Letecia Stauch, 36, is accused of stabbing and shooting her 11-year-old stepson in January 2020, and then falsely claiming that the boy was missing. Her half-brother, Dakota Lowrey, testified about when he "knew" his sister took the little boy's life.
Letecia Stauch is back in a Colorado courtroom for the second week of her murder trial on Tuesday after a very difficult first week for the defense.
The 36-year-old is accused of stabbing and shooting her 11-year-old stepson Gannon Stauch in January 2020, and then falsely claiming that the boy had gone missing.
She no longer denies killing the boy but has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, with her defense team saying in their opening statement last week that Stauch suffered a "psychotic crack" due to years of childhood abuse.
The prosecution responded to this by arguing that Stauch would not have gone about methodically cleaning up the scene of her alleged crime and then construct an elaborate plan to dispose of her stepson's body 1,500 miles from home if she were insane.
Every witness that testified on the stand last week also claimed that they believe Stauch was not insane when she killed her stepson. Among the witnesses called to testify last week were Stauch's ex-husband and Gannon's father, Al Stauch, and her half-brother, Dakota Lowrey.
He made no secret of his feelings about Stauch from the start, looking directly at her before he took the stand and shouting: "Why, Tecia?"
Lowrey later struggled to maintain his composure as he recalled the day he helped Stauch move out of the Colorado home she shared with her ex-husband. He said that initially he felt a need to fly out and help Stauch.
“We felt like she was being wrongly accused for something we thought she’d never do," he said in court.
At the same time, Lowrey said that he wanted to help the search efforts in any way possible, believing that Gannon might still be alive.
He said that he was initially "aggravated" by the way members of law enforcement treated Stauch that day.
"I feel like we was getting looked at as criminals," he said on the stand.
Then, he watched Stauch struggling under the weight of one of her suitcases. Lowrey testified that he immediately offered to help Stauch, but she informed him that "she didn't need help."
He said that when he asked Stauch what she had in the suitcase, she said "softball stuff."
Lowrey testified that everything changed at that moment.
LETECIA STAUCH MURDER CASE TIMELINE
The prosecution then produced a picture from the crime scene where Gannon's remains were discovered in Florida six weeks after the boy went missing, and asked Lowrey if he recognized anything.
He said that the suitcase Gannon's body was found in is the same one he watched Stauch struggling with when he helped her move that day. Lowrey later said that while watching Stauch put the suitcase in her rental van that day, he suddenly "knew she [killed Gannon]."
He also spoke about the multiple stories Stauch created to try and convince members of her family and law enforcement that she had nothing to do with her stepson's disappearance.
Inside Edition Digital previously reported on many of these stories, which Letecia first shared in conversations with her then-husband, Al. He also took the stand last week to recount some of those conversations.
Al told jurors that Letecia would scream and cry during the calls he had with her, which unbeknownst to her were being recorded after Al agreed to cooperate with the FBI investigation into his son's disappearance.
On each of those record calls, Al asked Letecia at least once: "Did you kill Gannon?"
She denied or demurred every time he asked, and instead told Al a variety of stories. Al testified about a few of the conversations during his testimony.
Those recorded conversations were first detailed in the probable cause affidavit, which noted that in one 48-hour period Stauch provided five different versions of the events that transpired on the night Gannon went missing. According to the affidavit, Stauch allegedly said:
- "When EPSO came to the house on January 27, 2020 the abductor was still in her residence and that she tried to signal the EPSO deputies that there was somebody in the residence."
- "She was raped by [a man] at her residence, and [he] abducted Gannon. She knew [the man's] identity because she saw a paper and his identification card fell out of his pocket that had his name on it."
- "[A man] followed her from Petco, and at some point, was laying in the middle of the road in front of a car. When Letecia stopped to avoid running the man over, he jumped into her car and made her take him home and raped her."
- "Letecia and Gannon were near County Line Rd / Hwy105 in northern El Paso County on January 27, 2020. Gannon is riding a bicycle in the area and fell off, hit his head, and was then abducted by [a man]."
- "Letecia stated that the blood in the corner of Gannon's room was a combination of hers and Gannon's. In this explanation, she stated that the abductor anally penetrated her and Gannon with an object. Additionally, she was tied up at some point in the abduction, and the abductor was still present during the EPSO visit that night."
A few weeks later, law enforcement arrested Stauch in South Carolina.
Two weeks after that, workers discovered the body of Gannon Stauch under a highway bridge near Pensacola, Florida.
His body was in the same suitcase Lowrey said he saw Stauch pack into her rental van.
Stauch allegedly stabbed Gannon 18 times and shot him in the jaw, according to prosecutors.
She is facing 12 charges in total: First-degree murder after deliberation, first-degree murder of a person under 12 by someone in a position of trust, tampering with a deceased human body, tampering with physical evidence, seven counts of a crime of violence for using a weapon (the weapons listed in the complaint include a firearm, blunt object and sharp object), and one count of crime of violence – causing severe bodily injury or death.
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