Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / EVIL STEPMOM LETECIA STAUCH MURDERS STEPSON, GANNON, SET TO WALK FREE
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This proves evil stepmothers are not just in fairytales. Evil
- 0:07Speaker 1: stepmother Letitia Stock murders her little step son Gannon just
- 0:13Speaker 1: eleven years old, and tonight she set to walk free.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Good evening, I Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. I
- 0:25Speaker 1: want to thank you for being with us.
- 0:33Speaker 2: Gannon Stouch was an eleven year old boy who went
- 0:36Speaker 2: missing from Colorado. His disappearance sparked a nationwide search before
- 0:41Speaker 2: his body was later found in Florida.
- 0:45Speaker 1: The blood so copious under this little boy's bed. It
- 0:50Speaker 1: seeped through the carpet to underneath. Blood soaked the scene.
- 0:59Speaker 1: Yet tonight Letitia Stark, the evil stepmother personified. He shoots
- 1:06Speaker 1: a bird at witnesses in court. She is set to
- 1:11Speaker 1: walk free. How can this happen? Joining us an all
- 1:18Speaker 1: star panel? Listen.
- 1:19Speaker 3: I watched the video at least twenty thirty times, so
- 1:21Speaker 3: I took it to a thoutie.
- 1:22Speaker 4: They need make sure first.
- 1:23Speaker 5: I watched it on the tablet.
- 1:26Speaker 6: I zoom in, I can zoom in, I can look.
- 1:28Speaker 1: I saw no feet I can and.
- 1:30Speaker 4: I turned it up and I said, okay, let me
- 1:32Speaker 4: get a bite.
- 1:33Speaker 5: She get out.
- 1:33Speaker 6: She go to the door garves to open, she.
- 1:37Speaker 7: Gets the alarm and a dark rodin.
- 1:38Speaker 4: Nobody get out.
- 1:39Speaker 8: So can I look at it on the on the
- 1:40Speaker 8: TV so I can get a better you.
- 1:42Speaker 6: And I put my phone to the TV, so I
- 1:44Speaker 6: can you know, getting on.
- 1:45Speaker 8: A better you? And I was like, no, he never
- 1:47Speaker 8: got out of the truck. That's when I went over
- 1:49Speaker 8: to it.
- 1:49Speaker 2: Doc.
- 1:49Speaker 9: He showed him.
- 1:50Speaker 1: It just breaks my heart when I see that particular
- 1:52Speaker 1: photo of Gannon lying sideways looking at the camera. If
- 1:57Speaker 1: I could see that again, with that little snaggle two smile,
- 2:00Speaker 1: he's got going on just eleven years old, completely defenseless.
- 2:06Speaker 1: You were just hearing the neighbor Roderick Drayton, who spotted
- 2:12Speaker 1: on his own home surveillance video Gannon getting into the
- 2:17Speaker 1: car with the evil stepmother and never getting out. Straight
- 2:22Speaker 1: out to Anne Emerson joining us, senior investigative reporter for
- 2:26Speaker 1: Criminally Obsessed. That's on YouTube, also host of the award
- 2:31Speaker 1: winning podcast Unsolved South Carolina, The Murdlock Mysteries, Money and
- 2:36Speaker 1: the Murdoch Murders, Money and Mystery, And thank you for
- 2:39Speaker 1: being with us tonight. How critical is the video we
- 2:46Speaker 1: just played.
- 2:47Speaker 7: Early on in the investigation. You see this video of
- 2:51Speaker 7: the mom, the stepmom, Leticia leaving with Gannon, and then
- 2:56Speaker 7: when the truck comes back, the child's nowhere to be seen.
- 3:01Speaker 7: And that's what really really concerned investigators at the very
- 3:05Speaker 7: get go of this. And you know when as soon
- 3:08Speaker 7: as they saw the surveillance sing needs something was not right.
- 3:11Speaker 7: But the questions and the mystery surrounding it just got
- 3:16Speaker 7: much worse after this.
- 3:17Speaker 3: I'm just ready for getting and to come home, most
- 3:20Speaker 3: importantly for him to see his family. But second, I
- 3:23Speaker 3: am going to be so ecstatic when I'm able to
- 3:25Speaker 3: say to people that I hope they have a really
- 3:28Speaker 3: sincere apology for all these theories that have came out online,
- 3:32Speaker 3: for all the things they said that I have done.
- 3:34Speaker 1: I never of my friends at A and E. That
- 3:37Speaker 1: is step mother Leticia Stock, who was convicted by a jury,
- 3:43Speaker 1: but in its wisdom, an appellate court has reversed the conviction.
- 3:49Speaker 1: She is set to walk free. Out to Crime Stories,
- 3:53Speaker 1: investigative reporter Dave mac dave, what is the state's theory
- 3:58Speaker 1: as to what happened to eleven year old Gannon Stalk.
- 4:03Speaker 5: The state believes that after being abused by Letitia Stalk
- 4:09Speaker 5: for a long time, she shot him to death, stabbed him,
- 4:16Speaker 5: and beat him. He suffered blunt force trauma. Then Letitia
- 4:21Speaker 5: stalk but Gannon's remains in a suitcase and drove to Florida,
- 4:28Speaker 5: where she tossed the suitcase with eleven year old Gannon
- 4:32Speaker 5: stock in the suitcase over a bridge thirteen hundred miles
- 4:36Speaker 5: away from home.
- 4:38Speaker 9: Blood found underneath Gannon's bed, blood found on light sockets,
- 4:42Speaker 9: on the wall, on the carpet. More than fifty droplets
- 4:45Speaker 9: of blood. Police were able to identify and confirm that
- 4:48Speaker 9: it was Gannon's blood. They also were able to confirm
- 4:51Speaker 9: that cleaning products baking soda were used to try to
- 4:54Speaker 9: clean up the blood, but forensics were still able to
- 4:56Speaker 9: pick it up from that trail in Gannon's room and
- 5:00Speaker 9: actually goes through all throughout the house leading up to
- 5:03Speaker 9: the garage.
- 5:04Speaker 1: We are showing you crime scene photos and that's our
- 5:08Speaker 1: friends from k RDO joining us on crime stories. More
- 5:13Speaker 1: than fifty areas of blood police could identify it was
- 5:18Speaker 1: all little Gannon's blood. They also confirmed cleaning products plus
- 5:24Speaker 1: baking soda were dumped on the carpet and good gravy
- 5:30Speaker 1: we're dumped on the carpet and beyond to try and
- 5:32Speaker 1: clean up the blood, but that was no match for
- 5:36Speaker 1: high tech forensics. They could pick up a blood trail
- 5:40Speaker 1: that went from the little boy's room all the way
- 5:43Speaker 1: through the house leading to the garage. Joining us is
- 5:49Speaker 1: a renowned medical examiner, former medical examiner in Clark County,
- 5:54Speaker 1: the Office of the Coroner. That's Vegas Board certified forensic pathologists,
- 5:58Speaker 1: founder of World Peace Forensic Consulting, Doctor Jan Gorniac. Doctor Garniac,
- 6:05Speaker 1: thank you for being with us tonight, Doctor Gorniac. What
- 6:08Speaker 1: type of injury would cause that copious amount of blood?
- 6:16Speaker 10: Oh?
- 6:16Speaker 11: Well, hearing that he not only had blunt force trauma,
- 6:20Speaker 11: he was stabbed, he was shot, So any all of
- 6:24Speaker 11: those could cause all that blood depending on the injuries
- 6:27Speaker 11: to his head.
- 6:28Speaker 6: Blunt force trauma.
- 6:29Speaker 11: Was he hit with an object where the skin is split,
- 6:33Speaker 11: meaning gets laceration and then the blood is spattering all
- 6:38Speaker 11: over the place. He could be stabbed once again, depending
- 6:41Speaker 11: where he stabbed. Could it have gotten an artery in
- 6:44Speaker 11: his neck? Was his you know stabbing You think like
- 6:47Speaker 11: stab stab right, but could it been in size wounds
- 6:50Speaker 11: of his neck and gets arteries the main arteries the
- 6:53Speaker 11: karates where it's going to be spurting out blood or
- 6:56Speaker 11: a gunshot wound of the head. I'm looking at that
- 6:59Speaker 11: crime scene photo where you see the tape, I appear
- 7:04Speaker 11: marking blood spatter, and it's low down, so he could
- 7:08Speaker 11: have been on the floor and got shot and that
- 7:11Speaker 11: blood is battering that way. But there's a lot of blood,
- 7:15Speaker 11: like you said, throughout the room and then leading out,
- 7:19Speaker 11: so one or all those mechanisms of injury could have
- 7:23Speaker 11: caused that blood. It'd be interesting to see if there's
- 7:26Speaker 11: anything on the ceiling, you know, and then you can
- 7:29Speaker 11: see if he was getting hit about his head more
- 7:31Speaker 11: than one time. But unfortunately, little Gannon, you know, obviously
- 7:36Speaker 11: he's deceased, but it wasn't a quick death he suffered.
- 7:42Speaker 1: This little boy, just eleven year old. Gannon, according to
- 7:46Speaker 1: the autopsy report, died of a combination of a gunshot wound,
- 7:50Speaker 1: blunt force head trauma, and multiple sharp force injuries. He
- 7:57Speaker 1: suffered eighteen sharp force injuries, four blunt force injury, lacerations,
- 8:05Speaker 1: defensive wounds on both hands. The cod cause of death
- 8:10Speaker 1: gunshot to this little boy's chin and lower jaw. The
- 8:15Speaker 1: bullet lodged in his neck. There was a blunt force
- 8:18Speaker 1: trauma to the little boy's head. The sharp force injuries
- 8:23Speaker 1: stabs or cuts were on his chest, his hands, his arms,
- 8:28Speaker 1: his shoulder, his back. Sharp force stabs or cuts on
- 8:34Speaker 1: his hands and fingers were defensive wounds. The blunt force
- 8:39Speaker 1: injuries included a fractured left six rib and skull damage.
- 8:48Speaker 1: Also toxicology reports hydra codone and a seed of metafin
- 8:53Speaker 1: in his system, very unusual for a child. According to
- 8:57Speaker 1: the medical examiner at the top his body was found,
- 9:02Speaker 1: he was crammed into a suitcase decomposing. That is straight
- 9:09Speaker 1: from the medical examiner's autopsy report. Back to renowned pathologist
- 9:16Speaker 1: doctor Jan Gorniac, what do you make of the autopsy
- 9:20Speaker 1: report on this eleven year old little boy?
- 9:25Speaker 11: One not My heart goes out not only to Gavin
- 9:28Speaker 11: and his family, but also to the pathologists who had
- 9:30Speaker 11: to perform this this autopsy. It's interesting how they can
- 9:36Speaker 11: determine that the gunshot wound came last, right, and so
- 9:40Speaker 11: when you're talking about defensive type wounds on his hands,
- 9:44Speaker 11: that happens when obviously someone is coming at you with
- 9:49Speaker 11: a sharp force insplement like a knife and people are.
- 9:53Speaker 6: Grabbing at it. Those are the worst.
- 9:55Speaker 11: Those those type of injuries give me the willies, because
- 9:58Speaker 11: you know someone's grabbing the knife and it being pulled out,
- 10:01Speaker 11: and just the injuries to their their hands or to
- 10:04Speaker 11: their forearms, they're bringing their arms up to to fend
- 10:07Speaker 11: off something. So with defensive type wounds, obviously not only
- 10:11Speaker 11: was he alive, he was alert enough so the gunshot
- 10:17Speaker 11: wound didn't didn't happen. It's the gunshot wound to it says,
- 10:20Speaker 11: to his chin. That's an unusual spot. Usually when you
- 10:25Speaker 11: see that, you see in a suicide, so that it
- 10:29Speaker 11: seemed like it had to be a close range wound
- 10:32Speaker 11: to get up right up into his his face.
- 10:36Speaker 6: The blunt force injuries he had four separate.
- 10:38Speaker 11: To his his his head, and then the hydro code
- 10:42Speaker 11: o and thea minifen and I think that is commonly
- 10:46Speaker 11: that so minifit is tylnol, and you can that comes in.
- 10:51Speaker 11: I think it's called darvast, so that's a combination. So
- 10:54Speaker 11: in order for him to have that in his system,
- 10:56Speaker 11: I don't believe he took it himself unless he hit
- 10:59Speaker 11: the he was prescribed he had paid for some other reason,
- 11:02Speaker 11: but they don't think they usually prescribed percocetta darbis said
- 11:05Speaker 11: to children. So he was given that to ingest some
- 11:10Speaker 11: sort of way, either you know, he had to take
- 11:14Speaker 11: it himself forcefully, or it was mixed in with some
- 11:17Speaker 11: food or drink. But I'm just not understanding the severity
- 11:22Speaker 11: and the amount of injuries to little Gavin. What I
- 11:29Speaker 11: can't comprehend, you know, abuse in the beginning, but what
- 11:35Speaker 11: and he doesn't deserve this, But what was going through
- 11:38Speaker 11: this lady's mind or what could he have possibly done
- 11:42Speaker 11: to anger her so much? I'm just I might set
- 11:47Speaker 11: a loss of words.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting, doctor Jane Gorniac. It seems
- 11:54Speaker 1: as if Gannon was murdered many times over. He was
- 12:00Speaker 1: dabbed brutally, fourteen stab wounds, he was beaten horribly, including
- 12:09Speaker 1: to the head, blunt force trauma to the head, a
- 12:12Speaker 1: broken rib, skull fracture, and he was shot. This eleven
- 12:18Speaker 1: year old, little little boy, little frame, murdered three times over.
- 12:28Speaker 11: Explain he's tortured. I mean, that's the only word that
- 12:32Speaker 11: it's coming to my mind right now. It wasn't a
- 12:37Speaker 11: lack of better term of straight shooting.
- 12:41Speaker 6: That was the end.
- 12:42Speaker 11: But what he had to endure before I would just
- 12:45Speaker 11: say the little boy was tortured.
- 12:48Speaker 1: Joining US tonight an All Star panel as Letitia Stalk
- 12:52Speaker 1: is set to walk free after an appellate court reverses
- 12:57Speaker 1: her conviction. You know, straight out to special guests, joining us.
- 13:01Speaker 1: Doctor Leslie Dobson, clinical forensic psychologist, host of a hit podcast,
- 13:07Speaker 1: intentionally disturbing. Doctor Dobson, the idea of murdering an eleven
- 13:14Speaker 1: year old child multiple times over overkill in the literal
- 13:20Speaker 1: sense of the word, is extremely disturbing. And yet apparently
- 13:26Speaker 1: Letitious Stalk carried on as if nothing had happened and
- 13:30Speaker 1: actually attacked people online who were accusing her.
- 13:36Speaker 10: Definitely, I mean they wanted to do disassociative identity disorder,
- 13:41Speaker 10: borderline malingering. But this is straight up psychopathy. This woman
- 13:46Speaker 10: is a psychopath.
- 13:47Speaker 1: Doctor Leslie Dobson, you mentioned malingering and some other sorts
- 13:52Speaker 1: of mental ailments. Are you saying the defense brought up
- 13:58Speaker 1: these ailments at trial?
- 14:01Speaker 10: Correct and the prosecution they both had forensic psychologists do
- 14:04Speaker 10: an abundance of testing that looked at ma lingering, feigning,
- 14:08Speaker 10: straight up lying, and what the prosecution found was that
- 14:12Speaker 10: she was lying, She was inconsistent, infrequent, her symptoms didn't
- 14:16Speaker 10: match up with what she described. How she was presented
- 14:19Speaker 10: before the murder after, how she presented even in jail
- 14:23Speaker 10: was different than what she described, and throughout all of
- 14:26Speaker 10: this testing it showed that she was lying. She wanted
- 14:30Speaker 10: to look like she had disassociative identity disorder. Nothing like
- 14:34Speaker 10: that was in her history. And more so, she's likely
- 14:37Speaker 10: borderline and a psychopath and was overwhelmed with this kid.
- 14:42Speaker 10: They had a history of fighting. She decided to kill
- 14:45Speaker 10: him try to cover her tracks.
- 14:46Speaker 1: No remorse, what exactly is the psychological definition of a psychopath.
- 14:55Speaker 10: Psychopath is a narcissistic individual who was also antisocial antisocial
- 15:00Speaker 10: personality disorder. So somebody who has no remorse doesn't care.
- 15:04Speaker 10: They need extra layers of stimulation. They're very charismatic, but
- 15:08Speaker 10: also they're reckless, destructive liars.
- 15:12Speaker 1: So would that explain how after Gannon is murdered at
- 15:17Speaker 1: least three times over, he's stabbed, he's baiten, he's shot. Oh,
- 15:23Speaker 1: and he was administered codone, a type of codonne that
- 15:28Speaker 1: children normally don't get. So I guess that's four times
- 15:31Speaker 1: over that she carried on as if nothing had happened.
- 15:35Speaker 6: Innocent.
- 15:36Speaker 10: You could say she was getting her rocks off. She
- 15:38Speaker 10: was stimulated. She enjoyed harming this child, and then she
- 15:43Speaker 10: planned a way to get rid of this child and
- 15:46Speaker 10: live her life. And then she was stimulated by the
- 15:48Speaker 10: arguments online and people coming at her.
- 15:51Speaker 12: She was stimulated in the courtroom. What do you mean
- 15:54Speaker 12: in the courtroom, she was mouthy, she was inappropriate, She
- 15:59Speaker 12: was overall acting up, not like somebody who was disassociating.
- 16:03Speaker 12: It was somebody who was pissed off that she.
- 16:04Speaker 4: Got caught, Vinstouk. What you need to understand is that
- 16:07Speaker 4: I can control the conduct of an awful lot of
- 16:09Speaker 4: people in the courtroom, including yours.
- 16:12Speaker 3: And.
- 16:15Speaker 4: Don't do that, don't show that kind of don't be
- 16:18Speaker 4: making disrespectful gestures to witnesses, to people, to family members,
- 16:24Speaker 4: anything like that. You need to understand that if that continues,
- 16:30Speaker 4: I can have you removed and the trial will continue
- 16:32Speaker 4: without you.
- 16:33Speaker 1: Well, doctor Dobson, you could not have been more correct.
- 16:36Speaker 1: That was the judge reprimanding the defendant letitious stout in
- 16:42Speaker 1: court for the inappropriate behavior that you describe as her
- 16:46Speaker 1: getting her rocks off in court. And this is what
- 16:50Speaker 1: the judge was upset about. That is the defendant shooting
- 16:55Speaker 1: a bird from our friends at law and crime in
- 16:59Speaker 1: court straight out to Anne Emerson joining us senior investigative reporter,
- 17:04Speaker 1: criminally obsessed and what happened.
- 17:08Speaker 7: Well, she was she was flipping the bird at the
- 17:11Speaker 7: the witnesses and people that were part of the family
- 17:14Speaker 7: of the Stock family. It was so disrespectful and it
- 17:18Speaker 7: really feeds into the narrative possibly that she was trying
- 17:22Speaker 7: to get across that you know, she was she had
- 17:26Speaker 7: an insanity plea going with her defense. This was possibly
- 17:30Speaker 7: part of her sort of acting the part even more,
- 17:33Speaker 7: but it really just came across as is so horrific
- 17:36Speaker 7: and and and so disturbing for these family members. I
- 17:40Speaker 7: mean it is this is the ultimate betrayal of a stepmother,
- 17:46Speaker 7: a care gover, who could possibly do something like this
- 17:50Speaker 7: to a small child under her care while the while
- 17:54Speaker 7: the dad is gone on on military service. I mean,
- 17:58Speaker 7: it's just the whole thing was It's so horrific I
- 18:01Speaker 7: think for the family to see in court that the
- 18:04Speaker 7: judge had to try and control her if this was
- 18:07Speaker 7: part of the defense on any level of her own defense,
- 18:11Speaker 7: trying to show that she was indeed insane. Yes, it
- 18:15Speaker 7: was insane behavior, but it doesn't mean that she is insane,
- 18:19Speaker 7: means that she was manipulative.
- 18:21Speaker 1: To Franz Borghart, joining US criminal defense attorney, founder of
- 18:26Speaker 1: the Borghart Law firm, former prosecutor, Borghart, not a good
- 18:32Speaker 1: look for your client, right when your client shoots birds
- 18:36Speaker 1: at the witnesses and at the little boy victim's family.
- 18:40Speaker 8: I know there's been conjecture that she's malingering, but that
- 18:44Speaker 8: certainly seems like the behavior of someone with a serious
- 18:46Speaker 8: mental health issue. And maybe she's not malingering, Nancy, And
- 18:50Speaker 8: that's the defense, is her disruptive behavior is consistent with
- 18:54Speaker 8: her mental health issues. And that's what you run with.
- 18:57Speaker 1: She shot a bird, borg Arts, She shot a bird.
- 19:03Speaker 1: That is not a mental illness. And just think about it.
- 19:06Speaker 1: You know what, I would have a field day with that,
- 19:08Speaker 1: because if she will do that in a court of
- 19:11Speaker 1: law at witnesses under oath, with a judge sitting right there,
- 19:17Speaker 1: if she will do that in open court, what would
- 19:20Speaker 1: she do to this child behind closed doors? A child
- 19:25Speaker 1: she hated, A child she resented because he belonged to
- 19:29Speaker 1: another woman, reminding her that her husband had sex with
- 19:34Speaker 1: another woman once loved a woman, not her. And this
- 19:39Speaker 1: was the physical manifestation of that love. She hated him.
- 19:43Speaker 8: So, look, if you're with a client like that who
- 19:47Speaker 8: is not going to control themselves. As a defense attorney,
- 19:50Speaker 8: I don't want her in the courtroom either. Yes, the
- 19:52Speaker 8: jury is not going to like it, but it's better
- 19:54Speaker 8: for my defense that she's not in the courtroom behaving
- 19:57Speaker 8: by flipping off the bird so candidly for a defense attorney.
- 20:01Speaker 8: Best thing in the world her getting booted out of
- 20:03Speaker 8: the corporate.
- 20:06Speaker 1: Straight out to veteran homicide detective Chris mcdonna, director of
- 20:11Speaker 1: the Cold Case Foundation and star of The Interview Room
- 20:15Speaker 1: on YouTube, Chris mcdonna, she's not mentally ill, she's just
- 20:20Speaker 1: hell on wheels.
- 20:21Speaker 13: Simple, Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. I mean, let's think about this, right,
- 20:27Speaker 13: She not only shot the bird, she shot a child.
- 20:29Speaker 13: And you know, if I can, I can help you
- 20:33Speaker 13: the audience with her identity. I mean, she's the devil.
- 20:36Speaker 13: And whenever you have an angel, a child sleeping in
- 20:40Speaker 13: their own bed, the most protected area of this child's world, okay,
- 20:48Speaker 13: and then you have the devil show up to not
- 20:51Speaker 13: only stab you, beat you, shoot you, and then we're
- 20:56Speaker 13: you know, we're ended up talking about her behavior in
- 20:59Speaker 13: the court doctor Dobson's right on target here. These people
- 21:04Speaker 13: are beyond recovery.
- 21:06Speaker 1: Put him up. Please, Why are you talking about Letitia
- 21:11Speaker 1: Stalk's recovery. I don't care about her recovery. I just
- 21:15Speaker 1: want her to be under the jail instead of poised
- 21:19Speaker 1: to walk free. And a Pellic court just reversed her conviction.
- 21:25Speaker 1: One more boo boo and she's walking free.
- 21:30Speaker 2: No.
- 21:30Speaker 13: I totally agree. And this is the worst case scenario
- 21:33Speaker 13: for not only this child's family, but the investigators, the attorneys,
- 21:40Speaker 13: everybody that worked so hard to get her off the streets.
- 21:44Speaker 1: Speaking of the devil and his imp appears watch.
- 21:48Speaker 3: He was always so helpful with the dogs around the
- 21:51Speaker 3: house and we have two littlekey dogs, and he was
- 21:54Speaker 3: always like a person. I could say again and can
- 21:56Speaker 3: you go do this?
- 21:56Speaker 1: And he would do it right away.
- 21:58Speaker 3: You know, sometimes with kids we have to remind it
- 22:00Speaker 3: and things like that, and that's okay.
- 22:01Speaker 1: But he was so sweet. He was he was that
- 22:06Speaker 1: is evil stepmom Letitia Stalk while the search forgan and
- 22:11Speaker 1: was on going. That's for our friends at A and E.
- 22:14Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Franz Borgharte, veteran defense attorney, why is
- 22:20Speaker 1: she already talking about him in the past tense? Was
- 22:24Speaker 1: was was why is she saying that? What do you
- 22:27Speaker 1: do with that when that's played in front of the jury.
- 22:30Speaker 8: You have to say that she believed that he was
- 22:32Speaker 8: dead at that point, and that she wasn't the murderer,
- 22:35Speaker 8: but that that was her heart of hearts based on
- 22:37Speaker 8: the evidence that was found at the crime scene.
- 22:39Speaker 1: You mean, based on the blood found under her bed.
- 22:42Speaker 1: That statement that she just made to the reporter was
- 22:46Speaker 1: before the blood was found under the bed. So how
- 22:50Speaker 1: do you get around that she's already talking about her
- 22:53Speaker 1: stepson in the past tense? No, seriously, what do you
- 22:58Speaker 1: do with that in court? In front of a jury
- 23:01Speaker 1: who's eyeballing you?
- 23:04Speaker 8: So on that kind of a situation, I think you
- 23:08Speaker 8: have to just double down on the fact that she
- 23:10Speaker 8: didn't kill him, but that she believes he's dead and
- 23:13Speaker 8: that she is just trying to get justice.
- 23:16Speaker 1: Okay, put him up, please, I just hear you say that.
- 23:19Speaker 1: Letitious stalk is quote just trying to get justice. You
- 23:23Speaker 1: could say that to a jury. You could get that
- 23:25Speaker 1: out of your for the.
- 23:27Speaker 8: True murderer who committed the crime. I mean, Nancy, you're
- 23:31Speaker 8: asking me to paint the Sistine chapel with crayons. I'm
- 23:33Speaker 8: doing the best I can.
- 23:35Speaker 1: Ann Emerson joining us an investigative reporter, Senior investigative reporter
- 23:40Speaker 1: with criminally obsessed, And I'd like to go through a
- 23:44Speaker 1: few letitious stalks, Google searches, control room, becauld you please
- 23:49Speaker 1: put them up on the screen now, Bear in mind
- 23:52Speaker 1: her conviction has just been reversed. Find me a new husband, book,
- 24:00Speaker 1: feel like I'm just a nanny, not a stepmom. Husband
- 24:03Speaker 1: uses me to babysit his kids? Or are there any
- 24:08Speaker 1: free money to move away from bad situation? My husband
- 24:12Speaker 1: never posts about me, but does everything else. My husband
- 24:18Speaker 1: only cleans up for the army, not me. I'm a
- 24:22Speaker 1: glorified babysitter. Find a new husband. Send my husband's sex messages.
- 24:28Speaker 1: He ignores them. Gee, I wonder why, because you're evil
- 24:32Speaker 1: make my husband want me more? I can't. I'm sure
- 24:37Speaker 1: he wanted you as far away from him as possible.
- 24:40Speaker 1: I feel like my husband uses me to babysit his kid.
- 24:43Speaker 1: Find a guy without kids, Find a guy without kids.
- 24:51Speaker 1: She couldn't wait to get rid of Gannon? And what
- 24:56Speaker 1: about these searches? Did the jury hear these searches? Did
- 24:59Speaker 1: the appel at court not read the trial transcript.
- 25:03Speaker 7: There's no doubt that this evidence was just exactly what
- 25:07Speaker 7: needed to happen in order for her to to be
- 25:10Speaker 7: you know, put in put in prison, throw away the key.
- 25:13Speaker 7: I mean, there's there's nothing you can say about these
- 25:15Speaker 7: Google searches that that does not point to clear evidence
- 25:19Speaker 7: that she was the actually planning this. This was she
- 25:24Speaker 7: was trying to figure out ways to get rid of,
- 25:27Speaker 7: you know, Gannon. All of this points to it.
- 25:30Speaker 1: How did eleven year old Gannon Stock go missing?
- 25:34Speaker 14: Gannon shouts. The eleven year old disappear from his father's home.
- 25:39Speaker 14: He lived there with his father and his stepmother, just
- 25:42Speaker 14: in a little supper outside of Colorado Springs. The step
- 25:45Speaker 14: mom says that he was not in We don't have
- 25:48Speaker 14: a clear answer why, she said. We've heard a couple
- 25:52Speaker 14: of things, one that he was sick and the one
- 25:53Speaker 14: that he had a doctor's appointment, so he had stayed
- 25:56Speaker 14: home that day. He was reported missing after he had
- 25:59Speaker 14: left that house.
- 26:00Speaker 7: He was wearing a blue.
- 26:01Speaker 14: Jacket and sneakers and jeans. He said he was going
- 26:04Speaker 14: to go see a friend. It was on the afternoon,
- 26:07Speaker 14: around three point thirty. They think that he told his
- 26:10Speaker 14: stepmom He's going to go out and see a friend,
- 26:13Speaker 14: and that was the last time we saw Gannon.
- 26:15Speaker 1: Stoush joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter Dave Macdave Muddy
- 26:22Speaker 1: Murky unclear to say the least, we've got the stepmother,
- 26:27Speaker 1: Ltitious talks saying that he was ill, that he had
- 26:30Speaker 1: a doctor's appointment, he disappeared from his father's home, but
- 26:35Speaker 1: that he went to go see friends with a blue jacket,
- 26:38Speaker 1: sneakers and jeans on. So what was her final story
- 26:43Speaker 1: she told about the last time Ganna was seen alive.
- 26:48Speaker 5: The last story that Latitia Stout told was that he
- 26:52Speaker 5: was going to a friend's house, that he was walking
- 26:55Speaker 5: through the neighborhood on his way to play.
- 26:58Speaker 1: Dave Mac, that is in direct conflict with the video
- 27:02Speaker 1: that the neighbor saw and immediately knew something was horribly wrong.
- 27:07Speaker 1: He sees the evil stepmother, Latitious talk getting into the
- 27:12Speaker 1: vehicle with eleven year old Gannon, and Gannon is never
- 27:16Speaker 1: seen getting out of the vehicle. That is not him
- 27:20Speaker 1: walking around the neighborhood to go play. That is him
- 27:23Speaker 1: getting into the vehicle with her. He also stated that
- 27:28Speaker 1: Gannon could hardly walk at the time that he seemed
- 27:33Speaker 1: to be dizzy and unsteady on his feet. What can
- 27:37Speaker 1: you tell me about that, Dave mac.
- 27:40Speaker 5: Well, yeah, Nancy's it actually goes back to earlier we
- 27:44Speaker 5: were talking about what was found in Gannon's bloodstream. The
- 27:48Speaker 5: hydro codone with the seed demnifin or Laura sat something
- 27:51Speaker 5: like that would have made Gannon lupia. It would have
- 27:55Speaker 5: made him very groggy. Actually, it would have made it
- 27:58Speaker 5: so that he could be I hate to say this
- 28:01Speaker 5: out loud, Nancy, but it makes it so that he'd
- 28:03Speaker 5: be a much easier child to kill if he was
- 28:06Speaker 5: that groggy. Now we're talking about the last time anyone
- 28:11Speaker 5: other than Latitia Stout actually saw Gannon, and the description
- 28:14Speaker 5: of an eleven year old boy walking like that is
- 28:17Speaker 5: shocking in and of itself, Nancy. But what we know
- 28:21Speaker 5: now is that Letitia Stout told stories that were able
- 28:28Speaker 5: to be proved lies with video. The neighbor actually really
- 28:33Speaker 5: did save the day. If you remember, it didn't happen
- 28:35Speaker 5: right away. It took a couple of days. He watched
- 28:38Speaker 5: it on his own and saw this and called FBI,
- 28:41Speaker 5: called everybody, said hey, come and take a look. So
- 28:44Speaker 5: we really have right here in the palm of our hand,
- 28:48Speaker 5: the murderer and the victim, and the victim is already
- 28:52Speaker 5: out of it as he gets in the vehicle, the
- 28:55Speaker 5: last time he has seen alive.
- 28:57Speaker 1: And the location where his remains are found is mind boggling.
- 29:06Speaker 12: Search crews scouring all over Colorado for weeks and weeks
- 29:11Speaker 12: on it, and then we hear Florida.
- 29:14Speaker 13: You know, we did the bath.
- 29:15Speaker 2: We were calculating how.
- 29:17Speaker 1: Far away it was from Myrtle Beach where she was arrested.
- 29:21Speaker 9: It's just mind blowing.
- 29:23Speaker 2: A road construction crew was working in the area, right
- 29:26Speaker 2: near a bridge is Scambia River Bridge.
- 29:28Speaker 12: And Highway ninety and that's where they found again in
- 29:32Speaker 12: the body.
- 29:35Speaker 1: Too. Anne Emerson joining us and explain how his body
- 29:41Speaker 1: was found stuffed in a suitcase far far away from home.
- 29:47Speaker 7: The whole thing. The more that I read about it,
- 29:49Speaker 7: the more disturbing it is.
- 29:52Speaker 1: Nancy.
- 29:52Speaker 7: I mean not only that, like she had to get
- 29:54Speaker 7: the suitcase out of her home. She from the reports
- 29:59Speaker 7: that we've read, her brother was with her when she
- 30:04Speaker 7: had said she no longer could be with the father.
- 30:07Speaker 7: After Gannon had disappeared, she no longer wanted to be
- 30:11Speaker 7: with her husband, Alstock, So she decides she's going to
- 30:14Speaker 7: take off in the car. She even gets her brother
- 30:16Speaker 7: to come with her to help get her out of
- 30:19Speaker 7: the house. They get this suitcase out of the house.
- 30:22Speaker 7: He has no idea what's in this suitcase. He has
- 30:26Speaker 7: no idea what could possibly be in this suitcase. And
- 30:29Speaker 7: then we get a report that this suitcase is found
- 30:33Speaker 7: underneath a bridge in Florida where she has gone to
- 30:38Speaker 7: dump the body of Gannon, which is so disturbing, and
- 30:42Speaker 7: it's a I think it was a Florida Department of
- 30:45Speaker 7: Transportation construction worker. This suitcase must have been dumped over
- 30:50Speaker 7: a bridge, and they open it up and it's the
- 30:54Speaker 7: remains of this dear child. And the idea that she
- 30:58Speaker 7: actually traveled in a car for thousands of miles to
- 31:02Speaker 7: get to this place and then takes off to Myrtle
- 31:06Speaker 7: Beach is It's really one of the most disturbing things
- 31:11Speaker 7: I've ever heard, you know, and also really speaks to
- 31:14Speaker 7: her determination to keep on running with this story, that
- 31:22Speaker 7: her true determination to take this body this far. It's
- 31:27Speaker 7: one of the most incredible cases I've ever heard. Seriously, Nancy,
- 31:31Speaker 7: I've never heard anything.
- 31:32Speaker 1: That it was a large green suitcase that came from
- 31:36Speaker 1: her home. Like the big ones you have to check
- 31:40Speaker 1: at the airport. A construction crew locates this little boy's
- 31:45Speaker 1: decomposing remains in a suitcase under a bridge in Pace, Florida.
- 31:51Speaker 1: The bridge runs over Escambia River there in Pace. The
- 31:59Speaker 1: little boy's body was disposed of in that area shortly,
- 32:04Speaker 1: very shortly after he's reporting reported missing. Now we know
- 32:10Speaker 1: that the evil stepmother, Latitious Stalk, drove from Colorado to
- 32:13Speaker 1: Florida over thirteen hundred miles to hide the body, and
- 32:20Speaker 1: in fact, shortly after his body is disposed of under
- 32:24Speaker 1: that bridge, she is arrested not too far away in
- 32:27Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach. That's a long way to travel with a
- 32:33Speaker 1: dead body in your car, all the way down to
- 32:39Speaker 1: the Florida Panhandle, straight back out to renowned medical examiner
- 32:45Speaker 1: doctor Jan Gorniac. Doctor Gorniac, the body was already decomposed
- 32:53Speaker 1: in that suitcase. How do you believe it was identified
- 32:59Speaker 1: as being again.
- 33:02Speaker 11: Well, there's different stages of decomposition, and so yes, he's
- 33:05Speaker 11: in a suitcase. He has all these injuries. So it
- 33:10Speaker 11: takes about thirty six hours ish for you to really
- 33:14Speaker 11: start to see some real decomposition. And not to sound silly,
- 33:20Speaker 11: but one of the things that probably preserved his body
- 33:23Speaker 11: that so he could be identified easily was because he
- 33:27Speaker 11: was in that suitcase.
- 33:29Speaker 6: Had he been thrown.
- 33:30Speaker 11: Over that bridge, exposed to water, exposed to animals scavenging,
- 33:36Speaker 11: then that would have been a lot worse.
- 33:38Speaker 6: But then also remember if he was.
- 33:40Speaker 11: Decomposed enough where he couldn't be identified, they knew enough
- 33:47Speaker 11: to arrest her, try to put it together with this
- 33:50Speaker 11: missing child, and they had blood samples from back in
- 33:53Speaker 11: the house which they knew was his, so it possibly
- 33:56Speaker 11: could have been DNA, it could have been dental records.
- 34:00Speaker 11: Since they had a tentative ID on who he was,
- 34:03Speaker 11: then he could have been positively ID through DNA or dental.
- 34:07Speaker 1: Dave Mac joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter, she entered
- 34:12Speaker 1: a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which
- 34:18Speaker 1: essentially means I did it, but I was insane at
- 34:21Speaker 1: the time. Isn't it true, Dave Mac that a recording
- 34:26Speaker 1: of her admitting to murdering Gannon was played in front
- 34:31Speaker 1: of the jury.
- 34:34Speaker 5: It was Nancy. It was played in the final days
- 34:37Speaker 5: of the trial. This recording that the jury was able
- 34:41Speaker 5: to hear Letitia confessing to fatally shooting Gannon while the
- 34:45Speaker 5: forensic psychologist was examining her as part of that insanity defense.
- 34:50Speaker 5: So the jury heard the whole thing and they saw,
- 34:54Speaker 5: you know, they could tell what was going on in
- 34:56Speaker 5: the room, how questions were answered, and then when they
- 34:59Speaker 5: went into deliberate Nancy, they made a firm decision that
- 35:05Speaker 5: she's not insane. This is not insanity, this is not
- 35:09Speaker 5: you're not getting away with this, and they convicted her
- 35:12Speaker 5: right after that.
- 35:13Speaker 1: Straight out to doctor Leslie Dobson, joining US clinical forensic psychologist,
- 35:19Speaker 1: what rises to legal insanity?
- 35:24Speaker 10: She knew that she was wrong. She we have proof
- 35:28Speaker 10: that she planned this action, that she knew what was
- 35:30Speaker 10: going on, and that she tried to cover the action
- 35:33Speaker 10: after she murdered this child. So we have certainty now
- 35:39Speaker 10: that she is not insane at the time of the crime.
- 35:43Speaker 1: Legal insanity is judged by what we call the old
- 35:47Speaker 1: McNaughton test. It is a litmus test brought over from
- 35:52Speaker 1: English common law to our country. There you see her
- 35:56Speaker 1: at the El Paso Sheriff's office. Do you think she
- 35:59Speaker 1: looks like she's insane? Yes, I know. We are all
- 36:02Speaker 1: lay people and not psychologists or psychiatrists. But look at
- 36:06Speaker 1: her actions, look how she is behaving. Legal insanity is
- 36:12Speaker 1: that you did not know right from wrong at the
- 36:17Speaker 1: time of the incident. That is what legal insanity is
- 36:24Speaker 1: the fact that she covered up the crime, put the
- 36:27Speaker 1: body in a suitcase, drove over one thousand miles to
- 36:31Speaker 1: dispose of it under a bridge, let it decompose near
- 36:35Speaker 1: a river bank. That indicates knowledge of guilt, which means
- 36:41Speaker 1: she did know what she did was wrong at the
- 36:45Speaker 1: time of the incident. That was the argument to the
- 36:48Speaker 1: jury to Dave Mack. The jury also heard one of
- 36:53Speaker 1: her last conversations with her husband where she was adamantly
- 36:57Speaker 1: denying anything to do with Gannon's disappear So we know
- 37:01Speaker 1: she has the ability to lie the cunning the wherewithal,
- 37:05Speaker 1: But didn't she also come up with some crazy rape story.
- 37:09Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, Yes, Nancy. She actually claimed that she
- 37:14Speaker 5: was raped by a Hispanic man and after she was raped,
- 37:20Speaker 5: the Hispanic mail took off with Gannon kidnapped him. That
- 37:24Speaker 5: was her story, well, one of them two.
- 37:28Speaker 1: Franz at Borghart joining us criminal defense attorney joining us
- 37:31Speaker 1: out of Baton Rouge Franz it is a bitter pill
- 37:36Speaker 1: to swallow that this case, this conviction is reversed. Explain why.
- 37:45Speaker 8: During the jury selection process one of the potential jurors
- 37:49Speaker 8: disclosed a relationship to the DA's office. The defense attorney
- 37:54Speaker 8: did what we call a motion for a challenge for
- 37:57Speaker 8: cause Nancy, which was denied by the job judge. That
- 38:00Speaker 8: basically he was arguing that there was a legal defect
- 38:03Speaker 8: in letting that juror on or that individual on. Ultimately,
- 38:07Speaker 8: the judge said, you can use what we call one
- 38:09Speaker 8: of your premptory exceptions or challenges, and the and the
- 38:14Speaker 8: higher court said, you know what, you have a right
- 38:16Speaker 8: to a to a constitutionally unbiased jury. And the judge
- 38:21Speaker 8: violated that right by by requiring the defense team to
- 38:26Speaker 8: utilize a challenge where he's whereas he should have just
- 38:30Speaker 8: granted the cause challenge. Uh, and so it's reversed for neutral.
- 38:35Speaker 1: You know what, Franz Borghart, I blame them all, I
- 38:39Speaker 1: blame the judge, I blame the prosecutor. And that is,
- 38:43Speaker 1: as I said, a bitter pill for me, as a
- 38:47Speaker 1: former prosecutor, you absolutely cannot see a gr R that
- 38:52Speaker 1: is related to a prosecutor in the office that is
- 38:58Speaker 1: prosecuting this case. It doesn't matter if it's by blood
- 39:03Speaker 1: or by marriage. It doesn't matter. That is a peremptory strike.
- 39:09Speaker 1: What is That's a strike for cause? Okay, a strike
- 39:13Speaker 1: for cause means that, for instance, you are related to
- 39:17Speaker 1: the defendant. The defense doesn't have to use one of
- 39:22Speaker 1: their strikes to strike you. If you're related to the defendant,
- 39:26Speaker 1: under the law, you are not fit to sit on
- 39:29Speaker 1: the jury. If you are related to a prosecutor, you
- 39:33Speaker 1: are not fit under the law to sit on the jury.
- 39:37Speaker 1: There's dreams of precedent on that. The prosecutor should not
- 39:43Speaker 1: have allowed it, the judge should not have allowed it.
- 39:47Speaker 1: And here we are tonight wondering will Letitia start walk free?
- 39:53Speaker 1: Was it worth it? It's never worth it to get
- 39:56Speaker 1: a trial advantage that's going to result in a reversal,
- 40:03Speaker 1: horrible decision. The devil is set to walk free because
- 40:10Speaker 1: of one trial error. And when I say error, that's
- 40:15Speaker 1: really putting perfume on the pig. This was a intentional
- 40:18Speaker 1: decision by the prosecutor to disallow a strike for cause.
- 40:24Speaker 1: They should have joined the defense in that motion to
- 40:28Speaker 1: save hold the conviction. The last thing I want to
- 40:33Speaker 1: do is go through all the effort, the blood, the sweat,
- 40:37Speaker 1: and the tears to try a murder case, knowing there
- 40:41Speaker 1: is reversible error. I can't believe this has happened, But
- 40:47Speaker 1: here we are and we wait as justice unfolds, and
- 40:52Speaker 1: now we remember an American hero. Detective Valerie Jacobs NYCPD,
- 40:59Speaker 1: died in the line of duty, leaving behind her grieving son, Anthony.
- 41:05Speaker 1: American hero Detective Valerie Jacobs. Thank you to our guests
- 41:10Speaker 1: for being with us, but especially to you for joining
- 41:13Speaker 1: us tonight as we seek justice for gannon Stalk. Nancy
- 41:18Speaker 1: Gray signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night,
- 41:21Speaker 1: and until then, good night friend,