Letecia Stauch waives law library privileges amid effort to represent herself

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The woman accused of murdering her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon Stauch, will now face another obstacle in her effort to represent herself at trial -- she'll lose access to the jail's law library for three months.

Letecia Stauch, who's facing multiple charges including first-degree murder, opted to represent herself in the case and had more than 20,000 pages of evidence to go through in the law library ahead of her next status hearing.

According to court documents, Letecia Stauch claimed her weekly scheduled visits to the library were too early and she would be too drowsy to take advantage of them. In a previous court appearance, it appeared that Stauch's time slot at the library ran from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. twice a week, it's unclear if that was her scheduled time when she waived her right to attend. If an inmate chooses not to go to a scheduled library appointment, they lose their access to the law library for 90 days.

Court documents show that El Paso County Jail Commander Cy Gillespie visited Stauch in her cell to try to convince her to talk advantage of her time at the law library, but she was adamant that she didn't need it. When she brought up her concerns about drowsiness, Gillespie told her he could work with the jail to address those concerns. She continued to decline the use of the library and told him to take her off the law library list.

Prior to this decision, she was allotted two two-hour time slots each week at the El Paso County Jail's law library to access the full evidence in her case. In her cell, a judge ruled that she's allowed to have access to about 1,800 pages of core evidence in her cell, but the complete 26,000 pages of evidence, including video and audio evidence, are only accessible through the computer in the jail's law library.

Gannon Stauch was first reported missing in late January 2020, but his body was found weeks later in Florida.

Stauch is scheduled for her first preliminary hearing on May 20, 2021.