Barry Morphew pleads guilty to forgery charge

CHAFFEE COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) - Barry Morphew has pleaded guilty to casting a fraudulent ballot in the 2020 election -- on behalf of his missing wife.

According to the May 2021 arrest affidavit, Morphew openly acknowledged voting for Donald Trump in wife Suzanne’s place, stating he assumed she would have voted for him anyway and commenting on how “all these other guys are cheating.”

At the time of his arrest for the fake ballot, he was already in custody as the sole suspect in his wife’s disappearance and presumed death.

Morphew accepted a plea deal in Chaffee County court Thursday morning that saw him acknowledge guilt on forgery charges while charges of attempting to influence a public servant and elections offense were dropped.

Morphew has been in and out of courtrooms for the last two years as prosecutors built a case against him regarding his wife’s vanishment. Suzanne Morphew was last seen on Mother’s Day 2020 when she headed out for a bike ride. She never returned home, and more than two years later is not believed to be alive, though to date no remains have been found. The fact that her body has not been located was a key reason the murder case against Barry Morphew was dismissed earlier this year.

That dismissal, however, is with conditions -- the prosecution specifically filed it as a motion to dismiss without prejudice to keep the door open to refiling the case down the road.

For now, he remains a free man. Under the plea agreement, Morphew was sentenced to one year of supervised probation.

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