Lifeless body of Gannon Stauch ‘was in killer stepmom’s car when she went to pick up his dad hours after murdering boy’
GANNON Stauch's stepmom allegedly drove to pick up his dad from the airport with the boy's body in the back of her car.
Letecia Stauch is accused of murdering her 11-year-old stepson before reporting him missing to authorities.
A day later, she is alleged to have put his corpse inside a suitcase, which she then packed into her car before collecting his father Al Stauch from the airport, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Sun.
In the document, 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.
Police now believe that this call was placed a few hours after Letecia bludgeoned her stepson in his bedroom and then .
Authorities think that shortly after 2pm on January 27, according to the affidavit.
It was a violent crime according to the document, 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, the affidavit reads.
Once there, Leticia 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, but cops believe Laina provided an interview to police. Harley has not yet done so.
It was while the girls were out shopping that police believe Leticia backed her car into the garage and put the remains of her stepson in the back of her Volkswagen Tiguan.
She then got into the 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 leaving the body in her car as she picked up a rental to drive her husband home.
She drove back to the airport in the rental car later the same day - and was back in Volkswagen when she left the lot that night.
Her car was captured on camera that night as she drove down a sparsely-populated and less-travelled section of a local highway.
According to the affidavit, police believe Letecia disposed of the body on the side of that highway.
That same night, after she allegedly 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, 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 when she was charged.
Days after the charges were announced, Gannon's father, Eugene Stauch, .
It wasn't until late March that police finally announced they – 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 .
Preliminary investigations , stabbed, and shot.
Gannon's family was .
After the reported discovery of the body, additional charges against Leticia were announced.
Letecia is 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.
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Video footage from a neighbor's camera the day he disappeared.
The stepmother that a "saucer-sized pool of blood" found in Gannon's room was from a nosebleed.
Arrest records revealed that , including battery, domestic abuse and theft.
She was also was reported missing.
Landen, Eugene, and Gannon's younger sister were all at Letecia's murder trial.