THE woman charged with murdering Gannon Stauch allegedly stuffed the boy's body in the back of her car and then drove to pick up his father at the airport one day after she reported him missing.
Letecia Stauch allegedly murdered her stepson, 11, and then put his remains inside a suitcase that she stowed in the car she drive to pick up his father Al Stauch just one day later claims an affidavit filed in the case.
In the affidavit obtained by The Sun, police note that on January 27 at 6:55 p.m., Letecia called 911 to report that Gannon had not returned after going to a friend’s house.
Gannon was listed as a runaway AFTER his stepmother said she had seen him just a few hours previously and the boy often played with children in the neighborhood.
Police now believe that this call was placed a few hours after Letecia bludgeoned her stepson in his bedroom and then cleaned up the crime scene.
Authorities now believe that Letecia murdered Gannon shortly after 2pm on January 27, according to the affidavit.
It was a violent crime according to the affidavit, and there was “blood spatter on the walls and enough blood loss to stain his mattress, soak through the carpet, the carpet pad and stain the concrete below his bed.”
In the affidavit, the detective alleges that she then ordered Gannon’s younger sister Laina to play outside when she returned from school a short time later.
When Letecia’s own daughter returned home that day, she sent her to the Dollar Store according to the affidavit.
Once there, Leticia allegedly texted her daughter Harley asking for “carpet cleaner, trash bags and baking soda.”
There is no suggestion in the affidavit that either sister knew what happened to her brother in the affidavit, but according to the affidavit, Laina provided an interview to police, and Harley has not yet done so.
It was while the girls were out shipping that police believe Leticia backed her car into the garage and put the remains if her stepson in the back of her Volkswagen Tiguan.
She then got into that same car the following morning to drive and pick up Gannon's father from the airport.
Letecia first stopped at a long-term parking lot at the airport however, and left the body in her car as she picked up a rental to drive her husband home.
She drove back to the airport inthe rental car later that same day, but according to a receipt was in her Volkswagen when she left the lot that night.
Her car was then captured on camera as she drove down a sparsely-populated and less-travelled section of a local highway.
According to the affidavit, police believe that Letecia disposed of the body on the side of that highway.
Her daughter Harley meanwhile left the house around 10:30 and picked up her mother claims the affidavit.
It is still not clear what that accomplished if this is the case.
That same night, after she hid the body of Gannon, Letecia wrote a very forward text message to one of the investigators on the case with the El Paso County Sheriff's Office.
“What do you want from me? Because I have nothing. One of your very own leaked to me what you guys were doing. I did nothing/ or am being set up," read the text.
"I’m not really even sure other that being told that by another blue with El Paso. I was told I couldn’t go home to sleep and on top of that men were sent to a home with a minor female and she was forced to stay there not to even have good. Every conversation that said even at this moment, I can hear inside. What do you want from me?"
The following day, she showed up two hours later for the interview with deputies that would seal her fate.
Before she arrived at the station she stopped off to get her car washed, and the vehicle was still wet when she pulled into the precinct to answer questions.
“Letecia lied to investigators on multiple occasions, has unexplained abnormal behavior such as obtaining a rental car, disconnecting her cell phone from the cellular network, the false reporting of an alleged rape, abnormal patterns of travel, a continuously evolving story with material changes in facts and circumstances and has since left the state of Colorado,” states the affidavit.
More than a month after he was reported missing, Letecia was arrested on the assumption that she had killed Gannon, even though there was no trace of the boy's body.
“As you can see from our arrest, sadly, we do not believe Gannon is alive," a spokesperson said when police announced Letecia's arrest was announced.
Gannon's mother, Landen Hoit, vowed to get justice for her son as the charges against Letecia were announced.
"She will pay 100% for this heinous thing she’s done," she said of Letecia at a press briefing as she choked back tears.
"I wanna leave this earth knowing that justice will be served for my little boy."
A heartbroken Hoit later stared Letecia down in court when she was charged.
Days after the charges were announced, Gannon's father, Eugene Stauch, filed for divorce from Letecia.
It wasn't until late March that police finally announced they found the remains they believed to be Gannon's – more than 2,000 miles from his home.
A source told The Sun that the child's body was stuffed in a suitcase underneath an overpass in Florida.
Preliminary investigations revealed the boy was hit with a blunt object, stabbed, and shot.
Gannon's family was forced to delay his funeral service due to the coronavirus.
After the reported discovery of the body, additional charges against Leticia were announced.
Letecia is now being charged with first-degree murder with intent and deliberation, and eight other "crime of violence" charges.
The murder charge alone could give her a life sentence without parole.
There was a good deal of evidence stacked up against Letecia prior to the unsealing of the affidavit.
Video footage from a neighbor's camera allegedly showed Gannon getting into a car with his stepmother the day he disappeared.
The stepmother claimed to investigators that a "saucer-sized pool of blood" found in Gannon's room was from a nosebleed.
Arrest records revealed that she had been arrested for a string of crimes, including battery, domestic abuse and theft.
She was also reportedly fired from her teaching job just three days before Gannon was reported missing.
Landen, Eugene, and Gannon's younger sister were all identified as witnesses in court documents for those to testify at Letecia's murder trial.
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