Lieutenant Jake Abendschan

He had been a deputy sheriff for 21 years. He is currently a lieutenant for the patrol division. He does a lot of administrative work and overseeing the general operations of the day shift on patrol.

Background

• In 2020 he was a detective sergeant in the investigations division.
• On January 31st 2020 he was responsible for the monitoring and placement of a GPS tracker on a particular vehicle - the Nissan Altima rented by Letecia Stauch.
• The GPS was used to try to identify whether a person or vehicle is in a particular place at a particular time; it was information gathering.
• They were hoping to find the location of where Gannon Stauch may be by tracking the vehicle.
• Abendschan gave the members of Vice Narcotics and Intelligence the tracking device; he is not the one who applied for a warrant.
• Once the device was placed and activated, he had the ability to log into the system and see where the tracker was at any given time.
• It generates points and addresses to let them know how the vehicle is moving.
• GPS is not monitored 24/7; it keeps a historical record of the addresses it stops at how long it was there.
• That evening he did multiple checks to make sure it was registering and working.
• The GPS ping was set for 1 or 2 minutes.
• Officers can print out a report that lists everywhere the vehicle had gone during the specified time period.
• One printed report was from January 31st 2020 1:38 PM - Feb 1st 2020 at 4:44 PM.
• Exhibit 230 - an address report printed for that time period.
• The tracking devices had nicknames depending on which detective used it the most; the tracker that was placed on the Nissan Altima was nicknamed “Jake”.
• At 2:58PM shows the Nissan at the hotel.
• At 3:37 PM on January 31st the vehicle began to move faster than 5 miles an hour.
• At 4PM is was going 52 miles an hour.
• At 4:41 PM the vehicle stops briefly near South Perry Park; this location became an area of interest later in the investigation.
• Searches were going on in the area due to this stop - searching for evidence or Gannon’s body in the area.
• This area is just north of Palmer Lake on highway 105, just across the county line.
• The area is also called the S Curve.
• They were not monitoring this live.
• At 4:58 the vehicle was going 41 miles an hour westbound.
• The GPS would ping every 5 minutes.
• At 6:23 PM she was back at the hotel.
• On February 1st at 10:52 AM the vehicle was in Castle Rock heading north.
• At 4:06 PM, the vehicle is now in Denver at the rental car area of Denver International Airport.
• One of the detectives got information that the car had been returned so someone was sent to retrieve the GPS.