EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Video from Letecia Stauch’s latest sanity evaluation played in the courtroom Tuesday as the murder trial draws closer to closing arguments and a verdict.
Stauch is the stepmother accused of killing her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon. With a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, the defense isn’t whether or not Stauch killed Gannon, but if she was insane or able to tell right from wrong at the time of the murder.
The prosecution rested Tuesday after weeks of testimony, including a psychologist who evaluated Stauch and found her sane. The defense’s witness, clinical psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Lewis, testified otherwise.
On Tuesday Lewis, who said she’s worked with more than 100 adults on death row, testified that she evaluated Stauch as appearing to have Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Cross-examination of Lewis on Wednesday included portions of video from the 14-hour sanity evaluation conducted with Stauch back in November.
“It’s going back and forth, back and forth and back and forth and I find myself absolutely nuts,” Stauch told Lewis in one video.
“I’m trained to kill, that’s what to do,” Stauch told the doctor in another video.
When the prosecution asked Lewis how she knows Stauch isn’t fooling her. She responded by instructing prosecutor Dave Young to “watch” and “listen.”
This was a conversation in one of the recorded parts of the evaluation:
Letecia: My protector is Maria.
Lewis: Maria, I would like very much to talk to you.
Letecia: You want to talk to Maria right now? Sometimes she will talk, sometimes she will not.
In another portion of the recorded evaluation, Lewis attempted to decipher a note given to her by Stauch. She asked about what language it is in an attempt to sound out what could have been written to read “rest in peace Gannon” on this note.
While holding the note Lewis asked if “Maria” did it. Stauch responded, “Well, I didn’t.”
Young questioned the way Lewis spoke to Stauch in part of the evaluation.
“You ask her ‘you think it’s possible that you were in a peculiar state at the time of this,’ Young said. “Do you think it’s dangerous to plant those types of words into a defendant’s mind when you’re doing a forensic interview?”
When asking Stauch if it was possible she was in a peculiar state, Stauch responded to Lewis in the recorded portion of the evaluation saying:
“Oh, yeah I’ve said that definitely. I know that. But I was not intending to hurt Gannon, like I was never, no. I would never hurt Gannon.”
The prosecution also stopped a portion of the video pointing to a man seen walking by in the back of the room.
“What is your son doing in the interview room,” Young asked Lewis. “Is that recognized in the field to do forensic interviews with people for first-degree murder and bring your son along?”
Lewis said her son was present to help with the camera recording.
When asked if she had anything else she wanted the court to know about her diagnosis, Lewis stated the following: “What you call it is so much less important than what you understand about it. What you understand about it is that this individual is living a psychotic life.”
