DENVER | Colorado state regulators have ruled that a district attorney who brought criminal charges that were ultimately dismissed against a man accused of killing his missing wife should no longer be allowed to work as a lawyer, finding that her management of the high-profile case resulted in the prosecution “running aground.”
The panel issued a 2-1 ruling Tuesday to disbar 11th District Attorney Linda Stanley, who prosecuted Barry Morphew in the death of his wife Suzanne Morphew, who was reported missing on Mother’s Day in 2020. Barry Morphew had posted a video on social media pleading for his wife’s return soon after she vanished. His arrest a year later prompted widespread media attention.
Stanley was also in charge of a case involving a Park County man accused of attacking a group of Community College of Aurora students in 2022 while they were on a rural mountain road en route to a private cabin.
Stanley’s disbarment was not related to that case, which Stanley asked a judge to dismiss in 2023, causing an uproar from alleged victims.
A representative of Stanley’s office who did not provide her name said Wednesday that Stanley had no comment. Stanley’s lawyer, former prosecutor Steven Jensen, said he and Stanley were considering whether to appeal the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, noting that one dissenting member of the panel said Stanley should be suspended rather than disbarred.
As a rural district attorney not accustomed to handling high-profile cases, Stanley did not have as many resources as prosecutors in urban areas and also had difficulty finding attorneys to work on the case, Jensen said.
“She was trying to conduct herself in appropriate fashion under the difficult circumstances she was presented with,” he said, echoing an argument he made before the panel when it held a two-week hearing on Stanley’s conduct in June.
A final order that would prevent Stanley from working as a lawyer is normally issued 35 days after a ruling, but the opinion said that Stanley can ask for a delay to allow her to appeal.
Stanley “…gravely abused her position of trust as a public official and minister of justice,” chief disciplinary judge Bryon M, Large said in his summary and recommendation of disbarrment.
National controversy over the case of a missing wife and mom
Stanley dropped the charges in Suzanne Morphew’s death in April 2022 after a judge barred prosecutors from calling key witnesses for repeatedly failing to follow rules for turning over evidence to the defense. That included DNA from an unknown male found in Suzanne Morphew’s SUV. The DNA corresponded with partial profiles found in three unsolved sexual assault cases.
Lawyers for the office that oversees attorney conduct, the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, compared Stanley’s conduct in the case at a June hearing to a ship’s captain who didn’t appear on the boat’s bridge.
The panel agreed, adopting the analogy.
“Respondent’s absence at the helm during key phases of the prosecution — even when she was warned that it faced rough waters — led to a series of events that ended with the first-degree murder case running aground,” it said in its opinion.
The panel found that after prosecutors were barred from violating evidence rules, Stanley launched a groundless criminal investigation into the presiding judge in a failed attempt to have him removed from the case. After that probe failed to turn up anything, Stanley asked for the case against Morphew to be dropped, the panel said.
It also found that Stanley made unethical statements about the Morphew case, including comparing it to the cases of people convicted of murder even where no body was found in a chat forum for the “Profiling Evil” true crime podcast.
Suzanne Morphew’s remains were found in September 2023 in a remote area of central Colorado more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of her home in the mountains near Salida, Colorado, as authorities were pursuing a different case. An autopsy report released in April labeled her death a homicide but said she died by “undetermined means.” A cocktail of drugs that are used to tranquilize wildlife was found in one of the 49-year-old woman’s bones, but there was no indication of trauma, the report said.
The prosecutor for the part of Colorado where the body was found, 12th Judicial District Attorney Anne Kelly, has said her office was assisting in the investigation. No new charges have been announced.
The panel also found Stanley violated ethical rules for comments she made in a fatal child abuse case in which she told a reporter that a man accused of killing his girlfriend’s 10-month-old child agreed to be a babysitter so he could “get laid.” Jensen said Stanley believed her comments to the reporter were off the record.
Charges against the man and his girlfriend were dismissed because of Stanley’s comments.
An Aurora case lost created consternation
A Park County judge on Jan. 3, 2023 agreed to dismiss charges against a Bailey resident accused of attacking a group of Community College of Aurora students the previous March.
Students previously told The Sentinel that Jon Spencer, 29, attacked them while using racially-charged language after one of their cars became stuck on the unpaved, snowy road near Spencer’s home in a rural mountain community. Spencer faced two counts of third-degree assault and five counts of harassment in connection with the incident.
Stanley, acting as a prosecutor, asked Judge Brian Green to dismiss the charges, saying an investigation on behalf of prosecutors turned up inconsistencies between statements given by witnesses. She did not say what those discrepancies were.
“Those inconsistencies are a concern for the people in being able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and also a potential self-defense argument for Mr. Spencer,” Stanley said. “I simply cannot proceed if I don’t believe that I have enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Students and their families were incredulous, accusing Stanley of not taking the case seriously and asking Green to deny Stanley’s motion to dismiss charges or else appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case. Green refused both requests.
“I’m just in complete shock. I know that I personally don’t agree with it being dismissed,” said Malarie Stafford-Mustacchio, one of the students present during the alleged attack. “I didn’t know about the dismissal until today.”
She said Stanley declined to tell her what the alleged inconsistencies were in the group’s statements. Stafford-Mustacchio also pointed out that sheriff’s deputies waited until the day after the alleged attack to get statements from the group, which could have impacted students’ recollections.
Deputies also waited until the following day to arrest Spencer, and multiple witnesses told The Sentinel that officers at the scene said they were afraid that Spencer might cause a domestic violence incident if they tried taking him into custody that night.
The incident began when the film students’ car became stuck on a road to a rented cabin and Spencer suddenly appeared on the scene.
Spencer immediately began questioning them about what they were doing there, claiming he owned the road and asking who they knew that lived nearby, the two women told The Sentinel.
“He was like, ‘You need to leave. You’re not where you belong,’” one woman said. She and her friend both noted Spencer smelled like he’d been drinking and was slurring his speech.
Soon, Spencer began hurling insults at the group. He singled out the driver for abuse in particular. But unlike the other students, some of whom had also gotten stuck on the same stretch of road earlier, the driver is Black.
“He goes up to the car, and goes up to the window, and was calling her a dumb, Black b – – – h and saying, ‘That’s why you can’t drive,’” another witness said.
“He was calling us c – – – s and b – – – – – s, and saying we were worthless,” the driver said. “He said, ‘You’re a dumb, Black b – – – h.’ … He was insinuating that because I had dark skin that I was incompetent.”
One of the students captured part of the confrontation on video using their cell phone — in the video, the man identified as Jon Spencer argues with the driver, telling her “you’re Black, and you’re dumb.”
As more of Malarie’s group gathered around the car, they said they tried to explain to Spencer that the vehicle was stuck and that they were trying to get off the road.
One of the students, who was the director of their film project, at one point shook hands with Spencer, which seemed to de-escalate the situation. But soon, the three said the man resumed shouting at them, telling them the county-owned road was private and that they needed to leave.
The driver said she turned to one women to say that Spencer was upsetting her. Then, she said Spencer tried to reach in through the car window and grab her.
The situation escalated quickly. The director who shook hands with Spencer stepped in between the two of them and told him not to touch her. The three women said Spencer grabbed the director and began choking and punching him before taking him down to the ground.
They said that as Spencer pummeled and choked the student on the snow-covered road, shouting that he was going to kill them, other group members tried to pull him away. One student called 911.
“They asked if we were safe, and I said, ‘No, somebody’s beating up my friend,” the woman said.
“I just remember trying to pry his fingers off his throat,” the driver said. “He said, ‘I’m going to kill you guys.’ … It felt like his intent was to murder us.”
At that point, another man, who the students believe was Spencer’s neighbor, approached with what looked like an AR-15 rifle. One sutdent yelled to the others that the man had a gun. Some of them ran down the road.
“My friend was literally about to die in front of my eyes, and I was just terrified,” the driver said.
“I’m still just trying to fathom what happened to this day,” another student said. “My brain wasn’t working at that point.”
But the second man returned to his vehicle and put his rifle away. At that point, the director had gotten the upper hand over Spencer. Malarie said the man who had the rifle walked back toward the stranded Jeep driven by one of the women’s friend. The three women said he made threatening comments about wanting to hurt the director before walking over to Jon and helping him beat the student.
“It was so scary,” the driver said. “I didn’t want to increase their anger any more but I didn’t want to see my friend die in front of me.”
“I really, really did not know what to do,” Kate said.
Alleged victims were aghast at dismissal decision
“I disagree fully that it was self-defense. I mean, we saw our friend get brutally beaten,” she said. “It’s just very baffling to me that he can sit there and just live his life without any repercussions.”
Defense attorney Ehren Penix said the attention generated by the case had led to people leaving negative reviews for Spencer’s business and caused Spencer to put his home in Bailey up for sale.
Penix accused the students of attacking Spencer because “they didn’t want to hear that they shouldn’t be driving two-wheel drive in that weather because they didn’t want to be talked down to as city folks.”
“His life has been completely upended by these falsehoods,” Penix said. “Without even a conviction from the court, they have subjected him to public ridicule and loss of business and property, and all of this because he tried to help these people get their car unstuck.”
While Penix insisted Spencer was not a racist and claimed the allegation that Spencer used racially-charged language was not mentioned by students when deputies arrived on-scene, a video provided by the students shows Spencer telling the driver, “you’re Black, and you’re dumb.”
In a now-deleted Facebook post, the Park County Sheriff’s Office also confirmed the basic facts of the case and said Spencer was “completely out of line and apparently prejudiced.”
Penix said attorneys working on the case were never shown the video footage captured by the group.
Green told those present for the 2023 court hearing that it was the job of Stanley’s office to decide charges for Spencer and other defendants.
“It is extremely unlikely that the court would deny a motion to dismiss. It’s the prosecutor’s job to make that decision. It’s not my job to overrule her in her charging decisions,” he said.
After Green accepted Stanley’s motion to dismiss charges against Spencer, one of the students reacted by saying, “Oh my f – – – – – g God.” Green then threatened to hold the student in contempt of court, warning that “if you’re going to be using profanity on this court line, you may find yourself in contempt, and you may be the one sitting in jail.”