he is in the area of Johnson Village, Colorado at this time.
- [31:10]
A
So back to the telematics. At 8:10am Barry's Truck Telematics began picking up data again and it showed that he was already in Broomfield, Colorado. So basically it's turned off for this entire drive until he gets to the job site. At 5:46pm that evening, Suzanne's daughter, who was away at college, contacted the neighbor because she had not been able to get in contact with her mother and asked that the neighbor over and check on her mother. They went over and called Barry, who confirmed that he also hadn't been able to get in contact with Suzanne either. Now, Barry suggested to the neighbor to call the sheriff. That's really interesting because yes, Barry is out of town, but he also has a phone and he could call the sheriff himself. In fact, he probably has access to a little bit more data. He was the last to see her, supposedly at 5am when he left. He knows her typical actions, what she was supposed to do that day, go for a bike ride. She's typically home by a certain time. She always answers her phone at 5 o' clock, she should be home. He has a lot of information that would be really relevant if this were a missing persons case. But instead of him calling the police, he actually suggested the neighbor to call the sheriff.
- [32:22]
B
Yeah, and I have two things that I find interesting here. That one, why isn't he calling the police? And you know, Julia says that we always end up doing.
- [32:31]
A
I know we do a lot of profiling.
- [32:33]
B
We do so much profiling. And I realize that now because I often think about this stuff like what would sort of the average person do? And you would think if you call the neighbor, I would call the police. I mean that just me.
- [32:43]
A
And I would hang up and be like, text, text, text, text. I haven't heard from you. Yep.
- [32:48]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I would hang up with the neighbor, immediately, call my wife.
- [32:54]
A
Yep.
- [32:54]
B
Text my wife. And if I don't get a response, I'm calling the police. And I'm saying, hey, I'm out of town. My wife's supposed to be home. Nobody can find her. You need to go over there. Right. That's what I would be doing. But he sort of turns it over to the neighbor and says, you do it. Now, look, assume for a second that Barry is a murderer. If he's a murderer, he's done some sophisticated things. He's turned off his phone to avoid tracking. He has somehow figured out to avoid telematics data with his truck. This is consistent with that. Because what do we not have? We don't have that 911 call that we have. In so many cases that gets analyzed where the husband or the wife calls 91 1. It's recorded. And then they have to put on. Right. They got to get all worries. Yeah. The theatrics. He doesn't have to do that. He has avoided that by having someone else do the call. This is similar to the whole notion that some of the profilers talk about about having someone else find the body. Right. It's a similar type thing. He's having someone else call the other thing that I thought was interesting, subtly so, and could be perfectly innocent, as we're gonna see. Barry's daughters have supported him throughout this. I think it's interesting that his daughter did not call him. She called the neighbor. She didn't call her dad and say, hey, dad, I've been trying to get in touch with mom, wish her happy Mother's Day. Is she gone? Did she go somewhere? Did she go for a ride? She doesn't call him. She calls the neighbor. I thought that was interesting. Might not mean anything.
- [34:28]
A
I mean, that stuck out to me, too. Sure. It may be that she knows dad is not home at a job site. What it indicates to me is that they have been distant for some time, and if I want to find out something about my mom, my dad is not the one to ask. Right. That's what it suggests to me, because I have relationships like that, you know, I like. I know which sibling to go to to find out information about, like, mom or dad, just because I know they talk all the mean, they're estranged or anything. I just know, like, my brother out in California probably doesn't know what my dad you know, on the east coast is doing at any given time. And so that's what it suggests to me. Maybe nothing nefarious, but more so as a pattern in practice, dad wouldn't know. So I don't think of calling him to find out where mom is. There was one other thing. And so there's no 911 call to kind of analyze. But also it gives that additional barrier. Right, because the police is going to show up. And so now you kind of have someone else interacting for you. And I think it is a huge. This stopped me when we came to this part of the timeline because I was like, you didn't call 911. Really, you didn't. Nor are there like a flurry of calls to figure out calling her best friend. And now this, again, may mean nothing, but it certainly indicates that he is not someone who typically knows exactly where someone is. I know generally where my husband is every hour of the day. Not specifically, but like, yeah, he does typically go out with his office at this time to go get lunch. Yeah, this is typically the time that he leaves to be able to get home at a certain time. I just know the rhythms because we are in constant communication. That's not the case here.
- [36:01]
B
And look, this is going to be a circumstantial case as we walk through this. There's not going to be an eyewitness who sees something and brings it all together. That's not going to happen. And what's interesting about circumstantial cases is the way the information plays off other pieces of information. So as disparate data, it's useless. Right. And we talk about this all the time. It's like a mosaic, little pieces of glass that you put together, and all of a sudden you have a picture. And things like the fact that he doesn't call the police. It's very easy to say, well, that might not mean anything. There's all sorts of possible explanations. I don't know why you are focusing so much on that. Fine, perfectly legitimate thing to say. But that piece of information, when it's surrounded by some of the other stuff we've talked about, the turning off of the phone, you know, that alone. Why are you focused on it? It could be anything. Yes. Any of these pieces of data could mean anything by themselves. But when you start putting them together, suddenly you get a picture that starts to tell you what's happening.
- [37:06]
A
So let's talk about more of these, like, disparate pieces of fact that mean nothing alone, but together it's beginning to look like something pretty suspicious. So the neighbor does exactly what we thought the husband would do exactly. At 5:46, she hangs up with Barry and calls the police to report Suzanne missing. So when investigators arrive at the home, which they do relatively quickly, within really minutes, they come to the home, which is located at 19057 Puma Path. The door was locked, there was no sign of forced entry, and they observed Suzanne's car in the garage and her bike was missing. So at 6:05pm, just 20 minutes after the neighbor told Barry, your wife seems to be missing. And Barry says, oh my goodness, call the police. Twenty minutes later, after the report came in, Deputy Damon Brown tried to call Barry. Barry doesn't answer. If I think my spouse is missing, you bet your bottom. This is not two hours later, it's not four hours later. It's not even a whole like 30 minutes later. 20 minutes later, I'm sitting by the phone, I am freaking out. And the first call that comes through, I'm picking up. Have you found her? Is she okay? What's going on here? I'm jumping in the car instead. No answer.
- [38:14]
B
And we have all, every single one of us has been in a situation where for hopefully a very short period of time, you have grave concern that something bad is happening. Maybe some of you have been in a situation where it was happening and you've experienced this in the worst possible way. You're waiting for that call and you're hoping for that call and you're hoping for that text and you're trying to find the person. I mean, you know that moment every parent's had when they look down and they're child's not next to him. And it may only last a split second when you look up and you see him, you know, across the field or whatever, but for that moment, you're like freaking out and I get it. Best gloss for this. Their relationships falling apart. They're going their separate ways. This is still the mother of his daughters and all of a sudden she's missing and his daughter is concerned. For if nothing else, you want to be able to tell your daughter, it's fine, honey. We got in touch with her. She was. Your mother loves to drink and she was passed out in the bathroom. Right? Like, I mean, whatever. But instead of sort of waiting by his phone, which if he's not going to call the police, you would think would be the thing he would do if for no other reason, then you'd want to know what the police were doing. Even if you don't Care about her? Are they breaking down my door? You know, is there, like blood all over the hallway? Am I gonna have to clean up? Like, just imagine, he's as disconnected from her as he could possibly be. You would think he'd want to know the outcome of all this. Do I have to go home? God, is she gonna make me come home to deal with whatever this is? Just there are all sorts of reasons you would expect him to be waiting by the phone, but he's not. He doesn't answer that call and nobody gets in touch with him for another hour. So it's 7:10pm so it's not even. They call. And this happens to me sometimes. It's like somebody calls me and the phone just doesn't ring and I, you know, all of a sudden I have a missed call, right? And I immediately call back. Well, he doesn't call back. That didn't happen. An hour and five minutes later, Deputy Brown calls him again, and this time he is able to get in touch with him. So at the same time, the police are sort of looking for Suzanne. And at around 7:30pm, an officer is driving along County Road 225 looking for any sign of Suzanne. And as he sort of turns a bend, he sees a blue mountain bike down near a ravine close to the bottom of a hill. The front tire is pointed downwards towards the creek. So it almost looks like the bike has sort of gone over down into a ravine, down a hill, headed towards this creek and stopped there. So he's thinking that too. He goes down to the bike, but when he gets down there, he doesn't really see any indications that there actually was a crash. It does not look like this bike traveled, you know, sort of out of control down that path with a human on it or with a person tumbling behind it or tumbling off of it. He looks at the vegetation around the bike. It's not flattened in the area where you would expect it to be if there was a human body on top of it that then lands on the grass and then maybe rolls into this creek. I don't know how deep the creek is, but nevertheless a possibility. And there's no blood. He doesn't see any indication that anyone's been injured. And in fact, there's no damage to the bike, so there's nothing that makes it appear that there's any sort of wreck there. And in fact, when he goes back up and looks at the road, there's no skid marks, there's no braking. There's no indication that this bike actually in some sort of accidental manner, went off the road, down this hill into this creek bed area. And so police looking at all the information decide, seems like the bike was put there, maybe it was thrown down there, maybe it was placed down there. But whatever the case, it was not ridden down there by a person. So at this point they're thinking this is foul play, this is a stage scene. So she hasn't been attacked by an animal, she hasn't had some sort of accident where she lost control, she hasn't been hit by a car, she has been taken and the bike has been dumped down this ravine.
- [42:24]
A
And that's another huge flag here. Typically with a bike accident, not only will you see the surrounding area indicate some sort of a catastrophic event, a body usually is not far from the bike, maybe in the creek below. But the fact that there's no body either, or any indication that a body was around there and then slid down, you know, the cliffside or something like that, is also a huge red flag, which, which is why I think the police were able to reach this conclusion relatively, basically as soon as they see the bike.
- [42:53]
B
So the police do the thing that you would expect them to do, unless it's the West Memphis three case. They interview the person closest to Suzanne, they interview Barry, and they interview him that evening. And he tells police that he set his alarm and Woke up at 4:30am that morning and that he left at 5am for this pre planned work trip in Broomfield, Colorado. And according to Barry, Suzanne, she was still asleep in bed when he left the house. And he told them that she had told him she was going to ride her bike that day and this was something that she enjoyed doing. And he said he got to Broomfield that morning, he checked into his hotel and he goes to the job site. He tells police that he received a call around 5 o' clock from this neighbor, as we talked about while he was there in Broomfield, physically on the job site. And the neighbor told him that his daughters were concerned because they had been trying to reach Suzanne all day. Not surprising, it was Mother's Day and they couldn't do it. And this was the point where Barry instructed the neighbors to check the house and he told them specifically look for her bike. The neighbor goes over, he's looking like through the garage windows or whatever, and he can't find Suzanne and he can't find her bike. And this is the point where he instructs him to call the sheriff.
- [44:14]
A
I'll note this. If the bike were missing, I would have less Indication that she was missing. It would actually worry me more if her car and her bike were there. So this is just an interesting thing because clearly if he staged this, you want to lead the, you know, breadcrumbs, Hansel and Gretel style. So for the police to want to go look for the bike and everything. But I actually think it's weird from this perspective to tell the neighbor, look for her bike. And when there isn't a bike, as opposed to saying, oh, she bikes all the time, why don't you go drive around, you know, the roads? This is. She typically bikes down this path. See if you can find her. Maybe she just took a long path, long break or whatnot. But the fact that her bike is missing would actually indicate to me less foul play, less reason to be nervous, because she could just have gone, you know, further than she intended.
- [45:01]
B
That's such a good point. I didn't think about that. But that is such a good point because the only reason that you would immediately say, oh, the bike's not there, call the police, is because you staged your murder. So, like a bike accident.
- [45:13]
A
And that's a huge red flag.
- [45:15]
B
That's the first thing you're thinking, yeah, go out and find the bike. I bet you'll find it wrecked. Because she probably was in some sort of bike accident or abducted while she was on her bike. Not thinking, like you said. Oh, yeah, she probably just, instead of going in the morning, she went in the evening. Or maybe she went in the morning, came back, ate something and decided to go for a second ride. I mean, there's all sorts of reasonable, rational explanations why she would do that. It's May, you know, it's not dark at 5 o' clock in May. Perfectly reasonable for her to be riding her bike. And yet you're right. As soon as it's not there, they call the cops.
- [45:51]
A
So now Barry's recollection of events was at least partially disproven during the early investigation. Not a good look for Barry. So we said that police. Let me just take a quick aside. This is where I realized that either your love of true crime or being prosecutors, we do have advantages in life. I recently had an experience where this is like, totally. I guess normal people think this way. But we were interviewing someone for, like, a job, and the person indicated they knew someone who worked with me. And my initial thought, my very first thought, of course, is, well, I'm going to verify with the person who they say they know because, like, this is good. And the indication was that they're good friends. Everything's good. The person I was interviewing with was like, great. Our colleague vouches for them. I was like, where did you get that? Where did you jump to that conclusion? We hear from the person who has the interest to tell us that someone is vouching for them, likes them. What we are supposed to do, because we have access to our colleague over here, if you're law enforcement, you have access to other witnesses, is to go verify. Never trust, always verify. So I don't know if this is how other people work, but this is the way my brain works, right? And that's what police do here. There is good investigative work here. They don't just take Barry's word for it. Oh, you had a preplanned trip to Broomfield. How convenient that you have a fantastic alibi at the time that your wife supposedly disappeared. You're so far away, there's no way you could have been here. In fact, it was your neighbor who found them. No, they don't trust, they verify. They go talk to one of Barry's employees, in fact, the employee who was scheduled to assist Barry with the Broomfield job. Now this employee tells law enforcement dude, Barry and I were supposed to go together, and instead of waiting for me to leave that evening, he just takes off. He was my ride. We were supposed to drive up there that evening and he just left me high and dry. What are you talking about? Yeah, we were supposed to have a pre planned trip in Broomfield, but like, we were supposed to leave 12 hours later together. So I'm standing here with a bag being like, where's my ride? Right? This is very interesting information. And now Barry doesn't say, you know what? I'm gonna get up there, I'm gonna plan everything for you. There's a couple things because I'm the boss, I gotta handle. He doesn't even tell his employee. He just takes off and calls the employee at approximately 11:18am so at this point, he's already in Broomfield. He left half a day ago. And it is before he's supposed to pick up his employee and leave that night. But that's the time he tells the employee, this is not pre planned. He leaves him high and dry and only tells him hours before the employee expects to be picked up. And they go together. So the employee's like, well, guess I gotta get to Broomfield by myself. So when the employee arrives in Broomfield on Sunday evening, he does notice that. Okay, so maybe Barry came ahead to prepare everything. You think that makes sense? Why Else would you show up somewhere early? No. He notices that Barry fails to bring the proper tools for him for the job. He doesn't have the necessary materials for the job, and he can't do anything at the job site. There's no reason for him to be there because they have to order materials for the job, and they haven't even arrived by that night. So there was no reason for Barry to be at the job site more than 12 hours early. So then the police review cameras at the hotel and nearby businesses, and it reveals that Barry doesn't go up to the job site early to prep the job to do work for his job. In fact, Barry is driving around the Broomfield area for 9 hours and 45 minutes. And of those hours, he spends less than half hour at the job site instead. Besides, two brief visits to the job site, electronic evidence and cameras from the businesses show him driving around to various locations and discarding unknown items in separate trash cans. Maybe he's being a good citizen for nine hours. He's just picking up litter around broomfield, Colorado, and dropping them in different trash cans so that one trash can doesn't feel more loved than another trash can. He wants to spread the love of trash. Or he has a bunch of evidence and he's discarding it all over a town that is not his hometown. This is obviously not great evidence for Mr. Barry.
- [50:06]
B
And this is the kind of thing that you would do if you'd watch too many spy movies, right? Like, oh, great way to get rid of the evidence. I'll go to all these different dumpsters. And that way it's not all in one place. And out of scar. It's kind of like if you've ever seen the godfather part two, One guy, he kills somebody, and then he breaks up the gun into all these different pieces, and he drops them in all these different places so they can't put it together. It's almost like that. The problem is there's so much surveillance these days. So he's caught on camera doing this, driving around and doing this. And, you know, he doesn't have the excuse of like, well, I'm a contractor. I didn't want to rent a dumpster, so I was using all the dumpsters in town to get rid of stuff and didn't want to use one dumpster because you get in trouble that way, because he wasn't at the job site for very long, and there were no.
- [50:54]
A
Materials there to throw away.
- [50:57]
B
Yeah, and this is. I just go back to this because we've been doing this for 300 and something episodes now. And from the very beginning, one of the things we always wanted to communicate to people is this notion of it's just a circumstantial case and how flawed that is. I mean, this is one small piece of circumstantial information. But it's so damning because it's someone doing something so suspicious immediately after something like this happens for no apparent reason. And it tells you so much about what's going on. And it's not the only thing he does that day that's suspicious.
- [51:34]
A
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B
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A
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- [54:11]
B
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- [55:07]
A
And one other thing. You can't discard a bunch of evidence if you have an employee riding in your car with you, right? And so if indeed he was just not wanting he was being frugal and not wanting to rent out a dumpster to throw away his trash items. Have your employee do all the heavy lifting, but you can't have that if you're throwing away pieces of evidence. So there's also hotel footage that showed Barry arriving back at his hotel room and remaining inside the room from approximately 12:34pm to 5:55pm inconsistent with his statement to police that he was in the hotel and not at the job site when he received the call about his wife Suzanne being unresponsive and missing. It's a long time. It's a long time. We can't see inside the hotel room, but he wasn't at the job site during that time. Now, he also insisted to investigators early on that his marriage to Suzanne was the best. I just think that's a really interesting way to describe your marriage. It's almost like demeaning. Like you have nothing better to say.
- [56:05]
B
It's the best.
- [56:06]
A
It was loving. It was devoted. You know, we've been through a lot together. No, it's. It's the best. Like, what are you talking about? Like, it's the best roller coaster ride. And he claims that they had just had a great weekend together and there were no issues in the relationship. Hold up. Good thing we have a timeline. This is four days later. Remember what we have from a screenshot four days earlier, A screenshot from a deleted text chain where Suzanne says, it's over. I don't care what you do. Let's just figure out how to end this civilly. So that's already disproven in terms of his view of the relationship. Now, of course, as we've already told you, this is inconsistent with what Suzanne had been telling her friends and family. She said she was unhappy in the marriage and she was considering a divorce. And look, it's not just Suzanne saying it to her friends and family. She said it directly to Barry. Why do we know this? Because Barry has a screenshot of it on his phone. And we also know, of course, that Suzanne took a list of about 60 different issues that she was having with Barry.
- [57:05]
B
And you know, one other thing that just to go back to this, we talked about this some. The fact he didn't answer that phone call from the officer. His excuse, I'm sure. And his excuse for having the neighbor call the sheriff, if he had been asked would have been. I was at the job site. I was really busy. I was really focused on that. I assumed everything was fine. So, yeah, I missed the call, but it was because we were putting up a wall and if I wasn't paying attention, the wall would fall over and people would be hurt. He went at the job site. He lied about that. He's sitting in his hotel room. He's sitting in his hotel room after getting a phone call about his wife seeming to be missing, after telling someone to call the police. And then this phone call comes in from the officer and he doesn't answer. I mean, I think that just makes that whole sequence even worse. Okay, so that brings us to May 11, 2020. So the next day. So at this point, the authorities are searching and they search the morphew residents. And this search spans several days. Instead of the residents and the vehicles there showed no sign of a break in, no sign of an intruder. Now, even though they didn't see anything that indicated someone had been there, they went ahead and collected items of potential evidence. They took DNA swabs trying to see if they would find anything. I mean, they're doing the thing that people always get criticized for not doing in every true crime podcast, right? They don't see any evidence of somebody being there, but they're gonna go ahead and collect evidence in here anyway. Now, of course, they do produce several DNA profile mixtures, but these are consistent with what one would expect to see in the common areas of a home or a vehicle. Because the fact of the matter is, those of us in law enforcement actually understand that you're going to have unknown DNA all over the place if you have a home, if you've ever had someone. You know, we just had the inspection of the heater. The heating and air guys always come over before the season starts and make sure the heater's still working, right? Well, guess what. Their DNA's in the house. And if something happened, there would be no reason for anybody to know their DNA, and that would come up as unknown DNA. Same thing with vehicles. If you had your oil changed, guess what? Somebody was driving your car. They were adjusting your mirrors. They were doing all sorts of things. Their DNA and fingerprints are now going to be in your car. So they see that, and they don't see anything that seems that unusual. But nevertheless, they take these profiles and they process them through these offender databases that we have, and they're also compared to the profiles of known individuals who may have been present in the vehicles or in the residence. They do all this. They don't get any hits. So if there's anybody from this DNA in any of these registries or anything else, they don't see anything that leads them to things. There is some sort of intruder or some sort of career criminal involved in the disappearance that same day, not surprisingly, but nevertheless confirming what's going on here. Remember, Suzanne has beaten cancer twice. She has very important treatments that she's taking to ensure that she does not get it again. She does not show up for her cancer treatment that she had scheduled that day.
- [60:18]
A
Okay, so we now know Suzanne is missing. They found that bike. It looked very suspect. Did not look like some sort of a biking accident. Fast forward two more days. May 13th. Search teams located Suzanne's bike helmet, but not near her bike. It's actually 0.84 miles northwest of where her bike was located and a mile and a half from her home. So let's say this is an accident. Then it would indicate that maybe she slid out. Except there are no slide marks. The bike is, you know, stuck Pointing down towards a ravine, she somehow crawls out, even though there's no indication that anyone crawled or any of the vegetation was disturbed. And she still has her helmet on. So she's good. She didn't hit her head. Everything's good. She walks about a mile, not really in the direction of her home, but away from her bike, maybe to seek help, and then tosses her helmet because her body is still not with the bike. Right. If. If the investigators did not find the location and the environment around her bike suspicious, this should confirm that there was no bike accident. She didn't fly off her bike. Because if she flew off her bike, you would expect her bike helmet to still be attached to the body or at least close by if it flew off her body at the time. Now, investigators were able to determine that it was in fact her helmet, because you may be thinking, well, it's just another helmet. How do you know it's hers? Well, she is a biker and these are dangerous roads. You can slide off sides of roads. So she was prepared. She had a piece of paper inside her helmet with her name, address and telephone on it. So it's Suzanne's helmet. They also had photos of her wearing the same helmet. I just have to say, great job. I've talked about the whole don't trust, verify. They're not trusting. And they're verifying all over the place here. I think it's very clear. This is her helmet. And just like the bike, it seems like the helmet was also discarded here. Now why was it discarded so far away? Because if they were smart, they would not have discarded the helmet so far away from the bike. I would either have the helmet in the creek or in Broomfield somewhere really far away.
- [62:22]
B
I assume it's like they grabbed her off the bike, threw her in the back of the car. They're driving down the road, they make it about a mile before they rip her helmet off, throw it out the window. That's what we're supposed to believe happened, I guess. I don't know. I thought the same thing. I thought it was weird that the helmet was so far away.
- [62:39]
A
So a whole year later, In May of 2021, Barry Morphew is arrested and charged with first degree murder, tampering with evidence and attempting to influence a public servant. Quite the litany of bad acts you have there. Now, just eight days later, on May 13, Barry was charged with submitting a presidential ballot in Suzanne's name. Voter fraud. You have like homicide and then also voter fraud.
- [63:07]
B
Now, you know, I don't know, by.
- [63:09]
A
The way, it's a whole year later. So this is not an indication of, like. I mean, she might come back in a couple days. So let me just submit it for.
- [63:16]
B
Her because I want to make sure her vote counts.
- [63:18]
A
I want her to have her vote count. You know, we don't know for a fact she's dead. This is a whole year later. This is just straight up voter fraud, y'. All. I'm not gonna say this is the motive. I don't think it was to steal her vote a year later. But this was just stupid because of the timing as well. You submitted a fake ballot in her name when you've been charged with her murder as well. So when the FBI agents ask Barry about this, he has a very convincing argument. I'm kidding. It's not convincing. He says, oh, I only committed voter fraud. He didn't say that. I only submitted this ballot because I wanted Donald Trump to win. I just thought, give him another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating.
- [64:06]
B
I mean, I hate to laugh because. I'm sorry.
- [64:09]
A
I'm not laughing at this. So stupid.
- [64:12]
B
You know, she disappears in May, and then in November, he's. I just. I can't believe you would do that. I just can't believe it also.
- [64:21]
A
Can we. Okay, let's talk about what this. So there's the, like, shock factor. Let's take this back to the law. We always talk about, like, actions for consciousness of guilt. Him driving around for nine and a half hours in another city where you don't expect search warrants to be occurring and discarding, you know, pieces of evidence in different trash cans. That shows consciousness of guilt. Right. You know something's wrong. You're trying to cover your tracks within, like, six months of your wife disappearing, you're submitting her ballot because you know she's not coming back. You know, there's a world where if they had a terrible relationship, they had a terrible fight that weekend. She just. Just gets out of town. She's like, forget this. Like, you're dead to me. I'm living my life. But you, you are not grieving. You know, I can't imagine taking my loved ones who I pretty much suspect is dead at this point. I'm gonna just, like, pretend to be them. I can't even imagine that. I honestly can't because of the grief. I would be so grief stricken within, like, the five, six months of them having disappeared and are probably dead. He's just making sure Donald Trump gets another one in his own words.
- [65:26]
B
Honestly, this is enough for me. Like if the prosecutor just stood up and said, ladies and gentlemen, six months after his wife disappeared, he stole her vote. I have nothing further. I would be like, no, this is.
- [65:37]
A
The closing argument, right?
- [65:38]
B
Guilty. No, that was the opening.
- [65:40]
A
It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. He stole her life, he had to steal her vote.
- [65:43]
B
I know, it's just crazy. It's just. I don't know if it'll come in, but it should, because I think it's. I think it is absolutely consciousness of guilt. I think it's. I think it absolutely should come in. They'll try and keep it out, but it's a. Totally come in. It should totally come in.
- [65:58]
A
Yep, yep. Absolutely. So see how we brought that back to the law there instead of just being appalled at him. Yeah, I'm sorry.
- [66:06]
B
Okay, so we're gonna end on this next point, which is sad, but it also sort of wraps up this part of the case. So on August 9, 2021, investigators reveal that Suzanne had been having this two year affair that we talked about with a man named Jeff Liebler or Leibler. So it turned out that Suzanne and Jeff, they had gone to high school together, and they reconnected when Suzanne messaged him on Facebook in mid-2018. And pretty soon thereafter, the two were involved in a full blown affair. Suzanne was living in Colorado and Jeff was in Michigan. But the two met up in person six times in New Orleans, Indianapolis, Dallas, Michigan and Florida. They also kept in close contact via phone. They communicated initially through Facebook, like I said. Then they moved on to FaceTime, and then they switched to communicating via LinkedIn, which I thought was pretty smart because I would not think. To look at LinkedIn is like. Like if I'm looking at my spouse's messaging to try and determine something, LinkedIn is not where I would go. And they also used WhatsApp, which I think has like the deleting stuff and it's secure and everything else. And they were doing this to keep their relationship concealed. And there were periods throughout the affair where they would stop communicating all together for a while, but then they would start talking again. And despite this, they made it clear that they did want to be together. But by September 2019, Barry had become suspicious that Suzanne was seeing someone else. And in January 2020, Barry actually took Suzanne's phone while they were vacationing in Mexico to try and find out who this person was that he believed she was having an affair with. But he was never able to find out about Libra. Now, you may recall One of those things in the list Suzanne mentioned was chasing her around the resort. I'm sure this is what she's talking about. Resort in Mexico. And when Leibler was interviewed, he did not believe that Barry knew about the affair. Now, here's the sad part. I find this sad because here's the thing, like, and typically, you know, she's having an affair. That's not a great thing. But her marriage was pretty clearly falling apart. She was ready to move on. She deserves some love in her life. You know, she deserves somebody who really cared about her and put her first, and that's what she deserved. But it doesn't seem like she got that even with Leible, at least. According to CBS News, police only discovered the existence of Jeff because of a secret recorder that Suzanne had purchased to capture Barry in an affair. Remember, she's thinking about a divorce, and she had gotten, like, this pen. Looks like a pen, but it's actually a recorder. And they found it. And when they listened to the recording, they didn't find Barry. What they found were intimate conversations between Suzanne and someone named Jeff. And it would take the FBI about six months to figure out who Jeff was. And the reason for that is because when Suzanne went missing, Jeff didn't call the police. He didn't say, hey, I love this woman. Whatever I can do to help, I want to do. He didn't do that. Instead, he deleted all of his social media accounts and all of his communications with her. And he would later tell police that at the time of the affair, he was married with six children, and he was very worried that his wife would find out about the affair if he contacted the police and offered them whatever information he had on what might have happened to Suzanne. Now, incidentally, he also had an ironclad alibi. He was in Michigan the day Suzanne disappeared.
- [70:02]
A
So that's incredibly sad. I want to also point out this is a very, very visceral and good example of why people lie, even if they're not guilty. Because my first thought is, you deleting all your social media accounts and not reporting anything or not be on anyone's radar, not raising your hand is Jeff's guilty. He is not guilty at all. But he was thinking about, number one, right? Don't want my wife to find out I have six kids. My whole life's gonna be ruined. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The woman I may or may not love is probably dead. I could probably help police find out what's going on, because if they're having that intimate conversations, he probably has some Indication of her problems with Barry. He has to know he's having an affair with a married woman. He clearly knows something's wrong with Barry. That list, he probably knows about her. Feeling afraid of him, you would think would indicate to him, huh, I have something to tell the police of where to look and reason to look there as well. Now, he did not lie because he had anything to do with Suzanne's disappearance or murder. It's because it was about him. And I say this because so many times people are like, why would witnesses lie if they don't have something to do with it? This, this right here, you can see how his life would have fallen apart. And ultimately it all came to light, as I think all things should as well. But he was just trying to protect his own life. And you may think that's selfish, but people lie for a lot less good reasons than this. They lie because they don't have a license to drive around. We see this a lot. So they're like, I wasn't driving. They were clearly driving. They had nothing to do with the murder, but they don't have a license. They don't want to get in trouble for driving without a license. So just think about that when you're assessing why witnesses lie. Lots of reasons to lie. Everyone's really always thinking about themselves, not the victim.
- [71:48]
B
So that brings us. Barry has been arrested. We're in 2021. You may be thinking that's weird. They got arrested in 2021 and we hadn't had the trial yet. Well, it is weird. And next episode we're going to talk about some of the things that happened in this case that derailed this prosecution and almost ruined it forever. And then we'll talk about subsequent events that have put us back on track for having a trial. This is an interesting case. It's one that's gotten a lot of attention, but honestly, maybe less than it should have because it's a lot of twists and turns. And I think when this does go to trial, it's going to be one that people are going to follow. If you have questions, thoughts, comments, shoot us an email. Prosecutors podmail.com Prosecutors Pod for all our social media. If you want to discuss this with other like minded fans, join the gallery. You can talk about this case and anything else you want to discuss. If you want to see us record these episodes, see Alice's beautiful face, see my face. If for some reason you want to see it, you can join Patreon and watch as we record these episodes with 111 of your best friends. Or if you don't want to see us because you're smart and realize we have faces for podcasting, or at least I do. You still can get the episodes early and ad free for as little as $3 a month. All right, Alice, do you want to answer a question before we sign off? Let's answer a question. Okay.
- [73:18]
A
And welcome back to all the people who left us during West Memphis three. I hope you're enjoying it.
- [73:22]
B
New case. Okay, so Will Doe says in trial work, how often are you hit with a speedy trial request from the defense? How does trial prep differ once speedy trial has been requested? And how does it impact you professionally and personally? Pretty rare.
- [73:41]
A
Almost never.
- [73:41]
B
Almost never?
- [73:42]
A
Almost never do they request a speedy trial. Because remember, as the prosecution, you have your entire case ready when you go to indictment. Now, most defendants, depending on what type of crime they're being accused of, are finding out everything for the first time. They're having to get discovery basically the day that they are arrested and arraigned. And usually it's not an insignificant amount of information. If you have cell phone dubs, you have, you know, all the different things going on. They have to review it and figure out what's my strategy going to be here. So three months is actually a really fast turnaround. And so almost always the defendant will waive their speedy trial rights so that they can have more time to investigate the case.
- [74:25]
B
So really, the best time to do a speedy trial request is if you think the prosecution isn't ready. Like if for some reason you think they had to indict quickly. You know, which can happen, right? I mean, imagine a case. Imagine this scenario, a crime is committed and it's like an all hands on deck. We got to figure out who did this, maybe a Brian Coburger situation. And when you find them, you got to immediately arrest them and immediately indict them. You, as the defense might say, they are running and gunning. So let's put it to them and maybe they won't be ready for trial. If it's a long term investigation, then as Al said, they are absolutely ready for trial. And you're the one who's going to be behind the eight ball because you're going to get all this discovery and be like, oh, shoot, I got to go through all this before this trial that I've now asked for.
- [75:11]
A
And I'll say this much as well, even if so some of you may be thinking, well, they don't care because they know the evidence is going to be strong and they're probably going to have to do some prison time anyway. It's going to count as time served at some point. So you might be thinking, okay, if you know you're innocent, you would want speedy trial. Actually, if you truly believe you're innocent and you are innocent, it takes a lot of time for the defense to put together their case, to fight the case as well. And you want more time to be able to go and do your own investigations, go interview people on your own, that sort of thing. So it doesn't necessarily mean guilt or innocence from the defense perspective, if you're forcing speedy trial, I would say if you have an innocence claim, like you have a really good defense, it takes time to build that because you need to get witnesses on your side.
- [75:56]
B
Another thing about speedy trial is it's different in every state because in the federal system you have the Speedy Trial act, which is pretty speedy. Like, if you, if you are going under the Speedy Trial act, your trial is going to happen really soon after you're indicted. States are different. Some states have really robust speedy trial acts, some of them don't. I mean, some states, you can sit in jail for a long time and not get a trial because the constitutional guarantee is really vague, right? Like, yes, you have a guarantee in the Constitution for a speedy trial. It's not defined what that is, and it's not speedy in the sense that you might think as just somebody out there. So it really depends on the state about what it even means to ask for a speedy trial. Okay, guys, well, that was a great question. Keep them coming. If you leave a five star review, we will answer your questions. We've been getting some interesting ones lately. We'll get to those. We have long lists. Leave them here or on legal briefs and we will answer them as we get to them. All right, Alice. Well, we'll be talking more about Barry and Morphew and Suzanne Morphew next week. Before we sign off, is there anything else you want to add?
- [77:11]
A
No, just everyone can have marital strife. It doesn't have to end this way.
- [77:15]
B
Yeah. And look, I mean, I get it. Probably the kind of person who would murder someone instead of divorcing them is probably not the kind of person who's going to listen to my wise counsel that you should just get a divorce. But once again, get a divorce. Like, I just, I. And you see it all the time and it's just like, I get it. You know, you're a narcissist. You clearly are the super controlling person who can't let go. You'd rather murder someone than let them move on with their lives. I get that. But maybe you're also a selfish jerk. Be selfish. Get a divorce. It's going to be better for you. I'll just put it that way. It'll be better for you if you just get a divorce.
- [77:54]
A
Yeah, in this case, like you have grown daughters, like robbing them of their mothers. I just. I don't even understand it.
- [78:01]
B
I mean, maybe Barry is innocent.
- [78:03]
A
Maybe.
- [78:03]
B
I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, not looking good so far.
- [78:06]
A
It's not looking good. If you want to talk about a circumstantial case. Guys, do you see how strong the circumstantial case is so far? So this is why actually, circumstantial cases are better than direct evidence cases. Because I'll say this, just one neighbor seeing, like him leave at 4:30am that morning, not as strong.
- [78:22]
B
This case is going to take like a swerve at one point. So we'll see that when it happens. I mean, there are some interesting things that Barry is going to be able to point to at his trial. But we will get to all of that next week. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [78:39]
A
And I'm Alice.
- [78:40]
B
And we are the prosecutors.
- [79:03]
A
Anyways, hold on, let me check my levels real quick. I think the levels are your level.
- [79:08]
B
Check those. Check those levels.
- [79:10]
A
Check those levels. So we. The reason it was a little chaotic tonight is it was like a back to school social, like a party at the preschool. And we arrive and of course, once you tell your kids there's a party, you can't not go. So I knew it was gonna storm, but I need to show them that it's storming. I can't just say it's gonna storm. We're not gonna go. So we drove there and as we pulled up, it just like unleashed. I don't know if it rained where you are. It was just like a torrential downpour with like lightning and everything. And so I let them run in the rain into the party. Sam. And we probably turned around and ran back. As I said to Mr. Alice, who's like, why are we doing this? I was like, sometimes for riot control, you need them to come to your conclusion on their.
- [80:52]
B
There you go.
- [80:54]
A
101 riot control.
- [81:40]
B
This September, CBS hits are streaming free on Pluto TV.
- [81:44]
A
I'm coming in hot.
- [81:45]
B
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