CO - Gannon Stauch, 11, found deceased, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, 27 Jan 2020 *Arrest* #58

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Did she purchase the fire and odor remover on Monday when she was out? Would’ve made sense to clean up the first fire that burned Gannon and then the fire she set as the cover up with the candle. I don’t keep fire/smoke and odor remover in my house, I don’t know if many do. Maybe it’s normal.

There was one sock found with the bloody board, or at least lots of talk that there was back when this all happened. Was it a burned sock that she used for the fire that was stuck in the candle? Or the matching sock that matched the sock that was in the candle?

His switch was missing in the beginning, and she insisted he took it with him. Then after he was missing she did a search to see if a switch could be traced, and magically the switch was found hidden under the tv stand after they move out. Did she go retrieve the switch and plant it again? Was it in the suitcase with him at first, and she worried it would help them find him??
 
squareandrabbet said:
Today's cheap acrylic carpet burns and puddles, IME.

Not 'puddles' like napalm: just becomes smooth or pondlike, and goes swiftly out. part of the push to make it flame retardant, like mattresses.

(Source: used to live three-to-a-smoker in super cheap rental accommodations. Weren't these houses very new builds?)
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As far as I know, it was a new build, and the Stauchs were the first tenants. They'd been there roughly two years, I think? Please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the dates in front of me. EDIT: They were in Colorado for a bit over a year. I knew it was 2018-2020, but it was the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2020. So, yeah, brand spanking new house.

CSI Bell talked about how modern carpets were fire retardant, and that they had actually done extensive experiments to show how carpets burnt with different kinds of fire/ignition. That's why she was so confident the 'candle story' was inconsistent with the evidence.

MOO
 
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iamshadow21 said:
One point that I would make - we know that he defended himself from the knife from the cuts on his hands and arms. We have no evidence he defended himself from the blunt trauma or gunshot. Other than that, I think everything you've speculated is pretty plausible given what we know so far.

MOO
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Perhaps the sharp force injuries in the family room then, and blunt object (butt of the gun seems to be Mr. Allen’s assessment), and shooting in bed.

Also, perhaps the charred blankets left in the family room near the carpet repair weren’t part of Gannon’s burns at all. Perhaps they were used for the coverup fire and what she used to control the burn and put it out. This is why she wasn’t concerned with getting rid of those-they wouldn’t have had Gannon’s blood or anything on them. Just the charring and perhaps fibers from the carpet.

My mind hurts because I can’t make it all make sense. It seems like it’s falling into place the more evidence they present. I need to let my mind rest and just wait for more to come out. It’s just so difficult to piece together. So much truth among the lies.

I need to re-read the arrest affidavit and just watch things unfold at trial.
 
perception≠reality said:
Perhaps the sharp force injuries in the family room then, and blunt object (butt of the gun seems to be Mr. Allen’s assessment), and shooting in bed.

Also, perhaps the charred blankets left in the family room near the carpet repair weren’t part of Gannon’s burns at all. Perhaps they were used for the coverup fire and what she used to control the burn and put it out. This is why she wasn’t concerned with getting rid of those-they wouldn’t have had Gannon’s blood or anything on them. Just the charring and perhaps fibers from the carpet.

My mind hurts because I can’t make it all make sense. It seems like it’s falling into place the more evidence they present. I need to let my mind rest and just wait for more to come out. It’s just so difficult to piece together. So much truth among the lies.

I need to re-read the arrest affidavit and just watch things unfold at trial.
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I agree that whenever the blankets were burnt, they were left there as part of the staging. She'd put the burnt square of carpet and the candle in the bin. Why not the burnt blankets? Or if they weren't burnt badly enough to throw out, why not launder them? Instead, they were balled up together next to the fresh carpet square and rug cover up, the pillow with minimal damage, the sofa with spilt wax on it. She set it all up to tell the story she wanted it to. Too bad she wrote it in crayon in all caps when the CSIs are at the level of writing copperplate.

MOO
 
Gut_feeling said:
YES and YES! I've known kids who sound like Gannon. Little "feelers", you know? Curious and innocent, energetic and clever. I couldn't agree more when you say he would have made the world a better place. So many kids (and adults) with ADHD are led to think it's a flaw, a defect, and yeah, it IS hard to realize certain things are more difficult for you, but in reality, there is something amazing in there, a heart and brain that senses/notices so much it should be considered a superpower, but it just doesn't always "fit in/blend in" with what is typical/expected/required in this very imperfect world. I apologize to the mods for the tangent, I just, Gannon deserved so much better. He deserved to know how amazing he was. So many kids deserve better.
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I adored the part where his hometown minister told us he'd run through the church greeting everyone... I could picture it exactly.
 
squareandrabbet said:
I adored the part where his hometown minister told us he'd run through the church greeting everyone... I could picture it exactly.
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The happy fond memories of Gannon and kids like him…that’s what drew me to his story so deeply. My own little boy was exactly Gannon’s age when this happened. Same build, same hair, same tender heart, same love for video games-Mario and Sonic specifically. I think it’s part of the reason I am so invested. That poor sweet boy deserved so much better. She also deserves so much worse than she will ever suffer.
 
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perception≠reality said:
Perhaps the sharp force injuries in the family room then, and blunt object (butt of the gun seems to be Mr. Allen’s assessment), and shooting in bed.

Also, perhaps the charred blankets left in the family room near the carpet repair weren’t part of Gannon’s burns at all. Perhaps they were used for the coverup fire and what she used to control the burn and put it out. This is why she wasn’t concerned with getting rid of those-they wouldn’t have had Gannon’s blood or anything on them. Just the charring and perhaps fibers from the carpet.

My mind hurts because I can’t make it all make sense. It seems like it’s falling into place the more evidence they present. I need to let my mind rest and just wait for more to come out. It’s just so difficult to piece together. So much truth among the lies.

I need to re-read the arrest affidavit and just watch things unfold at trial.
Click to expand...
Maybe the piece of bloody carpet hidden inside the roll in the storage room is what she placed the suitcase on when hiding it in there??? Maybe it didn’t come from the family room at all. Maybe she cut it to place the suitcase on só the blood wouldn’t run! This makes the most sense, since I couldn’t reconcile the suitcase being in there even when police searched without a trail of blood running onto the cement. I just re-watched the carpet testimony, and this 100% fits with the way the stains on the carpet have a flat edge to them on one side, and I’m sure it soaked through onto the concrete, but no direct puddle.

I think she left the carpet piece hidden in the roll because she didn’t want the carpet in the suitcase with him tying the suitcase and Gannon back to the house. It wouldn’t fit her abduction/runaway story.

Ugh. I don’t know. It’s all so much.
 
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imstilla.grandma said:
I want to remember only his smiling face. I’m sorry, but every single time I see the word candle, I can only see his little face looking up at her. So scared in that fb video. I wish to God, I’d never seen it.
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I am finding there are many triggers in Gannon's case that can take my mind down a disturbing path where I don't want to go. Often, after listening to testimony, I have to depend on the use of "distractions" to help bring me back to a comfort zone. Fortunately, I love to read and I'm using both audible and printed books (not crime related) help pull me away from living in this trial. It is not easy to be an addict of jury trials these days.
 
Chelly said:
I am finding there are many triggers in Gannon's case that can take my mind down a disturbing path where I don't want to go. Often, after listening to testimony, I have to depend on the use of "distractions" to help bring me back to a comfort zone. Fortunately, I love to read and I'm using both audible and printed books (not crime related) help pull me away from living in this trial. It is not easy to be an addict of jury trials these days.
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I spent the night with my granddaughter. She made dinner to show off her cooking skills. I forgot what she called it but she made dough and rolled it out into some kind of flat bread with bow-tie pasta. Yummy. She’s 16 so she’s been experimenting. She’s had a boyfriend for about eight months. They both seem convinced they can’t live without each other. He’s a good kid and both mom’s are very active in their relationship as far as activities, rides and stuff, and on top of their grades. Brooklynn is so mature it scares me. I cant imagine how my life may have been different if I had it together, like she does, at 16. Anyways, it was a nice break from the iPad. I’ve spent the day in my garden. I have flowers coming up everywhere. I can hardly keep up with them and I get so tired when I have to stand long since my heart attacks. I hope everyone is having a good Saturday. Oh yeah, I found this earlier:

Potential examples of conditions or mental disorders that cause insanity include:
A mental disease or defect "includes only those severely abnormal mental conditions that grossly and demonstrably impair a person's perception or understanding of reality" (C.R.S. § 16-8-101.5(2)(b))—this is almost always understood to be a psychotic disorder like Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder. It is sometimes considered to be a cognitive disorder such as Intellectual Disability, which used to be called Mental Retardation. In rare cases, a personality disorder such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be considered a mental disease or defect for legal purposes.
Explaining a Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity plea
 
Warwick7 said:
Do I think she was insane the moment she killed Gannon, nope. But she is narcissistic.

Narcissists like her are self-obsessed and control others for their personal gain. That is what we have seen done to Gannon, in her police interview and the letters she writes to the public.

They’re notorious for using a few specific tactics for getting and maintaining this control. When they don't have control they fake anxiety or fake heart attacks. Which is LS's go to.

When a narcissist like her can’t control you, they feel threatened, react with anger, and they might even start threatening you. Thus her actions outside of Marshals or in the interview room or even the "cousin it" interview.

Now that I think about it, these are the reasons she will likely take the stand. She's another Jodi Arias, Tammy Moore and Alex Murdaugh all wrapped in one.
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She's got so many different possible PD diagnoses. The literature on Narcissism has taken an interesting term via the Dark Triad model, which used to be controversial, but in the past decade, hundreds of academic papers of various kinds (including studies of behavior in the workplace and behavior online) have been written using it. Since it's not an actual DSM/psychiatric/neurological diagnosis, the model is used throughout the behavioral sciences.

Narcissism is one of the anchors of that model. Machiavellian behavior (intense dedication to manipulating others) is the second part of the triad. Psychopathy is the third (picture psychopathy at the top of a triangle - it's produced by having the two other sets of traits, but it also includes symptoms from throughout DSM and beyond DSM).

Meanwhile, the people who revise DSM are arguing about what to do next (having taken out, for example Sadistic Personality Disorder as a diagnosis due to abuse of it within the legal system - that's my opinion, having followed the debate). Sadism is now classified as a paraphilia in DSM (Sexual Sadism), but there's no Sadism disorder. Psychiatrists fear that regarding sadism as a mental illness will help the worst possible people get off easier in court.

Some of you may remember, years, ago (probably around DSM-3 days), there was a psychiatrist who argued strongly for many years that DSM needed something that allowed "Evil" people to be pulled out and categorized. Naturally, he failed and that movement progressed to the DSM we have now, where arguments are intense about Antisocial PD vs. Histrionic PD in relationship to criminal actions and depth of pathology. Being a chronic rule-breaker and lawbreaker is one of the features of ASPD. However, a large majority of those diagnosed with it are male. Nearly all people diagnosed with HPD are female, but it turns out that Histrionic females produce a lot of crime as well. Here's a link to an abstract the summarizing some current literature on this:


And here's a full article from about a decade ago, which is when terms like "psychopathy" and "sociopathy" began to be used in academic research regularly, after a big hiatus in the 1980's and 1990's. This article mentions several PD's (and other conditions) and looks at what kinds of crimes are committed by each (crimes against children by women often involve aspects of Histrionic PD, according to this article). Some authors have said, "Let's just combine ASPD and HPD into one thing, and call it something else..."


I write this mostly because the kind of weird speech (vague, digressive) that LS uses is typical of HPD. Also, they think relationships are more intimate and closer than the people with whom they have them. They may treat everyone as a personal confidante. They differ from pure narcissists in one regard: Narcissists deplore getting negative attention and fly into rages when they are criticized (probably true of LS). But Histrionics will accept negative attention as well (often with a smug smile; they will do negative things to people to get attention if they can't get positive attention). They hide behind a mask and are more devious than they are rageful (this is my own theory, could dig up citations to support it though).

Histrionics are masters at fooling others and value drama a great deal. I had two relatives formally diagnosed with it and while they were mostly harmless (not violent), they were extremely disruptive within their families. They both did things that ended up harming themselves more than anyone else, IMO.

HPD people often believe their own fantasies, so it is sometimes very hard for their friends and family to treat them as "lying" when any outsider would probably say they were. You can hear AS struggling with this (as he probably did many times before) in those phone calls.

IMO.
 
She’s not insane.

I believe Gannon’s murder was a cold, calculated event.

Does she have mental health issues? Yup

Is she insane? Nope.

Personality disorders by the boatload. Sociopathy. Yup. Psychopath probably. Borderline personality. Yup. Narcissistic Personality - oh ya!

DID - nope. Lol. Good try but not going to happen.

See ya Tee. You’re going down!
 

DA Allen says we will hear from people who can "vouch for her sanity" at the time of Gannon's murder. "People like Al Stauch, the man that was married to her. People like her brother…and most importantly her very own daughter Harley Hunt."

ALLEN: "All of her actions we’re designed by her to distance herself from what she did/ throw off investigators..escape accountability." "All of her deliberate actions...she knew what she had done to Gannon was wrong...why hide it." "The evidence itself will prove her sanity."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1642979547749679105



https://twitter.com/x/status/1642979137630654464
 
perception≠reality said:
Perhaps the sharp force injuries in the family room then, and blunt object (butt of the gun seems to be Mr. Allen’s assessment), and shooting in bed.

Also, perhaps the charred blankets left in the family room near the carpet repair weren’t part of Gannon’s burns at all. Perhaps they were used for the coverup fire and what she used to control the burn and put it out. This is why she wasn’t concerned with getting rid of those-they wouldn’t have had Gannon’s blood or anything on them. Just the charring and perhaps fibers from the carpet.

My mind hurts because I can’t make it all make sense. It seems like it’s falling into place the more evidence they present. I need to let my mind rest and just wait for more to come out. It’s just so difficult to piece together. So much truth among the lies.

I need to re-read the arrest affidavit and just watch things unfold at trial.
Click to expand...

She set him on fire in the family room makes the most sense to me.

Hope I'm in the ballpark of understanding her crazy. All of you mentioning her motivations for this and her readiness to "cover" fire alarms make this picture come up. Since the only view we have of what really happened is Tee's, it's going to be impossible to know.

IMO.

heartandsoul said:
Made worse by her absolute hatred of Landen.

Gannon was such a sweet boy. He’d have gone far in life and made the world a better place by being in it.
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Wasn't she once good friends with Landen? Or am I getting that wrong?
imstilla.grandma said:
I spent the night with my granddaughter. She made dinner to show off her cooking skills. I forgot what she called it but she made dough and rolled it out into some kind of flat bread with bow-tie pasta. Yummy. She’s 16 so she’s been experimenting. She’s had a boyfriend for about eight months. They both seem convinced they can’t live without each other. He’s a good kid and both mom’s are very active in their relationship as far as activities, rides and stuff, and on top of their grades. Brooklynn is so mature it scares me. I cant imagine how my life may have been different if I had it together, like she does, at 16. Anyways, it was a nice break from the iPad. I’ve spent the day in my garden. I have flowers coming up everywhere. I can hardly keep up with them and I get so tired when I have to stand long since my heart attacks. I hope everyone is having a good Saturday. Oh yeah, I found this earlier:

Potential examples of conditions or mental disorders that cause insanity include:
A mental disease or defect "includes only those severely abnormal mental conditions that grossly and demonstrably impair a person's perception or understanding of reality" (C.R.S. § 16-8-101.5(2)(b))—this is almost always understood to be a psychotic disorder like Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder. It is sometimes considered to be a cognitive disorder such as Intellectual Disability, which used to be called Mental Retardation. In rare cases, a personality disorder such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be considered a mental disease or defect for legal purposes.
Explaining a Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity plea
Click to expand...
From your post to the jury's ears!

And jumping off your post - does anyone know anything about jury instructions in a case like this? Because surely, the jury can't be expected to know which examples go with which symptoms/evidence?

I've seen instructions about medical conditions (strokes, dementia, poisoning, intellectual disabilities) but even though both bipolar and schizophrenia are medical disorders (IMO), I've not yet seen a jury given instructions about this.

But truthfully, I've never followed a case where there was an insanity plea. I hope the cases were PD's are used as defense for a horrific crime are not many. Thank you for clarifying that in CO, it is likely that there needs to be evidence of an ongoing psychotic disorder such as the ones you mention. But can a jury decide that?

Her expert is going to say that's exactly what she had/has. I do wonder so much if anyone has examples of CO jury instructions on these matters. Not the case law per se, but what the jury is going to be told to help them make this incredibly hard decision.

IMO.
 
I've been thinking.... I wish law enforcement could add a detail that didn't happen so we could watch T's head spin. Methinks she'd object to that with some energy.

jmo
 
“So, I don't remember the order of how we all ran out the house, but I know at that point I did... she ran out and I can't remember if I ran up to make sure they got in the truck or if she ran out by herself, I don't remember that part, but I do know that they were... they had gotten in the truck. I came back inside, run back downstairs and that's when I was trying to get Gannon, because I couldn't get... I didn't know how to get everybody at once, so, (inaudible) to get the front people out, you know, and then go.. then I ran back downstairs to get Gannon and then the fire was on the floor…….”

Word salad ad nauseum.

Letecia’s description of escaping the house on night of the fire is so convoluted. I hope we hear both Laina and Harley’s version. She manages to make it sound like they were dozens of people in the house. Was Harley even home? I thought her room was on the lower level with Gannon’s.

Then we have…

“So there was covers everywhere because the kids always get em out and leave a lot of covers laying around, all the time. I mean there's like 10 quilts and LOL's and blankets and all this. So, they were all right here, so, I take a whole bunch of them and I go and like, like, like, basically smash down on the sofa and the fire to put it out.”

Murphy here, man I’m old :) . Had to google “LOL’s”, they are children’s blankets and throws, usually weighted and with a theme. So, she is saying she had piles of blankets basically and used them all to snuff out a fire.

Shortly after in the same conversation…

LS - Like, he had a cover on, because he was sleeping on the sofa.

LE - What was he covered with?

LS - What do you mean?

LE - What kind of blanket... you'd mentioned there was LOL's, there was quilts.. what blanket was he using?

LS - Errrr I'm not sure, there was a couple that were there. There was a black... there.. I put them all back in that bin that was sitting... did you see...?

LE - I've never been in the house.

LE - Okay, there was black it was like a little furry.. there was (inaudible) ones, I don't remember specifically which one he had, but I know there was blankets in the area because we always (inaudible) mermaid one around, but the whole operation of when I grabbed em and put it out, I grabbed em all and done it.

LE - Okay. All right. Were any of them, like, damaged whenever that happened?

LS - Oh yeah. I left them all there and when I showed them that night that, you know, like, they were damaged or whatever.

So she left them all there, and no smell? Seriously? How did we go from 10+ to a couple?

Followed by...

So I got a burn and I was like, you know, Gannon started running at that point, because it wakes him up. He's realizing that the covers and everything's on fire, the carpets on fire and we all go outside. So, we get in Albert's truck and we drive and I drove off in panic, because I saw that I put the fire out, so, I knew that there was no, you know, like nothing wrong, like it wasn't gonna keep going. I drove off in panic because I was like 'oh my gosh, what do I do now?”

like 'oh my gosh, what do I do now?

How about....what any other adult in America would do, call 911. I know of no one, who would believe the fire, as described was subdued and over. Smoldering and smoke just instantly disappeared?

So, Letecia (AKA hero) is in Al’s truck with 2 dogs, Gannon, Laina and Harley and anyone else? Going nowhere? Just because...???
 
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