Six years after she disappeared, Suzanne Morphew’s adult daughters are fighting to get her remains from the investigators who have them. 

Barry Morphew has been charged with first degree murder in his wife’s death.

Mallory and Macy Morphew have asked a judge to order law enforcement to return their mother’s remains after they were seized from a Colorado Springs funeral home. 

In a move that Bert Nieslanik — the Morphew daughters’ attorney — called “outrageous, cruel and shocking to the conscience,” case investigators removed their mother’s remains from Swan-Law Funeral Directors before her daughters could gather them for a memorial service, according to a court document. 

The remains were released by the Chaffee County Coroner’s Office in April 2024 to the funeral home, where they had been stored for nearly two years, according to the court document.

However, before the daughters could retrieve them, the investigation “intervened and prevented them from retrieving them or burying them” without warning, the document stated.

The motion asking the judge to order the return of the remains claimed that law enforcement violated the Morphew daughters’ religious freedoms and their right to memorialize their mother “consistent with their faith.” 

Investigative sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Barry Morphew stated it was Suzanne Morphew’s wish to be cremated and for her ashes to be spread in Florida.

Investigators have expressed worries about the possibility of Morphew’s remains being cremated, which would eliminate the chance for further testing.

Neither Nieslanik nor Chaffee County Coroner Jeff Graf was immediately available for comment. 

Mallory and Macy Morphew are their mother’s lawful next of kin. 

Swan-Law Funeral Directors finds itself in a difficult situation.

In an email, Swan-Law Funeral Directors stated, “Because we value the privacy of the families we are honored to serve, we cannot comment on an active investigation. However, we are working closely with the local authorities and hope this matter is resolved soon.” 

Critical evidence

Morphew’s remains were a critical piece of evidence in what had become a doomed case when they were found in a shallow grave in Saguache County in September 2023.

The bones, minus her feet, were bleached and scattered in an open field, according to a grand jury indictment. They were found by accident when law enforcement, which was searching for a different body, stumbled upon them.

The area where they were discovered was near Moffat, about 45 minutes south of the family home. 

The remains were tested by toxicologists from the El Paso County Coroner’s office and will be at the center of a battle over how Suzanne Morphew died.

An autopsy revealed that she “died as a result of homicide by unspecified means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone, and medetomidine intoxication.” 

The autopsy report noted that the information could be “amended” if more information became available.

According to the grand jury indictment, toxicologists found three chemicals in Morphew’s femur that were made up of a highly regulated and little-known wildlife tranquilizer called BAM.

Prosecutors said in the indictment that, besides employees of the National Parks Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, only one other person in the area had access to BAM — and that was Barry Morphew.

Barry Morphew’s arrest

The nearly six years since Suzanne Morphew went missing have been an emotional torture for her family.

Barry Morphew was arrested and charged with her murder twice.

The first prosecution case was dismissed on the eve of the trial in April 2022 for lack of a body. After her remains were discovered, Morphew was arrested in Arizona. 

In a victim impact statement filed in August 2025, a month after Morphew was arrested the second time, David Moorman asked the court not to release his former brother-in-law.

“While death by hanging is deserved for the nature and the premeditated planning of this crime, I am requesting a life sentence with no chance of parole,” wrote Moorman.

Barry Morphew’s trial is scheduled for Oct. 13 and is expected to last four to five weeks.

He has attended hearings in Alamosa County Court in person. In January, he pleaded not guilty to his wife’s death.

Mallory and Macy Morphew have been supportive of him since the beginning, while Suzanne Morphew’s brothers and sister are now at odds with Barry Morphew and the couple’s daughters.

Morphew has always maintained his innocence. Her siblings do not believe him.

Despite the disagreement between Suzanne Morphew’s daughters and siblings over Barry Morphew’s guilt, her sister and brothers hope they can obtain a portion of Suzanne’s remains. They said they would like to bury them in their father’s grave in Park View Cemetery in Alexandria, Indiana, where she was raised. 

Gene Moorman never knew that his youngest daughter’s body was found. He died in November 2020, heartbroken over her abrupt disappearance just six months earlier. On his tombstone is a photo of the two of them together. Her birth shows April 30, 1971, and her date of death is inscribed with May 9, 2020.

Melinda Moorman Balzer, her sister, believes it was a miracle that her remains were found.

“I’m asking for another miracle,” said Balzer. “My family would eventually like to bring her home to Indiana where she belongs.”