How Killer Stepmom Traveled 1,300 Miles to Dispose of Stepson's Body — During a Nationwide Manhunt By Chris Spargo

On Feb. 28, 2020, a judge in Colorado approved a request from the El Paso County Sheriff’s office to arrest Letecia Stauch and charge her with the murder of her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon Stauch.

The young boy’s disappearance had become national news by that time, but despite the increased awareness and tireless work of volunteers who had assembled and formed search parties to assist law enforcement in their efforts to locate Gannon, investigators had still not found his remains.

While Gannon’s remains had not yet been located, investigators managed to secure an arrest warrant after finding traces of blood in the garage of the family’s Colorado Springs home and on a particle board which had been discovered in a rural area about 40 miles away, according to a copy of the arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE.

Letecia was taken into custody by officers in Myrtle Beach, S.C. two days after the judge signed off on that affidavit, and was soon extradited back to Colorado.

Then, on March 17, 2020, Gannon’s remains were finally located — nearly two months after Letecia reported the boy missing.

The discovery was made by a construction worker with the Florida Department of Transportation. While completing repairs on the Escambia River Bridge in Pace, Fla., a city located approximately 1,400 miles east of Colorado Springs, Colo., that worker stumbled upon the remains of Gannon Stauch stuffed into a suitcase that had washed ashore.

Investigators were now left with a new mystery: how did Letecia manage to transport her stepson’s remains across the country in the middle of a multiagency criminal investigation involving the EPCSO, Colorado Springs Police, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?

Gannon was reported missing at 6:55 p.m. on Jan. 27, 2020.

“Letecia stated Gannon was supposed to be home approximately 1 hour ago, and that she was unable to locate him at his friend’s house,” the affidavit read.

Deputies responded to the Stauch home, took a statement from Letecia and initiated a missing person investigation.

That missing person investigation then shifted into a murder investigation as law enforcement gathered evidence and deputies conducted interviews, most notably the interview with Letecia on Jan. 29, during which she changed her story regarding the disappearance of Gannon.

“In summary, Letecia said she had been held at gunpoint and raped by a Hispanic male she knew as ‘Eguardo,’ and that Gannon was abducted by that male after he finished raping her,” the affidavit alleged.

It is also noted in the affidavit that detectives did not think Letecia was telling the truth, so they attempted to detain her while they rushed to get a warrant to obtain her DNA.

Letecia then told the deputies that she required immediate medical attention, according to the affidavit, and managed to avoid having to submit to any DNA collection as she was instead rushed to a local hospital so that doctors could observe and — if necessary — treat her mystery ailment. The woman did not stay at the hospital long, however, and shortly after checking in was able to sneak out of the facility unbeknownst to law enforcement, per the affidavit.

It was at that point Letecia stopped cooperating with the investigation or providing law enforcement with information to assistance in matters they believed could aid their search efforts, according to the affidavit.

In the end, deputies used surveillance footage from a neighbor’s door camera, the security system inside the Stauch household, Letecia’s search history, texts from her phone and traces of Gannon’s blood found in unexpected places to build their case.

Authorities assembled a tentative timeline of events based upon this evidence, which alleged that Letecia had murdered Gannon on the afternoon she reported him missing and then hid his body in the trunk of her car in the garage, according to the affidavit.

She then had to pick up her husband, Gannon’s father Al Stauch, the following night, at which time she parked her car at the airport and proceeded to get a rental car, the affidavit read. She returned later to get her vehicle and drove about 40 miles south of Colorado Springs to dump the body — a determination made by investigators after they discovered a particle board in that area with traces of Gannon’s blood during a search of the locations Letecia traveled to based on the GPS tracker in her vehicle.

After disposing of the body, the affidavit said that Letecia then washed her car and arrived for her ill-fated interview with deputies — two hours late.

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It is unclear when exactly Letecia went back to collect those remains, but at some point after her interview with investigators, she retrieved Gannon’s remains and then executed her brazen plot across state lines.

Her brother, Dakota Lowery, recalled while testifying at her murder trial how the person of interest in a criminal investigation managed to walk out of her house with the body of the young boy at the center of a nationwide manhunt without drawing any suspicion.

Lowery said it happened a little over a week into the investigation, which is when he flew across the country to help his sister move out of the home after her relationship with Al fell apart in the wake of Gannon’s disappearance.

At that time, Lowery sympathized with his sister, who he was certain had been “wrongly accused,” he said in court. He testified that his sister seemed to be surrounded by law enforcement, and noted how “aggravated” he felt about their treatment of Letecia.

“I feel like we were getting looked at as criminals,” Lowery said.

Lowery recalled that while loading up the car with his sister’s belongings that day, he noticed her struggling with one suitcase in particular so he offered to help, but was quickly rebuffed by his sister. Letecia allegedly said it was just “softball stuff” in the suitcase, but Lowery said while testifying that he immediately “knew she [killed Gannon].”

Lowery then confirmed that the suitcase he saw that day was the same suitcase Gannon’s remains were discovered in almost two months later and 1,300 miles away from the boy’s home.

The probable cause affidavit filed after the discovery of Gannon’s body alleged that Letecia drove back to Douglas County, collected the remains and put them in a suitcase that she then rolled out in front of everyone before taking off for Florida.

Letecia then rented a hotel room in Florida and likely threw the suitcase off the Escambia River Bridge where it would later wash ashore, according to the probable cause affidavit obtained by PEOPLE.

The medical examiner later concluded in an autopsy report that the 11-year-old died after being stabbed 18 times, sustaining four blunt force injuries and being shot once in the face. A jury convicted Letecia Stauch of first-degree murder and other related charges on May 8, 2023, and she is now serving a life sentence for her stepson’s murder without the possibility of parole.