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‘She Just Kept Saying It Was A Setup:’ Gannon Stauch’s Stepsister Testifies About Her Mom's Behavior After His Murder
Harley Hunt, who was in the car with her mother Letecia Stauch before she allegedly dumped Gannon Stauch’s body off a Florida bridge, spoke in court about her mom's behavior after the incident.
The daughter of Letecia Stauch, the Colorado woman accused of killing her stepson, testified on Monday about her mother’s conflicting explanations of the incident.
Stauch’s 11-year-old stepson Gannon Stauch was stabbed 18 times and shot in the head hours before the 39-year-old reported him missing on Jan. 27, 2020. Stauch’s descriptions of the incident include several disconnected details, according to previous Oxygen.com reporting. Officials have described the crime scene as bloody.
“I’ve been to crime scenes with a single gunshot wound that has no blood. I’ve been to crime scenes with a few stab wounds that have no blood,” senior crime scene investigator Alisa Berriesford, from the Metro Crime Lab in Colorado Springs, testified on Tuesday, according to Law&Crime. “To have blood at that scale and of those types of patterns, there has to be some movement within that scene.”
Stauch’s daughter Harley Hunt, who was 17 at the time of Gannon’s death, testified about her mother’s inconsistencies.
“She just kept saying she was set up, that this video that’s going to surface will show that Gannon came home. Just things along that line,” Hunt explained to the court during her testimony.
After Gannon’s murder, Stauch allegedly stuffed his body into a suitcase and disposed of it off a bridge in Florida. The suitcase was recovered on March 17, 2020 by a worker conducting a safety check on the Escambia River Bridge in Pace, located in Santa Rosa County.
Around the time of this discovery, Stauch and Hunt traveled 1,400 miles from their Colorado Springs home in a rented van to start a new life, close to where Gannon’s remains were found.
Hunt testified that she was unaware that Gannon was in the suitcase, as she never checked the back of the van, where their luggage was, and that she never expected her mother could be capable of such a crime, according to Yahoo.com.
“I’m still in shock,” Hunt explained. “I defended her for years. I just feel manipulated and lied to.”
She also stated that her mother insisted that they keep the air conditioning turned on during the ride to Florida, though Hunt did not notice any unusual smells.
Stauch’s brother, Dakota Lowry, also testified previously about her behavior after Gannon’s disappearance. He recalled watching Stauch struggle to lift the same suitcase that was used to move Gannon’s body, Law&Crime reported.
“I didn’t feel right about it,” he testified, explaining that Stauch refused his offer to help, claiming the luggage was full of softball equipment.
Stauch has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in Gannon's murder.
