(soft music) - Can I ask you a question?
It's a bit outlandish, but bear with me.
Would you pay me $3 to see
the gruesome, unedited autopsy photos
of a murdered 11 year old boy?
Oh no.
Well, what if I told you
that I was a true crime YouTuber?
Would that change your mind at all?
Hopefully you guys know me well enough
to know that I would never give
such an indecent proposal.
At least not in public.
Well, apparently a small time true crime YouTuber
named Zav Girl does not share the same sensibilities.
- Zav girl then proceeded to post them
on her Patreon account
which is an account attached to her YouTube page
and she charged her followers money
to see the autopsy photos.
For $3 you could see little Gannon's body.
She was making money off of
that little boy's autopsy photos.
Autopsy photos of a severely beaten to death little boy.
- Gannon Stauch was brutally murdered
by his stepmother Leticia Stauch.
When investigators looked through her computer
they discovered several Google searches
of her attempting to figure out
how to defeat a polygraph test.
Even attempting to get one herself
of the questions that she might be asked
if she was charged with his murder.
And she was even looking into getting plastic surgery
so that she could evade police.
She would originally try to say
that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted,
even going as far as to say
that her stepson Gannon was also sexually assaulted.
But all of that would turn out to be a lie,
along with many many other stories
that she tried to tell.
Her insanity plea did not hold up
and ultimately the autopsy would prove
that she stabbed Gannon several times
before shooting him point blank in the head,
putting him in a suitcase and throwing him into a river.
Ultimately, she was given life in prison.
There's a genre of YouTuber
who really enjoys telling these stories in full
and I am not part of that genre.
Though I am a huge true crime fan,
I guess you could say.
But this particular story was fascinating to me,
because it brought up a lot of questions
that I think people are starting to ask themselves
about the ethics of true crime content.
There's an entire industry
around these very gleeful retellings
of these incredibly brutal events.
And for me, even as a person who enjoys true crime,
that aspect of it has always kind of given me the ick,
because I guess even though I am fascinated
with some of these stories
and the reasons why they happen
and you know how people get into these situations,
I still recognize that as not the best way
to talk about some of this stuff.
And in this particular situation
we do actually see how his family responds
to people like Zav Girl taking their family tragedy
and turning it into entertainment.
- Yeah, and I think for me,
like what really pushed it over the edge
was the charging the money.
I mean, obviously posting it alone would be disgusting,
but then charging money to see those photos
it's just, it's really, really just awful.
- [Al] The word I use describe it as evil, Brian.
In my my opinion, it's just evil.
The world got enough information from the trial
to have every discussion they wanna have.
Why do we need to go have freedom of information request
and pay for this kind of information
and then dishonor my son
by putting these photos out there like that?
I mean, the world gotta see it.
I don't know how well you followed it,
but the only day I chose not to come to the trial
was the day that they showed the autopsy photos.
Now I feel like I can't even go on YouTube
without the possibility of accidentally
coming across these photos.
- Okay, so personally, I really don't even understand
how she thought this was okay.
Obviously, I think that there's an explanation,
which I'll get to a bit later,
but I think when I heard about this the first time,
it just shocked me,
because there's so many steps
you would have to go through
before you would get these pictures.
She apparently was able to get them
through the Freedom of Information Act
and you know, she had to compile them
and put them together and put them on Patreon.
And I guess for me, there's just several steps
along this process that would tell me
that maybe I shouldn't be the one doing this.
Now, when people first started calling her out,
she initially got very, very defensive
and decided to essentially go on her community page
and argue that some people are able
to objectively look at these brutal autopsy photos.
She kept saying that she was able to look at them
in an unemotional way, essentially.
And for me, that is the exact problem.
I think what becomes kind of clear
in some true crime content
is this idea that the people who make this content
aren't often really thinking about
the people behind the stories that they're telling
and the fact that their families
are going to have to whenever they search up
their family members dying, see these videos
of people cheerfully speaking about their deaths.
Obviously, most people recognize it
as something that should not have happened,
something that's tragic, you know,
that she lit up the room or whatever.
People who are true crime, you know,
people have heard those comments all the time,
but at the end of the day,
there is something to be said
about the callous nature of feeling so comfortable
treating these stories like entertainment.
And as I said, I'm guilty of it.
I would just think that the death of a child
is sensitive enough for people to maybe think
that maybe they shouldn't make content like this
or upload stuff like this.
But for me, her feeling so comfortable with doing this
really speaks to the detachment that a lot of people have
to the reality that these are real people
who have families that are alive
and would feel a certain way
if you talk about them a certain way.
Now, I think one of the reasons why
I also wanted to talk about this
is because I've mentioned it in passing
in the past two videos of mine,
but my mother recently passed away.
She died very unexpectedly.
And because I'm the oldest
and because my father and my brother
have their own health issues
that they have to deal with
I'm the person who has to take care of everything.
And I had to unfortunately,
sit with my mother after death
and view her body.
And that was the first time
I've ever been in front of a dead body.
And I'll say that it didn't shock me
as much as I was expecting it to.
I think it's because it was my mom
and because I'm familiar with her
and because I love her.
It was hard for me to see her like that.
That was my mom in her most vulnerable
and indefensible position ever.
Right now we are waiting
to get the death certificate.
We don't really know what the cause of death is.
I'm probably gonna assume that it wasn't, you know,
any malpractice or anything crazy like that.
But let's say that it is.
Let's say that this became something
where people were looking into
the death of my mother
and trying to find her autopsy photos,
and somebody was you know, taking those pictures
and putting those pictures on the internet
and charging people money.
Like that thought repulses me
and makes me incredibly angry.
Especially because that would be her
at her most vulnerable indefensible position.
This was a child that got murdered
before it was his time to go, right?
And so the idea of that,
especially not being something that bothers her,
really bothers me.
And I think that speaks
to some people's detachment from,
again, the reality of all of this.
The very thought that I would have to at some point
deal with some people
who are just looking for entertainment,
looking at her dead body
is just so this viscerally upsetting to me.
And I feel like I might not have really, really felt
that way until I lost my mom.
Here's a person who I love,
who I care so much about,
who I know cared so much about me,
and she's sitting in front of me dead.
It is, if you've ever been in that situation,
it is one of the hardest things ever.
And the idea of those photos floating around,
it makes me incredibly angry.
Now, Zav Girl would go and upload an apology
and I've not seen this apology.
We're gonna watch it together.
I was really curious what she could say about this,
because like I said, when people were first calling her out
she did nothing but essentially run defense for herself.
So we're gonna watch this apology video
and I'm going to give you the rest of my thoughts.
All right, this is called
"My Apology to Gannon's Family and Everyone Hurt".
And it currently sits at 46K views.
Now, before we get into this, I wanted to say this.
The one thing that I noticed
when I was looking at her channel
is she mostly compiles evidence from these cases,
and also I know as a YouTuber looking at her numbers
that she can't possibly be making a lot of money from this.
So I know that her Patreon
was probably the way that she was making money.
Now, when I went to go find her Patreon
it had actually been removed.
So I imagine that all of this probably
resulted in her getting her Patreon removed.
But Patreon, for a lot of creators
is the way that we make stable income.
It is an easier way for us
to make a large chunk of money
and something that we could maybe rely on every month.
It is the reason why I am full-time,
which by the way I also have a Patreon page
that you should totally support,
because I, at the bare minimum don't do this.
I may upload a lot of videos
of me talking about my personal life,
especially the past couple of weeks,
but I don't upload 11 year old autopsy photos.
So there's that.
I guess I got that going for me.
But anyway, check out my Patreon.
But back to this, I think that she was probably able
to get a lot of people go over to her Patreon.
I think that that was the strategy.
But anyway, let's watch this apology.
Let's see what she says.
I'm very, very curious how she processed this
from that post that she did on her community page.
- Hi everyone.
If you're listening to this,
then you likely know about the last few days.
I wanna apologize to everyone I've hurt,
but especially Gannon's family.
I've been doing some major soul searching and reflecting.
There are many trying to define my motivations.
And while I'm not looking for forgiveness
or trying to make excuses
I do hope to provide additional context
that has not been made clear.
I have followed the Leticia Stauch case closely
and it was actually during the trial
that I made the official records request.
And it was in El Paso County, Colorado.
I requested all the video, audio, and written records.
I made no request for autopsy photos.
I wanted all at trial records,
but my main interests were interviews with Leticia.
The autopsy photos just happened to be in the files.
I spent time reviewing what I received
so I could provide more info from the trial.
I believe many of my images
were already shown during the televised trial
and I saw the photos on other public YouTube channels
that live streamed the trial
and shared the evidence.
I didn't think any of the images were new.
These photos were already public.
Although the video I put together
with the coroner's voice was my own creation.
I chose to put the video on Patreon,
because the sensitive nature of the evidence.
Putting the evidence behind a paywall meant added security.
And I naively thought they wouldn't be made public.
The video I created with the voice from the coroner
wasn't meant to be shared outside of Patreon,
and I chose not.
- All right, I'm gonna keep watching this,
but this is the sort of shit that bothers me,
because she's so comfortable with this.
In her mind all of this is normal.
And I understand, again, I'm a person
who watches true crime content.
I get the idea of collecting evidence
and going over the evidence.
Like I understand the appeal,
I understand why people do that,
but like why are you so comfortable doing it, right?
For me, that's a question worth asking,
because at the end of the day,
you really shouldn't feel so comfortable
assembling these videos and these posts
to upload to your Patreon
for people who want to really do research
that they are not qualified to do.
This is another thing that really bothers me
about a lot of true crime folks.
They act like they are detectives,
like they are people that are investigating the case,
that are in any way helping the case.
And I get it, again, there's the intrigue
and the appeal of maybe being somebody who would
find out what really happened.
But at the end of the day, you don't fucking know.
You don't know.
You are not an investigator.
It doesn't really matter what the context is.
You should absolutely not be doing that.
And I love how she's like,
"Oh, you know, I didn't mean to get the autopsy photos.
"They just came along with."
and "Oh, all these other pictures are public already.
"And yeah, I put them on Patreon
"because they're, you know, sensitive."
But none of that actually matters,
because you shouldn't be doing this to begin with.
You really shouldn't be.
You really, really, really, really, really shouldn't be.
- The video I created with a voice from the coroner
wasn't meant to be shared outside of Patreon,
and I chose not to put the photos on YouTube,
a public forum, where the views
would have allowed me to make more money
and the photos would be seen by more people.
Because the video was placed behind a paywall,
rumors about the images not being blurred
or being different than what was shown in trial
started to surface.
No photos shows genitalia.
I have made no jokes about the photos.
I don't even cuss on my channel
and I would never allow derogatory remarks about a victim.
I realize my intent.
- Okay, so you don't cuss,
you don't allow derogatory remarks about the victim,
but you're still sharing the autopsy photos.
Like to me it's so interesting
the way that you would categorize these things.
Don't curse, but do share pictures of a dead child.
It's a very bizarre line to draw in the sand, frankly.
It is an incredibly bizarre line to draw in the sand.
I think the pictures of the dead body,
whether they include genitalia or not
are enough to say that you've crossed the line.
- Tensions were not communicated well.
My channel style is sort of me hanging out with friends
and speaking off the cuff.
And I did not articulate my reasons
or think my decision through.
At this time, my Patreon website has been shut down.
I'm not sharing any of the photos or video anywhere.
Although you can see the photos published
on other popular channels.
Nothing you see is from me,
nor will ever be.
To those who have supported me
and followed my channel and to the true crime.
- Thank you.
- I'm sorry I let you down.
- Okay.
- I cannot imagine the pain Gannon's family
has gone through.
My anger over what happened to Gannon
is the reason I started following the case.
I'm not this evil heartless person like many are saying,
but I'm also doing a lot of self-reflecting
and I'm looking into sensitivity training.
I did not want to add to the family's loss
with anything I said or shared about this case.
It will be a long time before I ever trust myself
or my decisions again.
To Gannon's family, I have no words
that can make this better.
No one should have to ever go through
what you guys have been through.
I'm so very sorry for any pain that I have caused you.
- Okay, I guess that's it.
I guess that's the whole thing.
So here's the question.
Do we forgive her?
There's a part of me that wants to say
everybody has the possibility of not understanding
that what they did was wrong,
but I think that you should really like take a minute
to process that this didn't stand out as a great wrong.
Like, I can buy that maybe she didn't mean it,
maybe it wasn't intended in that way,
but at the same time, again, I'm just stuck
on this fact that all of these steps were taken
and at no point did she think
this wasn't a good idea.
Why do you gotta post the pictures at all?
Why?
Like, I hear what she's trying to say.
You know, I would've made more money
if I posted it on YouTube,
but you wouldn't have really.
I mean you would've probably made as much money
doing that on YouTube as you would've on Patreon,
because it turns out in both contexts
you can't really post that stuff.
But anyway, I just wanted to talk about this,
because similar to the Colleen Ballinger ukulele thing,
this is something on YouTube
that I think is so strange and so bizarre
and only comes from having this like weird sense
of disconnect from humanity.
That's something that I keep coming back to.
My sense of humanity would say
I wouldn't want to do that to anyone in my family,
so why would I do that to somebody else's?
I don't understand why that wouldn't be something
that she would think about.
So I think as of now
we don't actually know what's gonna happen.
Apparently this did lead to her having some legal struggles,
I believe with the family.
Though I'm not 100% sure.
I mostly just wanted to talk about this,
because I thought it was so bizarre.
Again, there are so many steps
that you would have to take
before you upload those pictures to Patreon
that I'm shocked that at no point she said to herself,
"Hey, maybe I shouldn't do this."
Anyway, I'm really curious to hear what you guys have to say
about this particular topic.
So please remember to leave your thoughts
in the comment box below.
As per usual, I will talk to you guys next time
and I want you to always remember
and to never forget that you are beautiful
and you are loved.
Unless you're this Zav Girl person.
Bye.