Letecia Stauch trial: Half brother testifies against sister, claims to have seen suitcase Gannon's body was recovered in

Apr. 11—Dakota Lowery, Letecia Stauch's half brother, testified Tuesday that he saw the suitcase Gannon Stauch's body was discovered in while helping her move just days after Letecia Stauch reported her 11-year-old stepson missing.

"Why Ticia?" Lowery yelled at Stauch through tears.

After Judge Gregory Werner dismissed the jury and gave Lowery five minutes to calm down, his testimony resumed. He described how in late January 2020 he, his aunt and his mom flew to Colorado Springs from North Carolina to support his sister and help look for Gannon, whose remains were later found in Florida.

"We felt Ticia was being falsely accused," Lowery said.

Lowery and the rest of his family would spend the next several days helping Stauch move out of her home, and loading her belongings into a rented van, Lowery testified.

The day before the family planned to leave Colorado, Stauch left the hotel where they were staying to run errands. But Stauch was gone for much longer than Lowery expected, he testified.

El Paso County sheriff's Lt. Jake Abendschan was part of a law enforcement team that planted a tracking device on one of the rental cars Stauch was using at that time. He testified that on Jan. 31, 2020, Stauch drove the car to Larkspur, where she stopped and then drove back to the Colorado Springs hotel where her family was staying.

The Larkspur location became a place of interest to look for Gannon "in part" because of Stauch's activity there, Abendschan testified.

On Feb. 1, 2020, Lowery helped Stauch load her belongings into a rented van that she planned to drive to South Carolina. One of Stauch's suitcases stood out to him.

Lowery said something "didn't feel right" about the suitcase because of how much Stauch was struggling with the weight of the bag, and how she declined when Lowery asked if she needed help loading the suitcase — which Stauch told him was full of softball equipment — into the van.

When the prosecution displayed a picture of the suitcase in which Gannon's body was found, Lowery said that was the suitcase he "didn't feel right" about. Lowery said when he helped Stauch move out of her home Jan. 30, he did not see the suitcase.

Lowery also told jurors that he believed Stauch never suffered from severe mental illness, and never referred to herself by other names.

"That's what I thought," Lowery said when asked if he believed his sister knew right from wrong.

During cross-examination, conducted by defense attorney Josh Tolini, Lowery clarified that initially he thought his sister must have had a mental break to have killed Gannon, who was stabbed and fatally shot.

"But now, no," Lowery said.

Tolini spent the majority of his cross-examination asking Lowery about how his father — Stauch's stepfather — was abusive to him and his mother before he died in 2004.

During opening statements last week, defense attorney Will Cook said childhood trauma suffered at the hands of the men who dated and married her mother was part of the reason Stauch suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Cook also claimed that Stauch's disorder caused her "psychotic crack" and why defense expert Dr. Dorothy Lewis found her to be insane.

Lowery said his father used to beat his mother, and that once as a child his father forced Lowery to drink so much alcohol that he passed out.

While Lowery was telling the alcohol story, Stauch nodded her head in agreement.

John Wotton, a representative with Avis Car Rental who reviewed tracking data of the van that Stauch rented, testified Tuesday that between Feb. 2 and Feb. 5, 2020, Stauch traveled through Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, before eventually returning the van in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Hotel employee Alexis Pack testified last week that Stauch checked into a hotel in Pensacola, Fla., on Feb. 4, 2020. Gannon's body was found more than a month later inside a suitcase under a bridge only miles from the Pensacola hotel.

The van Stauch rented eventually made its way to Rhode Island, where former state police officer John Grassel testified he helped search the van for evidence. Grassel said that when the back of the van was sprayed with Bluestar, a chemical that helps show the presence of blood, there was a presumptive positive reaction for a significant amount of blood in the back of the van.

During cross-examination, Grassel testified that he was not sure of whose blood was discovered in the back of the van, but that the samples were sent to Colorado for further testing.

Grassel also testified that he was unsure how the van made its way to Rhode Island, or how many people had rented it since Stauch had.

El Paso County sheriff's Sgt. Rosario "Rocky" Hubbell testified that investigators discovered blood throughout Gannon's bedroom during a second search of the Stauch home Feb. 3, 2020.

Hubbell testified that he found suspected blood on the walls and an electric socket in Gannon's bedroom, as well as a large amount of blood that had seeped through the carpet underneath Gannon's bed and stained the cement floor beneath it.

Hubbell said there were a number of presumptive positive tests for blood throughout the home, and that it appeared certain areas where blood had been found looked like they had been "heavily cleaned."

On Tuesday Tolini continued to object to witnesses testifying about whether they thought Stauch was insane.

He argued that those who have no professional mental health experience should not comment on his client's mental state. Werner continued to rule against most objections made by Tolini on those grounds.

Testimony is expected to resume Wednesday.