Gannon Stauch will always be an 11-year-old boy. His future was stolen from him on January 27, 2020. He was savagely murdered in his bedroom by his stepmother, Letecia Stauch. She doesn’t deny killing Gannon but blames an alternate personality called “Maria”, who thought she was shooting a caped intruder. Gannon’s lifeless, discarded body spoke to investigators about the vicious attack. He was stabbed 18 times, had a fractured skull, and was shot in the face. He had hydrocodone and Tylenol in his system at the time of his death.
Letecia pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming she suffers from dissociative identity disorder or DID. It used to be called multiple personality disorder and has been the topic of books and Hollywood movies like Sybil and Primal Fear.
The jury is deliberating the case, likely sifting through the mountain of evidence that was presented during the five-week trial. They must decide if she was insane at the time of Gannon’s murder.
During closing arguments, the prosecution portrayed Letecia as a calculated killer who hated Gannon, plotted his death, and lead detectives on a wild goose chase across several states. Gannon’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase that had been thrown over a bridge in the Florida panhandle. An inspection team was doing routine work on the bridge when they discovered the suitcase on March 17, 2020.
“The first thing I remember seeing was just two little feet that had football socks on them,” testified Macon Ponder, a Florida Department of Transportation bridge inspector. Gannon’s body was in a fetal position and wrapped in bedding from his home. A pillow with two bullet fragments was also in the suitcase.
“If they don’t have the capacity to know right from wrong, they don’t hide the body,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Dave Young during the prosecution’s closing arguments on Friday. “It’s not psychotic. It’s strategic,” Young continued.
“The stab wounds are to the chest. As Gannon’s fighting, the stab wounds are to his back. But it’s not just the stab wounds. She has to use judgment to go get another weapon, who knows what that was, but she got a weapon and hit him in the skull four separate times.”
The defense argued the brutality of the murder is the strongest evidence of a psychotic break.
“The one thing they cannot answer, because there is no answer, is motive. Motive about how you can go from this picture, on a hike up at Garden of the Gods, loving, kind to less than 24 hours later brutal rage,” Tolini said. “Eighteen stab wounds. Four blunt force trauma. Shot. This wasn’t a pre-planned calculated killing for some gain. This was a psychotic break fueled by rage and attacking a demon from the past.”
The “demon” mentioned throughout the trial was Letecia’s stepfather, James Lowry. The defense said Lowry, and a string of her mother’s boyfriends, sexually abused Letecia throughout her childhood. Lowry was hit by a car and died in 2004 on his son, Dakota’s, seventh birthday. The prosecution pointed out that no one was able to corroborate the abuse, though there was testimony about Lowry’s alcoholism and domestic violence in the home.
There is an obituary online that indicates Lowry died at a hospital, but there was no information or accessible archived stories about the accident. Dakota Lowry testified that he believes if there would have been anything between his father and Letecia, his mother, Debra Locklear, would have told him. Locklear was not called by either side to testify. Neither were Letecia’s half-sister, Julie, or stepsister Aimee. Both were Lowry’s daughters and post online tributes to their father on the anniversary of his death.
A death that was shrouded in secrecy for years was Harley Hunt’s father, Chance. She testified that Letecia told her that Chance was robbed and killed when he actually overdosed on drugs. Harley said even though he died in 2014, she only found out the true cause last year.
Moments of truth surfaced in the ever-changing stories Letecia told her then-husband, Al Stauch, and detectives. She initially reported Gannon missing, claiming he went to a friend’s house and didn’t return. Then her story shifted to a man named “Eguardo,” who came to fix the carpet burned when a candle tipped over the night before Gannon died. She told investigators that Eguardo raped her, kidnapped Gannon, and took a suitcase from their home. She was the first to mention the involvement of a suitcase in Gannon’s disappearance to investigators. Later, she blamed a wanted sex offender, Quincy Brown, and accused him of taking Gannon. Briefly, “Uncle Matt” was mentioned, then her story took a wild turn in the direction of a pregnant woman who she gave a ride when Gannon was in the car. Only the woman wasn’t pregnant; she had a fake belly stuffed with cash and was affiliated with El Chapo’s drug cartel. That account was similar to an actual case in Colorado Springs in 2019.
She started to sprinkle a breadcrumb here and there about Gannon’s injuries and claimed his head was bleeding after falling off a bike. Letecia sent a text to Al expressing concern about bath salts, and hinting Gannon might be interested in experimenting with drugs. She talked about his burns from the fire started by the candle in the basement. Later, Letecia posted a video where she and Gannon appeared to be talking about the fire. She asked him to promise he didn’t do it on purpose then suggested they sell the sofa to pay for repairs so the lady who owns the house “don’t kick them out.”
Gannon was sobbing throughout and the last thing he said was, “I’m just worried about my burns.”
Many months and versions of the story later, she told psychologists that her alternate personality, “Maria Sanchez” shot Gannon by mistake, thinking he was a man wearing a cape. Is it a coincidence that her story now includes a cape after the artwork of Gannon in a hero’s cape was prominently shared on social media? According to Letecia, Maria is a Russian-trained sniper who protects her and is “trained to kill.” There were also stories of vampires going door-to-door like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some had the names of characters from the Twilight series.
Two mental exams by psychologists at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo concluded that Letecia was feigning symptoms of DID. They determined she did have signs of personality disorders, but DID is extremely rare and she seemed to be exaggerating symptoms of it.
Enter Dr. Dorothy Lewis. Dr. Lewis is considered a pioneer in the field of DID, authored a book, Guilty by Reason of Insanity, and was featured in the HBO documentary, Crazy, Not Insane. Dr. Lewis agreed to evaluate Letecia and interviewed her on video for 14 hours. That’s when “Maria” showed up, fist-bumped Dr. Lewis, and started giving details about what happened.
At one point, what appears to be a confession letter is being read, but it isn’t in English. Letecia explains it was written in Latin, which given her prior references to pop culture, might be a nod to The Exorcist where the demon-possessed young Regan spoke Latin at times. Too bad the letter was lost and never made it into evidence…
There were awkward moments during Dr. Lewis’ testimony. The prosecution asked her if she knew the legal definition of insanity in Colorado. She did not but said she could look it up and get back to them. Prosecutor Young asked if she talked to any of Letecia’s family members. She had not. Young wanted to know if Dr. Lewis had seen the video taken after the candle incident, which was recorded less than 24 hours before Gannon was murdered. She had not. Young challenged her on the presence of defense attorney Tolini in the room while Letecia was being evaluated. Dr. Lewis said she often does that because it is helpful to know if a third party sees what she sees, and also because Tolini is more familiar with the case.
Young stopped the video and asked who the man was walking out of the room.
Young: “Who is that person leaving the interview room?”
Dr. Lewis: “I don’t recognize him.”
Young: “That isn’t your son, Dr. Lewis? What is your son doing in the interview room?”
After her memory was jogged, Dr. Lewis explained that her son was operating one of the cameras. Tolini acknowledged that Dr. Lewis was confused at times during her testimony, but told the jury that she has more expertise on DID than anyone in the country.
“Do not discount the decades of her experience,” he said about the defense’s 85-year-old star witness. “Dr. Lewis said Ms. Stauch is one of the most mentally ill people she’s ever dealt with.”
During the prosecution’s rebuttal, District Attorney Michael Allen turned the focus back to the 11-year-old victim.
“Remember, Gannon was a fighter. One pound-six ounce little boy when he was born. Overcame all the odds. But he couldn’t overcome this one. But he sure did try, didn’t he?” Allen asked the jury. “This little boy deserved so much more out of this defendant. He deserved protection. He deserved to grow up one day and become a man and have a family of his own. She took that away from him.”
Allen ended the rebuttal by stating, “Gannon deserves it, he deserves all of the justice you can give him.”
And now we wait for the jury’s decision.
Jenesis Productions 
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