Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘It Was Brutal’: Gannon Stauch’s Dad Speaks Out After Son’s Killer Stepmom Locked Up Forever

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Colorado woman Letecia Stauch was convicted of brutally murdering her stepson, Gannon Stauch, and sentenced to life in prison in May. Letecia killed the 11-year-old boy while her then-husband, Al Stauch, was away on National Guard deployment in 2020. Al Stauch tells the Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy all about Gannon, the case, and his hardships following the tragic murder.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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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. Love you. Gannon Stalk, telling his father he loves him, it's a cherished memory that brings some comfort following the conviction of Gannon's stepmother for his murder. We talk with Gannon's father, Al Stalk, about Gannon, the trial, and the recent release of autopsy photos of the little boy by a YouTuber. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. A little more than two months ago, 39-year-old Letitia Stalk was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for the

murder of her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon. Before the trial, Letitia Stalk admitted to murdering Gannon, but she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury did not believe she was insane and found her guilty on all counts. Letitia Stalk attacked Gannon on January 27, 2020, in El Paso County, Colorado, where they lived for no reason at all. Investigators found Gannon's blood on his mattress and the walls of his bedroom. Once Gannon was reported missing, Leticia Stalk acted suspiciously and told several different stories about what happened to her stepson. Letitia Stalk rented a van a month after Gannon was reported missing and drove with her daughter to Florida's panhandle. Six weeks after the trip to Florida, Ginnon Stalk's body was found stuffed in a suitcase under a bridge.

Letitia Stalk's daughter didn't ask questions but testified at the trial that she had a feeling that Gannon's body was in the back of the van. Did you ever ask your mom? What are we doing? Why are we leaving? And it's missing. Why aren't you out looking for him? That kind of stuff? No, I didn't really question her a lot.

Why didn't you question your mom? I would be told that I'm being like disrespectful or like talking back. And what would happen if you were being disrespectful or talking back to your mom? Sometimes she would like backhand me. Where would she backhand you at? To my face. Is that why you just didn't say anything and you sat in the van and went wherever she was driving? Yes.

Gannon's father, Al Stalk, worked with law enforcement spending hours on the phone with his then wife, trying to get her to tell him what really happened. I want you to know that no matter what, no matter what, we can work through this together and I can help you, okay? But you just got to let me help you. But I have a very, you told me to be straight up. I got a very straight up question, okay? Are you ready? Yeah. Did you kill Gannon?

I need to know. I need you to answer me. Yes or no right now? I kill Gannon. The answer is no. I can't believe you asked me this. As I said before, Letitia was sentenced to life in prison for the horrendous crime. But the saddest part of all is that an innocent 11-year-old boy was brutally taken from this world far too soon. And the rest of Gannon's family had to believe that Gannon was just missing when really he had already been killed. by his stepmother. The family's grief has been recently compounded after a YouTuber named Zavgirl posted Gannon's autopsy photos on Patreon and charged people $3 to view them. Patreon disabled Zavgirl's account after hearing from an outraged public. Zavgirl tried to justify

her actions by saying the photos provided scientific value. She later posted an apology online after the issue received attention from the media and after so many people became angry. by the senseless posting of the photos. Joining me to discuss Gannon Stalk and the things that have been going on in the aftermath of the murder case is his father. Al Stalk, I'm sure if you followed the trial, you heard his voice on many recordings. So Al, thank you for coming on sidebar with us. We appreciate it. Yes, absolutely.

Thank you for having me. Al, first of all, I just want to start with offering condolences to you. This case is what happened to Gannon is beyond the page. again and is beyond the pale. How are you guys doing? I know it's been a few years now. We've had some months past since the trial. How are you and your family doing? Well, it's, it is kind of like we're starting the grief process all over. We, we did kind of stay at a high level of stress. I guess you can say for the three years leading up to the case. And then after the case, I just kind of feel like, honestly, like I'm into many pieces on the inside again. And, you know, I thought

I was in a good place healing and all that, but it just kind of reopened all of that and just dealing with it and working through it. During the trial, we heard you on the recordings with your ex-wife. And I just can't imagine what that was like at the time to have to go through that, but I know that you wanted to get answered for yourself and Gannon's mom and for Gannon. How painful was that to have to go through that process back when the search for him? was going on. Oh, it was brutal. The hardest part was not really the act itself, but not really being able to talk to too many people about it, because it was kind of, I don't want to say a secret.

I mean, I think a few of my family members knew about it, but unfortunately, it was very hard to know who to trust and how much to trust them early on. And, you know, having to go through all that behind closed doors, I just kind of had to internalize it and kind of try to deal with everything else as much as possible and not talk through that stuff, you know, with the counselor, with too many people. You know, I had my uncle and my mom I was able to talk with. But yeah, that was tough. I know this is compounded, or at least I would think it would be compounded if I put myself in your shoes because this was somebody, Letitia was your wife at the time. This is somebody that you loved enough to marry and you trusted her and this is the ultimate act i can't think of it a bigger betrayal

than this yeah absolutely i mean you hit it on the head there's there's not too much i hesitate to say it can't get any worse because you know things can always get worse but yeah for someone you love and trust and trust with your children uh you know i was gone i wasn't gone for a long period of time it was only supposed to be two weeks for some training and day one of that your son gets murdered i mean that that and how it all began the world knows the story now that it began as a you know runaway missing child and the stress of that and then yeah it obviously compounds it to be lied to repeatedly over and over as you heard on the phone calls um but leading up to all that before she left yeah that that made things a million times worse once again i already said in the after your first

question i didn't know who to trust or what to trust in those early days so i look at the pictures of gannon the photographs and i just see this sweet little boy do you mind telling us a little bit about him yeah i mean that's it he was just a a sweet little boy everything you want your 11 year old boy to be yeah made mistakes and had his faults but just a loving kid Loved his friends, one of the most impactful things on the positive side from this trial is once he was gone and we realized he wasn't coming home, the letters and comments and stories that started pouring in from classmates and friends and teachers of his, of things I never knew about him, how much of a helper he was in class. You know, kids that were struggling with their computer coding, he would do his really fast, get it right. and then go start helping other kids. Math class was the same way.

Just a loving kid and just the relationship, one of the hardest things I know for me, but I can't imagine this little sister, just that relationship they had. As many siblings do, kind of a love-hate relationship, but, you know, just the fact that that is gone and she'll never have that again,

how it has impacted her, impacted me from a parent's perspective, that that's, you know, she'll never have that again. so but just an awesome kid in the last couple of weeks there was a person on youtube who obtained the case file of gannon's murder i want to let you know we obtained that as well only because we always request those items we were shocked to receive the autopsy photos but we would never post those or air those how did you find out that this person had not only posted

the photos of his autopsy, but that she was charging people to view them. So all along, there have been what I consider to be negative things on social media, slanderous things on social media about myself and Gannon's mother. For the past three and a half years, we've been dealing with that. And I, early on, decided I just was going to completely distance myself from social media. and I'm still in that mode. So I have people that surround me that things that are relevant that I need to know or that are important that we need to pass along to the authorities.

They will let me know or they'll just say, hey, I have something I'm going to pass along just so you know. So that's, in this instance, I found out from my family. One of my family members is pretty avid social media. And he saw it. Well, a few of them actually. And the information kind of met in the middle. So, yeah, I got that.

from them and yeah obviously that was pretty disgusting so there was a lot of backlash people were outraged by her doing that um by even sharing the photos let alone charging people to see them she they were taken down by patreon they said they disabled her account she then later i guess apologized has she reached out to you to try to personally apologize or was this just some sort of post that she put on the internet as far as i know it's just a post on the internet um I, nobody has reached up to me personally, whether her on her behalf. I'm not really sitting here waiting on an apology, though. The act is done.

And if, if you are able to think through it that much to come to the conclusion to apologize, you probably should have thought through it before you did something like that. And I will say, and I said this before, I believe in, you know, the Freedom of Information Act and, you know, outlets being able to have access to information. I also believe that once you get that information, you do have a responsibility to handle that information appropriately. So that's where I stand on it. And as I said before, I'm also, I don't know if legal action is the right thing. I think the call it a pressure campaign on this person and others who chose to use that photos unwisely, I think that has done the job in this instance. And, you know, she's been

shut down by Patreon. And the good people out there have let her know that this was a despicable and evil act. You mentioned you didn't know if legal action was the appropriate, you know, avenue. But have you thought about that at all, some type of lawsuit or something to that effect? And, you know, I was surprised even that, you know, obviously I'm a big supporter of the Freedom of Information Act. I'm, you know, a journalist. But we request things all the time. And I don't believe I've ever received autopsy photos. Many times those items are not released.

They'll be placed under seal. Yeah, once again, I think the burden is, let me back up. The what is released on a, from the authorities on a FOIA type of, uh, uh, request, I think that is out of the realm of what I should be worried about right here. But information that is released, you do have a risk, not you, but the general person or the general outlet, you have a responsibility to handle that information appropriately. And, you know, it just so happens in this instance, this is my son. And so, yeah, it hurts.

And it stings to know that not only his full body photos have been put out. there like that but then that people have further the nonsense by i've heard there's been numerous you know nasty and negative comments about whatever about his body i don't know exactly what they are but i know they're out there um and that just makes it worse like the boy was brutally murdered why why do we have to continue to he did nothing wrong we just leave him alone you want to come after me i you know fine. I can deal with it. But as far as Gannon is concerned, just leave him alone and just honor his life. How would you like people to honor his life? I think by the overwhelming majority of people, I'd say 98, 99% have just, you know, been a part of, I've heard it's called Gannon's Army

and, you know, seeking justice for him. I want to give absolute credit to the, district attorney and his entire team to include the sheriff and FBI and everybody that was involved they honored Gannon with all their hearts and I can say that because knowing some of these people personally now they put their all into this because it was such a despicable act I think anyone who has has a heart or who is a parent or has a sibling felt connected to this somehow and you know, but the general public, I am overwhelmingly pleased with the support and how people are honoring him, you know, with all the shirts and the stickers and just the kind words. I think that's

how you do it. You just keep, we keep the positivity and the kindness flowing and let that overwhelm these few isolated negative acts. And where do you go from here? You said, you know, the grieving process has started all over you know are you are you speaking to somebody are you getting some maybe some grief counseling or anything like that yeah i am um i will share this when everything first started i was um i had i found a good counselor a great counselor actually and uh i was about twice a week you know in with her and uh now i do it more as needed as i've learned to cope and some different ways to grieve this loss. But yeah, like I said, after that

after the judge rendered his sentence on Tisha, you know, everything kind of started over. So, you know, things were going through that six weeks or whatever of the trial, it just, it broke us into a million pieces again. It didn't break our spirits. I don't think we're ever going to be broken. We're going to continue fighting through this. But it put us back. back to day one. And, you know, I got a great supporting cast, my wife. She's also had a loss similar to

mine. And so she understands. And so we're just lifelong grief partners. And, you know, got a great family. We got six kids running around the house. And we can't stop. So just got to keep going. Six. You've got a house full. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah, you get your hands full. Well, Al, I'm so, So happy that you came on to talk with us. Again, such a lovely little boy. I know I've only seen photographs. Gannon was a lovely child. I can tell this beautiful smile.

So is there anything else you'd like to add? Just about Gannon. I think what he would say, if his words could be known right now, is to the same thing I said. Just let's just be kind. Let's fight through this together. it's a horrible thing and um you know i think he would say how much he loved us um that's one of the videos i look at of him all the time just a little two or three second little clip and it's just saying he's brushing his hair and he says i love you and and i play that over and over again

because that that kind of sums him up right there that's so sweet well al stalk thank you so much we really appreciate you coming on to talk with us and we'll encourage everybody to honor Gannon and to continue to do things that are positive in his memory. Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel.

I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.