EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. — Before he could even begin his testimony Tuesday morning Letecia Stauch's half-brother began sobbing and yelled out "Why Tecia?" before the judge called for a break and the jury was escorted out of the courtroom to give Dakota Lowry time to compose himself.
Letecia Stauch sat stoic and showed no reaction to her brother's outburst on the witness stand. Minutes later, the jury returned to hear the sixth day of testimony in the trial for Stauch, who is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the January 2020 killing of her 11-year-old stepson Gannon Stauch.
>The video above is from the start of the trial.
Lowry and his mother and aunt all traveled to Colorado from North Carolina in the days after Gannon disappeared to support Stauch.
"We believed she was being wrongly accused of something that we believed she wouldn't, she would never do," he said. "We also wanted to come out and help look for him [Gannon]. We did!"
He testified that they never assisted with searches for Gannon but had asked Stauch about them. He said Stauch told them they could talk to Al (Gannon's dad) and go if they wanted to.
Lowry testified that they stayed at a hotel for a few days and rented a cargo van to retrieve personal belongings from Stauch's home. He said the police were there and looked over everything they brought out.
"I felt like we were getting looked at as criminals," he said. "They were looking at the whole family. It wasn't just her."
Lowry testified that his aunt had rented the cargo van and Stauch rented another Budget van under her name. They transferred the items from one van to the other. He said as they did that, he noticed Stauch struggling with an older green suitcase.
"Did you offer to help her?" asked prosecutor Dave Young.
"Yep."
"What did she say?"
"She didn't need help."
"Did you ask her what was in the suitcase?"
"Yep," Lowry replied. "She told me it was softball stuff," he added as his voice cracked.
Prosecutors put up a photo of the suitcase found under a Florida bridge with Gannon's body inside on March 20, 2020, about six weeks after Stauch visited Florida. Lowry identified it as the same suitcase he had seen Stauch struggling to carry.
"I didn't feel right about it," he said. "I just felt like it was too heavy for her."
Lowry testified that after packing up the van, Stauch and her daughter left and planned to go to South Carolina. He and his other family members returned to North Carolina. In court Tuesday morning was the first time he said he had seen Stauch since that day in early February 2020.
Stauch pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and her defense team asserts that she wasn't in her right mind when the killing happened. Prosecutors asked her brother about the plea on Tuesday.
"I believed that was the only way she did it at that time," Lowry said.
"Did what?" Young asked.
"What we're here for," Lowry replied.
Young then asked how he felt now.
"When everything first happened, when we found out they found the little boy's body. We found out where he was found, at that point, I knew she did it," he said. "Because when I seen [sic] that suitcase and asked her about it. She was acting funny to me."
"And yeah, I thought she might have snapped, went crazy, but now, no. No," Lowry said. "I just feel like too much got done for her to be saying that now."
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