Gannon Stauch was only 11 years old when he was allegedly murdered by his
stepmother, Letecia Stauch.
She's locked up at the El Paso County jail in Colorado awaiting trial for his
murder.
Her journey to prison has been full of bizarre twists and turns that would make
a reasonable person assume Letecia is mentally unbalanced,
but according to the state hospital, she's as sane as you or me,
which just means she's competent to stand trial. In today's recap,
you're going to get caught up on this case from the beginning to today.
You're going to hear about Letecia's shocking jailhouse interview,
the letter she wrote to the judge,
and learn key information about Gannon's brutal murder straight from the
leaked arrest affidavit. And remember,
if Letecia did all the things you're about to hear and she's officially not
criminally insane. What are we left with? I guess she's just pure evil.
I'm Chris with True Crime Recaps.
From the very beginning Letecia's behavior was bizarre.
She lashed out on social media,
insisting Gannon was still alive and everyone was being mean to suggest she had
anything to do with his disappearance. She blamed Gannon's biological mother,
Landen for bad parenting,
and less than a week after Gannon disappeared she did this
bizarre interview with a local Colorado Springs news station,
but refused to face the camera or take off her sunglasses.
I am Tecia Stauch, which is Gannon's stepmother. You know,
I I'm just ready for Gannon to come home.
Most importantly for him to see his family. But second,
I am going to be so ecstatic when I'm able to say to people that I hope they
have a really sincere apology for all these theories that have came out online
for all the things they said that I have done or people have done.
I just want everyone to know that we're going to find Gannon and I love him so
much. I've helped taken care of him for so long.
Can you talk to me a little bit about him? I don't know.
Gannon is so kind and he loves to play video games.
That's one of his favorite things. He loves Sonic and Mario and you know,
he's always helpful.
I know he was always so helpful with the dogs and in the house and we have two
little cute dogs and he was always like a person I could say, Gannon,
can you go do this? And he would do it right away. You know,
sometimes with kids, we have to remind them and things like that.
And that's okay. But he was so sweet and able to help anyone.
He could notice when you're sick and say, are you okay? Such a kind heart.
I took care of Gannon for the last two years in our home because his mother
didn't want to do it. Gannon. When you get here,
you'll be able to truly tell what happened.
And then I really hope I get a sincere apology from everyone who has made
all those things, especially from my husband.
You just wanted to add a message to Gannon from my family is that we love you.
We miss you. Here we go. Did you come home?
And Gannon I can't wait for you to come home and let everyone know that you are
okay. We love you.
According to the leaked affidavit on Sunday 26th,
Letecia told police that Gannon knocked over a candle and burned the carpet in a
police interview on January 29th.
She told them she'd hired a man to come fix it.
The next day after Gannon went missing,
she posted this strange and disturbing video to her Facebook.
Okay. And then I promise this is the last time I'm going to ask you.
I'm just freaked out. Okay. Are you sure you didn't do it on purpose?
Okay. You promise? You promise? Pinky promise?
Okay. All right. So listen, listen. All right.
We're going to have to sell stuff to fix it. Okay.
So we figured out what we're going to sell. We can sell the sofa. We can.
So whatever. Cause we got to get it fixed.
So the lady don't be mad at us and kick us out of the house. Okay.
You got it.
Maybe she was attempting to back up the story she had told police about the
carpet repair man as an alternative suspect and explain why Gannon's blood was
found in the house.
You're going to hear even more bizarre details a little later, but for now,
here's what you need to know about what happened to Gannon the next day on
January 27th. Gannon and Letecia were home alone together on Monday,
his eight year old sister was at school , Tecia's teenage daughter was at work.
His dad Al was in Oklahoma with the national guard and his biological mom,
Landen was living in South Carolina.
Only Letecia and Gannon know what exactly happened that morning,
but here's what we do know. Based on her arrest affidavit,
that morning Letecia texted Al that Gannon was up all night,
sick to his stomach and that she was going to make an excuse at work and stay
home with him. Here's another glimpse into Tecia's mindset.
She texted her boss that she couldn't come to work because her stepdad had been
hit by a car and killed?!
Around 10:15AM the neighbor surveillance video shows Letecia and what looks like
Gannon leaving the house in Al's truck.
But Letecia locked her cell phone and left it behind.
The affidavit pointed out that because Letecia used her phone nonstop and posted
to Facebook and Instagram a lot,
it was very unusual for her phone to be locked and unused.
The Stauch's home security system registered no movement in the house from 10:15
until 2:22. And her cell phone wasn't unlocked until 2:45.
When they got home,
the security system showed movement upstairs and a lot of movement in the
basement. That's where Gannon's room was.
Police believe that's where he was killed based on the amount of evidence they
found there. They discovered blood soaked through his mattress, the rug,
the carpet pad, and stained the concrete under his bed.
They found blood on his bedroom walls and a few other places in the house.
And based on the autopsy results, a gun, a knife,
and a blunt instrument were used to kill him.
By the time Letecia's eight year old stepdaughter came home from school at 3:15,
Gannon was already dead.
Letecia told her to go outside and play because Gannon was in bed resting.
Less than two hours later,
Letecia texted her teenage daughter to go to the Dollar Store and pick up carpet
cleaner, vinegar, trash bags, and baking soda.
Your basic murder scene cleanup supplies.
And at 7:00 that night Letecia called 911 to report Gannon missing.
She told police he went to a friend's house around 3:00 and never came home.
To quote the affidavit
her story dramatically changed multiple times over the following days.
The next morning Gannon's dad Al came back to town.
When Letecia drove to the airport to pick him up police believe Gannon's body
was in the trunk of her car.
She parked at the short term parking lot and rented a car to pick up Al and
drive him home. You're probably wondering what her explanation was.
Did she tell her husband her car was broken? Stolen? No.
She told him her car wasn't in the garage because she'd parked it nearby at an
elementary school.
And she rented a car to pick him up because she thought they should go looking
for Gannon in a car he wouldn't recognize so he wouldn't think he was any
trouble and run away.
At seven o'clock that same night she drove back to the airport to pick up her
car.
She turned off her phone again and drove Gannon's body to a remote area near
Palmer Lake, Colorado. Using tracking information from her car
police found a particle board with Gannon's DNA on it in that area on
February 15th. She returned the rental car the next morning.
And here's a very strange thing about that rental car.
Police got ahold of it before it was rented to anyone else and they found blood
in the trunk. It was from a male, but it wasn't a match to Gannon.
So that rental car has seen some things.
Police suspected Letecia from the very beginning. On March 2nd,
she was arrested in Myrtle beach, South Carolina,
for first degree murder and other charges.
But it wasn't until March 17th when a road crew near Pace,
Florida found a suitcase thrown off the side of highway 90.
What was left of Gannon's body was inside.
His body traveled more than 1000 miles before she dumped him on her way to
Myrtle beach.
Things like that. To do something so heinous.
So we'd hear the kids playing outside.
That's the best sound as the kids outside playing. And he was one of them.
Colorado to Florida with a body and not be noticed? Justice will be served.
If it's not here on earth, it'll be up in heaven.
Letecia has a long history of lying and blaming anyone and everyone for Gannons
murder. On September 3rd,
she told Crimeonline that she has been covering for the real killers,
hoping that the full truth that's not sugarcoated would come out. She said,
Al owed someone named Edgar money and then Edgar took Gannon.
But then in the same conversation,
she contradicts herself and points the finger at Al instead.
Here's what she told Crime online:
"Al should be here for manslaughter because it was on January 28th.
That's why the police didn't have anything.
Albert came in on the 28th from the airport and was like in a moment of rage.
I mean, I be on the low end and I could say, you know,
he should be here for murder, but I'm not. I'm saying that it should be,
I guess manslaughter would be the thing." And then she keeps running with this
new story of saying, Albert made a stupid decision. "You know, it just wasn't,
you know, a good situation. So, you know, he told me a story to tell the police,
you know,
and I just don't know what to say." She said she was scared of Al because he
told her that he would pull some strings if she didn't snitch.
That interview wasn't the first time she spoke to Crime online.
In May she complained that she might have PTSD because of her case,
saying "you have plenty of time to sit in here and actually like breathe and
be able to process it because I hadn't even went through the emotions of it all
yet. You know? "And at the end of February, before she was arrested,
she tried scheduling an interview with Nancy Grace to prove her innocence.
She said she passed an independent polygraph test,
but when police looked into it, they learned,
she bought that independent polygraph test from a site called
fakepolygraph.com. And you're going to love this.
The people at fakepolygraph.com took one look at the questions she created and
refused to send her the results.
So she asked them why and take a look at the conversation she had with the
customer service rep. Her: what do you do now?
Just delete it and go on about life and keep the money? Him: Yes, we do.
Indeed. Her: Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. Goodbye.
And then they gave her polygraph to the police.
Two days after she reported Gannon missing the police,
asked her to come in and answer some questions.
To start things off she was two hours late.
She also brought notes with her and kept checking them during the interview.
She probably needed cue cards because her story took another major turn on that
day. She told detectives she was raped at gunpoint,
by a man named Eguardo.
She said she hired him to come over and fix a carpet that Gannon had burned when
he knocked over the candle. But after raping her,
he hit her on the head and kidnapped Gannon while she was passed out.
So they asked if she wanted to be examined for a rape kit. She said, no.
Then police told her they had a warrant for her DNA.
So she faked a panic attack and was taken to the hospital.
To quote the leaked affidavit again,
Letecia "had a miraculous recovery" and managed to leave the hospital without
giving up her DNA. Over the next few weeks,
she changed her story a few more times. She told her husband,
she was raped by a different man.
The man laid down in front of her car and then when she stopped,
he jumped in and attacked her in Gannon, coincidentally in the same area,
near Palmer Lake, where his DNA was found.
She repeatedly reached out to police asking if she was a suspect and then
offering explanations for why Gannon's blood might be found in the house.
She told them he'd cut himself while working on projects with Al in the garage.
She told them he'd hurt himself with the candle that burned the carpet and then
wiped his bloody hands on the walls. Police weren't buying anything she said,
and they're building their case against her.
Now part of the evidence came from her search history.
Starting even before January 27th,
here are a few of the most interesting searches she did before Gannon was
murdered.
She Googled "I'm over doing all the work for my step kids and their mom doesn't
help." And "one day people will wish they treated you differently." Then she
looked up things like,
"I wonder if my husband's ex wife is sending me a Valentine's day card.
Since I raise her kids." "It's crappy some parents don't care for their kids or
buy them presents." "Parenting should be four people,
not one." "Find real military singles," and "find me a rich guy who wants me to
take care of his kids." She'd been married to Al since 2015.
The day he disappeared Gannon's phone was used to search "Can my parent find
my phone?
If it's off." Notice the period between find my phone and if it's off?
Police realized that's the same way Letecia phrased search terms found on
her phone. And by the way,
the answer to can my parent find my phone if it's off, is it depends,
which might be why Gannon's phone was later found at the house.
Letecia has tried escaping justice a few times in a few different ways.
When she was being returned to Colorado to stand trial,
she slipped out of her handcuffs near Kansas city and attacked one of the
deputies guarding her. She didn't get too far.
Her master plan at the El Paso County jail involved using a broom handle and the
help of a fellow inmate to bust out through her cell window.
As you can probably guess,
the inmate told the guards and Letecia earned herself another charge in early
June. On August 12th,
she wrote judge Gregory Warner a four page letter complaining that her
constitutional rights are being violated.
She hasn't been allowed to speak with her lawyers often enough and her phone
calls are being recorded.
She also claimed that her treatment is cruel and unusual and a violation of her
eighth amendment rights.
She says she's getting threats in her peanut butter because as she says,
"I provided evidence of not only my innocence,
but evidence that will show it was who it was through my PI." And then
the letter gets really strange. Listen to this.
"This is not okay in a country in which our country prides itself on democracy,
a country with a flag that got a hole in it at Flanders field and WWE one,
one that turned blood red in WW two or the one that got a cut with a sword at
Chancellorsville through all this, the flag has stood up.
We raise her up every morning because this country still stands for freedom,
perseverance, justice,
and vigilance." Then she brings it all together with this statement.
"I am showing the same things that flag shows.
Valor, courage, purity.
And innocence to write to you to say,
I do not feel like a US citizen being treated this way in my beloved country."
She also made sure to let the judge know that she has a doctorate degree in
education, which is a lie she's been telling for months. In fact,
just days before Gannon's murder she lost a teaching job in Colorado Springs
because they found out she lied on her application.
Letecia is charged with 13 counts in this case, including first degree murder,
child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence.
But despite her many attempts to out smart out lie or out run justice,
her day in court is getting closer.
Her next hearing is scheduled for November 12th so the judge can review a second
mental health evaluation her attorney's requested. Meanwhile,
the prosecution is building its case against her with hundreds of thousands of
pages of discovery, including more than 100 search warrants,
a 32 page affidavit,
transcripts from multiple bizarre interviews and changes to her story,
proof that she's constructed dozens of lies about her past ,those red flag
Google searches,
and that purchase of a fake lie detector test that was so alarming that the
company turned it over to the police.
And at the end of it all Letecia might find out the hard way that she wasn't so
smart after all. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today.
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