Letecia Stauch (left) murdered her 11-year-old stepson Gannon Stauch, prosecutors said. His brother Dakota Lowry shouted “Why, ‘Tecia?” in her heartbreaking April 11, 2023 testimony. (Mugshot by Letecia Stauch and image by Gannon Stauch via El Paso County Sheriff’s Office; screenshot by Lowry via Law&Crime Network)
The brother of accused murderer Letecia Stauch was overwhelmed with emotion as he began to testify that he saw his sister carrying a strangely heavy suitcase which would later be revealed to contain the body of his slain nephew, Gannon Stauch .
“Why, ‘Tecia?” Dakota Lowry called the court on Tuesday at the start of her testimony in her sister’s murder trial.
#DakotaLowryaccused child killer’s brother #LeteciaStauch, broke down in tears as he prepared to testify against his sister. “Why Letecia? Why?” said Lowry. pic.twitter.com/xASvY8d4Sc
– Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) April 11, 2023
Prosecutors in El Paso County, Colorado said Stauch, 39, stabbed and shot 11-year-old Gannon in his bed on January 27, 2020, while her then-husband, the father of Gannon, Al Stauch, was out of town. in the National Guard. She allegedly stuffed the boy’s body into a suitcase and eventually hauled it across the country to Pensacola, Florida, where she pushed the bag over the railing of a bridge in the hope that the river below would carry it to the Gulf of Mexico.
A deck worker found the suitcase – and the boy’s remains inside – nearly two months later on March 17, 2020.
Letecia Stauch puts up an insanity defense. Her lawyer Will Cook says she suffered from dissociative identity disorder and suffered physical and sexual abuse growing up. But prosecutors say she knew what she was doing when she cleaned up the crime scene, moved Gannon’s body out of the house and kept everyone in the dark about the child’s true whereabouts.
To bolster his case, the state put Lowry — Letecia Stauch’s brother — on the stand. He testified that in late January 2020, when the case was still considered a missing person case, he traveled with their mother and aunt to Colorado Springs to look for Gannon and also to support his sister, whose family felt she was being wrongfully accused of something she would never do.
Lowry described a fractured situation at the Stauch family home. He said law enforcement was at the house when he and his family were there to pick up the family dogs and get clothes for his sister and daughter, Harley Hunt, and officers searched the clothes before. to allow Lowry and the others to take the items. Lowry testified that he felt “aggravated” at the time, as he felt he and his family were viewed as criminals.
The implication of Lowry’s often harrowing testimony is that Letecia Stauch lied and manipulated her own family. After returning to the hotel from visiting family members, Lowry said, his sister took a Nissan Altima, telling the family she was going to get some ‘dog food’, but she was gone longer. than he would have expected.
When she returned, “she was normal for me,” Lowry said. She had returned with a few items, although he couldn’t remember exactly what they were.
On Feb. 1, 2020, Lowry helped her sister rent a van from Budget, the car rental company. The siblings unloaded items from the van their aunt had previously rented and moved them to the new rental van.
Lowry testified that he saw his sister with various suitcases. One of them struck her as odd because she seemed to struggle with it. He offered to help her, but she replied that she didn’t need it. When asked, Letecia Stauch claimed she had softball equipment, he testified.
Prosecutor Dave Young asked Lowry why he asked him about the contents of the suitcase.
“I didn’t feel well,” he testified. He said it felt like it was too much for her.
In earlier testimony, Al Stauch spoke about confronting his then-wife about her changing stories about Gannon’s disappearance.
Local reporter Spencer Wilson, who interviewed Letecia Stauch on camera during the missing person’s case, said on Monday she wanted to do a second interview in which she cried.
The prosecution played the former @KKTV11News the interview with journalist Spencer Wilson on #LeteciaStauch while her now deceased stepson, Gannon Stauch, was missing. Wilson said Stauch wanted to do a second interview, where she cried the second time around. pic.twitter.com/1UBWwsNFUz
– Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) April 10, 2023
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