EVIL STEPMOM LETECIA STAUCH MURDERS STEPSON, GANNON, SET TO WALK FREE
Leticia Stauch's murder conviction has been overturned by the Colorado Court of Appeals. Stauch was found guilty of murder in the death of her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon. Now, a three-judge panel agrees that a biased juror deliberated on the case. In the 54 page ruling, the panel noted the juror said his son-in-law worked as a deputy district attorney in the District Attorney's office which prosecuted the case. The juror should have been dismissed automatically. This now means a retrial.
Stauch, step mother to Gannon Stauch, reported the 11-year-old boy as missing. In reality,Stauch was stabbed, beat, shot, and killed inside the family’s Fountain home. Letetcia Stauch then tried to cover up her crimes, by blaming numerous imaginary people and driving to Florida to dispose of the boy's body. Gannon Stauch was stuffed inside a suitcase, which was then tossed over a bridge in Pace, Florida.
Prosecutors said that Letecia Stauch was upset that she was left taking care of her stepchildren. Internet searched shows her distain while Gannon’s father was away at work with the US National Guard.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Franz Borghardt - criminal defense attorney, Founder of Borghardt Law Firm,former prosecutor, website: www.borghardtlawfirm.com, Instagram and Facebook: BorghardtLawFirm
- Dr. Leslie Dobson - Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, Host of Podcast: "Intentionally Disturbing," www.drlesliedobson.com , Author : “The Friend Cleanse - How to set boundaries with energy vampires” @drlesliedobson
- Chris McDonough - director of The Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective, Host of YouTube channel, "The Interview Room”, website: www.coldcasefoundation.org/chris-mcdonough
- Dr. Jan Gorniak - former medical examiner, Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner, Board Certified Forensic Pathologist and founder of World Peace Forensic Consulting
- Anne Emerson - Senior Investigative Reporter, for Criminally Obsessed, which can be found on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook: Criminally Obsessed, and Host of the Award-Winning Podcast: "Unsolved South Carolina: The Murdaugh Murders, Money and Mystery"
- Dave Mack - Investigative Reporter, 'Crime Stories'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker 1: This proves evil stepmothers are not just in fairytales. Evil
Speaker 1: stepmother Letitia Stock murders her little step son Gannon just
Speaker 1: eleven years old, and tonight she set to walk free.
Speaker 1: Good evening, I Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2: Gannon Stouch was an eleven year old boy who went
Speaker 2: missing from Colorado. His disappearance sparked a nationwide search before
Speaker 2: his body was later found in Florida.
Speaker 1: The blood so copious under this little boy's bed. It
Speaker 1: seeped through the carpet to underneath. Blood soaked the scene.
Speaker 1: Yet tonight Letitia Stark, the evil stepmother personified. He shoots
Speaker 1: a bird at witnesses in court. She is set to
Speaker 1: walk free. How can this happen? Joining us an all
Speaker 1: star panel? Listen.
Speaker 3: I watched the video at least twenty thirty times, so
Speaker 3: I took it to a thoutie.
Speaker 4: They need make sure first.
Speaker 5: I watched it on the tablet.
Speaker 6: I zoom in, I can zoom in, I can look.
Speaker 1: I saw no feet I can and.
Speaker 4: I turned it up and I said, okay, let me
Speaker 4: get a bite.
Speaker 5: She get out.
Speaker 6: She go to the door garves to open, she.
Speaker 7: Gets the alarm and a dark rodin.
Speaker 4: Nobody get out.
Speaker 8: So can I look at it on the on the
Speaker 8: TV so I can get a better you.
Speaker 6: And I put my phone to the TV, so I
Speaker 6: can you know, getting on.
Speaker 8: A better you? And I was like, no, he never
Speaker 8: got out of the truck. That's when I went over
Speaker 8: to it.
Speaker 2: Doc.
Speaker 9: He showed him.
Speaker 1: It just breaks my heart when I see that particular
Speaker 1: photo of Gannon lying sideways looking at the camera. If
Speaker 1: I could see that again, with that little snaggle two smile,
Speaker 1: he's got going on just eleven years old, completely defenseless.
Speaker 1: You were just hearing the neighbor Roderick Drayton, who spotted
Speaker 1: on his own home surveillance video Gannon getting into the
Speaker 1: car with the evil stepmother and never getting out. Straight
Speaker 1: out to Anne Emerson joining us, senior investigative reporter for
Speaker 1: Criminally Obsessed. That's on YouTube, also host of the award
Speaker 1: winning podcast Unsolved South Carolina, The Murdlock Mysteries, Money and
Speaker 1: the Murdoch Murders, Money and Mystery, And thank you for
Speaker 1: being with us tonight. How critical is the video we
Speaker 1: just played.
Speaker 7: Early on in the investigation. You see this video of
Speaker 7: the mom, the stepmom, Leticia leaving with Gannon, and then
Speaker 7: when the truck comes back, the child's nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 7: And that's what really really concerned investigators at the very
Speaker 7: get go of this. And you know when as soon
Speaker 7: as they saw the surveillance sing needs something was not right.
Speaker 7: But the questions and the mystery surrounding it just got
Speaker 7: much worse after this.
Speaker 3: I'm just ready for getting and to come home, most
Speaker 3: importantly for him to see his family. But second, I
Speaker 3: am going to be so ecstatic when I'm able to
Speaker 3: say to people that I hope they have a really
Speaker 3: sincere apology for all these theories that have came out online,
Speaker 3: for all the things they said that I have done.
Speaker 1: I never of my friends at A and E. That
Speaker 1: is step mother Leticia Stock, who was convicted by a jury,
Speaker 1: but in its wisdom, an appellate court has reversed the conviction.
Speaker 1: She is set to walk free. Out to Crime Stories,
Speaker 1: investigative reporter Dave mac dave, what is the state's theory
Speaker 1: as to what happened to eleven year old Gannon Stalk.
Speaker 5: The state believes that after being abused by Letitia Stalk
Speaker 5: for a long time, she shot him to death, stabbed him,
Speaker 5: and beat him. He suffered blunt force trauma. Then Letitia
Speaker 5: stalk but Gannon's remains in a suitcase and drove to Florida,
Speaker 5: where she tossed the suitcase with eleven year old Gannon
Speaker 5: stock in the suitcase over a bridge thirteen hundred miles
Speaker 5: away from home.
Speaker 9: Blood found underneath Gannon's bed, blood found on light sockets,
Speaker 9: on the wall, on the carpet. More than fifty droplets
Speaker 9: of blood. Police were able to identify and confirm that
Speaker 9: it was Gannon's blood. They also were able to confirm
Speaker 9: that cleaning products baking soda were used to try to
Speaker 9: clean up the blood, but forensics were still able to
Speaker 9: pick it up from that trail in Gannon's room and
Speaker 9: actually goes through all throughout the house leading up to
Speaker 9: the garage.
Speaker 1: We are showing you crime scene photos and that's our
Speaker 1: friends from k RDO joining us on crime stories. More
Speaker 1: than fifty areas of blood police could identify it was
Speaker 1: all little Gannon's blood. They also confirmed cleaning products plus
Speaker 1: baking soda were dumped on the carpet and good gravy
Speaker 1: we're dumped on the carpet and beyond to try and
Speaker 1: clean up the blood, but that was no match for
Speaker 1: high tech forensics. They could pick up a blood trail
Speaker 1: that went from the little boy's room all the way
Speaker 1: through the house leading to the garage. Joining us is
Speaker 1: a renowned medical examiner, former medical examiner in Clark County,
Speaker 1: the Office of the Coroner. That's Vegas Board certified forensic pathologists,
Speaker 1: founder of World Peace Forensic Consulting, Doctor Jan Gorniac. Doctor Garniac,
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us tonight, Doctor Gorniac. What
Speaker 1: type of injury would cause that copious amount of blood?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 11: Well, hearing that he not only had blunt force trauma,
Speaker 11: he was stabbed, he was shot, So any all of
Speaker 11: those could cause all that blood depending on the injuries
Speaker 11: to his head.
Speaker 6: Blunt force trauma.
Speaker 11: Was he hit with an object where the skin is split,
Speaker 11: meaning gets laceration and then the blood is spattering all
Speaker 11: over the place. He could be stabbed once again, depending
Speaker 11: where he stabbed. Could it have gotten an artery in
Speaker 11: his neck? Was his you know stabbing You think like
Speaker 11: stab stab right, but could it been in size wounds
Speaker 11: of his neck and gets arteries the main arteries the
Speaker 11: karates where it's going to be spurting out blood or
Speaker 11: a gunshot wound of the head. I'm looking at that
Speaker 11: crime scene photo where you see the tape, I appear
Speaker 11: marking blood spatter, and it's low down, so he could
Speaker 11: have been on the floor and got shot and that
Speaker 11: blood is battering that way. But there's a lot of blood,
Speaker 11: like you said, throughout the room and then leading out,
Speaker 11: so one or all those mechanisms of injury could have
Speaker 11: caused that blood. It'd be interesting to see if there's
Speaker 11: anything on the ceiling, you know, and then you can
Speaker 11: see if he was getting hit about his head more
Speaker 11: than one time. But unfortunately, little Gannon, you know, obviously
Speaker 11: he's deceased, but it wasn't a quick death he suffered.
Speaker 1: This little boy, just eleven year old. Gannon, according to
Speaker 1: the autopsy report, died of a combination of a gunshot wound,
Speaker 1: blunt force head trauma, and multiple sharp force injuries. He
Speaker 1: suffered eighteen sharp force injuries, four blunt force injury, lacerations,
Speaker 1: defensive wounds on both hands. The cod cause of death
Speaker 1: gunshot to this little boy's chin and lower jaw. The
Speaker 1: bullet lodged in his neck. There was a blunt force
Speaker 1: trauma to the little boy's head. The sharp force injuries
Speaker 1: stabs or cuts were on his chest, his hands, his arms,
Speaker 1: his shoulder, his back. Sharp force stabs or cuts on
Speaker 1: his hands and fingers were defensive wounds. The blunt force
Speaker 1: injuries included a fractured left six rib and skull damage.
Speaker 1: Also toxicology reports hydra codone and a seed of metafin
Speaker 1: in his system, very unusual for a child. According to
Speaker 1: the medical examiner at the top his body was found,
Speaker 1: he was crammed into a suitcase decomposing. That is straight
Speaker 1: from the medical examiner's autopsy report. Back to renowned pathologist
Speaker 1: doctor Jan Gorniac, what do you make of the autopsy
Speaker 1: report on this eleven year old little boy?
Speaker 11: One not My heart goes out not only to Gavin
Speaker 11: and his family, but also to the pathologists who had
Speaker 11: to perform this this autopsy. It's interesting how they can
Speaker 11: determine that the gunshot wound came last, right, and so
Speaker 11: when you're talking about defensive type wounds on his hands,
Speaker 11: that happens when obviously someone is coming at you with
Speaker 11: a sharp force insplement like a knife and people are.
Speaker 6: Grabbing at it. Those are the worst.
Speaker 11: Those those type of injuries give me the willies, because
Speaker 11: you know someone's grabbing the knife and it being pulled out,
Speaker 11: and just the injuries to their their hands or to
Speaker 11: their forearms, they're bringing their arms up to to fend
Speaker 11: off something. So with defensive type wounds, obviously not only
Speaker 11: was he alive, he was alert enough so the gunshot
Speaker 11: wound didn't didn't happen. It's the gunshot wound to it says,
Speaker 11: to his chin. That's an unusual spot. Usually when you
Speaker 11: see that, you see in a suicide, so that it
Speaker 11: seemed like it had to be a close range wound
Speaker 11: to get up right up into his his face.
Speaker 6: The blunt force injuries he had four separate.
Speaker 11: To his his his head, and then the hydro code
Speaker 11: o and thea minifen and I think that is commonly
Speaker 11: that so minifit is tylnol, and you can that comes in.
Speaker 11: I think it's called darvast, so that's a combination. So
Speaker 11: in order for him to have that in his system,
Speaker 11: I don't believe he took it himself unless he hit
Speaker 11: the he was prescribed he had paid for some other reason,
Speaker 11: but they don't think they usually prescribed percocetta darbis said
Speaker 11: to children. So he was given that to ingest some
Speaker 11: sort of way, either you know, he had to take
Speaker 11: it himself forcefully, or it was mixed in with some
Speaker 11: food or drink. But I'm just not understanding the severity
Speaker 11: and the amount of injuries to little Gavin. What I
Speaker 11: can't comprehend, you know, abuse in the beginning, but what
Speaker 11: and he doesn't deserve this, But what was going through
Speaker 11: this lady's mind or what could he have possibly done
Speaker 11: to anger her so much? I'm just I might set
Speaker 11: a loss of words.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting, doctor Jane Gorniac. It seems
Speaker 1: as if Gannon was murdered many times over. He was
Speaker 1: dabbed brutally, fourteen stab wounds, he was beaten horribly, including
Speaker 1: to the head, blunt force trauma to the head, a
Speaker 1: broken rib, skull fracture, and he was shot. This eleven
Speaker 1: year old, little little boy, little frame, murdered three times over.
Speaker 11: Explain he's tortured. I mean, that's the only word that
Speaker 11: it's coming to my mind right now. It wasn't a
Speaker 11: lack of better term of straight shooting.
Speaker 6: That was the end.
Speaker 11: But what he had to endure before I would just
Speaker 11: say the little boy was tortured.
Speaker 1: Joining US tonight an All Star panel as Letitia Stalk
Speaker 1: is set to walk free after an appellate court reverses
Speaker 1: her conviction. You know, straight out to special guests, joining us.
Speaker 1: Doctor Leslie Dobson, clinical forensic psychologist, host of a hit podcast,
Speaker 1: intentionally disturbing. Doctor Dobson, the idea of murdering an eleven
Speaker 1: year old child multiple times over overkill in the literal
Speaker 1: sense of the word, is extremely disturbing. And yet apparently
Speaker 1: Letitious Stalk carried on as if nothing had happened and
Speaker 1: actually attacked people online who were accusing her.
Speaker 10: Definitely, I mean they wanted to do disassociative identity disorder,
Speaker 10: borderline malingering. But this is straight up psychopathy. This woman
Speaker 10: is a psychopath.
Speaker 1: Doctor Leslie Dobson, you mentioned malingering and some other sorts
Speaker 1: of mental ailments. Are you saying the defense brought up
Speaker 1: these ailments at trial?
Speaker 10: Correct and the prosecution they both had forensic psychologists do
Speaker 10: an abundance of testing that looked at ma lingering, feigning,
Speaker 10: straight up lying, and what the prosecution found was that
Speaker 10: she was lying, She was inconsistent, infrequent, her symptoms didn't
Speaker 10: match up with what she described. How she was presented
Speaker 10: before the murder after, how she presented even in jail
Speaker 10: was different than what she described, and throughout all of
Speaker 10: this testing it showed that she was lying. She wanted
Speaker 10: to look like she had disassociative identity disorder. Nothing like
Speaker 10: that was in her history. And more so, she's likely
Speaker 10: borderline and a psychopath and was overwhelmed with this kid.
Speaker 10: They had a history of fighting. She decided to kill
Speaker 10: him try to cover her tracks.
Speaker 1: No remorse, what exactly is the psychological definition of a psychopath.
Speaker 10: Psychopath is a narcissistic individual who was also antisocial antisocial
Speaker 10: personality disorder. So somebody who has no remorse doesn't care.
Speaker 10: They need extra layers of stimulation. They're very charismatic, but
Speaker 10: also they're reckless, destructive liars.
Speaker 1: So would that explain how after Gannon is murdered at
Speaker 1: least three times over, he's stabbed, he's baiten, he's shot. Oh,
Speaker 1: and he was administered codone, a type of codonne that
Speaker 1: children normally don't get. So I guess that's four times
Speaker 1: over that she carried on as if nothing had happened.
Speaker 6: Innocent.
Speaker 10: You could say she was getting her rocks off. She
Speaker 10: was stimulated. She enjoyed harming this child, and then she
Speaker 10: planned a way to get rid of this child and
Speaker 10: live her life. And then she was stimulated by the
Speaker 10: arguments online and people coming at her.
Speaker 12: She was stimulated in the courtroom. What do you mean
Speaker 12: in the courtroom, she was mouthy, she was inappropriate, She
Speaker 12: was overall acting up, not like somebody who was disassociating.
Speaker 12: It was somebody who was pissed off that she.
Speaker 4: Got caught, Vinstouk. What you need to understand is that
Speaker 4: I can control the conduct of an awful lot of
Speaker 4: people in the courtroom, including yours.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 4: Don't do that, don't show that kind of don't be
Speaker 4: making disrespectful gestures to witnesses, to people, to family members,
Speaker 4: anything like that. You need to understand that if that continues,
Speaker 4: I can have you removed and the trial will continue
Speaker 4: without you.
Speaker 1: Well, doctor Dobson, you could not have been more correct.
Speaker 1: That was the judge reprimanding the defendant letitious stout in
Speaker 1: court for the inappropriate behavior that you describe as her
Speaker 1: getting her rocks off in court. And this is what
Speaker 1: the judge was upset about. That is the defendant shooting
Speaker 1: a bird from our friends at law and crime in
Speaker 1: court straight out to Anne Emerson joining us senior investigative reporter,
Speaker 1: criminally obsessed and what happened.
Speaker 7: Well, she was she was flipping the bird at the
Speaker 7: the witnesses and people that were part of the family
Speaker 7: of the Stock family. It was so disrespectful and it
Speaker 7: really feeds into the narrative possibly that she was trying
Speaker 7: to get across that you know, she was she had
Speaker 7: an insanity plea going with her defense. This was possibly
Speaker 7: part of her sort of acting the part even more,
Speaker 7: but it really just came across as is so horrific
Speaker 7: and and and so disturbing for these family members. I
Speaker 7: mean it is this is the ultimate betrayal of a stepmother,
Speaker 7: a care gover, who could possibly do something like this
Speaker 7: to a small child under her care while the while
Speaker 7: the dad is gone on on military service. I mean,
Speaker 7: it's just the whole thing was It's so horrific I
Speaker 7: think for the family to see in court that the
Speaker 7: judge had to try and control her if this was
Speaker 7: part of the defense on any level of her own defense,
Speaker 7: trying to show that she was indeed insane. Yes, it
Speaker 7: was insane behavior, but it doesn't mean that she is insane,
Speaker 7: means that she was manipulative.
Speaker 1: To Franz Borghart, joining US criminal defense attorney, founder of
Speaker 1: the Borghart Law firm, former prosecutor, Borghart, not a good
Speaker 1: look for your client, right when your client shoots birds
Speaker 1: at the witnesses and at the little boy victim's family.
Speaker 8: I know there's been conjecture that she's malingering, but that
Speaker 8: certainly seems like the behavior of someone with a serious
Speaker 8: mental health issue. And maybe she's not malingering, Nancy, And
Speaker 8: that's the defense, is her disruptive behavior is consistent with
Speaker 8: her mental health issues. And that's what you run with.
Speaker 1: She shot a bird, borg Arts, She shot a bird.
Speaker 1: That is not a mental illness. And just think about it.
Speaker 1: You know what, I would have a field day with that,
Speaker 1: because if she will do that in a court of
Speaker 1: law at witnesses under oath, with a judge sitting right there,
Speaker 1: if she will do that in open court, what would
Speaker 1: she do to this child behind closed doors? A child
Speaker 1: she hated, A child she resented because he belonged to
Speaker 1: another woman, reminding her that her husband had sex with
Speaker 1: another woman once loved a woman, not her. And this
Speaker 1: was the physical manifestation of that love. She hated him.
Speaker 8: So, look, if you're with a client like that who
Speaker 8: is not going to control themselves. As a defense attorney,
Speaker 8: I don't want her in the courtroom either. Yes, the
Speaker 8: jury is not going to like it, but it's better
Speaker 8: for my defense that she's not in the courtroom behaving
Speaker 8: by flipping off the bird so candidly for a defense attorney.
Speaker 8: Best thing in the world her getting booted out of
Speaker 8: the corporate.
Speaker 1: Straight out to veteran homicide detective Chris mcdonna, director of
Speaker 1: the Cold Case Foundation and star of The Interview Room
Speaker 1: on YouTube, Chris mcdonna, she's not mentally ill, she's just
Speaker 1: hell on wheels.
Speaker 13: Simple, Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. I mean, let's think about this, right,
Speaker 13: She not only shot the bird, she shot a child.
Speaker 13: And you know, if I can, I can help you
Speaker 13: the audience with her identity. I mean, she's the devil.
Speaker 13: And whenever you have an angel, a child sleeping in
Speaker 13: their own bed, the most protected area of this child's world, okay,
Speaker 13: and then you have the devil show up to not
Speaker 13: only stab you, beat you, shoot you, and then we're
Speaker 13: you know, we're ended up talking about her behavior in
Speaker 13: the court doctor Dobson's right on target here. These people
Speaker 13: are beyond recovery.
Speaker 1: Put him up. Please, Why are you talking about Letitia
Speaker 1: Stalk's recovery. I don't care about her recovery. I just
Speaker 1: want her to be under the jail instead of poised
Speaker 1: to walk free. And a Pellic court just reversed her conviction.
Speaker 1: One more boo boo and she's walking free.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 13: I totally agree. And this is the worst case scenario
Speaker 13: for not only this child's family, but the investigators, the attorneys,
Speaker 13: everybody that worked so hard to get her off the streets.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the devil and his imp appears watch.
Speaker 3: He was always so helpful with the dogs around the
Speaker 3: house and we have two littlekey dogs, and he was
Speaker 3: always like a person. I could say again and can
Speaker 3: you go do this?
Speaker 1: And he would do it right away.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes with kids we have to remind it
Speaker 3: and things like that, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: But he was so sweet. He was he was that
Speaker 1: is evil stepmom Letitia Stalk while the search forgan and
Speaker 1: was on going. That's for our friends at A and E.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Franz Borgharte, veteran defense attorney, why is
Speaker 1: she already talking about him in the past tense? Was
Speaker 1: was was why is she saying that? What do you
Speaker 1: do with that when that's played in front of the jury.
Speaker 8: You have to say that she believed that he was
Speaker 8: dead at that point, and that she wasn't the murderer,
Speaker 8: but that that was her heart of hearts based on
Speaker 8: the evidence that was found at the crime scene.
Speaker 1: You mean, based on the blood found under her bed.
Speaker 1: That statement that she just made to the reporter was
Speaker 1: before the blood was found under the bed. So how
Speaker 1: do you get around that she's already talking about her
Speaker 1: stepson in the past tense? No, seriously, what do you
Speaker 1: do with that in court? In front of a jury
Speaker 1: who's eyeballing you?
Speaker 8: So on that kind of a situation, I think you
Speaker 8: have to just double down on the fact that she
Speaker 8: didn't kill him, but that she believes he's dead and
Speaker 8: that she is just trying to get justice.
Speaker 1: Okay, put him up, please, I just hear you say that.
Speaker 1: Letitious stalk is quote just trying to get justice. You
Speaker 1: could say that to a jury. You could get that
Speaker 1: out of your for the.
Speaker 8: True murderer who committed the crime. I mean, Nancy, you're
Speaker 8: asking me to paint the Sistine chapel with crayons. I'm
Speaker 8: doing the best I can.
Speaker 1: Ann Emerson joining us an investigative reporter, Senior investigative reporter
Speaker 1: with criminally obsessed, And I'd like to go through a
Speaker 1: few letitious stalks, Google searches, control room, becauld you please
Speaker 1: put them up on the screen now, Bear in mind
Speaker 1: her conviction has just been reversed. Find me a new husband, book,
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just a nanny, not a stepmom. Husband
Speaker 1: uses me to babysit his kids? Or are there any
Speaker 1: free money to move away from bad situation? My husband
Speaker 1: never posts about me, but does everything else. My husband
Speaker 1: only cleans up for the army, not me. I'm a
Speaker 1: glorified babysitter. Find a new husband. Send my husband's sex messages.
Speaker 1: He ignores them. Gee, I wonder why, because you're evil
Speaker 1: make my husband want me more? I can't. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he wanted you as far away from him as possible.
Speaker 1: I feel like my husband uses me to babysit his kid.
Speaker 1: Find a guy without kids, Find a guy without kids.
Speaker 1: She couldn't wait to get rid of Gannon? And what
Speaker 1: about these searches? Did the jury hear these searches? Did
Speaker 1: the appel at court not read the trial transcript.
Speaker 7: There's no doubt that this evidence was just exactly what
Speaker 7: needed to happen in order for her to to be
Speaker 7: you know, put in put in prison, throw away the key.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's there's nothing you can say about these
Speaker 7: Google searches that that does not point to clear evidence
Speaker 7: that she was the actually planning this. This was she
Speaker 7: was trying to figure out ways to get rid of,
Speaker 7: you know, Gannon. All of this points to it.
Speaker 1: How did eleven year old Gannon Stock go missing?
Speaker 14: Gannon shouts. The eleven year old disappear from his father's home.
Speaker 14: He lived there with his father and his stepmother, just
Speaker 14: in a little supper outside of Colorado Springs. The step
Speaker 14: mom says that he was not in We don't have
Speaker 14: a clear answer why, she said. We've heard a couple
Speaker 14: of things, one that he was sick and the one
Speaker 14: that he had a doctor's appointment, so he had stayed
Speaker 14: home that day. He was reported missing after he had
Speaker 14: left that house.
Speaker 7: He was wearing a blue.
Speaker 14: Jacket and sneakers and jeans. He said he was going
Speaker 14: to go see a friend. It was on the afternoon,
Speaker 14: around three point thirty. They think that he told his
Speaker 14: stepmom He's going to go out and see a friend,
Speaker 14: and that was the last time we saw Gannon.
Speaker 1: Stoush joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter Dave Macdave Muddy
Speaker 1: Murky unclear to say the least, we've got the stepmother,
Speaker 1: Ltitious talks saying that he was ill, that he had
Speaker 1: a doctor's appointment, he disappeared from his father's home, but
Speaker 1: that he went to go see friends with a blue jacket,
Speaker 1: sneakers and jeans on. So what was her final story
Speaker 1: she told about the last time Ganna was seen alive.
Speaker 5: The last story that Latitia Stout told was that he
Speaker 5: was going to a friend's house, that he was walking
Speaker 5: through the neighborhood on his way to play.
Speaker 1: Dave Mac, that is in direct conflict with the video
Speaker 1: that the neighbor saw and immediately knew something was horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: He sees the evil stepmother, Latitious talk getting into the
Speaker 1: vehicle with eleven year old Gannon, and Gannon is never
Speaker 1: seen getting out of the vehicle. That is not him
Speaker 1: walking around the neighborhood to go play. That is him
Speaker 1: getting into the vehicle with her. He also stated that
Speaker 1: Gannon could hardly walk at the time that he seemed
Speaker 1: to be dizzy and unsteady on his feet. What can
Speaker 1: you tell me about that, Dave mac.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, Nancy's it actually goes back to earlier we
Speaker 5: were talking about what was found in Gannon's bloodstream. The
Speaker 5: hydro codone with the seed demnifin or Laura sat something
Speaker 5: like that would have made Gannon lupia. It would have
Speaker 5: made him very groggy. Actually, it would have made it
Speaker 5: so that he could be I hate to say this
Speaker 5: out loud, Nancy, but it makes it so that he'd
Speaker 5: be a much easier child to kill if he was
Speaker 5: that groggy. Now we're talking about the last time anyone
Speaker 5: other than Latitia Stout actually saw Gannon, and the description
Speaker 5: of an eleven year old boy walking like that is
Speaker 5: shocking in and of itself, Nancy. But what we know
Speaker 5: now is that Letitia Stout told stories that were able
Speaker 5: to be proved lies with video. The neighbor actually really
Speaker 5: did save the day. If you remember, it didn't happen
Speaker 5: right away. It took a couple of days. He watched
Speaker 5: it on his own and saw this and called FBI,
Speaker 5: called everybody, said hey, come and take a look. So
Speaker 5: we really have right here in the palm of our hand,
Speaker 5: the murderer and the victim, and the victim is already
Speaker 5: out of it as he gets in the vehicle, the
Speaker 5: last time he has seen alive.
Speaker 1: And the location where his remains are found is mind boggling.
Speaker 12: Search crews scouring all over Colorado for weeks and weeks
Speaker 12: on it, and then we hear Florida.
Speaker 13: You know, we did the bath.
Speaker 2: We were calculating how.
Speaker 1: Far away it was from Myrtle Beach where she was arrested.
Speaker 9: It's just mind blowing.
Speaker 2: A road construction crew was working in the area, right
Speaker 2: near a bridge is Scambia River Bridge.
Speaker 12: And Highway ninety and that's where they found again in
Speaker 12: the body.
Speaker 1: Too. Anne Emerson joining us and explain how his body
Speaker 1: was found stuffed in a suitcase far far away from home.
Speaker 7: The whole thing. The more that I read about it,
Speaker 7: the more disturbing it is.
Speaker 1: Nancy.
Speaker 7: I mean not only that, like she had to get
Speaker 7: the suitcase out of her home. She from the reports
Speaker 7: that we've read, her brother was with her when she
Speaker 7: had said she no longer could be with the father.
Speaker 7: After Gannon had disappeared, she no longer wanted to be
Speaker 7: with her husband, Alstock, So she decides she's going to
Speaker 7: take off in the car. She even gets her brother
Speaker 7: to come with her to help get her out of
Speaker 7: the house. They get this suitcase out of the house.
Speaker 7: He has no idea what's in this suitcase. He has
Speaker 7: no idea what could possibly be in this suitcase. And
Speaker 7: then we get a report that this suitcase is found
Speaker 7: underneath a bridge in Florida where she has gone to
Speaker 7: dump the body of Gannon, which is so disturbing, and
Speaker 7: it's a I think it was a Florida Department of
Speaker 7: Transportation construction worker. This suitcase must have been dumped over
Speaker 7: a bridge, and they open it up and it's the
Speaker 7: remains of this dear child. And the idea that she
Speaker 7: actually traveled in a car for thousands of miles to
Speaker 7: get to this place and then takes off to Myrtle
Speaker 7: Beach is It's really one of the most disturbing things
Speaker 7: I've ever heard, you know, and also really speaks to
Speaker 7: her determination to keep on running with this story, that
Speaker 7: her true determination to take this body this far. It's
Speaker 7: one of the most incredible cases I've ever heard. Seriously, Nancy,
Speaker 7: I've never heard anything.
Speaker 1: That it was a large green suitcase that came from
Speaker 1: her home. Like the big ones you have to check
Speaker 1: at the airport. A construction crew locates this little boy's
Speaker 1: decomposing remains in a suitcase under a bridge in Pace, Florida.
Speaker 1: The bridge runs over Escambia River there in Pace. The
Speaker 1: little boy's body was disposed of in that area shortly,
Speaker 1: very shortly after he's reporting reported missing. Now we know
Speaker 1: that the evil stepmother, Latitious Stalk, drove from Colorado to
Speaker 1: Florida over thirteen hundred miles to hide the body, and
Speaker 1: in fact, shortly after his body is disposed of under
Speaker 1: that bridge, she is arrested not too far away in
Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach. That's a long way to travel with a
Speaker 1: dead body in your car, all the way down to
Speaker 1: the Florida Panhandle, straight back out to renowned medical examiner
Speaker 1: doctor Jan Gorniac. Doctor Gorniac, the body was already decomposed
Speaker 1: in that suitcase. How do you believe it was identified
Speaker 1: as being again.
Speaker 11: Well, there's different stages of decomposition, and so yes, he's
Speaker 11: in a suitcase. He has all these injuries. So it
Speaker 11: takes about thirty six hours ish for you to really
Speaker 11: start to see some real decomposition. And not to sound silly,
Speaker 11: but one of the things that probably preserved his body
Speaker 11: that so he could be identified easily was because he
Speaker 11: was in that suitcase.
Speaker 6: Had he been thrown.
Speaker 11: Over that bridge, exposed to water, exposed to animals scavenging,
Speaker 11: then that would have been a lot worse.
Speaker 6: But then also remember if he was.
Speaker 11: Decomposed enough where he couldn't be identified, they knew enough
Speaker 11: to arrest her, try to put it together with this
Speaker 11: missing child, and they had blood samples from back in
Speaker 11: the house which they knew was his, so it possibly
Speaker 11: could have been DNA, it could have been dental records.
Speaker 11: Since they had a tentative ID on who he was,
Speaker 11: then he could have been positively ID through DNA or dental.
Speaker 1: Dave Mac joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter, she entered
Speaker 1: a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which
Speaker 1: essentially means I did it, but I was insane at
Speaker 1: the time. Isn't it true, Dave Mac that a recording
Speaker 1: of her admitting to murdering Gannon was played in front
Speaker 1: of the jury.
Speaker 5: It was Nancy. It was played in the final days
Speaker 5: of the trial. This recording that the jury was able
Speaker 5: to hear Letitia confessing to fatally shooting Gannon while the
Speaker 5: forensic psychologist was examining her as part of that insanity defense.
Speaker 5: So the jury heard the whole thing and they saw,
Speaker 5: you know, they could tell what was going on in
Speaker 5: the room, how questions were answered, and then when they
Speaker 5: went into deliberate Nancy, they made a firm decision that
Speaker 5: she's not insane. This is not insanity, this is not
Speaker 5: you're not getting away with this, and they convicted her
Speaker 5: right after that.
Speaker 1: Straight out to doctor Leslie Dobson, joining US clinical forensic psychologist,
Speaker 1: what rises to legal insanity?
Speaker 10: She knew that she was wrong. She we have proof
Speaker 10: that she planned this action, that she knew what was
Speaker 10: going on, and that she tried to cover the action
Speaker 10: after she murdered this child. So we have certainty now
Speaker 10: that she is not insane at the time of the crime.
Speaker 1: Legal insanity is judged by what we call the old
Speaker 1: McNaughton test. It is a litmus test brought over from
Speaker 1: English common law to our country. There you see her
Speaker 1: at the El Paso Sheriff's office. Do you think she
Speaker 1: looks like she's insane? Yes, I know. We are all
Speaker 1: lay people and not psychologists or psychiatrists. But look at
Speaker 1: her actions, look how she is behaving. Legal insanity is
Speaker 1: that you did not know right from wrong at the
Speaker 1: time of the incident. That is what legal insanity is
Speaker 1: the fact that she covered up the crime, put the
Speaker 1: body in a suitcase, drove over one thousand miles to
Speaker 1: dispose of it under a bridge, let it decompose near
Speaker 1: a river bank. That indicates knowledge of guilt, which means
Speaker 1: she did know what she did was wrong at the
Speaker 1: time of the incident. That was the argument to the
Speaker 1: jury to Dave Mack. The jury also heard one of
Speaker 1: her last conversations with her husband where she was adamantly
Speaker 1: denying anything to do with Gannon's disappear So we know
Speaker 1: she has the ability to lie the cunning the wherewithal,
Speaker 1: But didn't she also come up with some crazy rape story.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, Yes, Nancy. She actually claimed that she
Speaker 5: was raped by a Hispanic man and after she was raped,
Speaker 5: the Hispanic mail took off with Gannon kidnapped him. That
Speaker 5: was her story, well, one of them two.
Speaker 1: Franz at Borghart joining us criminal defense attorney joining us
Speaker 1: out of Baton Rouge Franz it is a bitter pill
Speaker 1: to swallow that this case, this conviction is reversed. Explain why.
Speaker 8: During the jury selection process one of the potential jurors
Speaker 8: disclosed a relationship to the DA's office. The defense attorney
Speaker 8: did what we call a motion for a challenge for
Speaker 8: cause Nancy, which was denied by the job judge. That
Speaker 8: basically he was arguing that there was a legal defect
Speaker 8: in letting that juror on or that individual on. Ultimately,
Speaker 8: the judge said, you can use what we call one
Speaker 8: of your premptory exceptions or challenges, and the and the
Speaker 8: higher court said, you know what, you have a right
Speaker 8: to a to a constitutionally unbiased jury. And the judge
Speaker 8: violated that right by by requiring the defense team to
Speaker 8: utilize a challenge where he's whereas he should have just
Speaker 8: granted the cause challenge. Uh, and so it's reversed for neutral.
Speaker 1: You know what, Franz Borghart, I blame them all, I
Speaker 1: blame the judge, I blame the prosecutor. And that is,
Speaker 1: as I said, a bitter pill for me, as a
Speaker 1: former prosecutor, you absolutely cannot see a gr R that
Speaker 1: is related to a prosecutor in the office that is
Speaker 1: prosecuting this case. It doesn't matter if it's by blood
Speaker 1: or by marriage. It doesn't matter. That is a peremptory strike.
Speaker 1: What is That's a strike for cause? Okay, a strike
Speaker 1: for cause means that, for instance, you are related to
Speaker 1: the defendant. The defense doesn't have to use one of
Speaker 1: their strikes to strike you. If you're related to the defendant,
Speaker 1: under the law, you are not fit to sit on
Speaker 1: the jury. If you are related to a prosecutor, you
Speaker 1: are not fit under the law to sit on the jury.
Speaker 1: There's dreams of precedent on that. The prosecutor should not
Speaker 1: have allowed it, the judge should not have allowed it.
Speaker 1: And here we are tonight wondering will Letitia start walk free?
Speaker 1: Was it worth it? It's never worth it to get
Speaker 1: a trial advantage that's going to result in a reversal,
Speaker 1: horrible decision. The devil is set to walk free because
Speaker 1: of one trial error. And when I say error, that's
Speaker 1: really putting perfume on the pig. This was a intentional
Speaker 1: decision by the prosecutor to disallow a strike for cause.
Speaker 1: They should have joined the defense in that motion to
Speaker 1: save hold the conviction. The last thing I want to
Speaker 1: do is go through all the effort, the blood, the sweat,
Speaker 1: and the tears to try a murder case, knowing there
Speaker 1: is reversible error. I can't believe this has happened, But
Speaker 1: here we are and we wait as justice unfolds, and
Speaker 1: now we remember an American hero. Detective Valerie Jacobs NYCPD,
Speaker 1: died in the line of duty, leaving behind her grieving son, Anthony.
Speaker 1: American hero Detective Valerie Jacobs. Thank you to our guests
Speaker 1: for being with us, but especially to you for joining
Speaker 1: us tonight as we seek justice for gannon Stalk. Nancy
Speaker 1: Gray signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night,
Speaker 1: and until then, good night friend,