Criminology - Gannon Stauch

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

11-year-old Gannon Stauch went missing in 2020 in Colorado. His stepmother, Leticia, was the last person known to have seen him, and as the community searched for Gannon, they also offered support to Leticia. But, she told a number of different stories to the authorities that made them suspicious of her. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Gannon Stauch. Leticia's stories about what happened to Gannon became more varied and more bizarre. When Gannon's body was found by a bridge inspector, the police started to put it all together. But would a jury believe that Leticia murdered Gannon, and if so, what was the motive? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 258 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Hey, Morph, what's going on with you? Not a whole lot, just relaxing. Kids are getting ready to get out of school and summer's just about here.

What's new with you? Yeah, I'm excited for it. I'm smack dab in the middle of graduation season. I've got two graduating. my oldest from college, my youngest from high school. So we not only have the graduations, but we have the graduation parties. And so it's a busy time. Yeah, fun time, though.

Yeah. Yeah, a little sad too as well with things ending. You know, that always makes me sad. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Zinia Gutschow, Now and Zen, Carol, Laura, and Erica Vaniver. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for that support.

It means a lot to us. And if you'd like to support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, it's time to jump into this case. And this is a murder case that takes us to the Colorado Springs area of Colorado in 2020. This is a case that made headlines because not only was the victim a young boy who was only 11 years old, but his murder was brutal. And when it came to light, just who exactly was responsible, it shocked area residents. We're talking about the case of Gannon Stalk. Larson Ranch is a large housing development in the Colorado Springs area.

The development is home to many middle class families, and it's situated in an area close to multiple military bases. It's an ideal location for residents on the go, to and from many of the big city employers, who want a quick escape to mountain biking, camping, fishing, fishing, skiing, or just getting out into nature and taking in the area's beautiful views. Over 2,000 homes make up the Larson Ranch development. It's really the kind of place where people move in order to live out their dream. But for one family, it would be the place where a nightmare unfolded. It all started on the night of January 27, 2020, G.

Gann & Stout, an 11-year-old boy whose nickname was G-Man, had not returned to his home. after leaving on foot for a friend's house earlier that afternoon. At 6.55 p.m. He was reported missing. The high temperature that day was only 48 degrees and it was dark outside. As soon as it got out that Gannon was missing, the neighborhood rally to search for him, gathering together and scouring the area on foot, neighbors also offered support to Gannon's stepmother, Letitia Stouk, who was home alone with her daughter from a,

previous relationship, 17-year-old Harley Hunt and Gannon's little sister, 8-year-old Laina. Al Stout, Gannon's father, was in Oklahoma. He had left the home on Saturday night, headed for Army National Guard training. Neighbors even use their drones to help search nearby empty fields for him, but all of their efforts came up fruitless. So here is something that I don't know that we've talked about in an episode before. You know, we've talked about technology. This case is only a few years old.

We've talked about, you know, ring doorbell cameras. There's a bunch of different companies who make them video surveillance and things like that. Here we have the usage of drones and not by law enforcement by neighbors. You know, a lot of people own these drones now. And so they're coming out using their personal drones to help search for this 11 year old boy. Yeah, I think drones are just one more. tool that people are using to help in cases like this. Police did an initial walkthrough to make sure Gan wasn't hiding anywhere in his home or around

the property, either because he was afraid to come out now that it had been so long, or because he thought it was funny. He was playing some going to joke. But they didn't find Ganon anywhere. They then expanded the search out into the community. Al Stalk told Denver 7 news of his son, he's not really the type to just walk off. No one described Ganon as a troublemaker or even as particular. particularly outdoorsier adventures. Al said he's just kind and tender-hearted. Another member of

Restoration Church, which the Stalk family attended, said Gannon was a smiling kid, a happy kid, who just wants to come and hang out and have a good time. The next morning, Tuesday, January 28th, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office alerted residents throughout all of Colorado Springs to be on the lookout for Gannon. They reported he had last been seen in Blue Gene, a blue hoes, a blue, hoodie and tennis shoes. There were a few promising sightings early on. In fact, initially, police believed he had been seen at the come and go gas station on Mesa Ridge Parkway, the previous evening.

But after reviewing surveillance footage, they were able to confirm that it wasn't Gannon. This pushed the timeline back a bit. And his stepmother claimed that she last saw him around 3.15 p.m. on Monday when he left to go visit a friend in the neighborhood. Gannon's stepmother was unable to tell authorities, the identity of the friend. Letitia said that Al had all of the phone numbers and contact info for Gannon's friends, and this complicated the search since he was in Oklahoma for National Guard Duty,

and sometimes on these National Guard Duty weekends, it wasn't always easy to reach soldiers if they were out in the field. Late that Tuesday night, Gannon's biological mom. mother, Landon Bullard, a ride from South Carolina to help search for him. Lettiche and Harley were supposed to pick her up from the airport, but they never showed up, so she had to figure out a way to get to her son and ex-husband's home. Al and Landon had been married for 10 of the 12 years they were together. After a few years together, they had Ganon, and then three years after that, they had Lena. Things deteriorated between them as a couple quickly after that, and they soon separated, but they

continued to co-parent together in South Carolina. By Janjian, January 2015, after about a year of dating, Al Stalk and Landon's long-time acquaintance, Letitia Hardin, were married. The two had met while playing softball, which Landon also played and coached. At the time, Letitia had full custody of Harley because Harley's father, Chance Hunt, had passed away. Landon had primary custody of Lena and Gannon. They would see Al on weekends and spend the rest of their time with Landon in her home. Eventually, Al and Leticia purchased a home in Myrtle Beach. When Al got stationed in Alaska for his job, and they had to transfer, Letitia was very unhappy. She stayed with her daughter, Harley, at their home in South Carolina,

and only visited Al occasionally in Alaska. She hated Alaska. For her, it was too cold, and there was nothing to do. Despite this, Al filed for full custody of both Gannon and Elena because he felt his home would be a more safe and stable environment than his ex-wife, Landon's home, could provide. Landon was having health issues due to a high-risk pregnancy, and Al was not a fan of her new husband watching the kids. So I think to him it was better for everyone except Letitia, who had to watch and care for the kids most of the time in order for the kids to be at Al's house. Letitia claimed that two of the men in Al's unit had sexually harassed her, causing issues for him at work. He soon changed his assignment from Alaska to Colorado Springs. It was,

wasn't South Carolina, but it sure was in Alaska, and Letitia was happy about that. In January 2019, Leticia, Gannon, Harley, and Lena moved from Myrtle Beach to Colorado Springs. In February, Al moved in from Alaska, and this was really the first time they all lived together as a family for an extended period of time due to Al's military service and Leticia's unwillingness to move to cold places. Harley would later note that this time period was great. She had a real family and they were all in one spot. But below the surface, things weren't so perfect. There was a lot of resentment, building up and not a lot of trust. No one knew it at the time. But Letitia was Googling things like, I don't like my stepson. And is my husband's ex-wife going to send

me a Valentine's Day card since I raised her kids? The family would live together for less than a year in Larson Ranch before Gannon disappeared. And obviously these details would come out much later at trial, but I want to talk about Google for a minute or just searching in general. We've talked about it. It's come up in a number of cases. You know, it always floors me that people don't believe or don't think about their search history.

You know, I think a lot of people think that just by clearing it or, you know, whatever, it's gone. Nobody's ever going to be able to figure out what I was searching. But this one specifically jumped out of me. Is my husband's ex-wife going to send me a Valentine's Day card since I raise her kids? I use Google a lot to search for, you know, many different things. This is so specific. I don't even know what Google would return. And it doesn't sound as sinister. Some of the things we've heard people search for on Google, how to dispose of a body, what's, supplies to get to dispose of a body. This is not as sinister as those kind of searches. No, not sinister. It's more strange to me. Like, I literally don't know what she was thinking she was

going to get in her return results with a query like that. On Wednesday, January 29th, the search for Gannon intensified. 200 volunteers showed up to canvas at the Larson Ranch area. El Paso County Sheriff Sergeant Deborah Minot revealed to the media that Gannon did not attend school on Monday the day he disappeared. But at the time, there's no further explanation given. This would later become very important. Everyone who knew Gannon knew that something was very wrong.

Gannon's great Aunt Veronica said to the Gazette news, disappearing is totally out of his character. He always has to be with somebody. On Wednesday night, Letitia and Harley didn't return to the stout home, Instead, they stayed with Harley's co-worker Janine Sanchez. It was initially going to be just Harley. But at the last minute, Letitia used Harley's phone to text Janine and ask if her mom could stay over. Harley was driving at the time with Janine in the front seat.

And Letitia in the back, Letitia had impersonated her daughter in this text. Apparently because Landon, Al's ex-wife, was staying at the stout home, Letitia didn't want to be there with her. Al tried to explain to Leticia that Landon was only there as the mother of their missing child, not as his ex-wife. And she wasn't there to rekindle any kind of romance, but apparently Latisha wouldn't listen. So we have kind of a very strange situation brewing. I mean, obviously we have 11-year-old child who's missing,

but we have this kind of tension between the new, wife and the ex-wife, which I get it. People in that situation are always not going to get along. But Gannon's mom is in town because he's missing. I mean, it seems like the time where you would put all of that stuff aside and come together. But that's not what we're seeing from Letitia here. It's not like she was in town to hang out and spend time with Al. She was there because her son was missing. and I think just about any parent is going to want to be there to help search for their missing child. So the fact that Letitia had an issue with this at that time seems kind of strange. By Thursday, police officially thought there was no way Gannon was a runaway,

and he was now classified as missing and endangered. Investigators had scoured surveillance footage from homes in the neighborhood, and not one had caught Gannon anywhere. Not even the Stalk's own ring doorbell. This was very troubling to investigate. On Friday, January 31st, volunteers tied blue ribbons to the lake poles in Lorson Ranch. Sarah Robertson, one of the people organizing the searches for Gannon, told KRDO News, they will point the way home for him. That same day, Letitia showed back up at the stout home with her daughter Harley, her brother, her aunt, and her mom.

They all loaded Leticia and Harley's belongings into a van that her aunt had rented. officers were there the whole time. Overseeing the items that were being removed in hopes that there would be a clue about Gannon's whereabouts. Letitia also stopped to give a quick interview on the condition that her back could be to the camera. She asked the news crew to do a second take so that she could try and cry in the second one. After this quick move out, Letitia and Harley disappeared.

It was assumed they had headed back to South Carolina. Carolina, where Letitia had family. This was a very odd situation. Gannon was missing. And during the height of it, Letitia and her daughter packed up and moved their stuff out of the house they shared with Al. So I just got done talking about how Leticia, you know, seemed to have this problem with Al's ex-wife being at the house, even though, you know, her 11-year-old son was missing. Now you have even more strange behavior. In the middle of this search for Gannon, she decides to pack up all her stuff and with Harley essentially take off. Yeah, you talk about kicking a guy when he's down. I'm sure

Al needed all the support he could have at the time. And here she is packing up her bags and heading out with her daughter and leaving him. Yeah, we hinted earlier that, you know, things below the surface in the relationship maybe weren't great, but man, the timing on this is rough. Man's lost his 11-year-old son, your 11-year-old stepson, and you're just basically going to bail. Who does that? Investigators continue to search the home, and Letitia continued to talk despite the fact she wasn't in Colorado. She spoke to Al, to strangers on the internet, and on social media.

Letitia told a number of stories along the way about the timeline that seemed to be attempts to explain away possible evidence that may be found in these continued searches of the stout home. Some of the movements of the crime scene technicians were visible to the media on the street, things like turning on and off lights in the home as a search using Blue Star, which is like Luminol to check for blood, and moving things out of the garage. After these reports made the news, Letitia claimed that Gannon cut his foot on Saturday evening. in the garage and had sat on the back of the truck to put on a band-aid. Al asked Letitia about a pool of blood under Gannon's bed. Investigators had ripped up the carpet and found staining to the concrete subfloor. She simply said Gannon had nosebleeds often. Some of the conversations Leticia had with Al kept changing, and he was so suspicious. He recorded some of his calls with her and later shared them with police. On one of these recordings, Letitia said that on Sunday,

She had taken Gannon and Lena on a hike at a place called Garden of the Gods. It was cut short when Gannon had an accident. One lingering health problem from his premature birth was stomach issues. According to Letitia, later that night, Gannon knocked over a candle in the downstairs living room and damaged the carpet. She released a video that she said she accidentally took. It was, in her eyes, going to make her. look better to the public and to police who had been suspicious of her claims, the video, I think to her, was going to prove that Gannon made it home from the hike and that something really

happened with a candle that was his fault. In viewing this video, it didn't seem like an accidental recording. It seemed more like Letitia was trying to conceal the fact that she was recording Gannon. As she goes downstairs, the screen fills with darkness and you can't see anything. You can hear her tell Gannon, this will be the last time she asked, and that she's just freaked out. She just wants to know if he did it on purpose. Gannon says, I didn't. Leticia asked him to Pinky promise. In a whining voice, Gannon said, Pinky. Leticia then says they need to figure out what they can sell to fix it so they don't get kicked out of their rental home. And Gannon replies helplessly, okay. You can hear him make some whining noises before the video cuts off. And when I say

whining. I don't mean whining like complaining. I mean whining like he was in pain. This video made its way onto YouTube. And after that, a YouTuber edited the clip, having it in with Gannon supposedly saying, I'm bleeding. But this turned out to be fake. And Gannon didn't say this. What we would learn years later at trial is that he did say, I'm just worried about my burn. And Letitia did nothing to have. help him or comfort him. I don't think the fake edit was needed at all to make Letitia look bad. The actual video even cut where she stopped it. So we didn't hear that Gannon was burned was cruel and damning all on its own. There was also never any mention of what it is. And Gannon only says

I didn't. We still don't know if this means he didn't mean to do whatever it was. Or if he was telling her he didn't do it, but has more important things, like his burn to be worried about. She also released a photo of a carpet that appeared to have wax poured onto it. To many, it looked like the wax spill was deliberate to cover up the hint of red that could be seen underneath, which many people thought was possibly blood. The candle video is one of the most puzzling parts of the whole case because Letitia volunteered it to the world herself.

and it does nothing to make her look better. It does make Gannon seem scared. Maybe scared enough to run away from home, perhaps? Leticia actually said that it wasn't just a spilled candle. There had been a fire. She claimed she was upstairs when she heard the fire alarm, so she got laying in the dogs into the truck, and then went back into the house for Gannon

and had to battle smoke to get to him where he was on the couch. The carpet was on fire next to him, so Leticia grabbed blankets and threw them on the fire and jumped on it. She took Gannon to the truck, too, and in a panic, drove her on the block before coming home to assess the situation. ADT records show there was no fire, and surveillance shows that this drive her on the block with Gannon, Lena, and the dogs never happened. Hey, criminology listeners, Morph and I would like to tell you about a podcast. You need to be listening to called DNAID. DNAID is the only seasonal true crime podcast that exclusively covers cases solved using, forensic genealogy. We've talked about forensic genealogy many times on our show. This incredible

crime-solving tool has revolutionized criminal investigations, and we're seeing the results almost daily. DNA ID goes behind the headlines to answer your questions about all these cases, now rapidly being solved by forensic genealogy, how it works, how cases are selected, why the cases were unsolved for so long, and how the justice system is addressing it. You'll hear about well-known cases like those of April Tinsley's and Michelle Martinko's. and fascinating cases you've never heard of, like Viola Hagencourt and Thomas and Alice Green. Jessica, the host of DNAID, lays out all the facts, clearly, and in detail, and includes input from law enforcement to give us the inside scoop that we all crave. You can find DNAID on any podcast platform.

Episodes come out weekly on Mondays, and there are dozens of episodes available right now to binge on. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Letitia would claim that Gannon did get burned on his arms, but that it wasn't bad. and he wasn't complaining of any pain.

Every time she tried to describe his burns, she downplayed them. But she was describing at least a second degree burn. Leticia changed her story and said that any blood at the scene hadn't come from a nosebleed. It was more likely that Gannon's burn was bleeding and peeling and he was biting his nails. And they bled too. It was story after story. to people that heard Letitia's claims, they sounded suspicious and police felt the same way. Regardless of whether anything happened to Gannon on Sunday night in that basement or with a candle,

Gannon was alive the next morning. We know that and we'll get into the details. Lettisha texted the principal of the school. She was recently hired at and told her that her stepfather had been hit by a car and killed. It was 4.36 a.m. on Monday, around six or seven hours after that video of Gannon had been taken, by then Letitia knew she would have work to do at home to cover up what she had done and what she was going to do. And it later came out. Her claim of her stepfather being killed that morning was fake. And I'm going to draw a parallel here to Google searches. It's not the exact same thing. But you know,

when somebody tells a story or tells a lie here in this instance, let's say to work. Do they not think that that's going to come out later? And this is a lie that is so easily proven false. It's very specific and it's very over the top. You know, her stepfather was killed. Okay, pretty easy to check that claim out. Yeah, she could have simply just said she wasn't feeling good and not gone in that way instead of leaving something that would be easily verifiable. And I think it's problematic because it's just one big lie on top of an ever-changing story that she's had up to this point.

And as we often see, this is how people get themselves caught or at least a piece of the puzzle. My thought is they're panicked. They've done something. They're not thinking clearly, and they know they need to do something, tell someone something, but they don't sit down and think about the ramifications of a lie and how it could ultimately come back to bite them. Letitia also texted Al saying that Gannon was going to stay home from school because his stomach was upset, and he didn't want to have an accident at school in front of anyone. She called him out of school, too, so it would be an excused absence.

Despite Ganon's lifelong stomach issues, this was unusual for Ganon. Al would later note that he usually had issues with constipation, not loose bells. Ganon had earned perfect attendance certificates in the past, too, so bathroom issues didn't seem to hinder Ganon. Around 10.30 a.m. on Monday, Letitia and Ganon left the home. This is confirmed by a neighbor's surveillance camera. Gannon walks to Al's truck with Letitia, but he's walking very slowly, moving very sluggishly, he appears to drop something and just kind of stands there until Latisha picks it up for him.

By now, something is already wrong. It's clear to most people from that video, even as grainy and blurry as it is. But Letitia didn't do anything to help him. She didn't even let him rest at home in bed. Instead, she took him around town, driving through Dunkin' Donuts and going to Petco, almost the farthest pet store she could find from the home while staying in Colorado Springs to buy Valentine's Day outfits for their dogs. So here's an 11-year-old boy who is apparently sick, according to Letitia's calls to the school.

But the video suggests that it was much more than that. but yet she's going to take him all around town. And it's so important that he go with her to buy Valentine's Day outfits for the dogs. So why? That's the question that, you know, is entering my mind. Is it because she's trying to establish that, yeah, he wasn't feeling well, but he was well enough to go on this trip, even though the video seems. though the video seems to suggest otherwise.

And to me, the one thing that jumps out on the video is that she seems pretty cold to Gannon, who obviously isn't moving around very well. There's something wrong with him. She doesn't go over there to brace him or help him get inside or anything. It's just sort of, you know, some kind of coldness there that she's not even willing to help him. By 2.20 p.m., surveillance video from the neighbor shows that Letitia's truck is back in the driveway. Unlike the video of them leaving the home, you can't see Gannon clearly get out of the truck.

When called out about the lack of an appearance of Gannon and the video returning home, Letitia went back and forth between being adamant that you can see a shadow from Gannon's lake as he gets out of the side of the truck that you can't see on camera. She told Al and anyone else that would listen various stories about it. But then she made an outrageous claim, saying that Gannon never came home from Petco, and was now saying that someone had kidnapped him from the truck. truck while she was inside the Petco. But we know now that Gannon did come home. Evidence would show that Gannon actually did return from the Petco trip. He made it in as far as

his bed when he was attacked, and he hadn't even had time to take his jacket off. This is where Letitia's story takes another big turn. She then tried to claim that a man she tried to hire to fix the burned carpet from Sunday night had sexually assaulted her and kidnapped Gannon. This man had. had a few names. Eduardo, Uncle Matt, and Quincy Brown. That last name happened to be the name of a most wanted fugitive in Colorado who was in the news around the time of Gannon's disappearance. Another outlandish story was that she had tried to purchase a bike for Al's birthday. And during a test ride, Gannon fell. The seller was going to help him because he hit his head, but he kidnapped him

instead. So we have all of these stories, but all of them center around Letitia not being at fault. And it seemed like the more desperate she got, the more wild her stories became. There are hours of recorded phone calls. You can listen to if you want, but your head will spend. Investigators were able to weed through all of the lies that Letitia told in all the confusion and find the truth At the end of the day, they came to the conclusion that Letitia had murdered Gannon. On March 2, 2020, Lettisa was arrested in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She was charged with first-degree murder of a child under 12 as a person in position of trust, child abuse resulting in death, tampering with a deceased human body, and tampering with physical evidence.

On March 4th, as she was being transported back to Colorado, Letitia assaulted a deputy. Somewhere in Kansas, she slipped out of her handcuffs and was able to grab a full, unopened can of monster energy drink, and she used it to hit the deputy, who was sitting next to her in the back of a rented minivan directly in the face. The deputy, although injured, was able to subdue her, and the officer driving the van was able to pull over so that he and a detective who was in the front seat could assist the deputy in subduing Letitia. It was clear that Latisha was capable of violence based on the interaction with the deputy, but was she killed. capable of murder, a nobody murder charge against her would be a challenge in court.

On March 17th, 2020, just 15 days after Letitia was arrested, a bridge inspector found a suitcase under the Ascambia River Bridge on Interstate 90 in Pace, Florida. When he opened it, the decomposing body of a young boy wrapped in blankets in the fetal position rolled out. Horrified, this man summoned the plighted. police. Investigators quickly suspected that the body could be Gannon Stalk, missing out of Colorado 1,400 miles away. They had looked through missing person posters for children and saw that Gannon's two large front teeth with a gap between them strongly resemble the front teeth of their child dough. DNA from the body was sent to Colorado for analysis and comparison against Gannon Stalk's

toothbrush that was provided by Al, it didn't take long to confirm that this was indeed Gannon's body. The fact that Gannon's body was found at all has been described by some as divine intervention. First, the area that the suitcase was dumped in is not well lit at night. Police later found that Letitia drove over that bridge around 4 a.m. while her daughter Harley was asleep at their hotel and hurled a suitcase over the side. It's a reasonable assumption when driving over a bridge that there will be water below. But in this spot, there wasn't. The plan was for the suitcase to wash into the Gulf of Mexico and never be seen again.

Instead, it sat there intact, waiting to be discovered. The next miraculous thing was that the bridge was only inspected every two years. Leticia even searched on Google for maintenance under ditches under bridges, to try and make sure that no one would stumble upon the suitcase while doing maintenance on the bridge. If the inspector had been at the bridge just one month earlier, Ganon's body may have been out there for another two years. By then, the cause of death would be less obvious, if not impossible, to determine. On March 18, 2020, an autopsy was performed, and Ganon's cause of death was determined. He had been stabbed or cut 18 different times,

had suffered at least four blows to the head from a blunt object, which had fractured his skull, and finally, he had been shot in the jaw. Dr. Susan Ignacio, The medical examiner who performed the autopsy confirmed that the stab wounds would have eventually, if left untreated, been fatal. The blunt force trauma to his head would also have eventually killed him if he had not received medical help. However, it was the bullet, severing his spinal cord,

that finally killed him. None of these details was known to the public until trial years later. The findings proved that this young. boy had suffered a vicious and painful death. For those following this case, shock came on April 2nd, 2020, when the arrest affidavit for Letitia was leaked. It spread online so quickly that it was unsealed the next day. This is when we learned some of the details.

From the new information learned, knowing what Gannon went through in his last moments, we now know that he fought to live until the very last second of his life. This information was completely unthinkable. After Gannon's remains were found, his great Aunt Veronica told the Gazette news, he's been a fighter his whole life. Born four months premature and weighing just one pound six ounces, Gannon had to fight to live from the day he was born. Gannon was described by all who knew him as a very loving child.

There's never a reason to her to kill a child. With Gannon, it was hard to imagine what could have led to a scenario where someone could snap with such anger and kill him in such a violent manner. Those who had already suspected Letitia figured that she might have accidentally gone too far with discipline or hit him too hard in the moment out of anger leading to his death. No one had imagined her brutally murdering Gannon with multiple weapons, repeatedly striking him until he was dead. One suspicion or theory by some did turn out to be true. We later learned from the testimony of Dr. Ignost. that Gannon had hydrocodone in his system.

We know this medication as norco or Vicodin. It's used for pain. And it was learned that it was prescribed to out. When he cut off the tip of his finger while woodworking, he didn't like how sluggish it made him feel. So he didn't take many of the pills. Everyone who suggested that Leticia had drugged Gannon turned out to be right. And I think a lot of these theories put forward.

by people, you know, kind of came out of that video. We mentioned it, right? On the video, Gannon looks very sluggish, as though he's having a hard time, you know, walking, standing up, even. People made the case that he looked drugged, and they turned out to be correct. On May 18, 2020, an inmate at the El Paso County Jail asked to speak to Deputy Catherine Draper. According to the inmate, Letitia had been passing notes under her door. The notes contained an escape plan. Letitia was going to break out of the window of her cell with a broomstick and climb out. She had measured herself and was sure she could fit through.

Leticia mentioned $75,000 that was put into an account for her to use for a private attorney, and she told this inmate she would much rather use the money to survive on the run. The inmate told deputies, although Letitia had asked her for help, she would never help Letitia escape because she was ordered charges against her and wanted no part in anything involving her. Authorities moved Letitia and searched herself. Inside, they found a note to her daughter Harley, warning her that when something comes up on the news like she's no longer in jail or is missing to not be afraid, these letters were proof of Letitia's planned escape, and for this, she was charged with solicitation to commit escape. Letitia began to complain about bizarre things like people putting threats into her peanut butter.

She sent messages to jail staff that made no sense. It was clear to many that she was just trying to avoid accountability by laying the grounds for an insanity defense. But the court ruled that she needed a competency evaluation. In September 2020, Letitia was found competent to stand trial. Now, she ramped up the claims of mental health issues and needed a sanity evaluation. She also wanted to represent herself. She fired her public defenders. This gave her access to the discovery and all of the facts of her case.

In January 2021, she was interviewed again for a second evaluation. And to me more of, you know, these are always tricky situations. We know that people. have real mental health issues. But we also know that some people, some defendants, try to fake it in order to, you know, maybe get off with a lighter sentence, not go to prison, but rather go to some type of mental health facility. Obviously, they've got to figure that out. The court does. So they set up evaluations. And I think you have to be careful in either believing it completely or dismissing it completely because you just don't know.

Upon learning that Letitia had murdered his son, of course, Al Stalk wanted nothing to do with her, and he went about getting divorced. At the end of April 2021, the divorce between Al and Letitia was finalized. Days after this, she decided she was not going to represent herself in court. The attorney she had fired were assigned a representative once again. In November 2021, Leticia pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her. Her attorneys Will Cook and Josh Tallini were now claiming that she had

dissociative identity disorder. In December 2021, Judge Warner ruled that a third mental health evaluation was necessary for Letitia. This time it was done at the request of the defense team. This latest evaluation severely delayed the trial because at the time, there was a backlog of at least 352 people waiting to be evaluated at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo. Letitia eventually claimed that she did kill Gannon, but it was her protective alter persona, Maria Sanchez. And she thought she saw a six foot tall man standing in Gannon's room in a cape getting ready to hurt him,

apparently mistaking Gannon standing on his bed with a blanket, though she says her alter persona was there to protect her and any child in the house. She, Maria Sanchez, brutally attacked and killed Gannon. So, you know, when you really break this down, not only did she, Letitia, not do it, it was an accident when Maria did it. But it's just another story where she was not at fault. And we've said it, Morph, but, you know, the stories, it seemed as though each time she told a different one, it was more and more bizarre. So now she has this other persona with a name, Maria Sanchez.

And it was Maria who apparently mistaken Gannon standing on his bed with a blanket, thought it was some intruder. And Maria attacked and killed Gannon. You have to wonder where she's come up with this alternate character theory, which is really bizarre, but based on everything else she said with her changing stories and how wild they were, it's not all that surprising. No, but,

you know, the one thing that is kind of central to all the stories that she's told, it wasn't her. No matter what the story is, the details, the variations, it wasn't her fault that Gannon was dead. If you love chilling,

Unsolved cases and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. During jury selection, which started on March 20, 2023, some potential jurors voiced their concern that they were very well aware of who Letitia was and what she had supposedly done.

There would be no swaying them no matter what came out on the witness stand because in their minds she was guilty. Other potential jurors had trouble with the issue of a not guilty by reason of insanity plea. They thought that even someone with a severe mental illness should be accountable for their actions and struggled. to understand why there would be a trial if she already admitted to the crime. Of course, they also struggled to understand how someone who had basically signaled that they were responsible for the crime could have the presumption of innocence. Despite the plea, the prosecution still had to prove that Letitia planned and committed the murder while legally seen. And I don't know for sure, Morph, but my assumption is that something similar to this happens in a lot of cases,

especially big cases that, you know, really get a lot of attention in the media, there are going to be people who follow it closely who have already made up their minds. And like some of these people said, they're not going to be swayed. No matter what people say on the witness, Dan, no matter what evidence is introduced at trial. Now, obviously those people should not serve as jurors because that's not how the system is supposed to work. You know, what really kind of got me, though, about what some of these people were saying is that not so much that they felt people with a severe mental illness should be accountable. Some people have that thought. There are people on either side of the fence

of that. It was really more about why does there need to be a trial if she's already admitted to the crime. Is that just a lack of understanding of how the judicial system works or what do you think? Yeah, I think there's no way that people wouldn't come into the situation with certain biases and preconceived notions. And I think for the court, this is a very important deal because they've got to get this right. They don't want to have a trial, then come to find out later on that some jurors, you know, came into the situation with these. preconceived ideas and weren't properly screened, then all of a sudden you've got somebody that wants a new trial and that kind of stuff. So I think this was a very important situation for

the court to get right. After six days of jury selection, with 75 jurors brought in each day to be interviewed about their past, present, their knowledge of the case and their beliefs about justice, mental health, and the defendant herself. 18 people were chosen to serve on the jury. There would be 12 jurors chosen at random before deliberation to serve as the final jury and additional six jurors, one for every expected week of trial. For 20 days, the jury listened closely to the details. One thing jumped out to them. In the days between Gannon's disappearance and her arrest, it seemed like Letitia did not stop talking. Even the interrogation after she got arrested in Myrtle Beach was four hours long.

And I think a lot of people look at that and say, she must have known that she was busted. But yet she kept talking for four hours. And the more she talked, the more the law enforcement officials listened to her, the more it seemed as though she was just desperately trying to keep changing her story to anything that didn't point to her guilt. And we've covered a number of those versions.

stories that she told, some of them just very bizarre. The defense called just two witnesses, a Dr. Niederhauser, who Leticia had seen in December 2019 for anxiety relating to her job, and Dr. Dorothy Otnell Lewis, a psychiatrist and author who frequently serves as an expert witness for the defense in trials where the sanity of a defendant is in question, particularly regarding dissociative identity disorder. Dr. Lewis evaluated serial killer Ted Bundy four different times at the request of his legal team. In 1989, she determined that he had some sort of bipolar mood disorder that led to his violent and fatal mood swings, but now appears to believe that he had dissociative identity disorder, telling Refinery 29,

I think that I made the wrong diagnosis. After Bundy was executed, Dr. Lewis was given a stack of love letters between Bundy and his wife, and she noticed that he would sign the letters with different names. She's come to the conclusion that he did have different signatures and personas, saying, if you look at the photographs of him, you will see a very, very different expression on his face. Some people have questioned Dr. Lewis's motives and credibility. You're looking at the last woman to kiss Ted Bundy, Dr. Lewis said of herself

in the HBO documentary, Crazy Not Insane. To many, she seemed like someone, fascinated with criminals who liked being able to get that close to them, not necessarily someone interested in the truth. On the stand, she spoke a lot about her past cases and her career, but less about Letitia and what made her in Dr. Lewis's mind legally insane. Dr. Lewis, the dissociative identity disorder expert, did not even conclude that Latisha had DID and even said she could not conclude she was legally insane.

at the time of the crime, but did think she was psychotic because someone of her intelligence should know that no one would believe any of those stories. It was a very weak defense and mainly benefited the prosecution. So he said earlier, right, Dr. Lewis testifies in a lot of trials, testifies for the defense. It's thought to be an expert on the ID, but in the trial does not diagnose. Letitia with D-I-D. So I think that's somewhat of a blow to their case. I think the jury would look at that and say, well, your own expert is not saying it. Now, she said she was psychotic, but the reasoning behind it, I thought, was very strange.

It was because someone of her intelligence should know that no one would believe all these different stories. And I don't think that's true. I don't think the intelligence part really has that much to do with it. to me, it's more about someone who's caught trying their very best to throw everything they can at these people who are questioning her, hoping they'll believe something, hoping they'll latch on to one of these stories. Yeah, and it definitely seems like this expert didn't do the defense any favors. And it seems like a good attorney knows what their expert's going to say, what the outcome is going to be, one start up there on the stand. So my thinking is they didn't properly screen her or she

switched up what she was going to say something. But I think in hindsight, they probably regretted having her on there without really even coming to the conclusion that she had the ID. But we said they only had two witnesses. So could they afford not to put her on? You know, and maybe they knew it going in, but her saying she had to have been psychics, and some of the other things she said was better than nothing. I don't know for sure, but, you know, I'm just kind of throwing things out. It took the jury just seven hours to find Letitia guilty on all charges. Immediately after the jury returned their verdict, Judge Warner took a break to ponder sentencing remarks.

Under Colorado law, the only sentence available to hand down to her for first-degree murder was life in prison without the possibility of parole. There was no question of what her punishment would be, but he needed to gather the right words to announce it. In most cases, sentencing comes days, weeks, or even months after the conviction, but for Letitia, it took just minutes. All of Gannon's loved ones from South Carolina were already in the area, so delaying the sentencing would mean more time and money for them to return to be there in person. The same day the guilty verdict was read, Judge Warner handed down two life sentences for the two first-degree murder charges, which merged into one, an additional 12 years for

tampering with the deceased human body with three years of probation tacked on as well as 18 months for tampering with physical evidence. Judge Warner said, without hesitation, that the facts in this case are the most horrific I have ever seen. And I always take note when a judge says something like that, you know, they preside over a lot of trials, probably a lot of murder trials. So I think those type of sentiments carry some weight. As for suspicion that Letitia's daughter, Harley, played any role in Gannon's murder or in covering it up. Judge Warner cleared up her involvement. Well, her lack of involvement by saying there is no evidence that she had anything to do with the murder or your cover-up of it,

but some people still think that she is somehow involved. She wasn't. The incredible strength of will and courage that it took for her to come in and testify is amazing to me, but she did it because, as she said, it was the right thing to do. Due to this life sentence, the prosecution dropped the charge for solicitation to commit escape from prison. There really was no use tacking on any more years. And I get that. Barring some miracle, Letitia is never getting out of prison. I just can't ever see that happening. But I do want to talk a minute about her daughter Harley. You know, the

The judge said it. You know, what type of courage does it take to sit in court in front of your, your mom, and testify against her? And my thought is a lot. Yeah, and you have to have some sympathy for her because she's getting sort of lumped in with her mom's actions. And, you know, she was 17 at the time this happened. So there, you know, a lot of people think, okay, well, she's old enough that she could

have participated or at least participated in covering up. So it's good to see that the judge here took a moment to say, okay, there's nothing here. She's not connected to this crime. Let's move on. Despite knowing so much about what happened on January 27, 2020, I don't think we'll ever know or understand why it happened. But Judge Warner laid out his theory at sentencing, saying to Letitia, it's clear that you hated and were jealous of Landon Bullard. You saw yourself as a better mother than she was. it's clear from the evidence that you had some resentment from being left with Mr. Stouck's children.

It's clear you had some resentment towards Mr. Stout because he traveled as part of his job. It's clear you felt trapped. Since Gannon's murder, his father, Al, has found love again and has remarried. But his life will never be the same. And nor will Gannon's mom Landon's life. Gannon's family is forever changed by the terrible deed that Letitia perpetrated. So I do think the judge did a good job kind of laying out his things. theories on motive, some of which, you know, would have come from the prosecution during trial.

But we talk about a lot of senseless murders. And I mean, they all are. But, you know, listen to these reasons. She was jealous of Gannon's mom. She thought she was a better mom. She didn't like, you know, being left with Al's children. She resented Al. She felt trapped. And so she thought, what my best course of action is to murder ganon i just don't get it and i think that's what a lot of people you know really struggle with in this case it doesn't seem to make any sense yeah i think most of us can't comprehend what goes through people's minds when they commit this kind of crime you know someone like chris watts could just divorce his wife and leave and start a new life but instead he decides that the best course of action is to kill his entire family and then try and cover it up.

And, you know, Letitia does the same thing here. Not on his grand scale, but still, it sort of boggles the mind as why she just doesn't pack of her bags, leave and get a divorce and just start fresh rather than kill this little boy. Yeah, man, I just don't get it. And there are a few things that really nag people about this case. A lot of people want to blame police in Colorado for not finding Gannon Stalk's body when they spent time in the house searching. We now know that Letitia put his body inside a suitcase and sealed it up, hiding the body under boxes and other items. When police were out there, they were looking for a missing boy, one who reportedly left home to go to a friend's home.

They were not looking for the body of a child hidden in the house. on the day Letitia removed all of her belongings from the home and headed to South Carolina. There was no reason to suspect that one of her suitcases contained a child's body in it. But in fact, that's what happened. She drove all the way back to South Carolina and then on to Florida and dumped the suitcase off a bridge and was hoping that it would never be found. And if Gannon's remains were not found, I think there's a very good chance. Letitia may have walked away, a free woman, which is really unimaginable.

You know, at the end of the day, she's definitely where she belongs. And Gannon's family was able to have his remains back to say a proper goodbye. But, you know, for me, Morph, as we wrapped this one up, I really found this case infuriating. And I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people will when, you know, when they listen, how a mother and a stepmother could do something. something like this to, you know, such a young boy, it's just incomprehensible. You just can't make sense of it. And there's a lot of murders like that. But like you said, just a little bit ago. She ended up packing all of her stuff and moving. Why couldn't she have

just done that? Taken Harley and left. Filed for divorced, you know, did whatever she had to do. I don't get what she thought killing Gannon was going to assault. Was part of it revenge against Al, revenge against Landon because she didn't like Landon. There's got to be something to it that we don't know. Yeah, I think the one thing that's crystal clear, though, is just how cold-blooded she was. Because to do this to a little boy, beat him, shoot him, everything she did, then stuff his body. into a bag and then drive them all the way to Florida, throw them off a bridge. Just no sense of remorse, regret, you know, anything like that.

It was just all self-preservation, you know, right from the very beginning with all these different stories to the insanity claim. And at every turn, she tried to get away with us. And I'm just glad that she didn't get away with it. Yeah, me too, because that thought of us talking about the case, but Gannon's body never being found. She would have been suspect number one, but would they have been able to tie her to the murder?

And my thought is probably not. Those no body cases are very tough. And that would have been, you know, a travesty of justice if she was allowed to walk free. If you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute,

go out, give us a rating. You can leave a review. But keep telling your friends as well. That word of mouth really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to Facebook.com slash criminology podcast. Or you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion on fans.

So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.