Law&Crime Sidebar - 'Disgusting': Letecia Stauch Prosecutor Blasts YouTuber for Selling Gannon Stauch Autopsy Photos

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

A true-crime YouTuber has come under fire for selling gruesome autopsy photos of Gannon Stauch on her Patreon account. The photos reportedly show the 11-year-old boy’s decomposed body that was found stuffed in a suitcase. His stepmother, Letecia Stauch, was convicted of beating, stabbing, and shooting him before locking Gannon in the luggage and driving from Colorado to dump his body under a bridge in Florida. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy discusses the disturbing photo sale with Colorado Springs District Attorney Michael Allen, one of the prosecutors who helped put the evil stepmom behind bars.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A YouTuber charging people to look at autopsy photos of Gannon Stout, the 11-year-old boy murdered in Colorado by his stepmom. Outrage over this issue is growing. Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. I'm Anjanette Levy. This story is really one of those that leaves me shaking my head and it's truly mind-boggling. Gannon Stouk was brutally murdered in 2020 by his stepmom, Letitia Stouk. She drove his body across the country to Florida and dumped him over a bridge in a suitcase. Now a YouTuber who goes by Zavgirl has done something that frankly I can't understand. I'm not sure anyone can really understand it.

She posted photos of Gannon's autopsy on Patreon and then charged people $3 a pop to look at the photos. She obtained those photos after requesting the case file. Those photos were included in it. A handful of people so far have requested the case file, including law and crime. However, we would never air or post autopsy photos of anyone, much less a child. As you can imagine, Gannon's parents are outraged and devastated as they should be. For her part, Zavgirl is claiming she did this to do it scientifically to show people these photos and allow them to see them for themselves.

Gannon's mom, though, Landon Bullard Hyatt, posted on Facebook, Gannon is my child, and he is not an experiment, nor a piece of paper or photo. He is a child. I pray that all that is involved in this heinous act will stop and no longer do this to anyone else. I will not give you any satisfaction. No one deserves this and no one wants to be in these shoes. You may say that if it happened to you, you may not change your actions. I do not wish this on anyone. I'm sure you would rethink your actions if this was indeed your child or you. The good that I take from this is that good people still exist and in a matter of seconds, Gannon's

Army came together. I surely hope Gannon taught you all a lesson. He is the one who deserves an apology. My son, Gannon. Joining me to discuss this incredibly disturbing issue is Michael Allen. He is the district attorney of the fourth judicial district in Colorado, and he prosecuted Letitia Stalk for the murder of Gannon Stalk. Mr. Allen, thanks so much for joining us here on Sidebar. Thank you for having me. This is an important issue to talk about. Yeah, most certainly. When did you find out that the autopsy photos of Gannon Stalk had been posted online by this YouTuber Zab Girl and then, you know, she was charging people to look at them? I found out on Saturday afternoon I was reached out to by one of the family members of Gannons

who let me know about what was happening, sent me a link so I could go and just see sort of what was happening. I wasn't part of the paywall group that could actually access these things so I couldn't see watch pictures specifically. But obviously, the family is very concerned about the photos of Gannon being out like this. We took great care during trial to make sure that, one, they knew when we were going to show any autopsy photos. We blocked out very sensitive portions of those photos, wanting to just focus on the injuries that Gannon sustained. But the photos that were actually being shown on these YouTubers channels were full-blown photos that didn't have any sort of sensitivity attached to them at all.

I know that the person that posted them was also claiming that this was sort of a scientific effort, and I find that to just be preposterous. There's nothing scientific about what they were doing in my view. Would something like that autopsy photos be typically released through a public records request in Colorado? Not typically in Colorado. What is typically released in Colorado is the autopsy report itself. I've never seen another case of mine where an autopsy photo like that has been released

by the coroner's office and then published somehow either through the media or by private groups that want to access those things. I've never seen something like this before this particular case. Have you looked into it all how the photos were released? Because we request things here at Long Crime Routinely. We request case files and things of that nature. typically things like autopsy photos are just kind of it's unspoken that they're off limits they aren't published we would never publish such a thing and they typically aren't released

yeah you know the the unique part of this case is that it it obviously gained a lot of notoriety around the country and even internationally we had people reaching out to us from all over the world with you know just well wishes support for what we were doing trying to prosecute the defendant in this case. The unique aspects of this case, I think, really drew people in the fact that it was an 11 year old boy who looked like anybody else's son. You know, I think we can all identify kids in our own families that could be just like Gannon. And so I think that drew people in. But the horrific nature of what happened to Gannon was very unique. The autopsy photos that we had in the case were things that I didn't want to look at on a regular basis. I didn't certainly want to share those out. I had to really get myself prepared to look at them when I was looking at them and then being very careful about what we presented to the jury, too, because these photos are horrific. There's something that nobody wants to see. And the fact that somebody is charging for these things, access to look at them is beyond the pale to me. The fact that people would want to buy access to these photos is also disgusting.

There's no redeeming quality about these photos. there's nothing about them that would be educational in any way as to what happened in the case. There's other ways to do what she's claiming to have done, which was to be scientific about it. In all autopsies, there's always body diagrams that are just black and white body diagrams with injuries that are drawn on as opposed to the full blown photos. They could have done those diagrams that they wanted to be scientific about it and achieved the stated goal, which, you know, it's just heartbreaking that. family members have to, again, be victimized by this case. If science was the goal, talking about science, you wouldn't charge for science. And one of the things that's really concerning to me about this is that not only is the family

traumatized and re-victimized by all of this. Also, you have people out there who, you know, there are some bad people in this world. They have a lot of issues. They have parapherias. They have things like that. There could be people using these. photos for a number of reasons. And then they buy access to them and then they spread the photos. Yeah. So, you know, along those lines, the any autopsy photos are always going to include very

close up shots of any injuries that were sustained that might have led to death, that kind of thing. But there's also full body shots that will show a fully unclothed people, including in this case. And I saw some pretty disgusting comments on, I think it was Twitter. maybe of people that had seen these photos and talking about Gannon's genitalia. That's disgusting to me. And further highlights, why is this person publishing these types of photos and not wearing those portions out? It's just, it's disgusting.

I don't know why somebody would do it. And, you know, I wish there was something that we could do from our office to combat this. But the problem is that this case span jurisdictional lines from state to state. The autopsy was actually performed down in Florida. I'm not necessarily familiar with Florida's open records laws, but apparently that's how these photos were obtained from the corner's office down there and then published. It's just heartbreaking and disgusting.

I will tell you, we requested the case file and received the autopsy photos as well. We would never post them or use them because we don't do such things. So we were, I think, a little surprised that we did receive those autopsy photos in the case file. So there are ways to deal with these things. I mean, we receive information all of the time that we think is maybe too sensitive or too gruesome. And we don't post it. We don't put it out.

Yeah. And I applaud that effort from you all for taking that stance on something like this. There's no redeeming quality about people that want to look at. post these types of pictures. These pictures were absolutely horrific. Like I said, I had to prepare myself each time I had to look at them because you just don't want to see a little boy who was full of life and deserves so much more in life from his stepmother, the murderer in this case. And he certainly deserves so much more dignity and respect and death too. And this is almost just, you know, spitting on his grave in some respects. This case, I found,

found particularly disturbing just because of the evidence we did here and see Ms. Stalk's testimony, her claims, poor Gannon before he was murdered, talking about his burns. I mean, we literally are hearing this child in his final hours and the fact that he was stuffed in a suitcase and taken cross-country. And then there was all this rigmarole and back and forth with Al Stouk having to talk to his wife on the phone to try to get her to give him some peace and tell him where Gannon was located and lies and everything else. I feel like this just compounds the family's grief exponentially. It absolutely does. You know, one of the things that we learned and was really highlighted during the

trial, I hope, was just how manipulative this defendant was. And that's pretty common that people that are charged with criminal offenses that are often manipulated. I've been a prosecutor for a long time. I've never had a defendant that was as manipulative as this defendant. And she was like this in everyday life, too. In talking with Alstalk, her husband at the time, he relayed many stories to us about how she would manipulate every single thing that the family would go through, including her own biological daughter, Harley,

who was also in some respects a victim in this case. She had no idea what her mother was up to or how she was potentially going to be implicated in what her mother was doing. and the lengths that this person, this defendant, went through to cause complete hell to for these family members is shocking. Like I said, I've never had a defendant that went to these lengths before, despite lots of horrific cases I've prosecuted, this one was above and beyond. Most certainly. Is there any recourse for this? Because this Zab girl may not have committed a crime per se, but I would have.

assume that if there are photographs posted online of autopsy photos and a child's genitalia, there could be some potential criminal liability here. I mean, some people would call that, you know, producing potentially child pornography. It could be. I think that would, from a prosecutor's perspective, that might be a tough case to prosecute that she's providing child pornography to people because of what her stated goals are, obviously that's going to be part of any evidence in the case that might be pursued against her. The biggest avenue, I think, and I've encouraged the family to look into this, is to try to get a Florida attorney involved in this, to see if there's some recourse that they have for the release and then also potentially

to have these pictures pulled from this person so that they can't be published anymore. But as we all know, as soon as something finds its way onto the internet, it's almost impossible to get all of those off of the internet and prevent it from being continually disseminated on the internet. One thing I tell kids all the time in schools is that if something happens on the internet that you're embarrassed about, it's almost impossible to retract that. It's a different world that we live in today. Well, we will keep a close eye on this. I find this to be horrifying. and I can't believe that anybody would even want to look at those photos. Thank you so much, Mr. Allen, for coming on to talk with us about this.

We hope you'll come back sometime. Absolutely. I'd be happy to do it. And again, I want to thank you for shedding light on this topic. It's something that without the media coverage, people would not know about. So it's important that we get this word out and hopefully prevent this from happening in the future, especially. No doubt. Thank you.

Thank you. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to you and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can also watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel anytime. I'm Anjanette Levy, and we will see you next time. of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app,

Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.