Husband re-arrested in the death of Suzanne Morphew, whose remains were found after 3-year search
DENVER (AP) — The husband of Colorado woman Suzanne Morphew, whose remains were discovered over three years after she was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020, was arrested again Friday on suspicion of first-degree murder, authorities said.
Barry Morphew was arrested Friday in Arizona after a Colorado grand jury returned an indictment Wednesday. His bond was set at $3 million, cash only, according to court documents. The district attorney's office said in a statement that it is seeking to bring him back to Colorado.
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Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rhode Island lawmakers pass bill to ban sales of assault weapons
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island's Democratic-controlled state House on Friday approved legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of many semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons. The proposal now heads to the desk of Democratic Gov. Dan McKee, who has said he supports assault weapons bans. If the bill is signed into law, Rhode Island will join 10 states that have some sort of prohibition on high-powered firearms that were once banned nationwide and are now largely the weapon of choice among those responsible for most of the country's devastating mass shootings. Gun control advocates have been pushing for an assault weapons ban in Rhode Island for more than a decade. However, despite being a Democratic stronghold, lawmakers throughout the country's smallest state have long quibbled over the necessity and legality of such proposals. The bill only applies to the sale and manufacturing of assault weapons and not possession. Only Washington state has a similar law. Residents looking to purchase an assault weapon from nearby New Hampshire or elsewhere will also be blocked. Federal law prohibits people from traveling to a different state to purchase a gun and returning it to a state where that particular of weapon is banned. Nine states and the District of Columbia have bans on the possession of assault weapons, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Hawaii bans assault pistols. Critics of Rhode Island's proposed law argued Friday during floor debates that assault weapons bans do little to curb mass shootings and only punish people with such rifles. 'This bill doesn't go after criminals, it just puts the burden on law-abiding citizens,' said Republican Sen. Thomas Paolino. It wasn't just Republicans who opposed the legislation. David Hogg — a gun control advocate who survived the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida — and the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence described the proposed ban as the 'weakest assault weapons ban in the country.' 'I know that Rhode Islanders deserve a strong bill that not only bans the sale, but also the possession of assault weapons. It is this combination that equals public safety,' Hogg said in a statement. Elisabeth Ryan, policy counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, rejected claims that the proposed law is weak. 'The weakest law is what Rhode Island has now, no ban on assault weapons,' Ryan said. 'This would create a real, enforceable ban on the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, just like the law already working in Washington state, getting them off the shelves of Rhode Island gun stores once and for all.' Nationally, assault weapons bans have been challenged in court by gun rights groups that argue the bans violate the Second Amendment. AR-15-style firearms are among the best-selling rifles in the country. The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon take up the issue. The justices declined to hear a challenge to Maryland's assault weapons ban in early June, but three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — publicly noted their disagreement. A fourth, Brett Kavanaugh, indicated he was skeptical that the bans are constitutional and predicted the court would hear a case 'in the next term or two.' ___ Associated Press writers David Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.
Toronto Sun
2 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
Husband rearrested in death of Colorado woman, whose remains were found after 3-year search
Published Jun 20, 2025 • Last updated 0 minutes ago • 4 minute read Barry Morphew leaves a Fremont County court building in Canon City, Colo., with his daughters, Macy, left, and Mallory, after charges against him in the presumed death of his wife were dismissed, on April 19, 2022. Photo by Jerilee Bennett / Files / ASSOCIATED PRESS DENVER — The husband of Colorado woman Suzanne Morphew, whose remains were discovered over three years after she was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020, was arrested again Friday on a first-degree murder charge, authorities said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Barry Morphew was arrested Friday in Arizona after a Colorado grand jury returned an indictment Wednesday, three years after the initial case was dropped due to prosecutorial issues with evidence. His bond was set at $3 million, cash only, according to court documents. The district attorney's office said in a statement that it is seeking to bring him back to Colorado. A 2024 autopsy report said Suzanne Morphew died of 'unspecified means' but ruled it a homicide. While there was no indication of trauma in her remains, a drug cocktail used to tranquilize wildlife was found in one of her bones, the report said. A tranquilizer gun and accessories were found in the Morphews' home, according to investigators. Barry Morphew has maintained his innocence since his wife disappeared, and his attorney David Beller blasted the new indictment. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence,' Beller said in a statement. 'Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed, and the outcome will not either.' The first case was dropped in 2022 Morphew was first charged with murder in May 2021, but prosecutors dropped that case the following year just as Morphew was about to stand trial. A judge barred prosecutors from calling key witnesses for repeatedly failing to follow rules for turning over evidence in Morphew's favour. That included DNA from an unknown male that was found in Suzanne Morphew's SUV. At the time, prosecutors said they wanted more time to find her body. RECOMMENDED VIDEO The judge agreed to drop the case against Morphew but allowed prosecutors the option of filing charges against him later. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Barry Morphew filed a $15 million lawsuit against county officials, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights. His lawyers also filed a complaint asking that the prosecutors be disciplined for allegedly intentionally withholding evidence. Iris Eytan, who was Morphew's attorney in 2021 but no longer represents him, said prosecutors 'fumbled' the case. 'Not only is he is a loving father, but he was a loving husband,' Eytan told The Associated Press on Friday. Suzanne Morphew disappeared on Mother's Day The mystery surrounding Suzanne Morphew began when the 49-year-old mother of two daughters, who lived near the small town of Salida, was reported missing on Mother's Day 2020. Suzanne Morphew's mountain bike and helmet were found in separate spots not far from her home, but investigators suspected the bike had been purposefully thrown down into a ravine because there was no indications of a crash. A week after she went missing, Barry Morphew posted a video on Facebook pleading for her safe return. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'No questions asked, however much they want, I will do whatever it takes to get you back,' he said. When he was initially charged, the arrest affidavit laying out investigators' case against Barry Morphew said his wife insisted on leaving him. He later changed his statements as evidence developed. Morphew, an avid hunter, did not initially tell investigators that he went out of his way as he left for work on Mother's Day, driving toward the place where his wife's bicycle helmet was eventually found. Later, he said he went that way because he had seen an elk cross the road, according to the initial arrest affidavit. Suzanne Morphew's remains were found in 2023 Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents stumbled upon Suzanne Morphew's skeletal remains in September 2023 in a shallow grave during an unrelated search near the small southern Colorado town of Moffat, about 40 miles (65 kilometres) south of the Morphews' home. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Most of Suzanne Morphew's bones were recovered and many were 'significantly bleached,' according to the affidavit. Investigators removed a port through which Morphew could receive medicine to treat follicular lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, and found clothing similar to bicyclist clothes she was known to wear. Based on the status of the remains and clothing, a forensic anthropologist theorized that the body decomposed elsewhere, the affidavit says. Toxicology testing revealed all three drugs in a sedative used for wildlife called 'BAM' were in the bones. The presence of a metabolite for one of the drugs, butorphanol, suggested the remains would not have been contaminated with BAM after death, the affidavit says. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The coroner's office determined the cause of death was 'homicide by unspecified means' through intoxication of the three drugs, butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine. Investigators linked Barry Morphew to the drugs Barry Morphew obtained and filled several prescriptions for BAM while living in Indiana, shortly before the Morphews moved to Colorado in 2018. Barry Morphew was a deer farmer in Indiana and allegedly told investigators he used BAM to tranquilize deer in Indiana and Colorado, according to the indictment. In the area surrounding their home in Colorado, no private citizens or businesses, only Colorado Parks and Wildlife and National Park Service officials, had obtained BAM between 2017 and 2020, records show. No government officials reported missing BAM supplies. '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 concluded. — Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Associated Press reporter Jaimie Ding in Seattle contributed. Toronto & GTA World Toronto & GTA Hockey Columnists
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Vance blames California Dems for violent immigration protests and calls Sen. Alex Padilla ‘Jose'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of encouraging violent immigration protests as he used his appearance in Los Angeles to rebut criticism from state and local officials that the Trump administration fueled the unrest by sending in federal officers. Vance also referred to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, the state's first Latino senator, as 'Jose Padilla,' a week after the Democrat was forcibly taken to the ground by officers and handcuffed after speaking out during a Los Angeles news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on immigration raids. 'I was hoping Jose Padilla would be here to ask a question,' Vance said, in an apparent reference to the altercation at Noem's event. 'I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn't a theater. And that's all it is.' 'They want to be able to go back to their far-left groups and to say, 'Look, me, I stood up against border enforcement. I stood up against Donald Trump,'' Vance added. A spokesperson for Padilla, Tess Oswald, noted in a social media post that Padilla and Vance were formerly colleagues in the Senate and said that Vance should know better. 'He should be more focused on demilitarizing our city than taking cheap shots,' Oswald said. Vance's visit to Los Angeles to tour a multiagency Federal Joint Operations Center and a mobile command center came as demonstrations calmed down in the city and a curfew was lifted this week. That followed over a week of sometimes-violent clashes between protesters and police and outbreaks of vandalism and looting that followed immigration raids across Southern California. Trump's dispatching of his top emissary to Los Angeles at a time of turmoil surrounding the Israel-Iran war and the U.S.'s future role in it signals the political importance Trump places on his hard-line immigration policies. Vance echoed the president's harsh rhetoric toward California Democrats as he sought to blame them for the protests in the city. 'Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, by treating the city as a sanctuary city, have basically said that this is open season on federal law enforcement,' Vance said after he toured federal immigration enforcement offices. 'What happened here was a tragedy,' Vance added. 'You had people who were doing the simple job of enforcing the law and they had rioters egged on by the governor and the mayor, making it harder for them to do their job. That is disgraceful. And it is why the president has responded so forcefully.' Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement, 'The Vice President's claim is categorically false. The governor has consistently condemned violence and has made his stance clear.' In a statement on X, Newsom responded to Vance's reference to 'Jose Padilla,' saying the comment was no accident. Jose Padilla also is the name of a convicted al-Qaida terrorism plotter during President George W. Bush's administration, who was sentenced to two decades in prison. Padilla was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport during the tense months after the 9/11 attacks and accused of the 'dirty bomb' mission. It later emerged through U.S. interrogation of other al-Qaida suspects that the 'mission' was only a sketchy idea, and those claims never surfaced in the South Florida terrorism case. Responding to the outrage, Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said of the vice president: 'He must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.' Federal immigration authorities have been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfill Trump's promise of mass deportations. Todd Lyons, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has defended his tactics against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed. The friction in Los Angeles began June 6, when federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps in the region that have continued since. Amid the protests and over the objections of state and local officials, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to the second-largest U.S. city, home to 3.8 million people. Trump has said that without the military's involvement, Los Angeles 'would be a crime scene like we haven't seen in years.' Newsom has depicted the military intervention as the onset of a much broader effort by Trump to overturn political and cultural norms at the heart of the nation's democracy. Earlier Friday, Newsom urged Vance to visit victims of the deadly January wildfires while in Southern California and talk with Trump, who earlier this week suggested his feud with the governor might influence his consideration of $40 billion in federal wildfire aid for California. 'I hope we get that back on track,' Newsom wrote on X. 'We are counting on you, Mr. Vice President.' Vance did not mention either request during his appearance on Friday. ___ Associated Press writers Julie Watson and Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Tran Nguyen in Sacramento contributed to this report.
