The Colorado woman who fell for Barry Morphew after his wife's disappearance has ended their relationship - and her silence.
'Obviously, this is my worst fear coming true - that he could be responsible,' Shoshona Darke told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview, in tears after her ex's arrest on a first-degree murder charge for Suzanne Morphew's 2020 death.
Darke, 55 and now living in Durango, Colorado, says she's 'conflicted' about Morphew, 57, whom she met five months after Suzanne vanished, and stuck by for four years.
'On the one hand, he's such a kind, generous, loving person. But on the other hand, I've had my own experience with him when it hasn't always been that way.'
She hesitated to describe the dynamics that caused her to move away and their relationship to fizzle in 2024. When asked if Morphew abused her, she said, 'Not physically, but there's other kinds of abuse.'
'It was destructive,' she added. 'He seemed to be a very broken man.'
Suzanne Morphew was 49 when she vanished over Mother's Day weekend in 2020 from the home in Maysville - a mountain community 150 miles southwest of Denver - that she shared with her husband of 25 years.
He was the last known person to see her alive, according to his grand jury indictment.
Morphew told police that the day Suzanne was reported missing she had planned a bike ride while he was out of town on a job for his landscaping business.
Barry Morphew was arrested in Cave Creek, Arizona, on Friday and has been charged with first-degree murder. Shoshona Darke was arrested and charged with trespassing in 2021 after she was allegedly caught on camera removing a package from the home he shared with missing wife Suzanne days after he was released on bail for her murder
Morphew, 53, was seen stepping out with Darke, 51, in October 2021, three weeks after being released from jail on a $500,000 bond. The Daily Mail exclusive photo marks the first time the two were seen together in public after previously denying reports that they were in a romantic relationship
Suzanne was reported missing by her neighbor on Mother's Day 2020 after daughters Mallory and Macy were unable to reach her on the phone
Her bike and helmet were later found in separate locations near their home. It took authorities more than three years to find Suzanne's remains.
They stumbled on them in 2023 in a remote area called 'The Boneyard' about an hour south of the Morphew home while searching for another Colorado woman who had gone missing.
An autopsy found that Suzanne died with the presence of a powerful animal tranquilizer called butorphanol-azaperone-medetomidine (BAM) in her body.
Last week's indictment dropped a bombshell. '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: Barry Morphew.'
A tranquilizer needle cap, darts and a tranquilizer gun were found in the couple's home during a law enforcement search conducted shortly after Suzanne's disappearance. Morphew used BAM to hunt deer in their native Indiana before they and their two then-teenage daughters moved to Colorado in 2018.
The indictment also shows that Suzanne's remains bore signs of having been moved from one kind of dirt to another, and she was dressed in ripped garments believed to have been swapped from those she was wearing when she died.
Whoever killed her, Twelfth Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly's office argues, seems to have buried her, then dug her up and moved her body, changing her clothes at some point in the process.
At the time of Suzanne's murder, Darke owned a company that cleaned and managed rental properties. Although she never met Suzanne, she said they used to wave to each other when Suzanne drove by a vacation home Darke was managing on Puma Path, the same street as the Morphews' home.
Barry and Suzanne Morphew lived in a $1.62million home near Salida, Colorado. Barry then lived with Darke in a rental house close by
Authorities found Suzanne's remains in 2023 in a remote area called 'The Boneyard' about an hour south of the Morphew family home
Home security footage captured Darke walking down the driveway and leaving with a cardboard box tucked under her arm. It is not clear if police recovered the mystery package from Darke
Daughters Mallory (left) and Macy Morphew stuck by Barry throughout the initial charges brought against him and pushed back against claims that he killed their mother
She met Barry Morphew through a friend of the couple whose properties she managed in October 2020, five months after his wife's disappearance.
'He seemed to miss her,' she recalled. 'He seemed like he was grieving.'
Having been through two divorces and endured what she called the trauma of working as an Army National Guard medic in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, Darke said her empathy led her to 'get pulled into' a relationship with Morphew and the drama around him.
They lived together in a rental house not far from the $1.62million home he shared with Suzanne.
In 2021, she faced a misdemeanor trespassing charge for an incident when she was caught picking up a package in the driveway of his marital home that had been sold just days after he was released on bail for her murder.
Home security footage captured Darke walking down the driveway and leaving with a cardboard box tucked under her arm. It is not clear if police ever recovered the mystery package from Darke.
The new owners wanted her prosecuted but the district attorney’s office ultimately dropped the charge, saying it was unlikely to win a conviction.
There were other ways that 'being Barry Morphew's girlfriend' wasn't easy, she said. People who either knew Suzanne or tracked news coverage of her killing accused Darke of breaking up the Morphews' marriage, helping kill Suzanne and generally being a slut.
'The bullying was constant - really ugly, horrible stuff,' she recalls. 'I was living a pretty happy life until then, and then it blew up' when she began dating Morphew.
Barry made a series of trash dumps in Broomfield on the day Suzanne was reported missing
Suzanne Morphew's remains were found in the fall of 2023. Cadaver dogs are pictured at the scene where Chaffee County Sheriff's officers, FBI and CBI were searching in Colorado
Darke said she told herself that evidence against Morphew was 'merely circumstantial,' and that authorities would drop their investigation after his first murder charge was dismissed. She said Morphew 'never wanted to discuss it' when she asked him about his wife's disappearance.
'He just wanted to heal and move forward.'
In hindsight, she realizes she didn't push those conversations.
'I guess there was some cognitive dissonance on my part,' she said. 'It's something you can't even comprehend - that somebody you thought was a good person could even be capable of doing, you know, something like that.'
Darke moved to Durango when their relationship grew strained, and said she last saw Morphew in Arizona in 2024.
'He was struggling then for sure,' she said.
Darke and Barry are seen leaving a hotel together on Valentine's Day last year in surveillance footage included in his arrest affidavit
The charging document did not offer any further theories or evidence as to where investigators believe Suzanne was killed or where her body was initially concealed
She further distanced herself from him upon learning of the BAM found in Suzanne’s body. And she said she since has been working with a therapist to understand dynamics involving ‘control and narcissism’ that harmed their relationship.
‘I’m just still trying to figure out who he was if not the person I thought. It’s still a process for me to sort things out in my mind and heal.’
Barry and Suzanne Morphew were having serious marital troubles at the time she disappeared, records show.
He was first charged with her murder in 2021. But prosecutors dismissed the case in 2022 partly because her body hadn't been discovered by that point and also because the district attorney's office was found to have withheld evidence from Morphew's defense lawyers - a serious violation of criminal law practice.
He walked free from the courtroom, grinning and holding the hands of his daughters Mallory and Macy, who stood by him from the start, steadfast about his innocence.
‘We just know our dad better than anyone else and we know he was not involved in our mom’s disappearance,’ said Mallory.
It’s unclear whether his daughters, both now in their 20s, still believe in his innocence after new evidence has come to light and he was arrested Friday in Arizona.
He is being held on $3million cash only bail and is set to be extradited to Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
‘I think they still completely do think he’s innocent,’ Darke said.
She has stayed in close touch with both despite her estrangement from their father.
‘My heart is broken. I’m just in the biggest grief for his daughters because they’re two beautiful young ladies that I’ve gotten to know,’ she said.
Based on her conversations with them after his arrest, she said: ‘It’s hard for them, but they’re doing okay, still very supportive of their father.’
She described Morphew as a great dad.
‘They’ve probably never had a negative experience with him. He has always been there, always listening and wanting the best for them,’ she said, then paused, crying again.
‘It’s a different relationship than with an intimate partner.’
Darke expects to maintain her distance from Morphew after he is extradited back to Colorado on the new murder charge. She will be watching the case unfold from afar.
‘I do want the truth to come out,’ she said.