Barry Morphew will stand trial in his wife’s death in July 2027, more than seven years after Suzanne Morphew disappeared from the family’s Chaffee County home and four years after her body was discovered in a shallow grave near Moffat.
Twelfth Judicial District Chief Judge Amanda Hopkins on Monday scheduled Barry Morphew’s murder trial to start July 19, 2027. The proceedings are expected to last six weeks.
Hopkins last month agreed to push back the trial, which had been scheduled for October, because of the voluminous discovery in the case, including 40 hours of video evidence that ranges from body-camera footage to recordings of interviews Barry Morphew gave detectives early in the investigation.
Barry Morphew, 58, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, 49-year-old Suzanne Morphew, who went missing in 2020. Barry Morphew initially was charged in 2021 with his wife’s death, but the case was dropped in 2022 after extensive misconduct by prosecutors.
Barry Morphew was again charged with Suzanne’s murder in June 2025, two years after authorities discovered her body with traces of prescription animal tranquilizers in her bones. Barry Morphew had access to the chemicals used — a formulation known as BAM — and admitted to using the tranquilizer mix to sedate deer, the prior case showed.
In the first case against Barry Morphew, prosecutors argued he killed his wife on May 9, 2020, after discovering her nearly two-year extramarital affair, then disposed of her body and staged a bike crash before leaving for work in Broomfield early the next day.
Barry Morphew has maintained that he left his wife sleeping in bed. The couple’s two daughters — who have since supported their father — were out of town at the time. Before her death, Suzanne Morphew told a friend she did not feel safe alone with her husband and that she was contemplating divorce.
On Monday, 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly said she expected to present evidence that Suzanne Morphew had been considering a divorce for more than a year before she disappeared, and that the prosecution planned to discuss “prior instances of violence” in the couple’s marriage.
She did not elaborate. Prior testimony in the first murder prosecution revealed that Suzanne Morphew spoke about a 2018 incident in which Barry Morphew pushed her into a closet and put a gun to his own head, asking if that was what she wanted.
Kelly on Monday also suggested the prosecution would seek to include evidence about domestic violence and why the period in which a partner seeks to leave an abusive relationship is particularly dangerous for the person seeking to leave.
Barry Morphew’s defense attorney, David Beller, said in court that the defense team “does not believe domestic violence is at all an issue in this case.”
Barry Morphew has maintained his innocence since his wife disappeared and has suggested that she was kidnapped or attacked by a mountain lion while out on a bike ride.
On Monday, Hopkins set a June 21 deadline by which the defense must reveal whether it intends to point to any alternate suspects in Suzanne Morphew’s killing.
That disclosure could trigger an objection from the prosecution, which would be litigated before the July 2027 trial.
