Sergeant Rosario Hubbell

He works for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. He is currently sergeant for the patrol midnight shift. He has worked there 16 years.

In January 2020 he was the major crimes sergeant for the investigations division.
Major crimes are assaults, armed robberies, homicides, major child abuse cases with felony charges, cold case work, missing and runaway persons.
He received a request from the Fountain Police Department offering assistance with Gannon.
This is how Hubbell became aware of the report that patrol took.
He was the supervisor during the investigation.
The case began as a missing person runaway case. Detectives then ran standard procedure for missing persons and asked for a comparative sample of Gannon’s DNA.
They started to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Letecia stopped cooperating which made them even more concerned with finding Gannon.
The case was updated to a potential abduction but they did not have the ability to put out an AMBER Alert so they began to expand with search & rescue.
Community groups put together teams of people who went searching.
The entire investigations division was working full time on the case.
They had to rely on the information Letecia gave as the last person to see him.
The first cursory search happened on January 27th 2020, there were more searches throughout January and February and each one helped develop the investigation and push it further.
On February 3rd, 2020 Hubbell responded to the Stauch home and did another search.
In Gannon’s room, there was blood evidence on the walls, on an electrical socket. It was very hard to see; not easily visible to the human eye.
They wanted to use BlueStar in Gannon’s room; when Hubbell arrived it appeared the blood had been cleaned up.
The carpet was pulled back because sometimes when you clean a carpet you push things into the back of the carpet.
Hubbell felt it was stiff and accidentally touched it without gloves. There was saturation through the carpet, the carpet pad, and onto the cement from a blood stain.
This was directly underneath Gannon’s bed.
A blood stain analyst, Tom Griffin, was consulted to examine Gannon’s room.
Hubbell is certified in level 1 crime scene construction. His crime scene class was taught by Griffin.
They used a lot of BlueStar at the Stauch home.
On February 25th, 2020 Hubbell documented the entire residence via video camera due to the complexity of the scene.
The house faces north, Gannon’s room was in the southeast corner of the house.
Exhibit 373 is a disc containing the video he took, 22 minutes.
Now he says it is from March 25th 2020.
The video is played.
There is a padlock on the fence next to the garage (Gannon would definitely not have been able to unlock it from the back yard).
The floor planks in the garage are in a different spot they were in during the initial searches.
There was a presumptive positive of blood on the boards.
There was a BlueStar reaction on the stairs showing a potential shoe impression.
In the laundry area, the tile floor reacted to the BlueStar; droplet size.
There is a small spot of blood on the door and door handle of the door between the garage and laundry blue.
The floor where the tile meets the carpet also reacted to BlueStar. The carpet in the living room reacted to BlueStar; there was no saturation under the carpet.
The stairs to the basement reacted to BlueStar; more droplets.
Cleaning provides a slow reaction unlike blood.
It showed heavy cleaning on the stairs.
There was a Luminol reaction on the landing but no saturation on the other side of the carpet.
The baseboards around the landing reacted to BlueStar.
The carpet at the bottom of the stairs reacted to BlueStar showing a lot of cleaning in that area.
There was a reaction to BlueStar at the base of a table, about quarter size.
In the basement, in the cut out portion of carpet the padding tested positive for BlueStar.
BlueStar showed a lot of cleaning near the furniture.
The hallway outside of Gannon’s bedroom reacted to BlueStar and showed a trail to the back corner of the storage area near the sump pump.
Multiple areas of the storage room showed BlueStar reactions.
There are dozens of stickers denoting blood spatter on the walls of Gannon’s room in the corner where his bed was.
There is a large red stain in the corner directly underneath where his bed had been.
The state clarifies it was February 25th, 2020.
He does not recall when Al moved out.

Cross Examination

This was February 25th 2020.
The searches with BlueStar were several days prior to that.
The BlueStar trail ended at the sump pump.
The storage room was empty when they used BlueStar.
BlueStar is testing for iron; it is the building blocks of blood - protein and iron.
Presumably, further testing was done on the swabs; CSI techs collected the actual swabs.

Juror questions

Does BlueStar in any way compromise the subsequent analysis of the collected blood sample?: That would be a great question for the crime lab. A scientist would be able to explain it better. When they say something is positive for blood they mean 100% it is blood. I don’t know if it does not impact the sample of if they test out the BlueStar.
Was the trash bin outside searched for evidence?: The night that Sergeant Smith was there, the trash can was looked at.

Sergeant Rosario Hubbell

He works for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. He is currently sergeant for the patrol midnight shift. He has worked there 16 years.

In January 2020 he was the major crimes sergeant for the investigations division.

Major crimes are assaults, armed robberies, homicides, major child abuse cases with felony charges, cold case work, missing and runaway persons.

He received a request from the Fountain Police Department offering assistance with Gannon.

This is how Hubbell became aware of the report that patrol took.

He was the supervisor during the investigation.

The case began as a missing person runaway case. Detectives then ran standard procedure for missing persons and asked for a comparative sample of Gannon’s DNA.

They started to prepare for the worst case scenario.

Letecia stopped cooperating which made them even more concerned with finding Gannon.

The case was updated to a potential abduction but they did not have the ability to put out an AMBER Alert so they began to expand with search & rescue.

Community groups put together teams of people who went searching.

The entire investigations division was working full time on the case.

They had to rely on the information Letecia gave as the last person to see him.

The first cursory search happened on January 27th 2020, there were more searches throughout January and February and each one helped develop the investigation and push it further.

On February 3rd, 2020 Hubbell responded to the Stauch home and did another search.

In Gannon’s room, there was blood evidence on the walls, on an electrical socket. It was very hard to see; not easily visible to the human eye.

They wanted to use BlueStar in Gannon’s room; when Hubbell arrived it appeared the blood had been cleaned up.

The carpet was pulled back because sometimes when you clean a carpet you push things into the back of the carpet.

Hubbell felt it was stiff and accidentally touched it without gloves. There was saturation through the carpet, the carpet pad, and onto the cement from a blood stain.

This was directly underneath Gannon’s bed.

A blood stain analyst, Tom Griffin, was consulted to examine Gannon’s room.

Hubbell is certified in level 1 crime scene construction. His crime scene class was taught by Griffin.

They used a lot of BlueStar at the Stauch home.

On February 25th, 2020 Hubbell documented the entire residence via video camera due to the complexity of the scene.

The house faces north, Gannon’s room was in the southeast corner of the house.

Exhibit 373 is a disc containing the video he took, 22 minutes.

Now he says it is from March 25th 2020.

The video is played.

There is a padlock on the fence next to the garage (Gannon would definitely not have been able to unlock it from the back yard).

The floor planks in the garage are in a different spot they were in during the initial searches.

There was a presumptive positive of blood on the boards.

There was a BlueStar reaction on the stairs showing a potential shoe impression.

In the laundry area, the tile floor reacted to the BlueStar; droplet size.

There is a small spot of blood on the door and door handle of the door between the garage and laundry blue.

The floor where the tile meets the carpet also reacted to BlueStar. The carpet in the living room reacted to BlueStar; there was no saturation under the carpet.

The stairs to the basement reacted to BlueStar; more droplets.

Cleaning provides a slow reaction unlike blood.

It showed heavy cleaning on the stairs.

There was a Luminol reaction on the landing but no saturation on the other side of the carpet.

The baseboards around the landing reacted to BlueStar.

The carpet at the bottom of the stairs reacted to BlueStar showing a lot of cleaning in that area.

There was a reaction to BlueStar at the base of a table, about quarter size.

In the basement, in the cut out portion of carpet the padding tested positive for BlueStar.

BlueStar showed a lot of cleaning near the furniture.

The hallway outside of Gannon’s bedroom reacted to BlueStar and showed a trail to the back corner of the storage area near the sump pump.

Multiple areas of the storage room showed BlueStar reactions.

There are dozens of stickers denoting blood spatter on the walls of Gannon’s room in the corner where his bed was.

There is a large red stain in the corner directly underneath where his bed had been.

The state clarifies it was February 25th, 2020.

He does not recall when Al moved out.

Cross Examination

This was February 25th 2020.

The searches with BlueStar were several days prior to that.

The BlueStar trail ended at the sump pump.

The storage room was empty when they used BlueStar.

BlueStar is testing for iron; it is the building blocks of blood - protein and iron.

Presumably, further testing was done on the swabs; CSI techs collected the actual swabs.

Juror questions

Does BlueStar in any way compromise the subsequent analysis of the collected blood sample?: That would be a great question for the crime lab. A scientist would be able to explain it better. When they say something is positive for blood they mean 100% it is blood. I don’t know if it does not impact the sample of if they test out the BlueStar.

Was the trash bin outside searched for evidence?: The night that Sergeant Smith was there, the trash can was looked at.