Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Maddie Soto Murder: 7 New Disturbing Details in Teen's Slaying Revealed

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Documents just released in the Maddie Soto murder investigation reveal new details about how and when the 13-year-old died. Body camera video also shows her mother, Jenn Soto, and the man accused of sexually abusing and murdering Maddie, Stephan Sterns, as deputies search for her. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy combs through the new records and goes through the details in this episode of Crime Fix –a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. All right. Can I get you, like, the last outfit you were wearing? Has it been, like, with all the clothes and all that, like, your clothes? It got mixed in with pink clothes and dirty clothes. What do you think? Newly released body camera video shows more of the efforts to find Maddie Soto as documents reveal how the 13-year-old girl died.

It's one of seven new details coming out about the Florida teenager's murder as her mother's boyfriend faces a possible death sentence for the crime. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. For months, Maddie Soto's cause of death has been kept under wraps, but now new documents are shedding some light on how and possibly when Maddie died. I'll get to that and what the roommates of Maddie's mother told detectives here in just a bit. You'll also hear from Stefan Stearns' parents. It's pretty revealing and very sad. Maddie Soto had just celebrated her 13th birthday in Kissimmee, Florida when her mother, Jen Soto, reported her missing on the evening of February 26. So she was supposed to be dropped off at school, didn't make it to school. Didn't make it to school. I went to pick her up from school today and she never came out.

They announced it over the speaker and I'm just like, maybe she walked here because sometimes she'll walk here to this office. I came here, went back to the school it was closed I got a notice an email from the school saying she was absent but I also messaged her teacher and he looked at her entire attendance today and saw that she was completely not at school today either okay um so she never her name? Madeline. M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E. M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E. Last name? Soto. S-O-T-O. S-O-T-O? Yeah. Deputies immediately began searching for Maddie, going through wooded areas and even trying to figure out if she ran away. As they did that, they interviewed Jen Soto and Stefan Stearns about what happened the morning of February 26. I heard everyone getting ready around,

I'm going to say 7.30, 8 o'clock. And was it just Stefan? Who else lives here? I have roommates. Okay. I have Angelica Negro, who's one roommate, and then Natalie Rosero. Okay. And you just heard all of them, or did you hear anyone in specific? No, I just heard, if anything, Stefan came and woke me up accidentally because, um, he was trying to let the dog out and the dog, uh, gets really nervous sometimes.

I was trying to help him with that, uh, get him on his leash, but, uh, he got him situated and took him for a walk. Okay. Did you hear around 7 or 8? I heard noises in the kitchen, but I'm not sure, you know. Not sure who it was exactly? Who it was exactly, yeah. Gotcha. It could have been any of the roommates. But you didn't see her leave Monday morning. Were you still in bed or still in your room?

I was still asleep, yeah. Gotcha. That week, canines checked out the cars belonging to both Maddie's mother, Jen Soto, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Stefan Stearns, who had come to town that Sunday night. the dog barked at Jen Soto's car but it's really not clear why this was a cadaver dog but detectives had said Stearns had Maddie's body in his car Jennifer Soto told detectives she last saw Maddie on the evening of Sunday February 25th after she came home from work and after Maddie's birthday party. So you last saw her Sunday night about what time? I would say 11 p.m. before she went to bed.

And you were here at home? Yeah. Gotcha. And where did she go to bed? Was she in her room, your room or something else? She actually slept upstairs, uh, with, um, um, we have a guest bedroom. We, we were all going to sleep together in the same bed, but I needed some good sleep. And, um, I had not, I got a new job recently. I haven't been more rested. I needed some sleep. So I asked, hey, can you guys go to the guest bedroom upstairs? I knew he was going to get her ready.

Stearns and Maddie had spent the night in bedroom four. There are photos of that that were just released. Stearns said that Maddie had forgotten her phone when he took her to school that Monday morning. I think you said she left her phone, right? Yeah. Where did she leave her phone at? She left it in her room. She's ADHD. So am I for that matter. You left your phone too, huh? Yeah. And Stearns would actually say that he and Maddie both forgot their phones that morning. Newly released documents show what happened between 11 p.m. Sunday night and the next morning. That Sunday night at 11.39 p.m., Jen Soto texted Stefan Stearns, make sure she goes to bed right now. Stearns responded, okay, sweetie, good night. Jen responded, good night. One minute

later, Stefan texted Jen, she's built her nest and she's settling in now. Jen responded, okay, good. There's also health app data from Maddie's phone that shows her movements from Sunday night to Monday morning. That Sunday night at 11.19 PM, the report says that Maddie's phone took 31 steps and climbed one floor, which matched the time when Jennifer sent Madeline and Stefan upstairs to go to sleep. There's no more activity from the health app listed until the next morning. At 7.05 a.m. on February 26th, Maddie's phone took 113 steps. Ten minutes later, at 7.15, the phone takes 50 steps.

And then there's no other health activity on that phone until 10.55 a.m. when Stefan arrived home to the residence. One of Maddie's friends also told police that she would have a text from Maddie every morning when she woke up. But not on the morning of February 26th. Maddie's best friend said she did not receive a text from Maddie. One of Jen Soto's female roommates was later interviewed and said she went to sleep around 2.30 that morning, and she said she was hearing noises coming from Stefan's room. She described the noise as someone putting stuff on a table, but in order for her to hear those noises, it would have to be significant based upon the noise would have to travel through two doors

across the hallway. That same roommate said she saw Stefan that morning after she went downstairs around 10.30 a.m. and described Stefan as acting odd, going upstairs and downstairs and out of the apartment that morning. Stefan was also washing clothes that morning, which she had never seen him do before. Police searched the condo where Maddie lived with her mom.

The makeshift bedroom on the first floor that belonged to Maddie looked untouched. She never slept there, according to her mother, but she hung out in that room during the day. Crime scene techs found one of Maddie's white Crocs in her mother's bedroom. That means she did not wear her white Crocs when she left the house that morning, as Stearns had claimed. Anything else that we haven't asked you that feels important? Maybe that might help us out. I'm sorry, I'm having trouble recollecting everything. I'm going to step away for a second.

Anything that you remember maybe she might have told you? She didn't mention anything in particular. I made a joke about her Crocs. She wears Crocs and socks. So we were joking about that. Crime scene techs said they found the mate to that white Croc found in the bedroom in the dumpster where they also

found Maddie's backpack and school laptop. We have video evidence that shows Stephan Stearns discarding items in a dumpster in that apartment complex in Kissimmee at 735 on Monday, February 26th. Detectives later recovered Madeline's backpack and her school-issued laptop from that dumpster. The sexual abuse and murder of Maddie Soto is hard to talk about, but it's an important story, and we're able to bring it to you because of sponsors like Morgan & Morgan. Morgan & Morgan has more than 1,000 attorneys that you may want in your corner if you are ever injured. Morgan & Morgan has won several multim-million dollar verdicts in settlements recently for victims who were in life-altering car crashes, all of which were considerably higher than the highest insurance company offer. Starting a claim takes eight clicks

or less, and it can all be done from your smartphone. And there are no upfront fees. You only pay Morgan & Morgan if you win. So if you are hurt, you can easily start a claim in eight clicks or less at ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix. Stephan Stearns had told investigators that they were leaving early for school that morning because they planned to go to McDonald's. Woke up around 7, 7.15, somewhere around there, which is an early start for us. But we had talked about getting McDonald's breakfast beforehand, so we wanted to make good time. We did make good time.

We got out the door maybe 7.30ish, 7.45ish maybe. Got over to that area. She was asleep in the car most of the time, just snoozing until we got there. We got to McDonald's. We're close to McDonald's. I said, do you still want it? Wasn't interested in McDonald's anymore, so we continued on. Now, a lot of people found this very surprising when they heard it, because what kid turns down McDonald's breakfast? New documents and interviews with Jen Soto show that they had talked about

Stephan and Maddie going to McDonald's the night before. And so you, I think you had said the previous night, you and Stefan had agreed that he was going to get and take her in the morning. Okay. And they were going to stop at McDonald's and get breakfast, but she changed her mind last minute and did not want McDonald's. Okay. When did you find that out?

When did I find that out? Um, when did I find that out? When Stefan called me around 10, 18 in the morning, um, I had stepped out to go get blood work done and he had just let me know that, uh, he just got back home, uh, from running a few errands and that, uh, I asked, did you guys ever just stop at McDonald's? And he said, no, she changed her mind. He tried convincing her a few times, but she did not want McDonald's anymore. By now, you know that Maddie never made it to school that morning. And the sheriff of Orange County has said that Stefan Stearns was actually driving around with Maddie's dead body in the car that morning. At 819, we have evidence that shows Stefan Stearns returning to the complex and Madeline was visible in that vehicle.

We believe she was already dead at that time. Search dogs had tried to pick up Maddie's scent to track her the night she was reported missing, but they couldn't pick up the scent. Two nights later on February 28th, the canine handlers wanted to try again. Hey guys, so we're just going to try to see if we can pull one more clothing for collecting the clothes. Okay, that's okay with you guys? Yeah. We're going to pull one more and then we're going to have the dog sniff it out again and see if we can get another track going.

Yeah. All right. Can I get you, like, the last outfit you were wearing? Has it been, like, with other clothes and all that, like your clothes? It got mixed in with pink clothes and dirty clothes. What do you think? Is it on the floor there in the bathroom? It's in the laundry basket.

Were the other clothes not good enough? No. We just try to collect separate ones and then we separate all of them just in case one was contaminated we have something else we can use without having to come and bother you guys. I was just thinking on Sunday, the last day we had her, she had a lot of clothes. But Sunday, she had a lot of clothes. So I was just wondering if that would be helpful with us fixing the dirty clothes or is it her dirty clothes? Is there, is her underwear?

What about like a pillow that she likes to sleep with? Underwear is not. I mean all that stuff works. Yeah, but you slept on the pillow this morning. No, that's right. I slept on the pillow. Like is, would she have taken. Underwear, there would be underwear on the bathroom floor.

Okay, I thought I saw underwear yesterday. And that hasn't been touched yet. Okay, then that'll, that's like the closestines was again unsuccessful. The next evening on Thursday, February 29th, detectives were driving Jen Soto to a planned press conference. My anxiety keeps my brain circling, just wondering where is she? Is she okay? I hope she's fine. I just want my baby back. During the ride, the detective asked Jen Soto again about Stefan and Maddie sleeping in the same bed. At times, the audio drops out. That's because it's redacted when Maddie's name is used. I was very vigilant for the first few years of how he would interact with her and what he would do. And I would question if anything was weird, but nothing ever was truly weird. I'm just like, okay.

I even had a role for the longest time. I asked him for sleepovers with him. As in, if he were to sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs. And I would say, no, you guys can hang out and do whatever, but sleeping, you're sleeping with me. Understandable. Um, just because even, even, even if I've known him for seven years, I, the idea of, of course it would be weird if he went out, a little girl sleeping with a man that's not

her dad. Uh, it sounds weird, but, um, so I, I haven't, um, I trusted him enough to even, to, to let that even happen that night, you know? I mean, is it, is it common, because I know you said you would never let him in the past, but is it common to let her sleep up with him, or let them spend a lot of time alone together? Um, I think I would, I'm to say I've let them sleep together less than what I can count on these two hands. Not much. But a lot of the times it was just the three of us sleeping together in my bed too. That audio was recorded a short time before Stefan Stearns was charged with the sexual battery of Maddie.

On Friday, March 1st, detectives went back to Jen Soto hours before Maddie'ss was charged with the sexual battery of Maddie. On Friday, March 1st, detectives went back to Jen Soto hours before Maddie's body was found. They said they asked her what she thought Stefan Stearns was guilty of. Soto said, he's been grooming and abusing my child. The detective wrote, I asked Jennifer if she thought Stefan killed Madeline. And she said, at this point, I do. Now, this was just hours after they had shown her photographs that showed Stearns sexually abusing Maddie. Later that day, police found Maddie's body in between two trees on a farm on Hickory Tree Road, where a man said he had seen someone matching Stearns' description changing attire that Monday. The detectives noted that

the lock on the fence was not tampered with, so they believed that Stearns would have had to have dropped Maddie's body over a barbed wire fence. The detectives wrote, Madeline showed signs of decomposition to one side of her face and her hands. Madeline was wearing a green hoodie. The hoodie portion was over the top of her head, blue jeans and white socks. The bottom of Madeline's socks were clean, which indicates she did not walk anywhere or the socks would have had dirt on the bottom. Those documents that were just released said that Maddie's autopsy determined her death was a homicide and that she had been strangled. The exact time Maddie died isn't known, but her health app only showed her taking those 163 steps that morning between 7.05 and 7.15. Photos also show part of the searches of

the condo where Maddie lived with her mom and those two female roommates. Some photos show the area of the living room where Maddie's room was located, but her mother, as I mentioned earlier, told detectives she didn't like to sleep there, so she typically slept with her. Jen Soto was asked to describe her sex life with Stefan by detectives. She described it as vanilla and said there were some things that Stefan wanted her to do that she wasn't willing to. Jen Soto had told one of her roommates that she had not had sex with Stearns in six months. Detectives later said they found 1,700 images of Stefan Stearns engaging in sex acts with Maddie in his Google Drive, some of them going back years. In some of those images, Maddie was asleep.

Detectives wrote in a video that Stearns used watching more cartoons as a lure to get Maddie to perform a sex act. Jen Soto told the prosecutor in April that she wasn't sure how many times she had allowed Maddie to sleep in a bed with Stefan Stearns, but she said she allowed it because she trusted Stefan and he treated her as his daughter. So what do Stefan Stearns' parents have to say about all of this? He'd been living with them since December. Maddie disappeared at the end of February. Detectives spoke with them days after Maddie's body was found. Do you think he was capable of doing what he did?

If you had asked me Sunday, I would have said no. Never in a million years. He loved that child that was supposed to be his stepdaughter if they stayed together. He helped raise her. He was not allowed to discipline her. Maddie did that. Jim did that, but he acted as a peacekeeper, but no. And to kill her? No, no, no. I think if I had to put forward a guess, I would think that it was accidental. Here's Stefan Stearns' father, Chris Stearns. I said, you know, do we really know our son? Because at that point, I didn't know what to question. Apparently not from some of the stuff that's coming out of that, these calls into Greg Hughes.

That interview was in March. In April, detectives made note of a jail phone call between Chris Stearns and Stefan Stearns. During the call, detectives quote Stefan Stearns as saying, you know that I would never have wanted that for her, meaning Madeline. Stefan then said, I am not really sure that any one person is specifically responsible. It's probably a combination of factors that led to it. I have never felt anything like that before. It was horrible. Chris tells Stefan that he hopes the truth will come out. And Stefan responds, well, yeah.

The next day, Chris Stearns called police after he found a hard drive in his storage unit that he said had been removed from Stefan's computer. Investigators said it had been analyzed and not used since 2020, but contained 35,000 images of child pornography, but none of Maddie. Chris Stearns had told detectives that he actually believed Jen Soto had some responsibility for her daughter's murder. You look at her hugging him and consoling him at that interview, you know, knowing full well what the truth is. And I think Stefan's decided to be the fall guy in this because he's feeling remorse over the, over the inappropriate

relationship he had with, with Maddie. And that since, you know, if he's going to be, if he's going to be discovered in this, that he's going to be the front guy of this. But she's just as culpable as he is in this. There have been a lot of questions about whether Jen Soto could face charges for allowing Maddie to sleep in a bed with Stephan Stearns. WFTV reported last week that police have no plans to charge Jen Soto. I contacted the state attorney's office for that area and I was told, quote, WFTV reported last week that police have no plans to charge Jen Soto. I contacted the state attorney's office for that area, and I was told, quote, The current evidence and information support the indictment of Stefan Stearns for first-degree murder. They wouldn't say anything more.

Stefan Stearns remains behind bars, charged with Maddie's murder and sexual battery. I asked whether a plea deal could be in the works for him, and I was only told that the case continues to move through the judicial process. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.