CO - Gannon Stauch, 11, found deceased, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, 27 Jan 2020 *Arrest* #59

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Cross.

Within several days he made the determination and changed Gannon's status to endangered missing.

Asked if he could see her phone. He took it from her.

He had been watching the interview from another room. Was also co ordinating with Rocky and other detectives at the time.

Defense asking for a timeline.

From 29th to 7th, between the phone and house being seized. Lt questions defense's maths skills, LOL.

I think defense is implying the witness was negligent in not seizing the house sooner, or too hasty in seizing the phone. IDK.

Defense implying they could have arrested her for lying (attempt to influence public servants), then. Lt Points out at that time they had no body, that it was only a misdemeanour with what they had.

Defense: Why didn't you arrest her then?

Witness: What would that have achieved?

Defense dithers.

Witness wants to know where this is going. "I want to help you." LOL.

Defense trying to get him to admit that if she had been arrested that she couldn't have dumped Gannon's body. He's not biting. Says they had no proof at that time Gannon was dead, could not have held her. "I think you're reaching."

Defense steps down.

Prosecution comes back, is getting the Lt to walk through probable cause 101. Makes it clear that they did not have probable cause to arrest her until she was actually arrested.

Talking about the calculated move to transport Gannon that distance, following road rules, concealing that from everyone. Talking about how it was all carefully calculated to conceal evidence 'especially 1300 miles away'.

No jury questions.

Next witness!
 
Curious Me said:
So, was it Aunt Brenda or her husband who worked for the Ford corporation? IIRC, that was where the corp discount for the hotel check-ins came with Letecia having the code and using that Ford corp code. Did the same Aunt get any deals for Harley's car too? Is she Letecia's sister? It's awful that Harley was constantly having to be manipulated to obey and not question, apparently from her mother and then Aunt Brenda.

Defense Attorney tried to make Harley feel bad or like a liar saying on the funding page she started that she had lost both parents at age 17. I hope Letecia got the message because it sounds like Harley was implying that Letecia is dead to her now. ​
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It makes me wonder if Aunt Brenda was following T's orders so she could parent (control) HH from behind bars. Either way - what a nasty family.
 

Next witness Lt. Mitchell Mihalko with EPCSO

Lt. Mihalko oversees investigation, main parts of work done by detectives.

Lt. talking about Stauch interview: "It was very difficult to get the defendant in to contact our detectives. In this particular case, as the interview was coming to a close, defendant said she was done with the interview she would come back at a later date and wanted to leave”

"I knew that the defendant was extremely difficult to get in for interview. We did not really know where the defendant was and was not able to locate her easily. We did know she had these diabolically different accounts which we thought was suspicious behavior.”

He thought if she left with cell at that time, it was "highly likely" she could delete important info or evidence on her phone. Circumstances, he said, warranted him to seize Letecia's cell phone.

Lt. Mihalko has evidence bag with the cell phone.

Lt. Mihalko after the phone was seized, they had to get a search warrant to go through the contents of it.

#LeteciaStauch in the courtroom between her two attorneys. Her demeanor currently as Lt. explains how they seized her phone after interview.

Lt. Mihalko said they had suspicions foul play had happened in the house, but not certain without a body at first. "Every lead we uncovered brought us back to that house.”

Around Feb 5th, there was indication there was blood staining within the bedroom of Gannon and they did a blood stain analysis. On Feb 7th, they seized and locked down the house.


Morning recess until 10:45 am


When they "lock out" a scene they change the locks so no-one else can access home.

Blood stain patterning and blood staining within the room of Gannon Stauch led Lt. Mihalko to think something happened in the house.

Appeared there had been a fairly large amount of blood that seeped through and stained the floor too.

Allen: Was she acting like a typical parent or step parent in a missing kids case Lt. Mihalko: Definitely not

Defense is asking why they didn't arrest and charge her with attempt to influence an officer earlier when they seized her phone. Lt. Mihalko is saying that he thinks "that's reaching”

Lt. Mihalko said in order to arrest they need to have probable cause. They can't arrest on suspicion or if a child is missing. On Jan 29th, Lt. said they didn't have probable cause yet.
 
Megnut said:
I call her bluff.

Nothing new here.

She has to sit quietly which, as we know, is not her natural state.

But this is just T to a T.

Attention-seeking behavior.

She knows she gets a rise.

Positive or negative, no matter. She just needs it to be about her, always her and never about anybody but her.

Obnoxious.

JMO
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Has she always been like this I wonder!
 
arielilane said:

The next witness called to the stand is Commander Mitch Mihalko, with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. When asked about the investigation after Gannon’s disappearance, he said, “This is the largest in scope, depth and time, focused time, that I’ve ever been involved in.”

Mihalko said early on after Gannon’s disappearance, the investigation and search efforts began at the Stauch home and in the surrounding neighborhood, then expanded. He said as the investigation advanced, it became more focused on Letecia Stauch.

Mihalko said Letecia Stauch told detectives and deputies different statements. He said Stauch was hard to get a hold of and hard to get her to come in for an interview with detectives.

Mihalko said during Letecia’s interview with detectives at the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, he took Letecia’s phone out of her hand. He said he was concerned about the conflicting stories and her leaving and destroying evidence on the phone, or the phone itself.

Mihalko said the statements from Letecia began as a runaway/missing kid case, then turned into a rape and abduction case, which are completely different.



https://twitter.com/x/status/1648362849784467456
Click to expand...

Tweets after the short morning break.

https://twitter.com/AshleyPorteeyo

Mihalko said as the investigation continued, he believed something violent happened in the Stauch home because of the blood stain patterns and blood stains found in Gannon Stauch’s room. He said the scene, the Stauch's home, was locked down on February 7, 2020.

Mihalko testified and acknowledged that Letecia Stauch was not cooperating throughout the investigation. He also acknowledged that Letecia was not acting like a step parent or how a parent would in missing child cases.

“As the information developed, it appears to me that the defendant was very cognizant of what was occurring, taking steps, almost being methodical in redirecting investigative efforts,” said Mihalko.
 
Witness: [EDIT: Alyssa, sorry] Beresford. Senior CSI.

Talking about qualifications, missed a lot of this, sorry.

Talking about Bluestar. Talking about roadmapping, which is special documentation of bloodstains for analysis. Blood pattern analysis.

Blood pattern analysis 101 for the jury.
 
PhoneJockey said:
It makes me wonder if Aunt Brenda was following T's orders so she could parent (control) HH from behind bars. Either way - what a nasty family.
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Nasty in that they're so controlling, but...
I was surprised that Letecia's family members went rushing out to Colorado right after Gannon went missing. They were already there when she did that Jan. 29th interview. They were there thinking she was being wrongly accused, and cared about her enough to rush to her side. That's of interest to me, and I found it surprising. What do you make of that?​
 
https://twitter.com/ZachNDupont

Milhalko stated they did not have probable cause to arrest Stauch for a crime on Jan. 29, and that at that point they were only "suspicious" of Stauch.

During cross-examination Will Cook asked Milhalko why Stauch wasn't arrested on Jan. 29, stating if they had arrested her she would not have been able to move Gannon's body to Florida from Colorado.

El Paso County commander Mitch Mihalko testified regarding the decision to seize the Stauch's home in early Feb., pointing to the significant amount of evidence found in the Stauch's home, which led law enforcement to believe foul play was involved in Gannon's disappearance.


https://twitter.com/x/status/1648373724629061639
 
Love Never Fails said:
I disagree. Its not all or nothing. She could be very confused.
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I think LS was meaner to Gannon when most people weren't around. I think she maybe did a bit more around Laina, but she kept the worst of it to when nobody could witness it.
Remember AS testifying that LS thought that Gannon was "out to get her" and wanted him in therapy? That tells me she was doing/saying things to Gannon privately that he told his dad about, but couldn't prove - which made it easy for LS to hide it and play the victim - her favorite role. She manipulated every single person in her life.
 
Curious Me said:
Nasty in that they're so controlling, but...
I was surprised that Letecia's family members went rushing out to Colorado right after Gannon went missing. They were already there when she did that Jan. 29th interview. They were there thinking she was being wrongly accused, and cared about her enough to rush to her side. That's of interest to me, and I found it surprising. What do you make of that?​
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He went missing on the 27th so I really think they went to find Gannon. I doubt it was because they thought she was being set up. I think it was because they though he was really missing and that is scary.
 
Curious Me said:
Nasty in that they're so controlling, but...
I was surprised that Letecia's family members went rushing out to Colorado right after Gannon went missing. They were already there when she did that Jan. 29th interview. They were there thinking she was being wrongly accused, and cared about her enough to rush to her side. That's of interest to me, and I found it surprising. What do you make of that?​
Click to expand...

The brother said they came to help find Gannon. Is there a source for them rushing there just to support a not-yet-accused family member? It doesn't sound to me as if they thought she did anything. They surely must have thought it was weird once they got there, but I am not sure how we know what they were actually thinking, beyond what her brother testified.

IMO.
 
10ofRods said:
She bought a baking soda based cleaner (well, HH bought it for her mom). She also bought talcum powder and baby oil. If you've ever studied ancient embalming (think Medieval times or the Egyptians) or googled it, you'd know that if you want to preserve a dead body the very first step is rubbing it in fat/oil. (Don't feel bad if you didn't know this - most of us have no reason to; I can remember people questioning my study of ancient embalming techniques - but I'm an anthropologist, we study blood spatter and ancient embalming among other things)

Tee lowered the temp in the basement by opening the windows (Step 1). Then she sent HH to the store to buy certain things including a baking soda (alkaline) powder and an oil (baby oil and I think also baby lotion). It's possible Tee thought that if the products were labeled "baby" and she was ever caught, she could just say that she was attending to Gannon properly.

So, she oils him up (and that action may have delayed rigor - she needs to get him into the suitcase before rigor mortis sets in). She's uneducated, so she doesn't know that some of her actions are contradictory.

She gets him into the suitcase and covers him with the baking soda based cleanser (I think I heard that right). But the suitcase itself is designed to be essentially airtight (people have been murdered simply by being put into one - they are almost airtight in a world where almost nothing is airtight).

Each day must have been hell for Tee, who probably realized that eventually, there would be some smell. But, in the end, that was saved for the workers who discovered the body - but did NOT smell anything until they unzipped the case.

I hate recounting all this and hope no criminals are reading.

IMO.
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Harley said she got the lotion and stuff like that for herself. Only the cleaning supplies were requested by LS. Also, the windows were open overnight on the 26th when Gannon was still alive.
 
10ofRods said:
The brother said they came to help find Gannon. Is there a source for them rushing there just to support a not-yet-accused family member? It doesn't sound to me as if they thought she did anything. They surely must have thought it was weird once they got there, but I am not sure how we know what they were actually thinking, beyond what her brother testified.

IMO.
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Right like we do not know why the aunt made her get a whole different van ,when they had one already . Seems like an odd thing for an aunt to refuse on when a kid is missing. Like lets waste time switching vans and riding around. So I think i would like to have that answered by the aunt.
 
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