Judge increases bond to US$10M for Colorado man charged with killing his wife

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. (Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP, File)

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A judge increased bond for a Colorado man charged with killing his wife to US$10 million Tuesday after authorities said he was a flight risk because he fled from a crash after picking his daughter up at the airport.

Barry Morphew had been free on a $3 million surety bond until the Aug. 26 crash in Denver led prosecutors to argue that Barry Morphew wasn’t honoring the terms of his release.

His release terms included not travelling away from home except under specific circumstances, such as for work or a medical emergency, and having his location monitored by GPS, prosecutors said.

On Friday, Morphew was arrested and jailed in Boulder County on the order of Alamosa County District Judge Amanda Hopkins. The judge at the time amended his bond to $3 million cash only, meaning he would only be released by providing the full amount and not having the sum guaranteed by a bondsman.

On Tuesday, Hopkins raised bond to $10 million cash only after prosecutor Fred Johnson argued Morphew could easily have gotten onto a plane, flown to a city near the border and fled the U.S.

“We are very, very concerned he has just demonstrated what he’s going to do when push comes to shove,” Johnson told Hopkins in a hearing.

Morphew’s attorney, Jane Fisher-Byrialsen, pointed out in the hearing Morphew had yet to flee in his six years of off-and-on prosecution in his wife’s death. But Hopkins said Morphew had submitted no evidence for a legitimate reason for going to the airport.

Fisher-Byrialsen didn’t immediately respond to an email request seeking comment on the bond increase Tuesday.

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

Charges against Barry Morphew were dropped by 2023 but he was charged again with first-degree murder in his wife’s death.

Investigators found no sign of trauma in Suzanne Morphew’s remains but say they found traces in her bone marrow of a drug cocktail used to tranquilize wildlife. Barry Morphew was the only person in the area other than wildlife officials with authorization to use the chemicals, prosecutors allege.

---

Mead Gruver, The Associated Press