Nearly two months after the body of missing Florida 13-year-old Madeline Soto was officially recovered, Stephan Sterns – the man considered the prime suspect in the case – was charged with first-degree murder.
FEBRUARY 26
Madeline Soto was reported missing around 8 p.m. after Stephan Sterns – her mother’s boyfriend, reportedly dropped her off near Hunter’s Creek Middle School.
Soto’s mother went to the school around 4:30 p.m. to pick her up, but she was told that Soto had never come to school that day, according to investigators. In addition, Soto’s phone was left at home.
FEBRUARY 27
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office issued a release to the public about Soto’s disappearance, asking for information about her whereabouts.
FEBRUARY 28
A massive search was conducted by the sheriff’s office on Feb. 28.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said that deputies accessed Soto’s phone, finding information that indicated she wanted to live in the woods when she turned 13 years old on Feb. 22.
He also said that deputies searched the area where she was last seen, areas where they’d received tips, and any areas where their investigative leads took them. Ultimately, the search came up empty.
Investigators determined, however, that she was never actually dropped off at school and it was likely that she was already dead at this point. Her body was found in rural Osceola County on March 1.
However, the sheriff’s office announced that Sterns was arrested as the prime suspect in Soto’s disappearance.
Sterns, the boyfriend of Madeline’s mother, was charged with her murder on April 24, nearly two months after she was first reported missing. He currently remains in custody. In an update from the State Attorney’s Office this week, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in this case should he be convicted.
Sterns is facing a first-degree murder charge for the death of Madeline, and is also staring down 60 additional charges filed by the State Attorney’s Office for unrelated sex-related crimes like molestation, sexual battery and child porn possession.
The new documents obtained this week reveal that some of the disturbing material found on Sterns phone after he willingly handed his phone over to law enforcement were that of Madeline.
Jenn reportedly told detectives that it was “normal” for Sterns and Madeline to sleep in the same bed. She also said that Madeline was diagnosed with ADHD.
Jenn also told police that it wasn’t uncommon for the three of them to sleep in the same bed.
The girl was last seen wearing a green sweatshirt, black shorts, and white Crocs, the Kissimmee police, the lead investigation agency on her death, said Friday. The Orange County Sheriff’s office said that evidence reported she was “never dropped off near her school” on the morning she vanished. Video footage from the day she disappeared shows Sterns “discarding items in a dumpster at the family’s Kissimmee apartment complex” at 7:35 a.m., the sheriff’s office reported on X, adding investigators found Madeline’s backpack in the dumpster. Footage then shows Sterns allegedly returning to the family’s home at 8:20 a.m. with “Madeline visible in the car,” but investigators think she was already dead.
During the sheriff’s office’s investigation into Madeline’s disappearance, detectives found “disturbing images when they forensically examined Sterns’ phone” − some which he reportedly attempted to delete. Madeline Soto was sexually abused from 2019 at least until her death.
Sex crimes, detectives reported, took place at Madeline’s home.
Madeline Soto was strangled to death. Her body was found in a wooded area.
People suspect mother’s involvement.
Prosecutor didn’t bring charges against mother.
Detective: “So there are things and the reason I say these things and again I’m not trying to be an asshole, but the reason I say these things is there’s been a lot of things you’ve said and a lot of things I’ve kind of researched between the Fox 35 story, between your initial statement to the police. A lot of things have changed. Initial statement to the police was you watched her get dress, you watched her leave, you knew exactly what she was wearing…
Jennifer Soto: “Can I, can I tell you my thought process on that or where I came from with that? I was handed this form and I’m like ‘where do I start, what are I write’ and somebody say, somebody said ‘tell them what you saw’ and so I started with ‘I saw’ and then I wrote out what I wrote, but it wasn’t until later I was like ‘wait, I didn’t see her’, I assumed that I saw her, I assumed that I heard her, but I didn’t. In reality I didn’t see her, I only saw him and I heard something in the kitchen, but I don’t know who that was.
Detective: “Which we’ve talked about today. But I guess my, there’re other concerns, (redacted) right? You are nervous (redacted). The police have showed you their hand they. He said ‘Stephan we want your phone, Stephan we want to talk to you, we going to lock down your residence, you can’t go back inside’. Me (redacted), I don’t care if it’s the love of my life sitting next to me, I don’t care if it’s maternal grandma, if the police come and take my mom’s phone in my son’s disappearance. I’m not going to offer my mom a lawyer, that’s nuts to me. That to me shows you prioritizing Stephan over (redacted), because at that point you became more worried about him being falsely accused than (redacted). Does that make sense what I’m saying? Whether or not, that’s what you felt. Does that make sense? People having lawyers is their constitutional right. That is a thing that everybody has afforded. But for somebody who’s going through what you are going through, to offer him a lawyer leads me to believe that there may have been a conversation, there may have been knowledge or there may have been some inclination that you had, whether it be his involvement, her location or something to where in your mind there’s guilt.
Jennifer Soto: “I promise you like…”
Detective: “cause you offering him a lawyer is very weird.”
Jennifer Soto: “I know. I know. I, that was still me under the assumption that, I think at one point… No, at one point, you guys, interviewed me and when, you guys, showed me the picture of her, I believed the sexual stuff, but I didn’t want to believe that he had done anything evil to her. I’m like ‘no, what if she, what if he did this stuff, fine. But what if she’s still missing out there? What if somebody took her?’ I wanted to believe in his, I, I believed him, I believed his whole story, so I was just like ‘I, I kept repeating that part, I’m just like ‘what if, what if she did dropped off? What if she I got abducted? What if she’s missing um…?’ But that was me assuming that, you guys, had the wrong guy. I wanted to think he was a good guy still, but clearly he’s not. After everything, you guys, have told me and have shown me, I know he’s the worst person on this face of the earth.”
Detective: “We know that now. We know that he’s a piece of shit now. But you didn’t know that then.”
Jennifer Soto: “I know. I didn’t.”
Detective: “Then, you offered a guy who the police suspected of kidnapping, abducting, assisting the disappearance (redacted), offered him a lawyer. And then we don’t have to roundtable that you went back to what you just said is ‘the sex stuff is fine’.
Jennifer Soto: “It’s not fine.”
Detective: “We’ve talked to his dad and his dad knows as much as you know. He knows his son’s a rapist. He knows his son’s a murderer. He’s talked to us. He’s been very open with wanting to help in any way he can, whether that’s technological, whether that’s verbal.
Jennifer Soto: “Yeah. He, he even had I was with him when he turned in his knife to, you guys. He remembered he had a knife on him and gave it to, you guys. I thought that was…”
Detective: “Have you talked to Chris about Stephan needing a lawyer.”
Jennifer Soto: “Yeah.”
Detective: “What?”
Jennifer Soto: “I think when you guys showed me the, the, the, the photos.”
Detective: “So we showed you photos of Stephan raping (redacted), first thought you had us to ask his father if he should get a lawyer?”
Jennifer Soto: “No. I saw a pic…, I didn’t see the rap. I didn’t know she was getting raped until yesterday. I saw the picture of the oral sex happening. And I knew that, that was true right, that’s evidence. That’s for real. That’s fucking happening. But I kept thinking ‘they’re going’, I don’t know why I kept, I can’t tell you why my brain kept thinking ‘no, he didn’t kill’, not that he didn’t kill her, but ‘she’s still missing, she’s still out there. She was taken’. Yes, he’s done this to her and that’s not okay, but I swore she was still, I felt in my body she was still alive, she was still out there. I told Chris to get him a lawyer, cuz I felt like you guys were chasing the wrong person. But you weren’t. You’re not.”
Detective: “We showed you a picture, of (redacted). The picture you saw she was (redacted) giving a blowjob to a grown ass man, who’s (redacted) and you told his dad to get him a lawyer. (redacted) missing, right? Now you (redacted), but then you just thought she was missing and we were showing you our investigative (redacted) being raped. A blowjob is rape not consensual, whether she wants to do it or not, that is not consensual and you prioritize him again. You prioritized him by offering him or telling his dad to get him a lawyer not what the fuck did he do? …”
Detective: “Why would you say that to him?”
Jennifer Soto: “Because I never tru… I never trusted. I, I grew up being told ‘never trust a man’. My mom put that in my body. ‘Never trust a man’. “
Stephen Sterns didn’t work. He worked for a while at Disney and according to Jennifer Soto they met while both were working at real estate company. He collected toys, watched Star Wars and was interested in things which are for children. He never became a responsible adult. His parent were helping him financially and there is a suspicion that 35 000 photos were sold on the black market. Sterns’s parents reported that he has a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Jennifer Soto was granted derivative use immunity which prohibits information provided by someone from being used against them if the state attorney decides to charge her at a later time. However, if the state attorney can provide an independent legitimate source to provide evidence against her, then she could be charged. Derivative use immunity provides broader protection by preventing the government from using any evidence or information derived from the witness’s testimony against them.
