Stepmom ‘who abused and murdered Gannon Stauch’ previously arrested in battery, domestic abuse and theft cases
THE stepmother of missing Colorado boy Gannon Stauch had been arrested for an alleged string of crimes in four states under three different names before her arrest on Monday on suspicion of murder, criminal records show.
Letecia Stauch was even sentenced to prison after one arrest and has been convicted of charges including battery, grand-theft auto, making threats and domestic violence, according to the docs.
For that offense, Letecia was sentenced to 45 days in jail but given credit for time served.
She was also put on probation for 18 months and order to pay just over $1,000.
That same year she was also charged with communicating threats and simple assault, but those counts seemed to be dropped as part of her deal with prosecutors in the felony larceny case, court docs show.
It was also traffic offenses that got Letecia picked up in Virginia a few years later, but she was able to get off after paying a fine for these minor offenses, according to court records.
Her next arrest was in 2010, by which time she was going by Letecia Hunt.
The newly-married teacher, who had graduated from Liberty University by then, was cited for domestic violence and domestic abuse in Horry County, South Carolina, court docs show.
That is the same county she was arrested in on Monday.
Those charges were eventually dropped and there is no online record of the court filing.
The Clerk of Courts for Horry County did not respond to multiple requests for comment over the past week.
Letecia Hunt began going by Tecia soon after that arrest, and eventually got a job teaching in South Carolina.
It was not long before that job led to problems between Letetcia and the school district however when she abandoned her position
Letecia left her job at one school just two days into the school year without any warning or notice.
In an email sent two days later, Letecia claimed she left after being subject to bullying because the district superintendent was the uncle of Gannon’s mother Landon Hiott.
She had married Gannon’s father Eugene Albert Stauch by then, a little over a year after divorcing her first husband.
It was the second marriage for both husband and wife.
The South Carolina Board of Education investigated the alleged harassment and retaliation campaign, and determined Letecia’s claims were “unsubstantiated” at a hearing.
That investigation also found that Letecia had breached her contract by abandoning her post, and the board ruled to suspend her teaching license for 180 days.
The Order of Suspension handed down by the South Carolina Board of Education states that Letecia signed a contract in 2015 with the Marion County School District.
She then attended the five-day training program for the district before starting her job as a middle school social studies teacher.
According to the order, two days into the school year, Letecia stopped showing up to work.
Calls and emails went unanswered until two days later, when Letecia claimed that she had requested a transfer and was being bullied by staff.
“In that email Mrs Stauch indicated that she left the district because she experienced harassment and retaliation after requesting to be released fro her contract due to a pending military move, which she claims had been denied,” reads the Board of Education filing on the matter.
“She also alleged that district superintendent’s niece was her husband’s ex-wife and that the harassment and retaliation were due to this relationship.”
An investigation into these allegations failed to substantiate even one of Letecia’s claims according to the order.
The case file also states that Letecia threatened to file a complaint against the district with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if she were not let out of her contract.
It was the district who ultimately filed a complaint though, ruling that Letecia had in abandoned her position and breached her contract.
This decision was also based on the discovery that Letecia had accepted a position in another school district as well that year, the order states.
As a result of this breach in her contract, the state suspended her educator’s certification for 180 days.
On her Linked In profile, Letecia claims to have gone back to work after that suspension and worked as an Education Specialist for the state until 2018.
The Board of Education confirmed this, telling The Sun that Letecia took a job in Dorchester County in 2017, and the following year in Berkeley County.
She was certified to teach elementary school, special education and secondary social studies Colorado as of March 2019, but is unclear if she ever began at any schools in the area.
She wrote on her LinkedIn that shed was working as a Curriculum Developer at School District 49 in Peyton, but there was no record of her having been employed by that county.
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