Barry Morphew, facing charges of first-degree murder in the death of his wife Suzanne, appeared for a motions hearing in a Fremont County courtroom yesterday where the judge decided abuse allegations against Morphew presented by the prosecutors will not be allowed in the upcoming trial.
Prosecutors allege Morphew beat his wife Suzanne on multiple occasions. Prosecutors laid out several acts of alleged domestic violence in court, showing text messages Suzanne had sent to a friend about the alleged abuse.
However, Judge Ramsey Lama says those allegations are going to be off-limits in the trial. He said that the evidence, the way it was presented yesterday, wouldn’t provide a fair trial for Morphew and thus denied the motion to include the text messages as evidence.
Judge Lama did rule that foreign male DNA evidence found in several places connected to Suzanne was relevant and could be presented by the defense.
Yesterday’s hearing was the first to be held in Fremont County. A change of venue was granted moving the proceedings from Salida to Canon City over fears of a tainted jury pool after so much attention has been focused on the case.
Judge Lama also moved the starting date of Morphew’s murder trial up to April 29th.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for February 24th.
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