A Colorado girl knew what she used to be doing when she stabbed her younger stepson 18 instances after which shot him within the head earlier than riding around the nation to offload a suitcase along with his stays over a bridge within the Florida Panhandle, a prosecutor advised jurors Monday in the beginning of her trial.
Authorities allege Letecia Stauch killed 11-year-old Gannon Stauch in his bed room a couple of hours earlier than reporting him lacking on Jan. 27, 2020, whilst his father used to be on a National Guard deployment. They have recommended she used to be unsatisfied in her marriage and envious of being handled like an unpaid babysitter.
At the trial, prosecutors presented the jury to Gannon Stauch thru a recording of him with Leticia Stauch, the place he may well be heard responding to a query from his stepmother, CBS Colorado reported. The recorded dialog came about in a while earlier than Gannon Stauch disappeared and used to be reported lacking in 2020. Leticia Stauch used to be arrested in South Carolina and charged within the boy’s dying a couple of weeks later, following a large seek that spanned a couple of counties.
Attorneys for Stauch, who has pleaded no longer responsible via reason why of madness, countered that via claiming she suffered a “major psychotic crack” because of formative years trauma when she killed Gannon.
The dueling narratives for why Stauch performed the crime got here all the way through opening statements in Colorado Springs for a trial anticipated to remaining a number of weeks.
District Attorney Michael Allen, in his opening commentary stated, “she took Gannon’s bloodied and broken body and the blankets and pillows that were with him and shoved them into a suitcase.”
Allen argued that the stairs that Stauch took to hide up her movements are evidence that she knew what she did used to be improper and used to be subsequently sane. She wiped clean up blood in Gannon’s bed room, shifting his frame to more than a few places to cover it earlier than casting off it “like garbage” in a river that flows into the Gulf of Mexico in hopes it will by no means be discovered, he stated.Â
Prosecutors stated proof introduced all the way through the trial will display that Stauch took planned steps to cover what she had executed, and advised the jury that she used to be the remaining individual to peer him alive. The prosecution stated Stauch admitted that during a decision to government the place she reported the boy lacking, a recording of which performed for the jury in courtroom, consistent with CBS Colorado.
“Who was the last person to see him I guess it was me,” she may well be heard announcing within the recording.
(Credit: Stauch Family/El Paso County)
Stauch additionally lied to investigators more than a few instances to check out to bog down their investigation, Allen stated, converting her accounts of what came about to Gannon. She claimed two other males had raped her after which kidnapped Gannon and, later, that a kind of males had taken Gannon after he harm himself in a motorcycle crash.
“All of her actions were purposefully designed by her to distance herself from what she did,” Allen stated.
But protection lawyer Will Cook stated the grotesque main points highlighted via Allen, together with how Gannon used to be killed and the loss of a purpose, are evidence that Stauch used to be “insane” as it all does no longer make sense.
“These are all signs and evidence of a mind, a soul, that is broken in a most fundamental and profound way,” he stated.
Cook recommended Stauch advanced dissociative establish dysfunction because of being bodily, emotionally and sexually abused via her absent mom’s string of companions all the way through her formative years, from time to time sound asleep in a automobile within the driveway to flee the abuse. When she killed Gannon, she used to be no longer, in her thoughts, killing her stepson, however the “demons” from her formative years and existence, he stated.
Based on surveys given to attainable jurors, many had been skeptical of Stauch’s psychological well being protection, Cook stated. He instructed jurors to position apart their impulse to make any individual pay for the sort of brutal killing and stay an open thoughts for the reason that judicial device calls for Stauch to be presumed blameless.
“I’m not telling you to like it. I’m just telling you that’s the way it is,” he stated.
Initially, government stated they answered after Stauch stated Gannon had no longer returned from taking part in with a pal. But she didn’t give you the names of any pals he will have been with or their oldsters. Within days, she concocted numerous tales to lie to them, together with {that a} guy she employed to fix a carpet raped her after which kidnapped Gannon, consistent with investigators.
Over 200 volunteers carried out searches for the boy within the space round the place the circle of relatives lived close to Colorado Springs, as government investigated. About two weeks after Gannon disappeared, searchers discovered a work of particle board with Gannon’s blood on it in a rural space within reach. Presuming the boy to be lifeless, government arrested Stauch in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on March 2, 2022. Gannon’s stays had been discovered later that month within the small town of Pace, at the Florida Panhandle.
Stauch used to be charged with first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human frame and tampering with bodily proof.
Investigators discovered Gannon’s blood on Stauch’s shoe, discovered her DNA on a gun related to his dying and realized that she traveled to the Florida Panhandle in a while after he disappeared, prosecutors have stated.
Stauch used to be additionally accused of looking to break out from prison after her arrest. According to courtroom paperwork, she requested a fellow inmate to assist her get out, explaining that she deliberate to make use of a brush deal with to wreck the window in her cellular, and that she had already measured herself to ensure she may have compatibility thru.