On February 28, 2020, a Colorado judge authorized the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office’s request to arrest and charge Letecia Stauch with the murder of her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon Stauch.
The small boy’s abduction had made national headlines by that point, but despite heightened awareness and the persistent work of volunteers who had assembled and formed search parties to aid law enforcement in their efforts to recover Gannon, detectives had yet to find his remains.
While Gannon’s remains had not yet been found, investigators were able to obtain an arrest warrant after discovering traces of blood in the garage of the family’s Colorado Springs home and on a particle board discovered in a rural area about 40 miles away, according to a copy of the arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE.
Letecia was arrested by cops in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, two days after the judge approved the affidavit, and she was quickly extradited back to Colorado.
Then, on March 17, 2020, Gannon’s remains were discovered – about two months after Letecia reported him missing.
A construction worker from the Florida Department of Transportation made the discovery. While working on the Escambia River Bridge in Pace, Fla., about 1,400 miles east of Colorado Springs, Colo., the worker discovered Gannon Stauch’s bones stuffed into a suitcase that had washed ashore.
Investigators were now left with a new mystery: how did Letecia transport her stepson’s remains across the country while a multiagency criminal investigation involving the EPCSO, Colorado Springs Police, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was underway?
Gannon was reported missing at 6:55 p.m. on January 27, 2020.
“Letecia stated Gannon was supposed to be home approximately 1 hour ago, and that she was unable to locate him at his friend’s house,” the declaration continued.
Deputies rushed to the Stauch residence, took Letecia’s testimony, and launched a missing person investigation.
That missing person inquiry evolved into a murder investigation as law enforcement gathered evidence and deputies conducted interviews, most notably with Letecia on Jan. 29, during which she changed her tale about Gannon’s disappearance.
“In summary, Letecia said she had been held at gunpoint and raped by a Hispanic male she knew as ‘Eguardo,’ and that Gannon was abducted by that male after he finished raping her,” according to the declaration.
The document also states that investigators did not believe Letecia was telling the truth and attempted to detain her while they sought a warrant to get her DNA.
According to the affidavit, Letecia then told the deputies that she needed immediate medical attention and avoided having to submit to any DNA collection by being transported to a local hospital where doctors could watch and, if necessary, treat her unknown illness. According to the affidavit, the woman did not stay long at the hospital and was able to sneak away quickly after checking in, undetected by law police.
According to the affidavit, Letecia stopped participating with the investigation and supplying law enforcement with information that they believed would enhance their search efforts.
Deputies eventually built their case using surveillance footage from a neighbor’s door camera, the security system inside the Stauch home, Letecia’s search history, texts from her phone, and traces of Gannon’s blood discovered in unexpected locations.
According to the affidavit, authorities created a preliminary timeline of events based on this information, alleging that Letecia murdered Gannon on the afternoon she reported him missing and then placed his body in the trunk of her car in the garage.
The following night, she had to pick up her husband, Gannon’s father Al Stauch, so she parked her car at the airport and went to acquire a rental car, according to the affidavit. She returned later to get her vehicle and drove about 40 miles south of Colorado Springs to dump the body, according to investigators, who discovered a particle board in that area with traces of Gannon’s blood during a search of the locations Letecia visited using the GPS tracker in her vehicle.
According to the affidavit, after disposing of the body, Letecia washed her car and arrived two hours late for her ill-fated interview with deputies.
It is unclear when Letecia returned to collect Gannon’s remains, but she did so sometime after her interview with detectives and subsequently carried out her bold plot over state borders.
Her brother, Dakota Lowery, testified during her murder trial about how the person of interest in a criminal investigation was able to stroll out of her house with the body of the young boy at the heart of a worldwide manhunt without raising any suspicion.
Lowery stated that it occurred a little more than a week into the investigation, when he flew across the country to assist his sister in moving out of the house after her relationship with Al fell apart following Gannon’s disappearance.
Lowery sympathized with his sister at the time, believing she had been “wrongly accused,” as he stated in court. He stated that his sister appeared to be encircled by law enforcement and expressed his “aggravated” feelings regarding their treatment of Letecia.
“I feel like we were getting looked at as criminals,” Lowery told the audience.
Lowery stated that while packing his sister’s possessions into the car that day, he spotted her struggle with one bag in particular and offered to help, but his sister quickly declined. Letecia allegedly claimed the luggage contained only “softball stuff,” but Lowery testified that he knew she had slain Gannon almost after.
Lowery then confirmed that the suitcase he saw that day was the identical one in which Gannon’s remains were discovered nearly two months later, 1,300 miles from the boy’s family.
The probable cause affidavit submitted following the discovery of Gannon’s death said that Letecia drove back to Douglas County, retrieved the remains, and placed them in a suitcase that she then rolled out in front of everyone before departing for Florida.
Letecia then hired a hotel room in Florida and most likely dumped the luggage off the Escambia River Bridge, where it eventually washed ashore, according to the probable cause affidavit obtained by PEOPLE.
The medical examiner eventually concluded in an autopsy report that the 11-year-old died of 18 stab wounds, four blunt force injuries, and a single shot to the face. On May 8, 2023, a jury convicted Letecia Stauch of first-degree murder and other associated offenses, and she is now serving a life sentence for her stepson’s murder with no chance of release.
