COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Attorneys for a Colorado woman accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson in 2020 have requested a second evaluation of her mental health after the judge in the case received a state evaluation.
Letecia Stauch has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the death of Gannon Stauch. After her March 2020 arrest in South Carolina Stauch was held in the Saline County, Kansas jail on her return to Colorado.
Fourth Judicial District Judge Gregory Werner set a Sept. 15 hearing after defense attorneys challenged the state report and requested that Stauch be evaluated again by defense-appointed psychiatrists, The Gazette reported.
The report on the sanity evaluation at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo wasn't released.
Prosecutors last year presented alleged evidence linking Stauch to the January 2020 murder. They said that investigators found Gannon’s blood on Stauch’s shoe, found her DNA on a gun linked to his death and learned that she traveled to the Florida Panhandle shortly after he disappeared. The child’s remains were found there in March 2020, authorities have said.
Defense attorneys had sought to create doubt that Stauch committed the murder by suggesting someone else could have entered their Colorado Springs home around the time Gannon died.
Stauch is charged with first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence.
After her March 2020 arrest in South Carolina Stauch was held in the Saline County jail on her return to Colorado.