Found Deceased CO - Gannon Stauch, 11, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, 27 Jan 2020 **ARREST** #47

[oviedo]

poor Gannon..

 

[NervousNellie]

Spencer Wilson's tweets and notes. I hope this works. This might be a monster post.

Spencer Wilson@Spencer_WNews
Ok, a ton to unpack with #LeteciaStauch. I've sent my notes off to all the stations, so let's get into it.

First off, Stauch is being sent for a mental evaluation for competency. They expect to move her from jail in the next week to the state hospital.

Spencer Wilson@Spencer_WNews
Next up, deputy @4thJudicialDA
says the previous identification of Gannon's body from Florida was not clear enough, so they did additional testing here last week. They did say they have always been confident, but now additional tests confirm, yes, the body is Gannon's.

Spencer Wilson@Spencer_WNews
Here are my full notes from the courtroom. You can read how #LeteciaStauch looked in the room, how Gannon's parents appeared, and issues the judge is expecting with COVID19.

A TON to unpack, and not all of it is super clear, so hit me up with additional questions.

Spencer's notes at this link:
https://twitter.com/Spencer_WNews/status/1268953447644069888/photo/1

OMG, my favorite part of Spencer's notes:
"During the whole meeting, LS face is covered from any view from the public by her hair." Yet another Cousin It appearance.

Sorry, nothing else to add. You guys are pretty much asking all the good questions.

 

[SleuthBee]

The more I read and think about TS, the more I think she is just manipulative and full of jealousy and hate. She wants to be the hero and can't take anyone else receiving praise. We can try to put a name on it, but bottom line is she is just evil. Look at how often she portrayed herself as the hero. IMO she let jealousy feed her hatred of anyone who got attention. Can you imagine how she would take LH getting sympathy from everyone, including the husband she stole?

I could not agree more.
Jealousy is at the bitter root of a person with TS's behaviors. Another person receiving attention, love, or praise is an immediate trigger to her madness, then she responds by making them her target.

AS's love for his children must have been a real thorn in her side

 

[SleuthBee]

She has to be able to aid in her own defense is the reason for the competency evaluation.
Competency to Stand Trial

I think she could aid in her defense if she stopped hyper focusing on plotting her escape and passing notes. The AA states that she spent days looking at the window? Maybe they a thorough evaluation will ward off a future appeal. Honestly, is there a limit this woman won't push?

 

[kittythehare]

Court orders Letecia Stauch to take mental competency test

Probably 'cos the window was just a tiny opening...

Seriously, what a list here!

• Count 1 - Murder in the first degree (first degree felony)
• Count 2 - Murder in the first degree (first degree felony)
• Count 3 - Child abuse resulting in death (second degree felony)
• Count 4 - Tampering with a deceased human body (third degree felony)
• Count 5 - Tampering with physical evidence (sixth degree felony)
• Count 6 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of firearm
• Count 7 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of a blunt instrument
• Count 8 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of a knife or other sharp instrument
• Count 9 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - unlawfully causing the death of Gannon Stauch
• Count 10 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of a firearm related to murder in the first degree - child under 12 years of age
• Count 11 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of a blunt instrument related to murder in the first degree - child under 12 years of age
• Count 12 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - use of a knife or other sharp instrument related to murder in the first degree - child under 12 years of age
• Count 13 - Crime of violence (special enhancer) - unlawfully causing the death of Gannon Stauch related to murder in the first degree - child under 12 years of age

 

[SleuthBee]

OMG!!! Tears again! That poor child at the hands of that evil monster! He is a hero for sure!

Does this mean the jaw bone was recently found separately from the other remains? I'm speculating that the suitcase split/popped open upon impact of being thrown from bridge height above. But I would've thought that LE would've scoured the entire surrounding area for any possible additional evidence! Unless it was found in a totally different area
And what in the heck's the deal with the autopsy?!?!?!? I mean they added additional charges when they found his body based on SOMETHING! So why no autopsy report yet?

She is going to go for the Academy Award in trying to get them to declare her mentally incompetent! She's an idiot, completely lacking a conscience, but she knows right from wrong and she knew enough to cover up the crime, move the body, and not cooperate with authorities or the investigation.......NOPE, NOPE, NOPE! She's definitely competent to stand trial for her heinous actions!

MOO JMO #GannonStrong #GannonsArmy #JusticeForGannon

I always suspected that she dismembered him. I recall that one of the charges relates to an act that would hinder identification of the his body.

I will see if I can locate it.

 

[DTPeke]

OMG, my favorite part of Spencer's notes:
"During the whole meeting, LS face is covered from any view from the public by her hair." Yet another Cousin It appearance.

Sorry, nothing else to add. You guys are pretty much asking all the good questions.

Mine too! Someone needs to buzz that doo. I can't wait until it starts turning gray but maybe it actually won't. She cares for no-one but herself. Nonplussed. She is only stressed about her incarceration.

I also noticed Spencer types protestors instead of prosecutor.

I follow him on tweeter for this case and he has been in the thick of the protests. That guy is everywhere!

I always suspected that she dismembered him. I recall that one of the charges relates to an act that would hinder identification of the his body.

I will see if I can locate it.

Yes, that has been on my mind lately. I believe it uses the term mutilation.

When I read about the jawbone earlier. That is exactly what I thought but luckily it was for the ID.

There really is no telling what she did to him. The trial will be eye-opening. It will also stick in the juror minds he had to be identified by teeth and bone.

I hate her.

 

[Cindizzi]

I always suspected that she dismembered him. I recall that one of the charges relates to an act that would hinder identification of the his body.

I will see if I can locate it.

She was charged with Count #4 - Tampering with a deceased body well before G was found in Florida, though.
The count also covers “concealing a body”.
JMO

 

[Ontario Mom]

It kind of makes me think they already discussed a plan.

It doesn't make me think that, anymore than I think she already discussed a plan with the inmates she left notes for.

 

[kittythehare]

September is quite a wait..
Is she clever enough to have created a fake escape scenario to feign incompetence?
She probably is.

 

[Ontario Mom]

The Jury's out for me on what HH may, or may not know, or may, or may not, have done.

All I can say, is that I hope someone can have a serious discussion with HH, make her understand that momma ain't never coming home, and she needs to cut ties, get a lawyer and do whatever is right based on the truth.

The longer she has contact with Tee, the worse it will be for her, whether she knew anything or not. Her mother is toxic and will take her down with her.

Unfortunately, I don't think that family has anyone with enough brains or sense, to counsel HH in a way that will save her from this madness.

MMO

Do we even know if she is still in contact?

 

[Ontario Mom]

This is just an opinion.

If LS wrote to her daughter and said “stay focused”, it might be that her daughter knows a lot more than anyone would have guessed, and/or that LS has planned this “insanity” defense from the time she was arrestedby attacking the deputy in Kansas and by pretending to jail mates that she was going to escape jail, knowing it would put her in a psych ward.

Yes, LS is a control freak and mean and evil, however anyone wants to label her. But she has a criminal mind and is very cunning. Her daughter may or may not be exactly like her (after all these years). I am sure this has been considered by the prosecution.

Again, I’m not trying to hurt HH, but if she hasn’t cooperated by now with the prosecutors, she isn’t going to.

Is there anything to lead us to believe HH hasn't yet cooperated with the investigation?
It's entirely possible I've missed something, so I'm just asking.

ETA: and yes, I'm sticking up for the kid until there's something in the MSM that leads me to believe she doesn't deserve it. Until then, she's a victim too, and deserves some compassion.

 

[Ontario Mom]

Am I the only one that is concerned about the mental hospital's ability to keep Tee's under lock and key?

My guess is that's she's already hatching her next great plan to escape. She's tried twice...IMO she will try a third time.

I really really hope they have some serious security in place for her.

I think, she orchestrated this all along.
Do this, and that, and the other, and they'll send you off for a competency eval, at a location not exactly as secure as the county lockup.
Where, she'll likely hurt someone in an effort to escape.
She's done it before, so, we know she's not afraid of at least trying.

jmo

 

[SleuthBee]

I'm not familiar with the pueblo facility but the hospitals that I am familiar with have forensic units, with specific protocols accordingly. That said, I'm feeling that she will be looking for any glitch in their system. Yes, they better be on their toes with this one. Moo

... and TS is always scanning for a weakness to exploit and an object to use. She picked inmate Borchard after observing that she gets to use the broom on her time out [pg 2, para 2]. Kind of creepy to me.

Even now TS believes she is the smartest person in the jail. Borchard couldn't just sneak over to TS's cell and slip out the window into fields of freedom, lol! TS lured her with money and false promises, "I got us covered," yeah right. Its more like TS attempts to escape and Borchard ends up charged with aiding and assisting. Lets be glad that Borchard called TS's BS and turned her in.

https://www.courts.state.co.us/Media/Opinion_Docs/20CR3170.pdf

ETA: clarity

 

[LietKynes]

Does this mean that the body is still in Florida and only jawbone with teeth in Colorado? Is this the normal procedure?

Remember LS said they might find blood on the woodworking tools b/c Gannon "...had cut his foot..." ?

Evil.
Demonic.
No other words I will use here.

Rest in peace, sweet boy !

 

[Cindizzi]

From September 2019.
State mental hospital in Pueblo expanding to meet federal regulations

PUEBLO, Colo. — The state mental hospital in Pueblo started construction last month on a unit that will add 24 beds to the facility’s forensic hospital, the Colorado Department of Human Services announced in a news release Tuesday.

The Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo is adding beds as part of an agreement that resolved an eight-year-old federal lawsuit over wait times for court-ordered competency services, according to the release.

The 24 beds will be for people who are committed by courts or found innocent by reason of insanity and are expected to open in November 2020, the department said.

 

[wyome]

I'm (almost) speechless after learning of her attempted inmate escape.

This woman is unhinged. And not in the sense that she should be found not sane, but in the sense that I cannot believe NO ONE recognized how F'ed up she was in her daily life. That includes family, friends, neighbors, work associates...EVERYONE.

My takeaways are this:
HOW, if she is allowed out 1 hr a day and is ALONE and supervised, is she able to slip notes in another's cell door?

WHY was she not officially charged for assaulting that transporting officer enroute to Colorado? They were real quick to charge her with attempting escape from prison, but there's no charge for attacking a transport officer who reportedly was sent to the hospital with injuries??

I'm sorry, there's more to this story. Grave as it is. I'm so sorry Gannon.

 

[10ofRods]

About the hospital evaluation, will she be guarded/locked?is there a separate ward for criminals there?
I just have a feeling she wanted this evaluation so she can try to escape? MOO

I don't know about Pueblo, but I worked at a California State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (Atascadero) and it was as secure as any prison and more secure than some places. People could only enter to visit after a search and metal detector. In the first lobby past the first security doors (there were two), there was a little exhibit of weapons made by inmates using ordinary objects. To work there, we had to submit to random searches and also sign a legal document noting that we knew we were not to bring pens, plastic silverware, barrettes, toothbrushes. and a bunch of other things into the facility.

Each ward was locked. Some prisoners were in padded cells. A few were in 4 point restraints (not indefinitely, but until meds kicked in). Since it was a hospital, inmates were treated as patients, with thorazine and haldol topping the charts of commonly prescribed medicines. Heavily medicated patients were kept in a separate area from prisoners who managed to "make progress.' The goal, of course, was to return them to sanity so they could stand trial.

To fail the mental status exam and remain in the hospital was a goal for many prisoners. They preferred the meds and the hospital setting to prison. Many would be facing life in prison, but they would be at Atascadero for life, as well, if they couldn't pass the mental status exam.

Once they managed to convince a team of treating psychiatrists that they were mentally competent, they went before a board of psychiatrists, former judges and community members to assess whether they were mentally competent. Some really wanted to get their day in court, as they regarded themselves as innocent. It wasn't hard to learn the expected answers to the mental status questions, it was a bit harder to answer the Board's questions and while I wasn't there very long (3 months), I don't recall the Board letting more than 1 person move on to trial (and his parents were very active in finding an attorney to help with that).

As prisoners/patients moved up through levels toward more freedom and more open ward experience, treating psychiatrists would eventually refer them to the Board and sometimes, the Board would listen to a couple of hours of tedious testimony about how said prisoner was in fact fit to stand trial. While I didn't witness it, that's what several of the prisoner/patients I worked with wanted to have happen. They wanted out.

I worked in the open ward (locked into cells at night) with serial rapists, taking life history and family history data to correlate with other medical studies that were ongoing. The actual point of my work was to see if the patient's story (as told to me or to one of the other researchers in my group) lined up with what they'd told various doctors over time, and with their criminal records. So, if their criminal record stated that their semen/DNA had been found in a victim, their treating psychiatrist treated that as fact. The rapists were supposed to acknowledge the facts of their case, not lie, not dissemble and not act like antisocial personalities.

While the man I worked with the most did not, to me, seem to be lying, apparently what he told me had significant variations from what LE and treating psychiatrists said (he was lying, trying to appear more innocent and in general, convince me that he was a charming man who simply had a high libido). The psychiatrist told me that his willingness to describe his crimes truthfully to me meant he was moving toward trial.

He did not, when I asked him, deny that he raped women, though. He knew better. If he had denied it, his psychiatrist would not have considered him "mentally competent." The details he gave me of his crimes matched what was in the police records. I've always assumed that he eventually faced trial. Sadly, his time at Atascadero would count as "time served" and reduce his sentence - and he for sure preferred Atascadero to prison.

This was in the 1980's, so things have probably changed (although my friends at Atascadero say it has changed very very little).

 

[GoJacks]

I'm (almost) speechless after learning of her attempted inmate escape.

This woman is unhinged. And not in the sense that she should be found not sane, but in the sense that I cannot believe NO ONE recognized how F'ed up she was in her daily life. That includes family, friends, neighbors, work associates...EVERYONE.

My takeaways are this:
HOW, if she is allowed out 1 hr a day and is ALONE and supervised, is she able to slip notes in another's cell door?

WHY was she not officially charged for assaulting that transporting officer enroute to Colorado? They were real quick to charge her with attempting escape from prison, but there's no charge for attacking a transport officer who reportedly was sent to the hospital with injuries??

I'm sorry, there's more to this story. Grave as it is. I'm so sorry Gannon.

It's because it happened in KS and it would have delayed her CO charges.

 

[10ofRods]

JMO

Symptoms of schizophrenia include:

hallucinations – hearing or seeing things that do not exist outside of the mind
Eguardo?

delusions – unusual beliefs not based on reality
Maybe Eguardo was real? (in her mind)

muddled thoughts based on hallucinations or delusions
Think about the google searches and her messy attempt to murder and clean up, I.e. why bring Gannon home to murder him as per the AA, when she could have done so during the trip out on Monday.

losing interest in everyday activities

not caring about your personal hygiene
Blatant lack of hair washing - ok this one is just a cheap shot but I couldn’t help myself

wanting to avoid people, including friends

I’m just clutching at straws, but I genuinely think there’s some sort of severe mental disorder here and not just NPD.

VERY long post ahead!

I agree with you that she is seriously messed up in the head. As a longtime field diagnostician, perhaps I can help with one aspect of your post.

Being diagnosed within the context of DSM-5 is for treatment and clinical study only. It has absolutely nothing to do with the legal definition of insanity. There's a really great series of shows on S5 of St Elsewhere about this very issue.

A person can be schizophrenic and still stand trial. A person can be a flaming malignant NPD and still stand trial. And a person can be a pedophile (per DSM) and obviously, still stand trial. Drug abuse is in DSM (and is a mental/neurological disorder). Alcoholism is in DSM (and a mental/neurological disorder).

You might be surprised to know what kinds of questions psychiatrists actually ask to determine whether a person is "mentally competent to stand trial," which is an entirely different issue than "do they have a treatable psychiatric or neurologic illness?"

They start with such things as, "Do you know what day of the week it is? What month of the year? What year is it?" Usually, people get those right. A complete non-response to those questions will result in a different kind of further evaluation (does this person ever answer questions? do they know their name?) Even really uncooperative people will sullenly acknowledge their name. If not, then they are under close observation when they interact with other patients or their attorney or their parents. Oddly, all of a sudden, nearly everyone seems to remember their name (and their provisional diagnosis, "malingering" is not enough to keep them out of court or give them an insanity defense - kind of the opposite).

Is it good and moral to murder people without provocation? Yes or no. There are a lot of yes or no questions. If the person ever wants to see the outside of an institution, they will have passed the above part of the exam (they know what month and year it is, anyway, they know their name).

Is it a good thing to murder a child? Yes or no.

Is it good or permissible to murder a child who is placed in your care and to whom you acted as mother? Yes or no.

The doctor will keep going back to "yes or no" and repeating these hypothetical questions. They may throw in some interesting ones. "Is it okay and good to keep an unregistered gun in your handbag at a school?" "Is it good and lawful to buy a gun that has had its serial numbers removed?" For the more intelligent antisocials, they can't resist showing that they do know the law.

And when they do that - they get to go to trial and they do not get an insanity defense. Judges review all of this material very carefully and criminal defense attorneys know all of this better than I do.

"Is it good and permissible to legally buy a gun, with the sole purpose of intending to kill your husband?" (Actual question asked in a case I'm familiar with). "Yes," said the wife. "Is it good and permissible to premeditate the murder of your abusive husband?" "Yes," said the wife. At that point, it now became a matter of a jury trial. This person claimed her husband was abusive, but he was not in the same room or even in the house when she shot him and then hid the weapon. She then lied to police about an intruder in the yard.

Defense tried the battered spouse defense, and they lost (jury didn't buy it).

But notice how this person was able to answer simple questions that showed her mind was working and that she had a sense of right and wrong (even if the rest of us don't agree).

Personally, I think LS's own approach to these exams will be to adopt that meek demeanor we saw at her extradition proceeding, pretend not to understand everything, but ultimately answer, "Yes, I know it's wrong to stick children in freezers" or whatever else they may ask. Usually, they use questions that are not directly applicable to the situation at hand, just to test a person's sense of right and wrong.

"I don't know" is a valid answer, and gets the person more time in the psych ward. A person with a DSM diagnosis AND a track record of stating plainly that the "don't know that it's wrong to bomb schools" (or whatever gets asked) is definitely a risk to themselves and others.

"Would it be wrong to...X" is often the form asked if it's clear the person understands ordinary English. In this case, LS's educational background (alleged) will cause the psychiatrist to asked tougher questions, as she should be able to answer them. Since she is a blabbermouth, I predict she will answer, but have a hard time sticking to yes or no, but will eventually commit to a short answer.

None of this ever comes before the jury, nor would Al or Landen get to know what she said. BTW, learning to do a mental status exam is something that many different professionals are taught to do (including techs in ER's with a 2 year college degree). Doing a complex mental status exam in a felony murder case will be done by an experienced psychiatrist or two or three.

One of the best psychiatrists I observed would throw in these seemingly random questions near the beginning, "You're driving in your car, you see a dog in the road, is it okay or right to deliberately swerve to hit the dog?" They always answered "no." Everyone knows that! He knew right then and there the person knew right from wrong, and this one involved a bit of critical thinking - so they're clearly able to understand human speech and use their mental faculties to answer.

They're not legally insane.