Apr. 26—Letecia Stauch told forensic psychologists that she "created" different personalities for herself, and that switching between these personalities helped her deal with the sexual abuse she says she suffered as a child, according to video clips prosecutors played for the jury on Wednesday during Stauch's murder trial.

"I've taken so many different personalities in life," Stauch says in one of the clips, conducted during a sanity evaluation.

"So many different ways to cope."

The defense has argued throughout the trial that Stauch, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of killing her 11-year-old stepson, Gannon, in El Paso County in 2020, suffers from dissociative identity disorder.

But Loandra Torres, a forensic psychologist with the state hospital in Pueblo, told jurors she was skeptical because Stauch "told us she created them (the different personalities) herself."

"We began to wonder if she was exaggerating," Torres added. "All of it seems a bit far fetched to me in terms of dissociative identity disorder."

In the first clip played to the jury, Stauch said she had different personalities she would bounce between with names like Maria, Victoria, Harmony and her "main personality" Taylor.

In other clips, Stauch said she can forcefully switch between her personalities at her choosing, with the exception of Maria.

Stauch claimed that the Maria personality was the one who assaulted an El Paso County deputy while she was extradited to Colorado after her arrest.

Over the course of the trial, now in its fourth week, prosecutors have asked witnesses who knew Stauch if she referred to herself by other names such as Maria, Taylor, Victoria, Harmony or Jasmine, among others.

Every witness who was asked about Stauch's alleged other personalities denied hearing her refer to herself that way, or any way other than Letecia Stauch.

Torres, the forensic psychologist, said it appeared Stauch was exaggerating about her symptoms during her sanity evaluation, when she told Torres she could "hear the devil" and how she used to have flashbacks about her stepfather.

The sanity report from the state hospital found Stauch to be sane at the time prosecutors say she killed Gannon. A contrasting report filed by the defense's expert found Stauch to be insane at the time Gannon was stabbed and fatally shot.

In 2020, Torres and forensic psychologist Jackie Grimmett determined Stauch was competent to proceed to trial.

A competency evaluation is used to determine if a person is competent enough to understand court proceedings and to interact with their attorneys. If a defendant is found incompetent, the case is put on hold until the defendant's competency is restored.

Grimmett and Torres testified Wednesday that they felt many of the things Stauch said and did during the interviews were exaggerated, and that her actions weren't consistent with someone who was mentally incompetent.

Grimmett testified that she believed Stauch was pretending to "be worse than she actually was," pointing to examples such as how Stauch claimed to be talking to the vampires from the "Twilight" movies during one interview.

While Grimmett and Torres said they believed Stauch was competent and did not have a severe mental illness, they believed that Stauch showed several signs of narcissistic personality disorder during her interviews.

Torres' testimony will continue Friday, when the prosecution is expected to play an hourlong clip of her interview with Stauch in which Stauch describes her version of what happened to Gannon.

District Attorney Michael Allen said there is only one prosecution witness left after Torres, and that the prosecution should rest its case Monday at the latest.