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Season Six: Barry and Larry
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In today’s episode, we are talking about two major updates in true crime cases. One in Florida and one in Colorado.
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:00:57
Speaker
Well, I guess it really wouldn't be appropriate if Mother's Day and Father's Day were to pass and we did not have at least one more arrest of Barry Morphew. my This is one of those cases that like keeps coming up and you and I have talked about it at length and I'm sure people at home are like, why are they still talking about this case?
00:01:21
Speaker
I don't think so. Cause things keep happening. Legitimate things keep happening. I always say that too. um I do not have like all of the episode numbers off top of my head. If you've been here for a while, ah we have talked about the murder of Suzanne Morphew,
00:01:37
Speaker
for a very long time. The first reason we talked about it because it was an interesting case. Husband got arrested and it kind of got boring to us. Then there was DNA from another party that was found but not really identified. And then the charges against the husband were dropped and the husband was suing everybody.
The Re-arrest and New Charges
00:01:55
Speaker
Well, it's 2025. It's ah specifically June 2025. And we just found out that Barry Morphew, the husband of Suzanne Morphew, has been arrested again.
00:02:09
Speaker
Denver 7, as a news source out there, they carried an article from Landon Hafe that says Barry Morphew, linked to sedatives, has been detailed in a new indictment accusing him of Suzanne Morphew's murder.
00:02:26
Speaker
This is a really weird article, which is why I chose it. kind of feels like ChatGPT maybe wrote it. It says Barry Morphew was the only private citizen in the South Central Colorado counties where the Suzanne Morphew death investigation unfolded who had access to the specific mix of drugs in her system.
00:02:45
Speaker
This according to a new indictment that accuses Barry Morphew of his wife's murder. This is an indictment from Friday, June 20th, 2025, filed by a 12th judicial grand jury, and it comes three years after the first murder case against him was dismissed, and 21 months after Suzanne's remains were found.
00:03:05
Speaker
And it says that the indictment details cell phone and vehicle telematics data from Barry Morphew's truck that contradicts the story he told law enforcement after his wife went missing and that it includes out that it includes outages at key times of the investigation as well as evidence that Morphew's body was moved to the South Goss County locations where it was found back in 2033.
00:03:29
Speaker
He was taken into custody in Maricopa County, Arizona on Friday, according to the DA's office. which said it would try to have him extradited back to Colorado. His bond was set at $3 million. dollars And once he is back in Colorado, he will be set to stand trial in Alamosa County.
00:03:46
Speaker
The 12th judicial district attorney, Ann Kelly, whole new district attorney, by the way, provided few new details in the case, but said she felt it was important to hold the briefing to update the community on the indictment.
The Role of DNA Evidence
00:03:59
Speaker
Cold case homicides are tri tremendously difficult, she said. They're difficult for the families of the victims and the communities who wait patiently for answers. While it may seem at times the world forgets about these victims, I can assure you that my law enforcement partners in Colorado's law enforcement community do not forget.
00:04:17
Speaker
Every unsolved murder is a tragedy and we must never give up on our efforts to find answers in these cases. She thanked the Boulder County District Attorney's Office, which sent its resources to the Rule 12th Judicial District to aid in this investigation.
00:04:32
Speaker
As prosecutors in Colorado and law enforcement in Colorado, we are very dedicated to making sure that we don't forget the victims of cold case homicides, but we do understand that it's so important to make sure that we've done everything we can to bring a case to court, and we are proud of the work that we've done.
00:04:48
Speaker
That's according to Ann Kelly. ah Denver 7 says they reached out to Barry Morphew's new attorney, David Beller, who provided the following statement. Yet again, the government allows their predetermined conclusion to lead their search for evidence.
00:05:02
Speaker
Barry maintains his innocence. The case has not changed. The outcome will not either.
Challenges in Cold Cases
00:05:08
Speaker
The summary they give here is pretty good. It says Suzanne Morphew went missing Mother's Day 2020 after leaving for a bike ride, and Barry Morphew was arrested roughly one year later on charges of first-degree murder after deliberation, tampering with physical evidence, and an attempt to influence a public service.
00:05:25
Speaker
in April of 2022, a judge granted the request by the prosecution to dismiss the case less than two weeks before a trial was set to begin in Fremont County. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could try them again if they wanted to go back through the process.
00:05:42
Speaker
With prejudice means they cannot. Prosecutors said at the time that a ruling by the judge that they could not call their most expert witness at trial due to discovery violations meant Suzanne's body needed to be found in order to prove the case.
00:05:57
Speaker
They said they believed your body was in a hard-to-reach mountainous area that was covered in snow at the time.
00:06:03
Speaker
During an unrelated investigation 17 months later in September 2023, Suzanne's body was found in a shallow grave in a saguache county field. An autopsy ruled her death was a homicide, and a powerful mix of sedatives, and metatomidine, or BAM, was found in her system.
00:06:31
Speaker
BAM is commonly used in sedating animals for medical treatment or movement, according to a medical expert cited in Friday's indictment. BAM is only available by veterinarian prescription, according to this indictment.
00:06:44
Speaker
Records show that only Barry Morphew, along with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the National Park Service, had been issued prescriptions for the sedative in the years leading up to Suzanne Morphew's disappearance.
00:06:56
Speaker
Barry Morphew last purchased multiple kits of this chemical compound in Indiana in 2018,
00:07:03
Speaker
Seems like it expands it beyond Colorado. But ultimately, the prescription records show that when Suzanne Morphew disappeared, only one private citizen living in that entire area of the state had access to BAM, and it was Barry Morphew.
00:07:17
Speaker
That's in the indictment. The indictment also details evidence that suggests that Suzanne Morphew's body did not decompose in the shallow grave in Sagers County, a lack of bug activity or animal predation on the remains, and a lack of decomposition in her clothing as sighted.
00:07:32
Speaker
Iris Eiten, who was his attorney, has maintained his innocence in the years since he was arrested. When the case was dismissed, Iris said there was no physical evidence linking Barry to Suzanne's death and accused the prosecution of dismissing the case because of their own misconduct.
00:07:47
Speaker
ah Linda Stanley, who you and I have spoken about in great detail, she was the lead prosecutor in the case, and she was disbarred after state disciplinary authorities accused her of a slew of violations during the case.
00:07:59
Speaker
including making inappropriate comments to the media during the prosecution. Barry Morphew filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against a host of parties in Jaffa County, including Stanley, in May of 2023.
00:08:12
Speaker
That lawsuit was dismissed, with a federal judge saying that prosecutors acted badly in the case, but authorities still had enough reason to arrest and charge him. So that's the true crime news for today.
00:08:25
Speaker
Not a lot of extra stuff going with that at the moment. Just Barry Morphew has once again been arrested in the ongoing saga of who killed Suzanne Morphew. do you think about that?
00:08:37
Speaker
Well, did want to add something briefly to that. And this is straight out of the, uh, what probable cause? No, it's, ah it's straight out of the jury indictment.
00:08:48
Speaker
Okay. If you recall, uh, One of the times we briefly discussed this case, um it was with regard to what ended up leading to the sanctions and ah ultimately the charges being dismissed, right?
00:09:03
Speaker
Yes. The DNA, right? And so in the grand jury indictment on page 3 10... It starts, it says, an expert in DNA analysis testified that law enforcement provided analysts with one of the partial profiles developed from the glove box of Suzanne Morphew's vehicle for further investigation using a keyboard search.
00:09:28
Speaker
This allowed for additional comparison to profiles in more databases with less stringent quality control standards than the National DNA Index System for the limited purpose of creating possible investigative leads.
00:09:44
Speaker
That expert further testified that there were matches to outside databases nationwide. The term match used by DNA analysts does not mean identical.
00:09:56
Speaker
Rather, a match only means identical. that there were other profiles that could not be excluded at the limited number of loci available for the partial profile for comparison. The expert explained that she then compared the matches from those databases to the partial profile for the mixture of on the glove box and excluded those out-of-state profiles as not originating from the same contributor in all but three instances.
00:10:28
Speaker
Finally, the expert explained that just because the profiles from the databases matched at the limited loci available for comparison, it did not mean that any of the people from the out-of-state profiles were the same person that contributed the partial profile to the mixture on the glove box.
00:10:51
Speaker
Law enforcement investigated those three partial matches obtained from three separate out-of-state sources and found no connection to the case. Okay.
00:11:02
Speaker
What is that?
Defense Perspectives and Strategies
00:11:03
Speaker
and ah That's a lot of words. What does that mean to you? like just Because to me, um that is a nothing burger explanation for the DNA.
00:11:17
Speaker
And it's rambling. What They did not explain the DNA there. It sounds like they tried. what they What they were saying was, it looks like a match, but we decided it wasn't. Okay, so first of all everything you said in that word salad they used, to me, sounds like reasonable doubt.
00:11:45
Speaker
Well, it depends on how it's presented in court, right? yeah I'm just saying from a defense attorney's perspective. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And I'm not saying really one way or the other. the thing that got my attention of after Barry Morphew had been arrested was the unexplained DNA, right?
00:12:05
Speaker
and That was linked in CODIS hits to multiple crime scenes. Correct. And so basically, if we are to believe the grand jury indictment and what the DNA analyst conveyed to whoever wrote this up, we would have to believe the fact that something hits on CODIS means nothing.
00:12:29
Speaker
yeah Okay.
00:12:32
Speaker
I haven't told you about this. I'm working on this case that there's a CODIS hit.
00:12:39
Speaker
There are multiple states between the CODIS hits. Okay. Like, so you have an origin sample. I'm working on that. It has a CODIS hit that is nine years old in a completely different state.
00:12:54
Speaker
So
00:12:57
Speaker
based on my interactions with you, I like call up the cold case unit and I'm like, Hey, Can you guys, because when you get a code set and the letter comes back to you, get a lot of information that means...
00:13:11
Speaker
do more work. Does that make sense? Sure. Right. So I got a name that is an investigator on the case. I got a witness's name, which in this instance is the person that would turn out to be the prosecution's witness, like the victim is what people, who we don't call them victims and in the work that I do, but ultimately the prosecution's witness.
00:13:33
Speaker
And she's not a decedent. She's alive. Um, So I call up the person that's on the list. He's like, I'm not in that unit anymore. um I'll pass you off to the detectives that are in that unit.
00:13:45
Speaker
It takes a couple days. We exchange some emails back and forth, just kind of talking about what I'm looking for. And the cold case unit gets back to me. And they're like, yeah, we closed that in 2000. I pick a number. It's either 18 or 19.
00:13:59
Speaker
And um it it was declined to prosecute.
00:14:06
Speaker
So from my perspective, the reason I'm interested in that CODIS match is because at least in one place it's a unknown.
00:14:18
Speaker
But they have information like that I need. And they don't care. like so I've had to kind of move beyond the cold case unit and move towards the state's attorney unit, which state's attorney's offices turn over like quite a bit in terms of the hierarchy and like who works where and who does what.
00:14:40
Speaker
Right. Cause they're appointed. Right. Yeah. Right, right. And so sometimes people stay because there's sort of the glue that holds the institution together. So they tend to be like administrators and like certain deputy assistants. But state's attorneys tend to bring in their own investigator and their own like their chief deputy and stuff like that.
00:15:03
Speaker
um Sometimes that's not the case if it's like all within the same sort of network group. Like you'll have some of the same institutional people. But nobody can tell me why they declined to prosecute.
00:15:16
Speaker
Nobody can find the case file. But there's clearly this code is hit, and the police recognize the case. So I am now becoming, not quite there yet, I'm becoming the belief that like cold case units as we know it presented in the press is sort of a myth.
00:15:35
Speaker
Or at least a rarity.
00:15:42
Speaker
in terms of like the organization of the knowledge and the information. Right. Because like the match does nothing for you. Yeah. they don't have the case file.
00:15:54
Speaker
Right. And like, so a case file exists here. I've got a witness's name. I can track them down. Like, but I don't know what to ask them yet. So, you know, now I'm going back to like the people involved in the other case, the origin case, which took place in 2023.
00:16:10
Speaker
And like, I'm going through the people there trying to see like who's linked to what area and what, what other people. But I bring all that up to say um,
00:16:22
Speaker
Like, I work for defense attorneys, and and I know that's a biased perspective in a lot of ways, but it comes with the unique perspective, at least I'd like to think so, in that we get the person who's accused of the crime and all the information surrounding that, but we also get discovery of what's ah what's going to be in court, because, like, court's not for surprises.
00:16:43
Speaker
This has the potential to be a surprise, because... My belief is it's either laziness or it's connected to a deceased like person's DNA.
00:16:56
Speaker
Does that make sense? Oh, well, that could be why they didn't prosecute it, I guess. So I would like, that would be the way that like, I looked at this as a prosecutor and wanted to move forward would be if I figured out who, if I figured out who the person was,
00:17:16
Speaker
whose DNA was found in the course of the Suzanne Morphew investigation. And after finding that person, i was able to look at it and go, he died before Mother's Day that year.
00:17:32
Speaker
So those old hits don't count. That would be right. Yeah. That would be about the only way i would let this slide. You know what i mean? Yeah. Right. And that you still have the same three places matching, right? Correct.
00:17:46
Speaker
It would warrant further ah information to be kind of, you know, pulled out of that as far as like, well, we just decided it it wasn't relevant because that's, that isn't, I would have said...
00:18:02
Speaker
I used to would have said, i would have previously said that that wasn't going to hold scrutiny. I'm not so sure anymore. um I am unsure of what juries are picking up on versus what they're understanding versus whether they care or not.
00:18:26
Speaker
And so because of that, I'm not sure. Now, I i don't know if Barry Morphew killed his wife or not. Initially, I thought, statistically speaking, it was likely he did.
00:18:39
Speaker
um Then, with the DNA kerfuffle that occurred, I was like, well, that's not going to work and his faith in the prosecution's favor, right?
00:18:53
Speaker
And now it's... i I read it several times. I feel like they are just... they're dismissing a very important concept of the case. And I feel like ah they could probably get away with it.
00:19:07
Speaker
Honestly, the way that juries are um sort of, yeah, we're, we're, we're reaching a stage of like the criminal justice system where it's sort of like pieces of it are imploding on themselves because of people's exposure to things they think they know.
00:19:24
Speaker
Right, exactly. And I sort of feel like um I thought that was what I wanted. not that... ah It just didn't go the way I thought it was going to go.
00:19:36
Speaker
But the the BAM evidence, it's interesting because it... I've thought of like how how crazy that is but also...
00:19:53
Speaker
and my What I immediately thought to myself was, well, that just means that that BAM, the BAM syringes or whatever, it however it comes, that just means it was in the house, right? yeah So, I mean, I can paint you a scenario right here where if that DNA is relevant, like I know like how we get here.
00:20:16
Speaker
First of all, what's in that indictment is BS. I don't believe they tracked down everybody that ever had BAM ever. They sent an investigator out to do it and that investigator is probably as lazy as the rest of them and gathers some information. Berries is from Indiana. and They focus on Colorado.
00:20:34
Speaker
I'm sure you could find a state where somebody had some BAM, but it is a weird coincidence. Well, it is weird, but they're also just looking for, I mean, it I guess it I don't know anything about this cocktail of drugs. They they use it to sedate animals, I guess.
00:20:51
Speaker
And I have no idea if it has any recreational value, if it can be bought on the street. Like, I don't know, right? um and But, you know, it could have just been sitting on his workbench or whatever. i think this has come up before.
00:21:07
Speaker
Oh, I think there's a loaded dart gun, but I'll get to that in a minute. Go ahead. Well, the interesting thing is i didn't bring up the old indictment to compare it, but I already saw quite a few differences just from my memory of the the first indictment or something, something that they had.
00:21:29
Speaker
Because they've already switched like what the telematics was showing from his vehicle. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, well, that is data. And in theory, it wouldn't switch.
00:21:44
Speaker
Like, there wouldn't be anything different, right, from one analysis of it to another. Right. um That doesn't necessarily... It doesn't necessarily mean, i guess it could have been misinterpreted the first time.
00:22:01
Speaker
i don't know. that That lacks explanation, but I'm interested to see... What becomes of this? I'm interested to see if a prosecution can... Because I feel like I know at least what an average person knows about D&A, possibly a little bit more.
00:22:21
Speaker
um Maybe not. But when i was reading that it didn't give an explanation that back when I saw the findings initially when I was like, that's crazy that they did that they found those, right?
00:22:39
Speaker
It doesn't jive as an explanation that explains it away to me. Now, what would that ah an explanation that explained it away to me be? Well, it wouldn't be that like, while it matched things in Curtis, right?
00:22:55
Speaker
We decided it wasn't relevant. um That's a weird thing, right? And if you recall that the matches were something like glove box, bicycle helmet, and bike seat, maybe?
00:23:14
Speaker
Something like that, yeah And it was like... It was something where like it wasn't like a manufacturer did it, right? like that Yeah, I think we went so far. like i don't remember exactly how we went, so if I get this wrong, I apologize. I think you and I like were looking at it like, could it be the manufacturer?
00:23:32
Speaker
Could it be a service and maintenance person? Like somebody who was doing the oil change and needed to get the registration out of the glove box. that was the glove box, exactly. like We were looking at it from the perspective of like...
00:23:46
Speaker
if this information is accurate, it's kind of weird to have it all tied to these items and be at this crime scene. That's that's essentially where we were. Right, and I would say it's it's, I mean, I guess I could find a set of circumstances that would make it work, but it'd just be really weird to have it on her bicycle helmet and her bicycle seat and it all be the same match, which they said, except for three, they found them not to all match, which was, again, they're not saying anything new there.
00:24:21
Speaker
The whole point of the previous document was, where I guess it was ruled that the charges be dropped. I think that's what i' I'm thinking of. It was literally like that there were three things that matched, right? Yeah, it was the motion to dismiss, and there was also like a defense motion that we had pulled from for a previous episode. yeah Right, but here they're saying, well, all of them were excluded but three. But in the other one, it was like three of those matched.
00:24:48
Speaker
And it's a weird it's a weird play on words that my brain is kind of – I was surprised by the arrest. Honestly, I'm absolutely surprised that he was arrested. i'm also like in my mind, I can already see this going down. It's sort of a battle of experts.
00:25:07
Speaker
Like how do you reconstruct all of this? Particularly when they start talking about telematics and the bam material. um
Impact of DNA on the Justice System
00:25:15
Speaker
like I feel like that, um,
00:25:19
Speaker
That's going to be, ah so a battle of experts translates
00:25:28
Speaker
the jury having a preconceived notion and going the way that they want to go. Because honestly, the battle of the experts, it's only intriguing to the people watching at home.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah, i so I guess I'm saying it from the perspective of I think this case has gotten enough publicity in that area that like both sides are kind of known. And, like, you're always going to wonder why did they drop the charges the first time and then they find the body. Maybe that makes up for it I can easily, like, just as a defense-minded person, I can already tell you that this BAM ain't it.
00:26:03
Speaker
Well, you know, that's basically what they've, that was what they tied ah that hit the records of the BAM ah dispense being dispensed or sold or whatever however that process works the records uh showing barry morphew whatever their whatever the statement was like that it he was the only private citizen to have it whatever that statement was and the fact that it showed up in her
00:26:36
Speaker
and are yeah and Yeah, it showed up in her remains. And I was trying to figure out what they were getting at because they were talking about how her clothes didn't... the they They didn't decompose. They're basically saying her clothes should have been shredded. There should have been evidence of animal predation, blah, blah, blah. and basically They're saying that somebody put clothes on her. like Well, they're saying the clothing she was wearing when she died did not, like, something didn't jive between the place where remains were found.
00:27:12
Speaker
And the place that she was known to last be like they they're, they're having trouble with the transportation issues, the decomposition issues. They're saying that there should have been bugs. There should have been an animal activity. They're like, you know, they're, they're kind of wandering around and what I would say is a, a big pile of evidence that seems to be but circumstantial stuff that like, they're trying to like make it look like it points to Barry having moved the body.
00:27:43
Speaker
Okay, and I sort of got that. I just didn't quite get it to jive. But do you recall like a very um a very outspoken prosecutor or somebody on this case who gave like a very detailed account of yes ah Barry basically hunting Suzanne down?
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, and i it' see I think that's where my defense theory comes in, too. So you go ahead, and then I'll give you mine. You saw where it completely changed in this yeah indictment.
00:28:21
Speaker
Yep. Well, which one is it? no I don't know. i don't know like what the difference is going to be there, but I can tell you, look... all That bam is fine. It's just not the silver bullet they think it is. Because if they don't tie up that DNA, if that DNA is still left free-range DNA at this trial, and like the experts say it does not match Barry, it matches this CODIS head, and we don't know who it is.
00:28:51
Speaker
Well, they're saying that they do know who it is and that they've the further investigation has excluded them. Well, they better be dead. And that could be – they had to have been dead before the crime. That's what I mean. Like, they they they have to be deceased prior to Mother's Day when Suzanne disappears.
00:29:10
Speaker
If they're not, then as a defense attorney, all Barry's lawyers have to do is put the tranquilizer dart gun in Suzanne's hands and have it taken away.
00:29:22
Speaker
which we can't prove or not prove. And then you have a struggle in the house or on the grounds where that other person whose DNA is free floating takes the gun away, shoots Suzanne with it, and then stages the rest of it.
00:29:38
Speaker
It gets a little wonky, but it's reasonable doubt at this point to have that DNA there that's linked to these other codicids. Well, and it's weird that
00:29:50
Speaker
The way – okay, so if it's going to match in CODIS, right? Yeah. So you put the – you know, they collected the swab and they got a profile and they put the profile in CODIS and it matches things.
00:30:07
Speaker
Right. It doesn't make sense for – without anything but, like, words – any sort of further explanation that makes any sense. It doesn't make sense to say, well, it matched in CODIS, but it doesn't matter.
00:30:24
Speaker
That's weird. It is weird. And I feel like they've overlooked... A lot of relevant parts here. And I don't even... i have no idea if Barry Morphew killed Suzanne or not. Oh, me neither. Me neither.
00:30:39
Speaker
I just know that initially, i thought, statistically speaking, he more than likely did. Then the DNA... situation happened and all I want is not just like believe me because I'm telling you like tell me it's a person who whatever tell me something else but what they said was that it just matched at these um particular loki Right. right except that's exactly the standard that the people who make these standards they have put it at there's lokii
00:31:16
Speaker
because it is identifying right right And so how can you now tell me that it doesn't matter that it matched? Because what does that do to the DNA testing that they went off the matching of the loci just like this, that they're saying it doesn't matter?
00:31:36
Speaker
I know, because and the weird thing is you're going to have a prosecution trying to make that argument. And like they can only go so far with their expert. Otherwise, like you said, they're risking damaging other convictions or potentially admitting that like their standards suck.
00:31:51
Speaker
Like they have to decide like which way they want to go with that. Well, right. And it's, it's not a good, idea this undermines, ah well, it's not surprising to me, but it undermines a whole lot of things.
00:32:05
Speaker
You know, I've been saying for years now, the avalanche of DNA, we are like in the middle of it, but I've wondered what the downfall was going to be. Right. Yeah. And um I would, I feel like right now,
00:32:20
Speaker
With Barry Morphew's case, they need to be very careful about confirmation bias because, I mean, yeah, statistically, it was probably him, but like that's not reality necessarily.
00:32:33
Speaker
And they've already messed this up once, right? Well, I mean, if they're going to contradict themselves, they're creating their own reasonable doubt. If they're going to contradict like their the science they've been using for years, they're creating a much bigger problem than just reasonable doubt for Barry Morphew.
00:32:49
Speaker
I think that's where it bothers me more is like, wait, what are you doing here? Right. And see, I'm not, so I have absolutely no educational background in like genetic genealogy, but I happen to sort of inherently understand some things about DNA.
00:33:07
Speaker
Perhaps if I was an expert, I would, I would see what's happening here. But the other stuff I've been correct on, it's not like this isn't adding up.
00:33:18
Speaker
correctly, like I would expect it to. When I read the indictment after it was announced that he was um arrested, I guess he's been arrested, right? Yeah, he's ah he was, ah last I checked, he was in jail down in Arizona and he was going to be headed for an extradition hearing, ah which basically, so they can bring him from Arizona back to Colorado.
00:33:42
Speaker
And there was a bond set, and I think it was like maybe multiple millions of dollars. It's $3 million is what I saw, i think. um But anyway, when I saw that he was arrested, i was and not anxious, but I was interested in reading the, um well, probable cause affidavit, but this is a grand jury indictment. So that means the case went before the grand jury, right?
00:34:06
Speaker
Right, and this is what is kind of put together as a summary of that. There's more to it than what we're talking about. Sure, yeah, absolutely. But this is sort of the summary. And like, i you know, perhaps that'll be answered in more detail or maybe I'm just not understanding the way, ah what they meant to convey or whatever.
00:34:24
Speaker
But I was surprised that there wasn't more. Yeah. If this is going to like center on telematics that they're contradicting themselves on and they don't tie up that DNA and there's an, know, I say that like that guy, whoever the DNA is from CODIS has to be deceased prior to her disappearance, but that's not the only reason. I mean, I could see him being in jail. I could see him being infirmed.
00:34:50
Speaker
There's a number of things that would make me go, okay, like I understand where you're going, but like contradicting their own science and saying it no longer matches is kind of weird. um So I hope it's not that. Or, like, i could, but like, there's a lot of things that, like, I could see a prosecution's office deciding, like, this is enough. And it could be, like, this was the guy who, like, did the oil changes on her car.
00:35:15
Speaker
And they know that. And he was sure here on this day. But, like, some of that stuff is still going to be on the edge of reasonable doubt from what we see right now. i I agree. This is really going to be and interesting...
00:35:30
Speaker
um I'd like to know when he put our body there. Yeah,
Conclusion of Barry Morphew Case Discussion
00:35:35
Speaker
that's the other thing I want to see is kind of a timeline of what they suspected, how the telematics, maybe, like, if they came back and said, look, the telematics from the that first day didn't change. They're still the same thing. But he contradicts us because we think he moved the body at this time and did this.
00:35:50
Speaker
I could see that being something I got behind as, like, making sense for a prosecution. Yeah. But well my understanding was, okay, so in the grand jury indictment, the one that just came out, it says that her if the area wasn't consistent with the body having been dumped there right after she was killed and decomposing there. Right.
00:36:16
Speaker
Okay. But he was being watched like a hawk. Right. Right. That's the other thing they're goingnna have to explain here is like he's under all this surveillance and all this suspicion. Like, was it a lack of resources that they're going to blame this on? Or like, how is this going to go that we end up like believing the prosecution's story? Which is, that's really what they're doing with the jury.
00:36:35
Speaker
They're trying to convince the jury of a story. Right. that the prosecutor's going to tell them about how this works, but they've already said so many things that, like, if you and I are talking about it, that means it's out there.
00:36:47
Speaker
Like, it's out there in terms of the lawsuits, in terms of all the different motions, and, like, the prosecution at some point came forward and said, without these experts, like, we can't try this case because we don't have enough.
00:36:58
Speaker
And now they're saying they do, which is going to be interesting. It is going to be interesting. And expensive. I know that's apparently a thing jurors look at Just so you guys are aware out there in jury land, it's expensive on both sides.
00:37:11
Speaker
It is, but that's also not to be taken into consideration. Correct. That is not something you take into the jury room with you in case you're wondering the expense of the trial is irrelevant. It is absolutely irrelevant. um So I knew this was happening and you and I are kind of in this phase of true crime excess where we're like, we record in batches. You and I are prepping to do holiday stuff, even though it's only June, like we're prepping our holiday stuff to decide like how we're going to do that.
00:37:38
Speaker
So I put this on as a, look what I knew was going to be a long piece of true crime news. And
Resolution of Other Cold Cases
00:37:44
Speaker
I don't have a case today because I have another piece of true crime news And I don't have a ton on Barry Morphe yet. What you just heard is my opinion so far. um but That's all I have, too. That was just my opinion. So I thought I would switch over and just do this other piece of true crime news because this popped up in the middle of something I'm doing where when we do these like longer series, there's a longer series that I'm doing or working on.
00:38:15
Speaker
And there was a piece of news in the middle of it that kind of floored me. So I was like, you know what? We can do Barry Morfu this week. um That's relevant. And then I want to talk about this other case. um Had you ever heard of like what was happening surrounding this Broward County thing?
00:38:31
Speaker
I have not. Not before this. Yeah. So we've tinkered in Florida, South Florida specifically, over the years. like There's been a couple of longer series we've done where I get fascinated by like multiple unsolved homicides. Uh, I think people know that like everything we present, we have some kind of question over just like were talking about with Barry's case, uh, the murder of Suzanne Morfew causes a lot of questions for me.
00:38:58
Speaker
Um, and it's an interesting situation. I don't know if it's all that unique. If it's just the husband killed the wife, it's not that interesting in the long run. It's just sort of the legal process that was interesting.
00:39:10
Speaker
But this one, like Everything from like how the crime went down to like how they're like disclosing it to us is both interesting and weird. um These are essentially unsolved murders from 1975, which is feels like forever, right? like It's years ago now.
00:39:29
Speaker
I was not alive in 1975. I was not either. um i would say, yeah, it it was a long time ago. 50 years. um Yeah, it is 50. No. Is that right? Yeah, it's 50 years. Okay, 50 years ago. It's 2025 now. It would have been, yeah. um So this article got published in May. And like I said, initially I thought it was going to be part of another series that I'm working on. But it's not.
00:39:53
Speaker
um and and they like it just like the time and place is like, really specific and um they have now kind of clarified that it's not going to be related to the other thing I'm talking about.
00:40:06
Speaker
But 6 to No, NBC Miami, they had ah an article that popped out on May 22nd. just by the staff. Like it's it's basically what went on the air. It's basically what went on the air.
00:40:19
Speaker
um And they they put this all together. But I wanted to talk about it briefly. ah The title says, Detective Saw a Brutal 1975 Cold Case Murder of Two Teens in Broward.
00:40:30
Speaker
And that's according to the Broward County Sheriff. um So for those of you don't know, South Florida has like crazy amount of unsolved crimes.
00:40:44
Speaker
um Some of them are serial crimes. I get really interesting in potential serial crimes where like the motives and the the MOs are like shared.
00:40:55
Speaker
ah This is ah the murder two teenage girls. And this is how the article lays it out. Nearly 50 years after two teen girls were brutally murdered in Broward, detectives believe they've solved the horrific cold case with the help of DNA technology.
00:41:11
Speaker
Broward Sheriff Gregory Toney, he gave an update on Thursday on the investigation into the deaths of Barbara Schreiber and Darlene Zetterauer, saying detectives now believe they know who killed them.
00:41:25
Speaker
ah They were 14-year-old girls, like for the audience at home. They had been sitting on a bench in June 1975 when a white van pulled up. The girls, they were on summer break.
00:41:38
Speaker
ah They were getting ready for high school. They had been known to be frequent hitchhikers, and they apparently get willingly into this van, according to eyewitness accounts.
00:41:51
Speaker
They're never seen alive again. ah following day, their bodies are discovered by a family that's fishing off of Interstate 75 down in the everglaen Everglades in an area that's known as Andytown.
00:42:09
Speaker
They had both been sexually assaulted and shot to death, and their bodies were left on the side of a dirt road. So this is a double murder of two 14-year-old children.
00:42:21
Speaker
throwing that out there. Yeah, it's horrifying. It's been cold for 50 years. Now, behind the scenes, investigators did announce in 2023 that they felt like they had identified a suspect. So they're working on it to a degree.
00:42:37
Speaker
And that suspect is the guy that at some point we'll talk about because he's tangential other things. He is a serial predator named Robert Clark Keebler.
00:42:49
Speaker
He dies in 2019 and he had a pretty long criminal history. um His mugshots are crazy. He looks a lot like Charles Manson. And he had,
00:43:02
Speaker
ah a serious ah armed robbery, ah sexual assault, aggravated assault with intent to kill. Like he he had a ah real rap sheet not a lot of people cover him.
00:43:18
Speaker
um He's, he's been a suspect in a lot of things, ah but ultimately they tell the world that he's the one who did this.
00:43:29
Speaker
But what's interesting about this is they announced in May of this year that he had an accomplice. So whether that accomplice is completely complicit and they're on the same level or you dragged into this, ah they named a second man.
00:43:45
Speaker
And that's what makes it so interesting to me. It it is very interesting. There were initial reports that there were potentially two men inside the white van. So it's not like a complete shock.
00:43:56
Speaker
But they named a guy named Lawrence Stein. Now, if you go on the internet, you can find mugshots of these guys as late as 2005.
00:44:07
Speaker
And like when they're younger, I said he looked like Charles Manson. Warren Stein could not be more different looking than Robert Clark Keebler.
00:44:19
Speaker
He's like exact opposites. Yes. Yeah. Like, ah so in Robert Clark Keebler's mugshots over the years, and there are a few newspaper accounts about him. If you're into newspapers.com, he's in there.
00:44:31
Speaker
He like has this crazy unkempt beard and this wild hair. And like, he kind of looks like, um, henry lee lucas a little bit in some of the early mug shots and it always looks like his right eye is like on the verge of closing yeah um but then lawrence stein is is he kind of looks military he's got really short hair that looks like it's just growing out um he does have sideburns in some of the pictures i've seen of him he's got piercing blue eyes so i'm not exactly sure who's in charge here
00:45:03
Speaker
but In the later mug shots that you can find of the two of them, um I know I saw one of Laurence Stein in 2005, and I saw one of Robert Clark Keebler in 2014.
00:45:15
Speaker
They look crazy. They both have huge beards. Stein has these massive glasses. He kind of looks like Jeffrey Dahmer at that point, but he's got the beard covering his face. um Long, wild, unkempt hair.
00:45:27
Speaker
And like they're saying that like not only did Robert Clark Keebler... participate in the murder and sexual assault of these two young girls, these 14-year-old girls, they're saying Lauren Stein was with them.
00:45:39
Speaker
Now, he died in 2005. He also had a lengthy criminal history. According to the detectives at Broward Sheriff's Office, they both had multiple sexual assaults that they've been charged in, and they were able to track the sexual assaults all the way back to 1972. It took place in Florida, California, and Arizona. I can only imagine some of that as CODIS hits.
00:46:02
Speaker
um The sheriff came out to say that ah they were committing the work of the BSO cold case homicide and crime lab units that refused to let these two deaths, meaning Barbara and Darlene's death, go unanswered.
00:46:17
Speaker
And he said, sadly, these two men will never be tried in a court of law, but this outcome should reassure the community that the sheriff's office is committed to pursuing justice no matter how long it takes. According to the detectives who also spoke in on this, DNA testing identified Keebler and Stein from samples taken from the girls' clothing.
00:46:35
Speaker
The evidence had been processed multiple times, but there was a new technique they used that revealed a complete DNA profile for one of the men, a partial for the other. And In addition, ah the detective that's part of this cold case unit, Giannino, he said detectives were able to find a witness who had never been interviewed, who said they saw the two men ah in the van. They saw the two teens get into the van.
00:47:01
Speaker
Now, They were also able to track down when ah Robert Clark Keebler came to South Florida from California. And they did find out he was driving a white van, which is the same vehicle he was driving when he was arrested seven days after the teens were murdered.
00:47:19
Speaker
He was arrested in a road rage incident. So they know the van came into South Florida and was around a week after the two girls were murdered.
00:47:31
Speaker
Barbara's younger sister spoke out. Her name is Kimberly. um She spoke at the news conference in May. She thanked them for seeing the case through. ah She would have been five years old when her older sister was murdered at 14.
00:47:43
Speaker
She says she does remember vaguely like her sister, and she said we had good times and fun times. And she said, I do imagine how my siblings would feel if they were here know that this team had done everything to find the people that did this tremendous, horrible thing to our family.
00:47:58
Speaker
And Kimberly said that it devastated and destroyed her family. um She said it did not break them, but it broke their hearts. ah There have been rumors that ah the murders of Barbara and Darlene were related to ah couple of other different series of murders in the area.
00:48:19
Speaker
But the detective said they don't believe that these two killers, Robert Clark Keebler and Lauren Stein, are linked to those other killings. And he said they're still hunting ah the people responsible in those cases.
00:48:35
Speaker
And he did point out, like I said, um he he pointed out in the press conference that there is a much different m MO in those cases. um And at some point we'll get back around to that.
00:48:46
Speaker
But I wanted to bring this up today as sort of a second piece of true crime news and a really interesting case. Like it's interesting to me, the age on it, 50 years, that the evidence was intact enough that they were able to do DNA work, it looks like.
00:49:01
Speaker
It is sad that like both of these guys are deceased and won't see justice. But it is interesting to know who did it. I guess that's one piece of the puzzle, right?
00:49:15
Speaker
I think so. I think it's really interesting. But now I'm questioning everything over the DNA situation. Yeah, I have a lot of questions of that. And like one of the other things that this has caused me to have...
00:49:28
Speaker
I guess pause is the right word over, is I don't know how many cases you and I have covered in the last three years where suddenly there's an accomplice. and we had learned over our own research and honestly from the behavioral sciences and behavioral analysis units over the years that it's typically a lone male committing these types of violent rape homicides.
00:49:58
Speaker
And i would say that i would say that perception has been shattered.
00:50:05
Speaker
um Shattered or at least... I was going to say at least if...
00:50:15
Speaker
i i will I will say it's more likely to be a ah seeing ah a singular male committing the homicide. I also think a lot of times, and because both of these guys are dead, like we have no idea all the ins and outs of everything, right?
00:50:33
Speaker
But a lot of times somebody that's an accomplice is less of an accomplice than in my mind what I thought of when I came up with that idea, right? Like when I was like, oh it's all it's mostly a single male. do art And I don't mean single by like not married. I mean like not a pair of males.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I've, you know, I'm torn on how I feel about that now, but yeah, I agree with you. um It's mostly, it's more likely than not to be sort of a lone wolf engaging in this type of predatory behavior.
00:51:10
Speaker
It's almost um always like one of the two isn't wouldn't be in the situation if it weren't for the other. You know, and that's where I was headed was like, not exactly that thought, but the thought of how did these people find each other?
00:51:29
Speaker
Exactly. And that is why... my thought is it's not even possible for two people like-minded and murder to find one another. Right.
00:51:40
Speaker
Right. And at least to the point that like the crimes are unsolved, you know what i mean? Exactly. and I think like when people say things like, Oh, there's no more serial killers. Like the, and they like sort of list off like what would be the hall of fame or I guess the Mount Rushmore serial killers.
00:52:00
Speaker
There's nobody like, Gain or Bundy or Dahmer or Ramirez or whoever, you know, they throw names out there. i think it's, I think we've passed a time where like that's going to happen with those people becoming as prolific as they once might have.
00:52:20
Speaker
But I think we're also past the time where like two people could do this kind of crime where it's like they're raping two 14 year old girls and shooting them and leaving them on a dirt road.
00:52:32
Speaker
And like keep doing crimes like that and get away with it. I agree. i don't think it's, um well, unless. Somebody's got a phone on now or something. Yeah, exactly. And there's there's videos everywhere.
00:52:47
Speaker
yeah i think it's getting a lot harder. i would say this kind of crime is a lot harder. I still think like stealthy serial killers are operating. Maybe not in the frequency as before, but I do think.
00:52:59
Speaker
some of them are getting away with it in a way that like, we don't know yet. Like you talk all the time about like, what do we not know about um DNA and whatnot?
00:53:11
Speaker
I, I always am kind of consistently thinking like, what is wrong about profiling that at some point we're going to find out about it. And like, it's no longer going to be,
00:53:24
Speaker
we like We know a lot less than we think we do. because umm Exactly. Exactly. But I wanted to bring that case up. I don't have a lot on this one right now. i just thought it was fascinating. It's 50 years old.
00:53:36
Speaker
um it's it's It's a June 1975 case. They've now solved it. Unfortunately, one of the men it was deceased 2005. We knew the other one was deceased in 2019 when they made the announcement in 2023.
00:53:51
Speaker
I was interested in it then, like a little bit, like looking into more of Robert Clark Keebler. But now that they've thrown Lauren Stein in the mix, I'm really interested in these two guys.
00:54:02
Speaker
And like, I want to pull their criminal histories and like, look through like, what were they doing? And I do wonder when that, when cases like this happen, like, what do we not know about these two guys?
00:54:13
Speaker
Exactly. Were
Podcast Credits and Listener Engagement
00:54:14
Speaker
they killing witnesses or did were they just rapists that went too far? Did one of the girls say, I'm going to tell on you or like, like what happens that like we get this crime. So now that I've like told the true crime news part of it. Yeah. At some point I may come back around to this story and try and cover it.
00:54:30
Speaker
If I can figure out a unique angle to answer some of my own questions. Did you have anything else about um Barry Morphew this one? Not at the moment.
00:54:42
Speaker
Okay. Well, we'll check up the next week. Special consideration was given to True Crime XS by Labradicreations.com. If you have a moment in your favorite app, please go on and give us a review or a five-star rating. It helps us get noticed in the crowd.
00:54:59
Speaker
This is True Crime XS. s
00:55:29
Speaker
want to go but it's cause I'll disappoint ya it's all I've ever dreamed of something I cannot let go of I hate the competition this culture's like a Jimin I lost the motivation to get fit in your expectations True Crime Excess is brought to you by John and Meg It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg.
00:55:59
Speaker
You can always support True Crime Access through Patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at TrueCrimeAccess.com. Thank you for joining us.