Stepmother faces new charge after escape plot
The woman accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson Gannon Stauch faces a new criminal charge after she planned an escape from jail.
Letecia Stauch is charged with one count of solicitation to commit escape, according to El Paso County District Court records. She is scheduled for a Friday court hearing.
Stauch’s alleged scheme involved using a broom handle to bust her cell window with help from a fellow inmate, who described herself as “Italian and kind of the bad boy,” according to an El Paso County sheriff’s probable cause affidavit.
But the fellow inmate told jail deputies about the plan and gave them notes from Stauch that asked for help. The fellow inmate told deputies she did not want to help Stauch because she was worried about her own charges and “she knew about Ms. Stauch’s charges and she doesn’t want to be involved or have anything to do with her,” the affidavit said.
In two notes, which were partially written in code, Stauch told the other inmate a family member deposited $75,000 in a checking account and suggested that she would be willing to share in exchange for help.
According to the affidavit, Stauch wrote, “You have my word to make sure we are MIA. I got us covered!”
Stauch said she had measured herself and knew she would fit through the window. She needed the other inmate to provide the broom handle.
Stauch is segregated from other inmates and is allowed out of her cell for only one hour per day, during which she spends her free time alone.
She also is classified as an escape risk and is shackled any time deputies take her outside the facility.
When deputies performed a shakedown of Stauch’s cell, the found a letter for her daughter that said, “if something comes up on the news like she is no longer in the jail or is missing to not be afraid.”
Stauch already faces first-degree-murder and other charges in connection with the death of Gannon. Stauch reported the boy missing Jan. 27, and authorities searched for months before charging her in the death.
Stauch was arrested March 2 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Gannon’s body was found March 20 under a bridge near Pensacola, Fla. An arrest affidavit accuses the woman of killing her stepson in their Colorado Springs home, where blood was found on the walls, floor and mattress in his bedroom.
Detectives believe she stored his body in her Volkswagen and hid it in a remote area along the line between El Paso and Douglas counties.
They have not said how Gannon’s body got to Florida.
The affidavits said investigators found text messages on Stauch’s phone that indicated she was not happy in her marriage to Gannon’s father and was resentful about caring for his children.