Trial begins for woman accused of killing missing 11-year-old stepson, dumping body in Florida

Letecia Stauch in court docket Wednesday, March 11.

Jury variety started Monday in the homicide trial of the Colorado Springs woman accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson after which riding around the nation to offload his body in Florida.

Letecia Stauch, 39, is charged with first-degree homicide in the demise of Gannon Stauch, who disappeared from the circle of relatives’s Colorado Springs house on Jan. 27, 2020, prompting extensive searches for the boy. Letecia Stauch was once the remaining particular person to peer Gannon alive, and investigators believe she killed the boy in his bedroom whilst the 2 have been house by myself that afternoon.

Gannon’s body was once discovered in March 2020, within a suitcase underneath a bridge close to Pensacola, Florida. He have been shot in the jaw, stabbed in the chest and again, and suffered a cranium fracture, government mentioned. His body was once wrapped in bedding from the circle of relatives’s house, and bullets discovered in the suitcase gave the impression to were fired from a gun stored in the circle of relatives’s house, investigators up to now testified.

Stauch pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which means that she claims she can’t be held criminally accountable for the killing as a result of she was once legally insane on the time of the crime. If she is located no longer in charge by means of reason why of madness, she can be dedicated to a psychological well being facility for remedy, reasonably than jail, and may sooner or later be launched if she is later discovered to be sane. If discovered in charge, she faces necessary existence in jail.

Jury variety in the case started Monday and is anticipated to remaining about two weeks. Opening statements are scheduled for April 3, and the trial may stretch so long as six weeks. A big pool of jurors is being known as as a result of of each intensive prior media protection of Gannon’s disappearance and the anticipated duration of the trial.

Stauch was once arrested and charged with her stepson’s murder about two weeks sooner than government discovered the boy’s body. Investigators was suspicious as a result of Stauch gave government shifting accounts of what came about to Gannon. She known as 911 to file him missing the day he disappeared and claimed he’d failed to come back again from a pal’s space, however she couldn’t inform dispatchers the identify of the good friend he’d long gone to consult with.

During a initial listening to in the case, investigators testified that they believed Letecia Stauch killed Gannon in his bedroom, then dumped his body in a faraway house close to Palmer Lake alongside the El Paso/Douglas county line. They indicated she then returned to the unload website online about 3 days later and picked up the body.