COLORADO SPRINGS – Investigators believe a woman charged with murdering her 11-year-old stepson killed him in his bedroom just a few hours before reporting him missing in January and allegedly concocted a variety of stories to mislead them, according to a sealed court document posted on social media.
Authorities say Letecia Stauch reported Gannon Stauch missing on Jan. 27 after he failed to return from a friend’s house. But she was not able to provide details about the friends he was with or their parents or her efforts to find him, according to an arrest affidavit laying out evidence justifying her arrest.
Two days later, Letecia Stauch allegedly said Gannon had been abducted by a Hispanic man working in their home who raped her, but she refused to undergo a sexual assault exam, the document said.
Colorado state courts spokesman Rob McCallum confirmed that the document, albeit officially sealed, was authentic, and likely would be ordered unsealed by the judge in the case.
A telephone message left for Stauch’s public defender, Kathryn Strobel, at her office closed because of the coronavirus outbreak and an email seeking comment were not returned Friday.
Based on tracking information from Stauch’s SUV, investigators believed that she disposed of Gannon’s remains in a rural area near Palmer Lake on Jan. 28. A piece of particle board with what turned out to be Gannon’s blood on it was found by searchers there on Feb. 15. But his remains were not found there.
In March, authorities said human remains believed to be Gannon’s were found on the Florida Panhandle. The document, written on Feb. 28, does not address that development.
The document describes evidence of blood found in Gannon’s bedroom and Stauch’s SUV. It does not say why Stauch allegedly killed her stepson. But investigators said, based on her internet searches, it seems like she was unhappily married and resentful of being treated as a babysitter for her stepchildren.
