Week 5 Day 19
5/3/2023
Note: Nicole did not tweet about Dr. Lewis’ 1st day of testimony (Day 18)
Good morning, back on the
#LeteciaStauchTrial today.
Dr. Lewis is not in the courtroom yet. Court is in recess for potentially the next 5-10 minutes until she gets there.
Dr. Lewis is here. Jury is coming in.
Cross examination resumes. When asked about controversy surrounding Dissociative identity disorder (DID), Dr. Lewis says "The essential controversy is whether people believe it exists or not.”
Dr. Lewis says she's aware there are movies where people act and pretend they have DID
Dr. Lewis said she's assisted Robert De Niro in a movie, that had to do with him being a "very dangerous guy." She gave him access to tapes of people with different disorders. Among them, there were some people that had DID.
She's being asked how to tell if people are faking DID. She looked at her notes from Letecia. She said when she was younger, she was asked to be called Maria.
Prosecution is asking her to find this in her notes, to see who told Dr. Lewis that. She's looking through her notes now but isn't finding it. "That in it in itself is not proof of anything, but it's confirmation if you have a lot of things that go with it.”
She found something in her notes. Prosecution doesn't have the notes that Dr. Lewis has in front of her. She's going to summarize what she wrote shortly.
These are notes she labeled "Letecia notes from relatives" and she notes someone telling her "Letecia called herself Maria Sanchez as a young child." The doctor had noted retrospective malingering when she heard that.
Young says Dr. Lewis should have submitted this note, wasn't in her report Dr.: "I have no memory of seeing it before until I looked through and found it in the past 12 hrs." Young: "It wasn't until you realized you had nothing to cooperate your report." Dr.: "No it was not sir"
Young: You had Ms. Stauch perform the clock test and she did horrible on it? Dr.: She did something I have seen before, with older patients who have been actually demented. Dr. asked her to do it again and she did a "much better job with it" using her other hand.
Young: Did the thought ever cross your mind she could be faking it? Dr. Lewis: No it did not occur to me that that was faking something because afterwards when I asked her to repeat this, she did a better job on it. This is still a puzzle to me.
Dr. Lewis said she wasn't aware that Stauch had done this test already before.
"It is a puzzle to me and I don't pretend to be an expert in interpreting this." Dr. Lewis referencing to the clock tests she had Letecia do. She says she did one badly and the other much better using different hands.
Young showed her a previous clock test Letecia had done with other mental evaluations before Dr. Lewis' testing.
Young: You know she was examined two days after the crime for head injuries correct? Dr. Lewis says it could be, she needs to be refreshed.
Young: Any sign of psychosis is important in a sanity evaluation? Dr. Lewis agrees
Dr. Lewis: "Insanity is many, many things"
Young: The night before this murder on Jan 26th, 2020. The defendant had a video recording of her and Gannon talking about the fire. Did you see that? Dr. Lewis: No
She says she doesn't recall looking at exactly that but she can't be certain.
They are talking about Letecia calling out of work the day of Gannon's murder saying her dad was killed.
"This man was dead for 8 years and to call in and say...she clearly was not thinking clearly...it was one of these ridiculous kinds of excuses that a person of her intellect would not be expected to share. You would say a stupidity but she isn't stupid.”
She calls Letecia calling Gannon's school to get him out of school that day with a different excuse than her father dying "a puzzle”
Young: At the time she leaves the house to go to PetCo, does she have the capacity to know right from wrong? Dr. Lewis: I don't know
Young: The autopsy report tells you that there was at least 18 cut wounds and stab wounds and a lot of those we're defense wounds....Is there indication that whoever did that had the capacity to form the intent to kill? Dr. Lewis: I don't know I would think so.
Dr. Lewis: "When I spoke with
#leteciastauch the memory was I could see a gun in my hand and I don't know what was going through her head and why she shot this.”
Dr. Lewis: "I don't know it was even he that she wished to kill, clearly she did kill him but we don't know at the time if she saw
#Gannon and meant to kill Gannon.”
Dr. Lewis: "She certainly believes that other people would believe she has done something horrendous and something had happened.”
Young; She takes the body out of the storage room, takes it upstairs, puts it in the Tiguan and takes it to the airport...does she know the capacity of right from wrong? Dr.: I don't know because what she says to some people is she thought she could bring the body back to life…
(continued) Dr Lewis:...She gets a hamburger and ice cream this is insane. Young: No, that's what she's saying. What happened is she drove right to the airport...what she's saying is psychotic because she wants you to think that's psychotic.
Morning recess until 10:45 am
Recess is over
#LeteciaStauchTrial resumes with cross examination of Dr. Lewis.
The fact that Letecia knows to go to an isolated spot to hide the body, Dr. Lewis says that maybe shows that she knows right from wrong or maybe it shows psychosis.
The fact that
#leteciastauch thought to leave her car with Gannon's body at the airport, Dr. Lewis says it shows "the capacity to know what will be regarded as incriminating and not in her best interest. Right from wrong is abstract.”
Dr. Lewis; "You are thinking more logically that I think we can give her credit for much of this. I find crazy much of what you think is logical.”
Young: You have interviewed hundreds of people on death row, have you ever come across one of those who may have lied to you. Dr. Lewis: oh yes, absolutely.
Dr. Lewis says she's aware that Letecia searched "I don't like my stepson.”
Young: If that suitcase was never found, do you think we'd be here today on an insanity case? Dr. Lewis: I can't answer that, I don't know
Young: During the interview, do you have any concerns
#leteciastauch may not be truthful with you? Dr. Lewis: Of course
We are watching a video of an interview with Dr. Lewis and Letecia from November 15th 2022.
#leteciastauch is talking about a Maria in this interview.
Letecia talked about Maria having a jail call and speaking Russian. Dr. Lewis does not recall seeing or hearing a recording of a call where Letecia was speaking Russian.
In the video Letecia says she's been to Dubai and Jasmine is a princess.
Dr. Lewis says she could have been making it up or it was a fantasy.
In this clip,
#leteciastauch tells Dr. Lewis she changes persona when she is stressed out. Dr. Lewis says "a triggering event" is consistent with DID.
Second video of
#leteciastauch interviewing with Dr. Lewis.
Letecia says in video interview: "I was not intention to hurt Gannon, absolutely not. I love Gannon.”
Letecia says in video interview: "These people in here do this stuff I don't" ( Letecia referring to the jail and hurting people). You don't take people out, buy people stuff...I don't understand this, that's just not how it works.”
Letecia in recorded video is referring to Landen, Gannon's mom.
Letecia in recorded interview "one minute something could happen then it is switched personality." She says she hears another voice but then is quick to say she's not schizophrenic. She says she goes and forth.
Letecia in recorded interview is wiping her eyes and appears to be crying.
Letecia in recorded interview with Dr. "I didn't come up with any idea of Gannon dying”
Letecia in recorded interview with Dr. "I should have just took him with me and started his school across the country.”
Dr. Lewis answering questions on this video: "I found the entire thing incredibly confusing.”
Dr. Lewis: "There was something incredibly puzzling about who wanted to be with whom, who loved who, I found it incredibly confusing.”
Young: Do you think that's a stressor the fact that an 11-year-old boy tells his stepmother I want to be with my mother and not you? Dr. Lewis says it could be, could not be
Several times during the interview Dr. Lewis looks to the right at Stauch's attorney. She says she was trying to see if her attorney understood better what she was saying.
During these recorded interviews, she had perviously been deemed sane by the state hospital and had already had been through this process.
In this latest video, Dr. Lewis asks if Letecia thinks she was in a peculiar state when she talks bout certain events. Young is questioning if that is too leading.
Next clip is 7 minutes long. We will hear it after lunch. Recess until 1:20 pm.
We are back but the court has the camera off for the witness stand so we can't see the video of the feed, just audio for this next video.
Video is back. Letecia is saying "I am not violent at all”
In this third recorded video with Dr. Lewis, Letecia says: "My protector is Maria.....you want to talk to Maria right now? Sometimes she will talk, sometimes she will not.”
Young: How do you know she's not fooling you? Dr. Lewis: Watch, listen.
Judge is asking the jury to go into the hallway.
Judge telling Dr. Lewis and prosecutors to take 15 minutes to go through the notes that she is bringing up in court that prosecution does not believe they were provided with.
Court in recess until 2 pm.
We are back with another video from the sanity evaluation with Dr. Lewis
Letecia is telling Dr. she was trying to get him back to life and he didn't come back to life.
Letecia saying "It wasn't supposed to be.”
Letecia saying: "I'm trained to kill, that's what I do, I'm trained to kill that's what I do for a living.”
Can't tell if the audio is weird or if Letecia is speaking in and out of an accent or different language in this recorded part of the evaluation
She keeps saying "Letecia's family”
She's writing something down in the footage from the evaluation
Young is freezing the video because there's a man in the back of the footage. "What is your son doing in the interview room?”
Young to Dr. Lewis: "Is that recognized in the field to do forensic interviews with people for first degree murder and bring your son along?”
Young: Did she tell you that she mistaken identity, didn't know it was Gannon, fired a gun once, did what she had to do Dr. Lewis: Early on... Young: You know that isn't how Gannon died, only one gun shot, why didn't you question her on that?
Was hard to hear her response but it sounded like she said her son was there to help run the camera.
Going to the last clip it's an hour and twenty minutes
She's reading a letter in the footage from the interview. It's not in english and the doctor is trying to figure out what language.
Dr. Lewis is reading what she's sounding out as rest in peace Gannon on this note.
Dr. Lewis to Letecia in video: "Do you believe that's a confession from Maria”
Dr. Lewis: Maria did it? Letecia: Well, I didn’t
Recess until 3:30 pm
Court may go a little later than 5 today to wrap up with Dr. Lewis. Judge says they need to see if jury can work with that.
They are looking at the note in this video again. The word self defense came up.
When asked on the recorded sanity evaluation, how Gannon got all of those cuts, Letecia says she doesn't know about cuts. It's really hard to hear what is being said. Sometimes it sounds like an accent.
Letecia says something, naming Letecia and then says "if she's upset, i'm upset.”
Letecia is speaking with a new accent in the recording telling the Dr. "do you think this is a joke?”
Redirect of Dr. Lewis now
Dr. Lewis: What you call it is so much less important than what you understand about it. What you understand about it is that this individual has been living a psychotic life
Dr. Lewis: The person is living a psychotic life
They haven't returned the audio to the feed for these jury questions
Still no audio….
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