Woman charged with killing stepson changes plea
A woman accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson has changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity and said through attorneys she’s considering waiving her jury trial over fairness concerns.
By News Channel NebraskaCOLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A woman accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson has changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity and said through attorneys she’s considering waiving her jury trial over fairness concerns.
In a status hearing Friday, District Judge Gregory Werner granted Letecia Stauch’s request to change her not guilty plea in the death of Gannon Stauch to not guilty by reason of insanity, The Gazette reported.
Defense attorney Josh Tolini said the request was made because an expert who had reviewed some of the evidence in Stauch’s case indicated a “high likelihood of psychosis,” which may qualify as an insanity defense.
He added the request wasn’t made to delay the trial, but because it was the best possible defense for Stauch.
Prosecuting attorneys didn’t object to the plea change.
Per Colorado law for insanity pleas, the judge ordered Stauch to undergo a sanity evaluation at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, where she’ll be held until it is completed.
Tolini said Stauch was also considering waiving the jury trial over concerns that due to her case’s “massive amount of pre-trial publicity, she will not be able to find a fair jury pool.”
Werner left that ruling to a later date, with prosecutors and defense attorneys agreeing they could make a better determination as they received further information on Stauch’s mental health.
Werner kept the late March trial date in place with a review hearing set for March 17.
Prosecutors in September presented alleged evidence linking Stauch to the January 2020 murder, including 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 said.
Defense attorneys sought to create doubt that Stauch committed the murder by suggesting someone else could have entered the home around the time Gannon died, and sought to link home security data with the unknown DNA on the gun investigators found.
Besides first-degree murder, Stauch is charged with child abuse resulting in death, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence.