Brother of woman accused of murdering stepson tearfully calls out sister during his testimony: 'Why, 'Tecia?'

The brother of accused murderer Letecia Stauch was overwhelmed with emotion as he started to testify that he saw his sister carrying a suspiciously heavy suitcase that would later be revealed to contain the body of his slain step-nephew, Gannon Stauch.

"Why, 'Tecia?" Dakota Lowry called out in court Tuesday at the beginning of his testimony in his sister's murder trial.

Prosecutors in El Paso County, Colorado, say that Stauch, 39, stabbed and shot the 11-year-old Gannon in his bed on Jan. 27, 2020, while her then-husband, Gannon's father Al Stauch, was out of town serving in the National Guard. She allegedly stuffed the boy's body in a suitcase and eventually brought it across the country to Pensacola, Florida, where she pushed the bag over a bridge railing in hopes the river below would carry it out to the Gulf of Mexico.

A bridge worker found the suitcase — and the boy's remains inside — almost two months later, on March 17, 2020.

Letecia Stauch is putting up an insanity defense. Her attorney Will Cook says she had dissociative identity disorder and experienced both physical and sexual abuse growing up. But prosecutors say that she knew what she was doing when she cleaned up the crime scene, moved Gannon's body out of the home, and kept everyone in the dark about the child's true whereabouts.

To bolster its case, the state put Lowry — Letecia Stauch's brother — on the stand. He testified that in late January of 2020, when the matter was still considered a missing person case, he traveled with their mother and aunt to Colorado Springs to look for Gannon and also to support his sister, whose family felt she was being wrongly accused of something she would never do.

Lowry described a fractured situation at the Stauch family home. He said that law enforcement was at the house when he and his family were there to collect the family dogs and get clothes for his sister and her daughter, Harley Hunt, and officers searched the clothing before allowing Lowry and the others to take the items. Lowry testified to feeling "aggravated" at the time, because he felt that he and his family were being looked at as criminals

The implication through Lowry's often heartbreaking testimony is that Letecia Stauch lied to and manipulated her own family. After returning to the visiting family members' hotel, Lowry said, his sister took a Nissan Altima, telling the family that she was going to get "dog food," but she was gone for longer than he would have expected.

When she returned, "she was normal to me," Lowry said. She had returned with some items, although he couldn't remember exactly what they were.

On Feb. 1, 2020, Lowry helped his sister rent a van from Budget, the car rental company. The siblings unloaded items from the cargo van that their aunt previously rented and moved them to the new rental van.

Lowry testified about seeing his sister with various suitcases. One stood out to him because it looked like she was struggling with it. He offered to help her, but she answered that she did not need it. When asked, Letecia Stauch claimed it held softball equipment, he testified.

Prosecutor Dave Young asked Lowry why he asked her about the contents of the suitcase.

"I didn't feel right about it," he testified. He said it felt like it was too heavy for her.

In prior testimony, Al Stauch had talked about confronting his then-wife regarding her shifting stories on Gannon's disappearance.

Local news reporter Spencer Wilson, who interviewed Letecia Stauch on camera during the missing person case, testified on Monday that she had wanted to do a second interview in which she was crying.