State’s Exhibit #35, The Phone Call -

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – One day 2 of the Letecia Stauch trial, the prosecution played an almost 2-hour audio of a phone call between the defendant and her now ex-husband, Al Stauch. This call was recorded before the body of Gannon Stauch was found, and in cooperation with investigators.

Throughout the audio, Letecia is talking all over the place. She jumps around and backtracks. Al keeps calm and composed throughout the conversation. With the help of investigators, he is able to keep the conversation flowing, while letting Letecia say what it is she’s going to say. He occasionally steps in with questions he, and investigators, are trying to get answers to.

The Narrative, According to Letecia

The conversation starts with Letecia going over her narrative of the evening before Gannon went missing, Sunday, January 26, 2020. According to her, Gannon had a stomachache and struggled to have a bowel movement. He then took a bathe and went to bed. She went upstairs and out of nowhere the alarm goes off. She put the alarm code in but hears, “Fire. Fire. Fire.” Looking around, she doesn’t see a fire. After getting Laina, Gannon’s sister, and the dogs in the car, Letecia goes to the basement.

A frantic scene is described, and she is unable to give a clear time for when the incident took place. “Within fifteen minutes of the ADT alert,” she tells him when asked. Letecia and Gannon get upstairs and out of the house. “I’m running. He’s running behind me.” The get into the car, Gannon in the passenger seat.

“He’s beside me screaming, crying. Laina is in the backseat with the dog.” She drove around the block then went back to the house. Laina is put in the parents’ bed and then she goes to take care of Gannon.

According to Letecia, Gannon had knocked over a candle he had lit to cover the “smell of poop”. He then knocked it over when he thought she was coming downstairs because he was playing his Nintendo Switch when he wasn’t supposed to be. In doing so, he burned his arm.

Letecia admits that she “should have looked closer at his arms.” She describes “bubbly spots” on both sides of Gannon’s arms but didn’t see anything that “thrown a flag that it was an emergency.” She didn’t have any pain medication for him but did apply Aloe.

Gannon is panicked and scared of being grounded. She gives him water and tries to calm him down, telling him not to worry. Her narrative then goes back to the stomach issues. She tells Al that Gannon wanted to stay home from school the next day. He was “afraid of pooping in his pants.”

The Day Gannon Goes Missing

Gannon home from school on Monday, they went out to run errands. On the way out, she approached a guy in the neighborhood to fix the carpet. She gave him the garage code to let himself in. Gannon was with her, so She didn’t think there was a threat in doing. She only wanted to get the carpet fixed so “the boy” wouldn’t be so upset.

From there, they went to Petco where she got outfits for the 2 doges and planned to go to Play It Again Sports. They detoured to check out a bike she wanted to get to surprise Al with. After getting lost trying to find the house in the listing, they went back to Petco. They had to get back home for Laina and never made it to Play It Again Sports.

Gannon and Leticia got home between 2:30 and 2:45 p.m. Gannon goes straight downstairs to his room. She notices that the alarm was changed from “alarm away” to “alarm safe” but didn’t think much of it. She called ADT and they said it does that if there’s alarm in the house. Since there was no sensor on the garage door, she assumed it happened when the carpet guy let himself in.

Gannon asks to go play with a friend; he’ll be back later. Letecia goes upstairs with hopes to use her Peleton. She is getting ready when she hears a noise. She shouts for Gannon, nothing. There’s another loud noise and thought it was the carpet guy. She walks downstairs and sees a guy. The next thing [she] knows, [she’s] out.

“When I woke up there was no blood anywhere.” The details, according to Letecia, are a blur because of hitting her head but can remember “bits and pieces”. She hears Gannon speaking to the man, who Letecia theorizes may have already been in the house. She believes he may have possibly spent the night before inside the house.

Gannon is described as being “very calm”. She thinks to herself, “There’s a piece missing. Gannon knew something about something” and remembers Gannon saying he (Gannon) would be back later. Nowhere in the story given here did Letecia mention a rape as she does in other accounts of the events.

During this time, she sent Harley (Letecia’s daughter) to take Laina to the Dollar tree with a list of supplies to pick up. She then went back downstairs and tried to plead with the man, who had Gannon wrapped in his arms.

“Did You Kill Gannon?”

At this time, Letecia breaks from her narrative and questions Al. “Why do you act like you got me on some trial,” she asks him.

To that, Al asks, “Did you kill Gannon.” A back and forth between Al and Letecia transpires.

“The answer to that,” she responds, “is no. I can’t believe you asked me this.”

“This is the fourth story. I just don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t believe you killed him but did something bad happen to him and you panicked?”

“If an accident happened, I know what to do. You go to the people and tell them it was an accident. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“None of this makes sense,” a frustrated Al says. “He would have been found by now.”

Turning the subject to herself, Letecia asks, “Why are you not with your wife and daughter?”

“Because of this conversation. I’m confused. Did Gannon die and you freaked out? Did you kill Gannon? Did Gannon die on your watch? Did Harley kill Gannon?”

To all the questions, Letecia responds, “No.”

“There’s a blank somewhere and you have not filled in the blank,” Al says. “These stories don’t sound legit to me. They just don’t add up.” That’s where the call ends.

This call took place approximately 3 weeks after Gannon disappeared.