Nearly four years after Suzanne Morphew disappeared from her Chaffee County home, the discovery that she died with animal tranquilizers in her body has refocused attention on her husband’s use of such tranquilizers — an issue that has been woven into the investigation from the beginning.
During a search of the Morphews’ home after Suzanne’s 2020 disappearance, law enforcement officials reported finding a tranquilizer dart gun, empty darts and a dart package that included a capped needle typically used for injecting tranquilizer chemicals into the darts, according to court testimony. They also found a cap used to cover such needles in the clothes dryer at the house.
Suzanne’s husband, 56-year-old Barry Morphew, spoke extensively with investigators before he was charged with his wife’s murder in May 2021. The charges were dropped in 2022, and he maintains his innocence in his wife’s death.
The investigation into Suzanne’s homicide is ongoing and no one currently faces charges in her death.
Here’s what Barry Morphew told investigators in interviews over the years about his tranquilizer gun, darts and chemicals, according to a 131-page affidavit filed against him and testimony from a four-day 2021 preliminary hearing in the dropped murder case.
Plus, an expert weighs in on the basics of the drug mix found in Suzanne’s body: what the BAM formulation is, how it works, and what it might do to the human body.
Why did Barry Morphew say he had tranquilizer darts in his house?
Barry Morphew first told investigators on May 28, 2020, that he kept darts in his home in order to tranquilize deer, transport the animals and sell them, though he said he’d only done so in Indiana, not in Colorado.
Months later, in March 2021, Morphew told investigators he used the darts to shoot and tranquilize deer so that he could cut off their antlers, and said that he might have tranquilized two deer at his home in Colorado in late April. He said authorities would find spent darts around his property.
“I’m tellin’ you, I’m tellin’ you right now, I’ve shot two deer with my tranq gun, ’cause I used to raise deer, and I collect horns, and I’ll tell you exactly what I did,” he said, according to an affidavit filed in the dropped murder case. “They’re in the yard. I shoot ’em, and they go to sleep. I cut their horns off, and I wake ’em up, and they go off with no horns on their head.”
He told investigators he was afraid of getting in trouble with wildlife officials for the practice, which is why he hadn’t mentioned it earlier. He said he tranquilized the deer instead of poaching them — that is, killing them without following wildlife regulations.
In April 2021, Morphew told investigators that he uses what’s known as the BAM formulation — a mixture of the three drugs found in Suzanne Morphew’s bones — to sedate deer. He told investigators he bought the chemicals in Indiana and kept them on his workbench in vials. He said he mixed the chemicals into darts himself, rather than using a licensed veterinarian, according to the affidavit.
When investigators asked whether he could mix the tranquilizer without help from anyone, he said, “Yeah, absolutely.”
Did Barry Morphew say he threw away tranquilizers after his wife’s disappearance?
Investigators didn’t find any BAM formulation or tranquilizers in Barry Morphew’s home after his wife disappeared.
An investigator asked Morphew in April 2021 whether he might have thrown those tranquilizers away in one of the five “trash runs” he made in and around Broomfield on May 10, 2020, the day his wife was reported missing.
“Could’ve been,” Morphew said.
What did Barry Morphew say about the tranquilizer needle cap found in the laundry?
Barry Morphew admitted to investigators in March 2021 that it looked “a little suspicious” that a tranquilizer needle cap was found in the dryer.
“Because it looks like if I did something, and ripped the sheet, and got blood on them and ripped ’em off and washed ’em — to me, lookin’ at it through a detective’s eyes, that would look a little suspicious,” he said.
Investigators initially found clothes and bedsheets in the dryer and collected those items. A sheriff’s deputy discovered the needle cap in the dryer days later when he returned to swab the dryer to check for blood, according to court testimony.
During the March 2021 interview, Morphew said he was confident there was “no evidence” on the sheets.
“I’m just being open with you,” he said. “I, obviously, things line up against me, coincidentally, or for some reason. I mean, I look back and see some things that happened and like, ‘Gosh, that makes me look, that makes me, why would God allow that — those things in the situation — to make me look — like the sheets, the bed un-made, the…”
During a separate interview in April 2021, Morphew said he had no idea how the tranquilizer needle cap got into the dryer. He denied using the tranquilizer gun on May 9, 2020, the day his wife was last known to be alive.
“It’s got nothing to do with me,” he said, adding, “I hate that, because, you know, it makes me look bad.”
Morphew’s attorney, Iris Eytan, has since said that the tranquilizer gun was broken when authorities discovered it after Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance, and she screened body camera footage in court that showed Chaffee County sheriff’s deputies stating they didn’t believe a tranquilizer gun found in Morphew’s gun safe functioned.
Did Barry Morphew say he shot the tranquilizer gun inside the house?
Barry Morphew told investigators in April 2021 that he sometimes shot deer in the backyard from his back door. He later also admitted he sometimes shot the tranquilizer gun from “that little breezeway from between the garage and the laundry room.”
The investigators noted that the breezeway is located close to an area where Suzanne Morphew was last known to be alive — sunbathing behind their home. She sent a selfie to her paramour after 2 p.m. on May 9, 2020, and that photo is the last time investigators can prove that she was alive.
Barry Morphew put his phone into airplane mode at 2:47 p.m. that day, and Suzanne Morphew never responded to messages from her paramour sent at 2:44 and 2:46 p.m., investigators have said.
Was Barry Morphew skilled at shooting the tranquilizer gun?
Investigators asked Barry Morphew if he’d ever missed a shot with his tranquilizer gun during the April 2021 interview.
“A deer? Oh no,” he said. “No, I used to raise deer, I’ve shot hundreds.”
He told investigators he would revive the deer after tranquilizing them by giving the animals a reversal shot. But he couldn’t remember if he had any of that reversal drug at his house.
What is the BAM formulation?
Butorphanol, azaperone and medetomidine — a combination of drugs used to tranquilize large animals such as elk, deer, black bear and wild pigs.
Butorphanol is a derivative of morphine and common in veterinary practices, but is not used for humans, said Dr. Pedro Boscan, a veterinarian and anesthesia professor at Colorado State University.
Azaperone once was used as an antipsychotic treatment for people and has no veterinarian usage except in the BAM formulation.
Finally, medetomidine was once a common drug used in veterinary practices, but has been replaced in more recent years with a more efficient drug.
Who has access to BAM?
The drug formulation is considered a Schedule IV narcotic by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and is tightly controlled, Boscan said. Examples of other Schedule IV drugs include Xanax, Valium and Ambien.
Most veterinarian practices will not have it and anyone wanting it would need to order it from a specialized animal pharmacy. It’s typically not available to someone outside the veterinarian or wildlife management fields, Boscan said.
The DEA requires close tracking of the drug, requiring documentation of who buys it, how much and when, and recordkeeping that tracks who uses it, how and when.
“I’m surprised that a civilian with no medical background, no biology background, no license would have that drug on hand,” Boscan said.
Are there any human uses for BAM?
No.
Would BAM be lethal to a human?
There have been no studies to determine how lethal the drug combination would be to a person, Boscan said. But it likely would kill a human, especially a dose intended to tranquilize a large animal such as an elk.
“If you’re actually going to trap a wild deer and you need to immobilize the wild deer, it will immediately fall asleep,” he said. “In a human, I would imagine it would push them over.”
How long would BAM stay in a person’s system after the drug was injected or ingested?
Boscan said he was surprised the drug was detected in Suzanne Morphew’s bones at all, let alone three years after her death.
If a person dies after being hit with a dart full of BAM, that person’s heart would stop and there would be no time for the drug to be carried through the body and absorbed through the bones. It is unclear how long a person with BAM in their system would need to remain alive for the drug to be absorbed into the bones, he said.
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Updated 3 p.m. May 1, 2024: This story was updated to clarify that the needle found in Barry Morphew’s house was part of a dart package, and to clarify that the needle cap later found in a dryer was found separately from clothes and sheets in the dryer.
