CO Man Pleads Guilty After Casting Missing Wife's Ballot For Trump

SALIDA, CO — The Colorado husband once charged with murder in his wife's disappearance pleaded guilty this week after he cast her mail-in ballot for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Barry Morphew, 54, pleaded guilty Thursday to forgery and was sentenced to a year of supervised probation, The New York Times reported.

The sentence comes two years after Morphew's 49-year-old wife, Suzanne, disappeared, apparently while going for a bike ride in Maysville, near their Salida home. Prosecutors had said Barry Morphew killed his wife the evening of May 9, 2020, after finding out she had an extramarital affair for nearly two years. Prosecutors suspected he disposed of her body and staged a bicycle crash, then left early for work in Broomfield the following day.

"Our belief is that Suzanne is not alive at this time," Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said last year. Her cause of death isn't known.

Barry Morphew has maintained his innocence in that case.

He said his wife was asleep in bed the morning she disappeared, and that she may have run away or been abducted. He was arrested last year in connection with her disappearance. Barry Morphew was charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, tampering with physical evidence and attempt to influence a public servant.

In April, prosecutors dropped all charges in the murder case nine days before it was scheduled to head to trial. The move came after a judge sanctioned them for breaking rules on discovery.

Five months after Suzanne Morphew was reported missing, the Chaffee County clerk’s office received her mail-in ballot. The space for her signature was not filled in, and Barry Morphew signed a line for legal witnesses to sign ballots.

He told the FBI he mailed in her ballot because he wanted Trump to win, and didn't realize he couldn't cast it for her.

“I just thought, give him another vote,” Barry Morphew said, according to the Times “I figured all these other guys are cheating. I know she was going to vote for Trump anyway.