(NewsNation) — Murdering someone is one thing, but disposing of the evidence in a suitcase screams “consciousness of guilt,” says NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield.
Banfield has covered multiple “killers with baggage” cases and reviewed them on Monday night.
Letecia Stauch
Jurors found Letecia Stauch guilty of murder in the death of her 11-year-old stepson in May of 2023, rejecting her claim that she was insane when she attacked him.
Stauch was convicted on all charges she faced in Gannon Stauch’s killing more than three years after prosecutors said she stabbed Gannon 18 times before hitting him in the head and then shooting him once.
Stauch did not deny killing Gannon and taking his body across the country in a suitcase in the back of a rented van. But she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense argued that she killed Gannon during a “psychotic break” caused by trauma from being physically, emotionally and sexually abused during her childhood.
Melanie McGuire
In a case dubbed the “Suitcase Murder,” Melanie McGuire was found guilty of murdering her Navy veteran husband, “Bill” McGuire, in 2004. She dismembered her husband and disposed of his body across three suitcases, sinking each in the Chesapeake Bay.
In 2022, Lifetime turned the story into a true-crime movie titled “Suitcase Killer: The Melanie McGuire Story.”
Sarah Boone
Sarah Boone, 42, faces second-degree murder charges in the death of 42-year-old Jorge Torres Jr., according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
She’s accused of zipping her boyfriend into a suitcase, recording his repeated cries for help and leaving him locked inside until his death
The Florida woman’s trial has been postponed until July.
Investigators said she claimed they had been drinking the night before and agreed it would be funny if Torres got into the suitcase during a game of hide-and-seek, according to an arrest affidavit from the sheriff’s office.
NewsNation writer Urja Sinha and The Associated Press contributed to this report.