The Chaffee County sheriff downplayed reports Monday that cadaver dogs picked up the scent of human remains near the family home of a 49-year-old Colorado woman who disappeared on Mother’s Day. 

“Contrary to some media reports, there have been no remains found in the Suzanne Morphew case,” the department said in a Facebook post. “There have been a handful of potential leads that have been pursued as a result of the volunteer search; however, nothing has been identified as related to the disappearance.” 

Andy Moorman, Morphew’s brother, says the FBI has taken over that part of the search, but he’s not optimistic about the development. The area where the dogs picked up a scent is in Poncha Springs on property owned by Morphew’s family. 

“There’s no point in speculating,” Moorman told The Gazette. “Reporters saw dog behavior and jumped the gun.” 

Moorman, on his fifth day of a massive volunteer search for Morphew, said the German shepherds have previously “hit” on a riverfront property where her husband, Barry, had been working for his landscape business, and on the entrance to a housing development, but he says he doesn’t think the scent search will yield answers to where she is. Barry Morphew has theorized his wife was killed by a mountain lion.

On Sunday, Moorman said, his brother-in-law allowed searchers to comb the grounds of the family’s $1.5 million home, but they didn’t find any clues. Morphew’s decision to allow search teams on his property was a shift from Saturday, Moorman says, when Morphew came out with a gun on his shoulder and asked searchers to leave. 

So far, Moorman has found no physical evidence to help unravel the mystery of his sister’s bizarre disappearance. 

“It’s exhausting,” he said. “We’ve found some things: a blanket, a towel and a tarp. We’ve turned them over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.”

Moorman’s community search is separate from the official investigation, which is being handled by the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the 11th Judicial District and the FBI.

Moorman says he came to Colorado from Indiana, where Morphew grew up and spent most of her life, to get closure for his family. He says he had to do something himself because he felt law enforcement was getting nowhere, “They quit searching,” he told The Gazette on Thursday. “They ran out of funds and their efforts ran dry.” 

Morphew supposedly went on a bike ride May 10 and never returned. The couple’s two daughters, who were on a camping trip, asked a neighbor to check in on their mom when they couldn’t reach her for a Mother’s Day phone call. Upon finding Morphew missing, the neighbor called 911. 

Investigators found Morphew’s bicycle in a ravine that evening. Law enforcement investigators told The Gazette that her turquoise bike helmet was found nearby days later. 

Moorman and officials working on the investigation told The Gazette that a team of detectives traveled to Indiana to interview relatives and friends of the missing woman last month and also as recently as last week.

Attempts by The Gazette to speak with Barry Morphew have gone unanswered. Investigators said he checked into a hotel in Broomfield the morning his wife disappeared because he had a landscaping job there the following Monday. 

Moorman says his teams also are using sonar equipment to scour lakes in the area. Tuesday is the last scheduled day of the family search, but Moorman says he won’t give up until he knows what happened to her. 

Hundreds of volunteers have covered the area looking on mountainsides, in fields and in lakes. A GoFundMe established to support the search had raised nearly $21,000 by Monday afternoon.