An El Paso County jury on Monday concluded that Letecia Stauch was sane when she killed her 11-year-old stepson in the basement of the family’s Colorado Springs home three years ago.
Jurors found Stauch guilty of first-degree murder, rejecting Stauch’s defense that she suffered a mental break and was legally insane when she stabbed and shot Gannon Stauch on Jan. 27, 2020.
The 39-year-old will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Stauch was also found guilty of tampering with a human body and tampering with evidence. She did not appear to visibly react when the verdict was read in El Paso County District Court on Monday.
Gannon’s disappearance three years ago prompted national attention during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Letecia Stauch reported the boy missing on Jan. 27, 2020, saying he had gone to a friend’s house to play and never returned home, but almost immediately drew suspicion because she gave shifting accounts to investigators.
For weeks, authorities coordinated a massive public search effort for Gannon, while investigators privately zeroed in on Letecia Stauch as the prime suspect in the killing, testimony revealed during the month-long jury trial.
After killing Gannon, Letecia Stauch hid the boy’s body in a remote area along the El Paso/Douglas county line, before moving the body into a suitcase and driving it in a rented cargo van to Florida, where she tossed the suitcase off a highway overpass.
She was arrested and charged with murder on March 2, 2020, days before a construction crew found Gannon’s body on March 17, 2020.
During the trial, Stauch’s defense attorneys claimed she suffered serious childhood abuse that led to the development of multiple personality disorder and that she suffered a mental break when she killed Gannon.
Prosecutors countered that Stauch was sane and motivated by hatred of Gannon. They said she resented caring for the boy and pointed to her extensive efforts to cover up the crime as evidence of her sanity.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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