A multimedia bonanza punctuated the third week of testimony in the Letecia Stauch murder trial. She is the stepmother who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) in the vicious murder of 11-year-old Gannon Stauch. She initially reported him as a runaway from their home in the Lorson Ranch suburb of Colorado Springs on January 27, 2020.
Forensics in the house pointed an accusing finger at Letecia. The details surrounding her arrest after fleeing to South Carolina are being revealed; hours of recorded conversations are being made public for the first time. Gannon was stabbed 18 times, beaten, and shot in the jaw. His body was put in a suitcase, driven to Florida, and tossed over a bridge. Defense attorneys don’t deny that Letecia Stauch murdered him but claim she suffers from dissociative identity disorder or DID.
Suspicion took aim at Leticia early on because of her changing stories. Gannon’s father alerted law enforcement and worked with them to record conversations with his wife at the time. She was often bordering on hysterical during shrieking demands for Al Stauch’s support, while she hinted at having information that would lead to Gannon’s whereabouts. What started as a missing child investigation turned into bizarre claims of kidnapping, rape, ransom, and even a tie to El Chapo’s drug cartel. Gannon had been missing for three weeks when Letecia told Al that she gave a pregnant woman a ride while she and her stepson were running errands. However, it turned out the woman wasn’t pregnant at all. Her belly was stuffed with cash which Letecia spotted once she got in the car. The faux-pregnant woman forced Letecia to drive her to a Mexican restaurant. While the story sounds unbelievable, it actually happened in Colorado Springs and was extensively reported in the media in 2019.
The ripped-from-the-headlines story was yet another attempt to deflect blame away from her and cast it toward sketchy characters. First up in Letecia’s hit parade was a man named “Eguardo” who raped her and kidnapped Gannon. This after she gave him the garage code so he could repair a carpet burned by a candle. Then the story veered to Quincy Brown, a known sex offender in Colorado Springs, who was laying in the middle of the road. Letecia stopped so she wouldn’t hit him, then he jumped in her vehicle and later kidnapped Gannon. Investigators found that Quincy Brown was living in Mexico and there was no evidence that he was back in the US. What about “Eguardo?” Despite giving a detailed description to deputies of a Hispanic man with a pock-marked face, Letecia admitted she made the whole thing up because she was mad at Al for not standing by her. Angel was another deflection. Letecia alleged Angel could have a role in Gannon’s disappearance. Angel was supposedly part of a three-way Al was interested in and she contacted her on an app.
FBI Special Agent Jon Grusing interrogated Letecia after she was arrested in South Carolina. During five hours of recordings, Grusing confronted her about the search history on her phone. He said a download of her activity revealed searches for “blood is squirting from an arterial bleed. Pressure is not controlling”, which she denied. The most shocking, and likely most damning searches, were for “I don’t like my stepson”; “I don’t like my stepson. Should I get a divorce?”
Other searches included: “Al Stauch cheating”; “How to get blood out of sheets”; “I want immunity because it was gang-related”; “One day some people will wish they treated you differently”; “Find me a new husband”; “I’m doing all the work for my stepkids and their mom doesn’t help.” Grusing got an immediate reaction to that search.
She admitted, “Oh, that bothered me. Yeah. Oh, yes. ‘Cause I wanted them to be MINE.”
Grusing informed her that she googled a lot on “Letecia hit and run”, but she quickly claimed she didn’t hit anybody and wanted to know what date that search was done. Grusing replied that he was downloading stuff on the plane and didn’t have a date.
James Lowry, Letecia’s stepfather, was hit by a car while walking on the side of the road in 2004. He died on his son’s seventh birthday at the age of 43. Dakota Lowry was questioned about his father during emotional testimony. Domestic violence and alcohol abuse, including a Lowry giving Dakota so much booze as a toddler that he passed out, were among the questions. Dakota was also asked if there were any issues between his father and his sister, who is 14 years older. He couldn’t recall any but said if there were, his mother, Debra, would have told him.
Lowry’s name also came up when Letecia’s former supervisor took the stand. The assistant principal at Timberview Middle School, Leslie Hicks, testified about interactions with Letecia, who had just accepted a resource teacher position with the school days before Gannon’s murder. Letecia texted the same message twice to Hicks in the wee hours of Monday, January 27, which read, “I’m sorry for the time of night message, but my stepfather passed away someone hit him with a car while he was walking. I can update you at a later time.” Defense attorneys claimed her stepfather and a string of her mother’s boyfriends of physically and sexually abusing her during opening statements. Dakota testified that Letecia left the family home a couple of years after his birth. He also said Letecia left knives for him during visits for protection against Lowry. Al Stauch briefly mentioned that he knew of a couple of issues with Lowry when asked during his testimony at the beginning of the trial, but wasn’t pressed for details. There was also testimony from her daughter that in 2019, Letecia became paranoid about a hit-and-run accident and thought people were following her in a black sedan.
Electronic communications, recorded calls, and tracking devices offered detectives strong evidence in the case. A text with her neighbor, Nicole Mobley, read, “I need a witness” for investigators to believe her story. Mobley said at one point, Letecia offered her money to call her husband, Al, and say she had seen Gannon get in a car with a strange man on the evening of January 27.
Days after Gannon was reported missing, Letecia texted her daughter, Harley Hunt, “I have to get an attorney fast.” Hunt said her mother was acting paranoid at times during the cross-country drive to Florida, but she had no idea that Gannon’s body was stuffed in a suitcase in the back of their rented van. The suitcase was thrown over a bridge near the hotel where they were staying. It was discovered on March 17, 2020, by a maintenance crew.
Prosecutor Dave Young asked Hunt point-blank, “Did you help your mother throw that suitcase over a bridge in Pensacola, Florida?”
“No, I did not,” replied Hunt. She added, “I’m still in shock. I defended her for years. I just feel manipulated and lied to.”
Prosecutors were considering whether to file accessory to first-degree murder charges against her, so Hunt agreed to talk with them last August. She entered into a proffer agreement, which means nothing she told them can be used against her. Hunt said her mother was never treated for mental illness, never referred to herself by other names like Jasmine, Victoria, Harmony, Christina, Little Lucia, or Maria Sanchez, nor did she speak in a Spanish accent. However, on cross-examination, defense attorney Josh Tolini reminded her that she told him Letecia would often be in the closet crying or texting on her phone. Hunt recalled that Letecia did threaten suicide a few times and was hospitalized for mental issues in Charleston. Hunt also said that she was told by her mother that she had ovarian cancer. Tolini also asked if she remembered her mother wrecking her Jeep because she saw her dead father sitting next to her. Hunt recalled the accident, but not the vision of her deceased dad.
Once the defendant changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), the defense hired Dr. Dorothy Lewis to evaluate her.
Dr. Lewis is renowned in the field of dissociative identity disorder (DID), which was previously called multiple personality disorder. Psychologists at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo previously determined that Letecia was faking symptoms of DID. Dr. Lewis has interviewed many killers, including Ted Bundy, and testified as an expert witness in several high-profile trials. Her work is featured in the HBO documentary, Crazy, Not Insane. Dr. Lewis summarized that most of the killers she studied had been victims of child abuse or had experienced traumatic events.
Her examination of Letecia Stauch concluded that she did suffer from DID. Judge Gregory Werner scolded defense attorneys because Dr. Lewis didn’t turn in her report by the deadline, and ordered her to provide a complete copy of the file to the state’s psychologists by March 31.
Those in the courtroom and people watching the trial online have seen hours and hours of videotaped interviews and recorded conversations with Letecia. The sentiment on social media strongly suggests the public has made up its mind about whether she was insane when Gannon was savagely attacked and murdered. However, laypeople do not have the years of expertise that 85-year-old Dr. Lewis has, so her testimony should shed light on how she arrived at the diagnosis. Questions by the attorneys on both sides might be offering hints about the direction the defense’s case will take when it is presented. The Disney character Jasmine from Aladdin has been mentioned a couple of times. So have trips to Saudi Arabia and Australia. Alternate names like Taylor, Nicole, Harmony, and Little Lucia have also been brought up. Witnesses have been asked if they ever heard Letecia speak with a Spanish accent. So far, those of us watching the trial, whether in person or online, haven’t witnessed noticeable personality changes or different accents. It’s fair to say her behavior is bizarre at times, and even shocking, like when she clobbered the deputy with the Monster Energy Drink during the drive back to Colorado Springs from Myrtle Beach.
Those of a certain vintage might remember the best-selling book, Sybil. The focus was a woman who, under the pseudonym of “Sybil,” was being treated for anxiety when it was discovered she suffered from DID (then called multiple personality disorder) as a result of horrific abuse as a child.
It was made into a movie in 1976 starring Sally Fields and remade with less fanfare in 2007. A little-known, rarely discussed mental illness suddenly was in the spotlight. Back in the day, the name “Sybil” was instantly equated with multiple personalities. There was an enormous surge in the diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder. However, it wasn’t without controversy. Dr. Connie Wilbur felt she stumbled upon an unusual case and began using sodium pentothal and hypnosis on her patient. Other psychiatrists concluded that the client was highly suggestible. Eventually, the real “Sybil”, Shirley Mason, admitted she was faking DID. She confessed in a letter to Dr. Wilbur, saying, “I do not really have any multiple personalities. I do not even have a ‘double.’ I am all of them. I have been lying in my pretense of them.” Dr. Wilbur felt the letter was an excuse for Mason to avoid more therapy.
A more recent example of DID being the subject of a best-selling book becoming a blockbuster movie is Primal Fear by William Diehl, written in 1993. The plot involved an altar boy who violently butchered an influential archbishop who was a sexual predator. His defense was multiple personality disorder, with the focus on his alternate committing the crime. Spoiler alert…the archbishop wasn’t his first victim. The chilling conclusion in both the book and the movie has the altar boy, Aaron Stampler, slip up when congratulating his defense attorney on the verdict. It turns out, Aaron was a psychopath who manipulated his lawyer into believing him, defending him, and sparing him the death penalty.
Whether it’s pop culture or skeptical human nature, the NGRI defense can be a tough pill to swallow. There are notable cases where juries agreed with the insanity defense: John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan; Andrea Yates, the mother in Texas who drowned her five children in the bathtub; Richard Rojas, who plowed down dozens of people with his car in Times Square, killing a teenager; and Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who cut off her husband’s penis, claiming he came home drunk and tried to rape her.
Was Letecia Stauch insane when she murdered her 11-year-old stepson? That question will be in the hands of the jury in a few weeks, more than three years after Gannon took his last breath.
Jenesis Productions 
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