Husband of missing Colorado mom spent the night before her disappearance at cheap Denver hotel

The husband of missing Colorado mom Suzanne Morphew spent the night before she vanished at a budget hotel in Denver – and left the room reeking of chlorine, a co-worker has claimed exclusively to DailyMail.com.

Suzanne, 49, was reported missing on Mother’s Day, May 10,  by neighbor Jeanne Ritter, 70, after her two daughters Mallory and Macy were unable to reach her on the phone.

Her bike was found the same day by a bridge close to her luxury $1.5 million Salida, Colorado home and she had not been heard from since May 8.

At the time, her husband Barry was 150 miles away in Broomfield, Colorado – just outside of Denver – working on a landscaping job for transport company RTD-Denver.

But the couple’s home quickly became the focus of the police investigation, with CSI specialists seen carrying evidence bags into the property in photos taken by DailyMail.com two days after Suzanne vanished.

Last week, her 52-year-old husband claimed to have given 30 hours of interviews to police and accused them of botching the initial investigation.

A day later, Suzanne’s brother Andy Moorman, 58, accused Barry of refusing to take a polygraph test and said he doesn’t feel that Barry is ‘fully cooperating’ with the investigation.

Now DailyMail.com can reveal that a co-worker of Barry’s took over his Holiday Inn hotel room on May 10 and found it scattered with wet towels and stinking of chlorine.

Jeff Puckett, 49, of Salida, Colorado, said he was ordered to Denver by Barry that morning but didn’t see him because he had already left ‘due to a family emergency’.

Speaking in an exclusive interview, Puckett told DailyMail.com: ‘I got there Sunday night and the room smelled like chlorine real bad.

‘It was his room and he’d taken a shower – his towels were all over the floor.’

A manager at the $92-a-night property confirmed to DailyMail.com that they do not use chlorine to clean guest rooms and have handed security footage from the weekend of May 9 to police.

Puckett also said he discovered a pile of mail in the room – including a letter about property insurance – and later turned it over to the FBI.

He said: ‘I found some mail in the hotel room. His mail was in there and I gave it to the FBI. I thought it was kind of odd to have it there.

‘Some of it was from an insurance company, like insuring your property, that kind of thing.’

DailyMail.com can also reveal Barry was granted guardianship of Suzanne in order to sell a property in their native Indiana on Tuesday after a 30-minute Zoom hearing.

Despite being told the landscaping work was urgent, Puckett told DailyMail.com that he arrived to find no tools and was left to wait around the hotel for two days – never actually visiting the job site.

He said he returned to Salida on the Tuesday after Suzanne disappeared and has not heard from Barry since, although he was paid. 

As a result, he says the experience has left him suspicious. ‘It’s kind of weird,’ he told DailyMail.com. My first thought was that this must be like an alibi. That’s what it felt like.’

He added: ‘I hope they find her alive but it’s been a long time.’

All of Puckett’s information has been passed to police by DailyMail.com.

The new revelations come a week after Barry gave his first interview in which he denied having anything to do with his wife’s disappearance almost four months ago.

The 52-year-old, who refused to speak on camera or be recorded, also mooted several theories about what could have happened to her, including an animal attack or a stranger abduction.

In addition to searching his home, investigators also spent several days combing through a job site five miles away, where he had been working on the landscaping.

Although Barry said he continues to search for his wife, his claims sparked a family row, with Suzanne’s older brother Andy saying he has refused to take a polygraph test and that there is no evidence of any kind of animal attack.

Speaking to Fox 29, Andy said: ‘He says, ‘she’s the love of my life, I could never do this. The problem I have with that is I don’t feel like he’s fully cooperating with investigators.

‘He should have taken a lie detector and a voice analysis, anything else they ask him to do. And he’s gone kinda quiet.’

Andy, an attorney based in Anderson, Indiana, said he has not heard from either of his nieces since their mother vanished.

The 58-year-old is now fundraising for a new search for Suzanne due to take place at the end of September and took part in a vigil for his sister on Sunday night during which he said he didn’t expect to find her alive.

The new round of fundraising comes on top of a GoFundMe page set up by Barry and his nephew Trevor Noel, 36, of Evergreen, Colorado.

It has raised almost $33,000 so far with the funds due to be spent on searching for Suzanne – although DailyMail.com can reveal that no organized searches are currently taking place.

Barry and other family members have also offered a $200,000 reward for information leading to Suzanne’s safe return.

Noel declined to comment when approached for comment by DailyMail.com at his home.