Letecia Stauch and Gannon Stauch. Quincy Brown (center). (Images of Letecia Stauch and Gannon Stauch: El Paso County Sheriff’s Office; mugshot of Brown: Pikes Peak Area Crime Stoppers)
An FBI special agent testified on Wednesday that an allegedly murderous stepmother tried to pin her stepson’s disappearance on a wanted sex offender, whose unrelated case was publicized in local news. In truth, however, there was no indication that this man, Quincy Brown, had anything to do with victim Gannon Stauch, 11, going missing on Jan. 27, 2020, said FBI Special Agent Amber Cronan.
Prosecutors in Colorado Springs, Colorado, point the finger at the child’s stepmother, Letecia Stauch, 39, who they say stabbed Gannon 18 times, shot him in the head once (missing twice), cleaned up the crime scene, and moved his body in a suitcase to Pensacola, Florida, where she pushed the remains over a bridge railing. Gannon’s disappearance, which happened while his father Al Stauch was out of town for National Guard work, sparked a search lasting until bridge workers encountered the suitcase — and remains — on March 17, 2020.
The defense maintains Letecia Stauch was insane, suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Prosecutors assert that she knew what she was doing and was legally sane when she allegedly committed the murder. They maintain that she was manipulative, lying to her then-husband Al Stauch and even her blood relatives.
To bolster that case, the state has been showing lengthy, wiretapped phone calls between Al and Letecia Stauch. Gannon’s father repeatedly expressed frustration with his then-wife’s shifting stories. For example, he can be heard on audio saying she first told him that Gannon had run away. She had not told him of Brown or of blood found in Gannon’s room, he said. He noted she did not mention Brown in her initial report to police.
“You called the police and told them he ran away, not that Quincy Brown took him,” Al Stauch said, audibly aggravated. “What the f—, ‘Tecia?”
Cronan testified that Brown was locally on a most wanted list in the Colorado Springs area. The prosecutor noted media coverage of his case from outlets like KKTV and The Colorado Gazette. The name Quincy Brown as a sex offender suspect appears in local coverage during and even before the time of Gannon’s disappearance.
Cronan testified, however, that Brown was not even in the country anymore. In characterizing defendant Stauch’s statements during the phone call, the agent described her as often attempting to manipulate and also taking the subject on tangents.
Though Al Stauch said at the time he believed Brown did have the child, he pressed his then-wife on her shifting accounts.
“You’re lying. You are now lying, and I’m calling you out,” he said at one point.
For example, in discussing blood in Gannon’s room, defendant Stauch maintained that if there was blood in Gannon’s room, it would have been from when he cut his foot. She said she already told him that. Al Stauch said she was lying based on there being enough blood to seep through the carpet. Though he said he did not have proof at the time that it was Gannon’s blood, he assumed it belonged to his missing son.
They also discussed a burn.
“You can’t bleed that much from a burn,” Al Stauch said. “You can’t bleed that much from a burn. You can’t bleed that much from a cut on your foot from a two-by-four.”
As prosecutors previously said, Letecia Stauch recorded herself on Jan. 26, 2020. In the audio, she questioned Gannon about spilling candle wax. She voiced concern about a damaged carpet.
Gannon, who sounded obviously distressed, had been injured.
“I’m just worried about my burns,” he said.
Letecia Stauch shushed him.
In audio played Wednesday, the defendant voiced exasperation with her then-husband repeatedly questioning her.
“You asked me 15 times the same exact question and I’m giving you the same exact answer. I don’t know,” she said.
Al Stauch said she had not given him the same story. It was a different story every time, he said.
Cronan testified about the then-couple referencing an extended-stay hotel in the north part of Colorado Springs. Letecia Stauch had been staying with her family. The agent said, however, that the defendant was actually in South Carolina, where she ended up being arrested. And yet defendant Stauch, the agent said, implied she was still in Colorado Springs.
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