Apr. 28—Letecia Stauch admitted to fatally shooting her 11-year-old stepson Gannon, telling a forensic psychologist that she saw a "man in a black cape" enter the basement of her El Paso County home in January 2020 and that she shot him out of fear.

It wasn't until later that she realized the caped man was Gannon, according to a recorded interview jurors heard Friday.

Stauch, who stands accused of first-degree murder and other counts, claims that she didn't know what she was doing when she pulled the trigger because she was insane.

"To me, or to whoever I was, it was a man in the cape. ... That was the only reason the gun went off," Stauch said in the interview. "I was not OK. ... I would never hurt anyone on purpose."

In the interview, conducted in March 2022, Stauch told the psychologist that she had become very paranoid in the days leading up to Gannon's death.

Stauch said she believed she was being followed by someone in a black car, and that she also believed a man named "Michael the Archangel" was following her.

She also told the psychologist that she couldn't remember large chunks of the day that Gannon was reported missing, and that at one point she ended up naked in her garage and didn't remember how she got there.

Stauch's attorneys claim that she suffers from dissociative identity disorder, a mental illness in which a person has more than one personality. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution played an interview in which Stauch told a psychologist that she has numerous personalities with names like Harmony, Jasmine, Taylor and Maria.

She claims to have been acting as Maria when prosecutors say she shot Gannon. In a separate interview in June 2022, Stauch described her Maria personality as her "protector" and claimed that she can speak with Maria. She also claimed that Maria speaks Spanish and Russian even though Stauch isn't fluent in either language.

During an interview with a psychologist, Stauch claimed that there were no stab wounds on Gannon's body and that the autopsy was "wrong" in saying he had been stabbed 18 times.

At trial, prosecutors have pointed out that Stauch has told several stories about what happened to Gannon, including that he went missing while going to a friend's house, that he was abducted from the Stauch residence after Stauch was assaulted, and that he was abducted by a man from whom Stauch was trying to buy a bike.

Loandra Torres, a forensic psychologist who conducted Stauch's first sanity evaluation, told jurors that she found Stauch sane at the time of Gannon's murder. She ruled out the possibility that Stauch suffers from dissociative identity disorder because almost none of Stauch's family members knew of her multiple personalities.

"She talks about having this mental illness since she was 16 years old and it's never repeated anywhere," Torres said of the lack of corroborating evidence from those who know Stauch. "That's meaningful to me."

Torres also testified that people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder can't control it, and often are "ashamed" or "overwhelmed" by their mental illness. Torres said Stauch did not exhibit those traits during her forensic interviews.

Torres said that even if she believed Stauch had dissociative identity disorder, she still would not have classified Stauch as insane.

"There is no mental illness that is impacting Ms. Stauch's ability to interpret what is right and what is wrong," Torres said.

An expert for the defense, Dorthey Lewis, came to the opposite conclusion, ruling that Stauch was insane at the time of Gannon's murder.

On Friday, defense attorney Josh Tolini spent nearly two hours cross-examining Torres, pointing out that Stauch had certain traits that could correlate to a dissociative identity disorder diagnosis, including anxiety, OCD and significant trauma suffered as a child.

Tolini added that Stauch at several points in life had referred to herself as Taylor — something backed up by Stauch's own daughter, Harley Hunt. And that it often takes years for some people to be properly diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.

District Attorney Michael Allen said the prosecution intends to call one more witness, and that it should rest its case on Monday.

The defense expert who found Stauch to be insane is expected to testify early next week.