It’s been just over three years since Suzanne Morphew went missing on Mother’s Day. Now, her husband and their two daughters are speaking out for the first time since filing a $15 million lawsuit claiming she was wrongly charged in her alleged death.
“It hurts to lose your reputation and your integrity,” husband Barry Morphew told ABC News in an exclusive interview that aired Monday on “Good Morning America.”
Suzanne Morphew, 49 at the time, was reported missing in Chaffee County in Colorado after she went on a bike ride and did not return home on May 10, 2020. She has not been found and is presumed dead, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office.
Barry Morphew, 55, was arrested nearly a year ago on charges including first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in connection with his wife’s disappearance. But all charges against Barry Morphew were dismissed in April 2022, just days before he was due to go on trial.
The move came after the judge presiding over the case barred prosecutors from using most of their key witnesses in the trial as punishment for repeatedly failing to turn over evidence in favor of the accused. Prosecutors also said at the time that they believed authorities were close to finding Suzanne Morphew’s body, which was “the most influential fact of the outcome.” An autopsy of Suzanne Morphew’s body could incriminate or exculpate her husband, prosecutors said.
The case was dismissed without prejudice, allowing prosecutors to file charges against Barry Morphew again. He is still considered a suspect and authorities told ABC News they are not ruling out future charges.
When asked if he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance, Barry Morphew told ABC News: “Absolutely not.”
“They have tunnel vision and they look at someone and they have too much pride to say they’re wrong and look elsewhere,” he added. “I have nothing to worry about. I have done nothing wrong.”
The couple’s daughters, Mallory and Macy Morphew, told ABC News that the past three years have been “literally our worst nightmare.” But they stood by their father.
“I never doubted it,” Macy Morphew said.
“Not one,” added Mallory Morphew.
The two daughters said that there was no sign before their mother disappeared that something was wrong and that they never observed anything about the misunderstanding between their parents.
However, text messages obtained by prosecutors and shared with ABC News appear to show a strained marriage, with Suzanne Morphew referring to her husband as “Jekyl and Hyde” and telling him “I’m done ” before he was reported missing. In another text message, Suzanne Morphew confided in a friend, writing: “Macy and I had a very difficult conversation yesterday … She is tired of the tension here. She knows what she is going through. -faced me and almost begged me to divorce him . . . He even pulled Mal.”
Barry Morphew denied that their marriage was in trouble.
“We have a wonderful life, a wonderful marriage,” she told ABC News. “She was very loving and giving, and a very good mother.”
He said his wife had been undergoing treatment for cancer in the years before she disappeared.
“I know he’s going through some tough things and making some bad decisions,” he added. “He was really having trouble with the chemotherapy and the drugs.”
Suzanne Morphew was also in a relationship with another man for about two years, according to authorities. Barry Morphew said he “didn’t believe it” at first when he found out.
“My heart is broken,” she tearfully told ABC News.
Earlier this month, Barry Morphew filed a $15 million federal civil rights lawsuit against prosecutors, the sheriff and several investigators, claiming his life was ruined by the false accusations. . His defense lawyers, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen and Iris Eytan, said they “know he is innocent.”
“I know $15 million is a big number but I don’t think that, in my mind, covers any of the damage that happened to Barry and the girls,” Fisher-Byrialsen told ABC News.
“If they just look for Suzanne outside where they hypothesize that Barry may have buried her body, they’ll find her,” Eytan added.
ABC News’ Henderson Hewes, Sarah Lang, Adriana Pratt and Kenneth Tucker contributed to this report.
