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CAVE CREEK, Ariz. – Over 600 miles away from Salida, Colorado, where Suzanne Morphew vanished on Mother’s Day in 2020, Barry Morphew found an escape from the state where prosecutors initially tried, but failed, to convict him of killing his wife.
Barry Morphew was indicted by a grand jury on charges of murder in the first degree after deliberation on June 20 in relation to the death of his wife, 49-year-old Suzanne Morphew, who was also the mother to two daughters. Barry Morphew was arrested in Goodyear, Arizona, almost 11 hours from where his wife went missing.
Barry Morphew settled down in Cave Creek, Arizona, after prosecutors dropped murder charges in 2022 relating to his wife’s disappearance. The charges were dropped after alleged prosecutorial misconduct and failure to comply with discovery rules, resulting in the judge barring several state witnesses from testifying.
One restaurant employee in Cave Creek, Arizona told Fox News Digital he didn’t know Barry Morphew by his first name – and thought he was an entirely different person. Charlie Loots, bar manager at Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, told Fox News Digital that Barry Morphew went by the name “Bruce.”
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Barry Morphew (R) in a June 30 booking picture at the Alamosa County Jail next to a picture of Suzanne Morphew (L) (Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office and the Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office)
Loots didn’t know Barry Morphew’s real name until June 20, when news reports began to surface about murder charges relating to Suzanne Morphew’s death.
“I was shocked that, again, I mean, I was very caught off guard about all of it,” Loots said. “I spent, honestly, as soon as I found about it, I spent like two hours reading articles about it. I was like, I was so intrigued, because I was, like, this s— doesn’t happen,” he said.
Loots said he began seeing Barry Morphew, or Bruce, as he knew the murder suspect, after the Coronavirus pandemic. He said Barry Morphew’s go-to drink was beer, often switching between Miller Lite and Coors Light, adding that he was at the bar on June 13, exactly one week before his arrest.
Barry Morphew “always was approached by other women” at the bar, Loots said, adding that he would frequently approach other women and flirted with them.
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Libby Spruill told Fox News Digital she was one of the women Barry Morphew flirted with at Harold’s Cave Creek Corral. Spruill said she was at Harold’s Cave Creek Corral in March 2024 when he asked if she wanted to dance.
“He walked out to me and he said, ‘hi.’ He’s like, ‘Do you want to dance?’ And I said, ‘You’re Barry Morphew,'” Spruill said.
At the time, according to Spruill, Barry Morphew said “no, no, I think you have the wrong person.” A bit later, Spruill said an individual approached them and introduced Barry Morphew as “Lee” from Indiana.
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Libby Spruill said Barry Morphew flirted with him when they were at Harold’s Cave Creek Corral in 2024. (Libby Spruill)
According to the June 20 grand jury indictment, Barry Morphew went by the alias “Lee Moore.” A local gas station clerk told Fox News Digital he knew Barry Morphew by the name “Lee.”
Public records indicate Barry Morphew paid property taxes at the Stardust Trailer park and was self-employed. In Colorado, he was a landscaper and independent contractor, but he didn’t hold any professional license to do either in Arizona.
Colin McCallin, a Colorado-based lawyer and former deputy district attorney for the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Colorado, told Fox News Digital the use of two aliases is uncommon.
“That’s weird,” McCallin said. “I mean, that certainly is evidence that this is a person who does not want to be known by his true name, maybe even, know, a little reckless with the use of those aliases.”
“It’s clear he did not want to be known by Barry,” he said, adding its possible Barry Morphew was trying to live a double life in Cave Creek, Arizona.
Prosecutors wrote in a June 20 indictment that the chemicals butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine were found in Suzanne Morphew’s bone marrow. They alleged that Barry Morphew used “BAM” deer tranquilizer to sedate and transport deer on his farm when he lived in Indiana.
Barry Morphew (R) and Suzanne Morphew (L) (Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office and Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)
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Barry Morphew was also the only person with a prescription for the deer tranquilizer within the area of the state he lived in, prosecutors said. The only two other entities with access to the BAM compound within the surrounding counties were Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the National Park Service, officials said.
“Ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM: Barry Morphew,” the indictment states.
Morphew’s attorney, David Beller, previously told Fox News Digital Morphew “maintains his innocence.”
“Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence,” Beller said. “The case has not changed, and the outcome will not either.”
Barry Morphew’s lawyer declined to comment.