COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The parents of 11-year-old Gannon Stauch remember a "hero" who loved video games and was just growing into his pre-teenage years when his life was cut short in 2020.
Landen Bullard and Al Stauch spoke in court Monday after Gannon's stepmom was found guilty of murdering the boy in his Colorado Springs-area home.
Family and community members gave victim impact statements in the courtroom before Judge Gregory Werner handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“I miss you Gannon, and I love you to the moon and back and back again," Bullard said. "I know every day you’re with me and your sisters. That will never be taken away, the ache that I have for you. To hold you, to hug you, to tell you how much I love you, and to see your smile and your innocence.”
Bullard recalled the day of Gannon's birth, Sept. 29, 2008.
"Our first biggest blessing came into the world weighing only 1 pound and 6 ounces," she said. "You fought all the odds and developed a personality and a smile that’s larger than life. You became my hero that day."
"Gannon was born severely premature and barely filled my two hands the first time I held him," Al Stauch said. "At the end of his life, after his body was cremated into a pile of ashes, he was ultimately no bigger than the first time I held him.”
"I never in my wildest dreams would have ever thought you'd be in danger, Buddy, or I know I would not have left you at home with what turned out to be your murderer and the last person to ever see you on Earth," Al Stauch said through tears.
Bullard said she shows photos and videos of Gannon to his baby sister "so she will always know who he is."
“Gannon will always be a true hero in a cape," Bullard said. "He will always be my son."
She said even after his death, Gannon has brought people together.
"Eleven years that we were given with him, he’s done more in his 11 years than a lot of us will do in a lifetime," she said.
> Watch the victim impact statements:
"Gannon was truly my buddy," Al Stauch said. "Very recently before he died, the most alarming thing he did was call me ‘Dad.’ Up until age 10 or 11, I was ‘Daddy.’ But in the last months of his life I was just ‘dad.’ A signal that he was coming into those junior high, pre-teenage years."
Al Stauch said in the months before Gannon's death, he had started asking his father to play ball with him.
"He was never too much into sports for most of his life, but that last six to nine months, he really started enjoying playing ball," Al Stauch said. "Some of the most memorable times were him running little 5-yard football routes in the street in front of our house. Most of the time he dropped the ball, but he kept asking, ‘Let’s do it again. I almost had it that time, Daddy.’"
He said one of the most difficult pieces of evidence for him to give up was Gannon's Nintendo Switch, "because that probably has the most of him on it."
“For him, many of his games were not just games but a challenge to overcome, as I made him beat specific games before I would buy him the next one," Al Stauch said. "I remember not long before he died, him beating the old school Zelda game he had. As he felt he was getting close to beating the final monster, he paused it, ran upstairs, and we sat at the kitchen island and he beat it right there together with me. He was as excited as I ever saw him.”
In the courtroom, Al Stauch played a clip from a YouTube video Gannon had made of himself playing a video game. Al Stauch said Gannon had hoped to make more of those videos.
"Gannon is dancing," Bullard said in a news conference after the sentencing. "I know that he is. And he’s running the clouds like Sonic and I’m sure he’s singing songs, as you know, Albert. And he’s probably looking down, playing video games with you, and letting us know what game’s going to come out next. He’s never going to leave us.”
Watch the family's news conference:
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