Colorado man jailed after hit-and-run while on bond in wife's murder case

Barry Morphew, free on $3M bond in his wife's alleged killing, was arrested Friday after a hit-and-run crash in Denver involving two vehicles.

Colorado murder suspect jailed after Denver hit-and-run violates bond terms

Barry Morphew, a Colorado man out on $3 million bond in connection with the alleged killing of his wife, was arrested Friday after a hit-and-run crash involving two other vehicles in Denver, ABC News US reports.

Morphew was booked into Boulder County Jail. Alamosa County District Judge Amanda Hopkins scheduled a bond hearing for Tuesday, according to online court records.

The crash occurred on Aug. 28, when Morphew drove to Denver International Airport — possibly to pick up his daughter, prosecutors said in a court filing. Under the terms of his bond, set last year, Morphew was prohibited from traveling outside his home area in southern Colorado except for work and a narrow set of other circumstances.

"To go to the airport for any purpose other than work constitutes a breach of his bond," District Attorney Anne Kelly wrote in the filing.

Morphew's attorneys did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment Friday.

He has pleaded not guilty and faces trial next summer in the death of his wife, Suzanne Morphew, who disappeared in 2020. Her skeletal remains were discovered off a dirt road in southern Colorado in 2023.

Charges against Morphew had been dropped by that point, but he was subsequently re-charged with first-degree murder and arrested again. Investigators found no signs of trauma in Suzanne Morphew's remains, but prosecutors allege they detected traces of a drug cocktail — used to tranquilize wildlife — in her bone marrow. Barry Morphew was the only person in the area, apart from wildlife officials, authorized to use those chemicals, prosecutors claim.

Source: ABC News US