The husband of a missing Colorado woman reportedly stayed at a hotel the weekend Suzanne Morphew disappeared, and a man who took over the hotel room after Barry Morphew left said smelled of chlorine.

Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on May 11, which was Mother’s Day. Authorities have revealed very little about the missing persons investigation, and have not named any suspects.

Suzanne’s husband Barry Morphew has come under scrutiny due, in part, to conflicting early reports about his whereabouts that weekend, when much of the United States was under lockdown orders due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Chaffee County Fire Chief previously told CrimeOnline that Barry Morphew, who works as a landscaper and volunteer firefighter, was at a construction job in Denver the weekend his wife vanished, though police have not commented on Barry Morphew’s whereabouts in the days preceding Suzanne’s disappearance.

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The Daily Mail reports that Barry Morphew stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Broomfield, Colorado, just outside of Denver, the night before Suzanne was reported missing. According to the report, Morphew was there to work a landscaping job for transport company RTD-Denver.

Jeff Puckett, described in the report as Barry Morphew’s co-worker, told the Daily Mail that Barry ordered him to go to Broomfield as Morphew had to return to Chafee County for a family emergency. Puckett, who lives in Salida, Colorado, told the news outlet that when he arrived to the hotel room where Barry Morphew had been staying, he found towels and a pile of mail, and said the room smelled of chlorine.

“I got there Sunday night and the room smelled like chlorine real bad,” Puckett reportedly said. “It was his room and he’d taken a shower – his towels were all over the floor.”

A manager for the hotel reportedly told the Daily Mail that housekeeping does not use chlorine to clean the guest rooms.

In the Daily Mail interview, Puckett said he did not encounter Morphew at the hotel, as the missing woman’s husband had reportedly returned home following the news of Suzanne’s disappearance. Puckett additionally claimed that despite being told the landscaping job was urgent, he did not find any tools waiting for him when he arrived, and never actually reported to a job site during the two days he stayed in Broomfield.

Puckett also described to the Daily Mail a pile of mail left in the hotel room, that he said he turned over to the FBI.

“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,” Puckett said. “Some of it was from an insurance company, like insuring your property, that kind of thing.”

CrimeOnline first reported that Barry Morphew had applied for guardianship of Suzanne on June 1, apparently in connection to a joint property the couple had been planning to sell in Indiana, where they lived with their two daughters until they moved to Colorado in 2018.

According to the Daily Mail report, Barry Morphew was granted guardianship of Suzanne Morphew on Tuesday.

In the first week following Suzanne’s disappearance, Barry Morphew shared a video of himself pleading for the return of his missing wife. He did not speak to the media until last month, when he gave an interview to Fox 21 News, accusing the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Department of “screwing up” the investigation and trying to “cover up” their mistakes by casting suspicion on Morphew.

Suzanne’s family members have expressed skepticism about Barry Morphew in media interviews, claiming that Morphew had twice refused a polygraph test. But in the Fox 21 interview, Barry Morphew claimed that police never asked him to take a polygraph, and insisted that he had been totally cooperative with the investigation.

In late May, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Department organized an extensive search of a construction site connected to Barry Morphew’s work as a landscaper. Investigators ended the search after three days, without finding any evidence linked to Suzanne’s disappearance.

Read more of CrimeOnline’s extensive coverage of the Suzanne Morphew case here.

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s office has encouraged members of the public who may have information related to Suzanne Morphew’s disappearance to call the dedicated tip line at 719-312-7530.

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[Feature image: Suzanne and Barry Morphew/Facebook]