Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Maddie Soto Murder: Sheriff Under Fire for Posting Pic of Murdered Teen on Instagram

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

When Maddie Soto's body was found hidden on a property in Osceola County on March 1st, several members of law enforcement entered the crime scene. The crime scene log shows Sheriff Marcos Lopez was one of those people. The next day, a photo that appeared to be the body of Maddie Soto appeared on the sheriff's social media account as he touted a senior citizens event. Now, the state attorney has issued a citation for the post to Sheriff Lopez. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy details the social media mishap and what consequences the sheriff could face in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Use the code LAW15 for 15% off at citybeauty.com/LCCrimeFix. That’s promo code LAW15 for 15% off your order!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Joe Giacalone https://youtu.be/6q5AHcg92sA?si=9WGfN7TI3QbybBQCTim Jansen https://www.instagram.com/courtroomchef/CRIME 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/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee 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 and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Sheriff Lopez with the Astorla County Sheriff's Office. A sheriff in Florida who's all over social media is now in trouble himself for posting a photo of murdered teenager Matty Soto online. I have the details on when he's due in court and the punishment he could receive. I'm Anjanette Levy and this is Crime Fix. Sheriff Marcos Lopez is known for his

Facebook videos where he showcases Osceola County's most wanted suspects, but now he's known for making a major blunder on social media by posting a photo of Maddie Soto's body on his Instagram account that's the accusation it was obviously a mistake and the photo was quickly deleted but the act raises a lot of questions that I'll get to later on first a quick recap on how this investigation into Maddie Soto's disappearance and death started Maddie the Kissimmee girl who had just celebrated her 13th birthday, was reported missing on Monday, February 26th by her mother, Jen Soto. Soto reported her daughter missing when she didn't come out of school. Hey there. Hey there. What's going on? So my daughter was dropped off close to school this morning, but never made it. I went to the drop-off school. I'm sorry, one second.

Go ahead, sir. Are we looking for another kid or we have a kid? Looking for another one. All right, before we go on, let's put that out. Now, you saw in the background the boyfriend of Jen Soto, Stefan Stearns. He had claimed that he dropped Maddie off at a church that morning, a distance away from her school. He took deputies to the area where he claimed he dropped her off that night. They're here? I can't remember the exact spot, but it was around where these communities were. Oh, thank you.

So it was like around where these communities were. Okay. And it's just like in this stretch. Like we could see the overpass down there. Where's the school? Just on the other side of the overpass. So somewhere around here. So, yeah, somewhere.

Maybe not this one, but the next one possibly is right in this stretch. We just came down and we drove about halfway down and she was like, that's good right here. Okay. The next morning, Stearns explained why he didn't drop Maddie off in front of her school, instead dropping her off at that church. She's got this phase that she's been into lately where she's very particular about what car she's seen getting out of in front of the school. She prefers her mom's car, but my cars are, I guess, kind of hooties. I get it. It's an image thing. But that was sometime probably between 820 and 840-ish, somewhere in there.

It was along the stretch of the road on the right side that has all the communities on it. Before you get to the overpass, you could see the overpass from where it was. So it was on that side on that stretch of road, and that's where I dropped her off. She said she was going to go wait for her friends. She was going to go find them and hang out and wait for her friends, and I asked if that was going to be okay. She said, yeah, it's fine. Kids get dropped off early enough as it is, so it's not totally unusual for that to happen. It's just not usually that early that I drop her off.

I do school runs every once in a while for her. I said, okay, let her out. Have a good day. Love you. Thanks. Love you, too. And I turned around and was driving away and was watching her in my rearview mirror to make sure that she was going where she was supposed to go. She was moving in that direction, but she was rummaging around in her backpack or something.

What I assumed was probably headphones or something like that, but I found out later that she forgot her phone here, so she may have been rummaging for her phone. But she was still kind of making her way towards that direction, so it looked okay. It looked like any other day, and I just continued on. Deputies in neighboring Orange County launched a massive search for Maddie. This was a missing 13-year-old girl, and her disappearing was not normal. There were reports from her friends that Maddie had said she wanted to go and live in the woods, but there were so many suspicious things, too. Maddie left her cell phone at home that day, which was unusual.

At the same time that Maddie left her cell phone at home, so did Stefan Stearns. This was Stearns' explanation. We're grateful about writing her about that. We'll remind her, and then it will leave our mind, and she'll say okay, and then it will leave her mind. And is she on medication for this stuff? Normally, yes. She's been staying with her grandparents a lot this week while her mom was working. So she has not been getting her meds a whole lot. So she was really spacing. Where is mom work at?

What changed in her hours that she needs all this time? She's training, so it's not a set schedule yet. Okay. Stefan Stearns was arrested within days. The Orange County Sheriff explained why. Our detectives have determined that Madeline was never dropped off on the morning of February 26 near her school. Instead, we believe she was already dead at the time and that Stefan Stearns moved her body in the early morning hours on that day. We have video evidence that shows Stefan Stearns discarding items in a dumpster in that apartment complex in Kissimmee at 735

on Monday, February 26. Detectives later recovered Madeline's backpack and her school-issued laptop from that dumpster. Eventually, Stearns was charged with more than 60 sex crimes related to sexual abuse of Maddie going back years the next day maddie's body was found along hickory tree road in osceola county the crime scene log released by prosecutors in discovery showed sheriff marcos lopez entered the crime scene the next day a photo of a body appeared on sheriff lopez's social media account many people people saw it. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement launched an investigation. A citation was issued this week to Sheriff Lopez. It states, Sheriff Marcos Lopez failed to comply with Florida public records laws, making

a photograph that depicts the killing of a minor confidential and exempt from public disclosure. It goes on to say, did publish a photograph depicting the killing of a minor to wit, Madeline Soto. We don't know how the photo of Maddie's body got on Sheriff Lopez's phone. Did he take it himself or did a deputy send it to him? I don't know, but I can tell you I've seen the photo and it matches the description of Maddie and the clothing she was wearing that day. It also matches the description of how she was found. There was grass covering her body.

This raises a lot of questions. Did Sheriff Lopez actually take that photo or did someone else send it to him and it ended up on his camera roll? Why would someone need to send a photo like that to him? When you see it, it's quite obviously Maddie. And there are other questions. Did Sheriff Lopez post this to his social media account or did a member of his staff?

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the sarge and also tim jansen who's a former federal prosecutor currently a defense attorney joe i'll start with you should there be any reason that the sheriff would have a photo of maddie soto's dead body on his phone no it shouldn't i mean this is something that we dealt with a lot uh in the detective squad where you have bosses coming in and either, you know, doing stuff like this or just getting in the way or someone could have sent them the photo. It's just it's part of the problem about crime scene management that happens a lot. You know, you have a lower ranking person at the scene. It's tough to tell the boss like, you know, hey, don't do that. Yeah. And that's kind of what my thinking was, because I've talked to people in the past, homicide detectives or people who run homicide divisions who say, you know, they would tell bosses, get out of my crime scene. This is a crime scene. I mean, and he clearly signed in to the crime scene log. His name is right there. So I can understand wanting to know what's going

on. You're the sheriff of the county but why he would need to actually enter the crime scene is beyond me because at that time you know that the coroner needs to be there uh the crime scene technicians in my view and the detectives correct yeah that's about only there should be a lot in the crime scene and this this avoids crime scene contamination. It avoids issues like this. And you also have to deal with the fact that, you know, anybody who appears on that list could show up in court as a potential witness, too.

And that's something that we use to put the fear of God in some of the bosses that were above us and say, listen, anybody who appears on this list, I'm giving it to the district attorney, and you're going to have to appear in court to tell them why you are at the scene and what you were doing here. Tim, this is certainly an unforced error. You've been on both sides of the coin. You've been a prosecutor and a defense attorney. So as a prosecutor, when you hear that the sheriff of the county, allegedly, you know, it's an accusation at this point, but I saw it. A lot of people saw this photo, you know, had a photo of a 13-year-old girl's body on his phone and it ends up on his social media account. Does that frustrate you from the prosecution standpoint that this might come up

at trial or be, you know, somehow used by the defense in the prosecution of the case? Well, it's really bad optics. And remember, the sheriff most likely is a political elected or appointed sheriff, and they have constituents that they have to talk to and appease and get fundraising and convince others not to run against them. So sometimes these people will take photos, memoirs and show people, their friends, family, especially in high-profile cases. He's right. The sheriff can be informed without going into the crime scene. He can be informed by the upper people, the head of the detective crew. And there's no reason why this photo should be on his personal phone.

None whatsoever. There's no reason he can legitimately say why he needed it there to show people or do anything. Because he wasn't actively working the investigation. He is in charge of all the sheriff's office, not this investigation. Most certainly. And so, you know, from the prosecution standpoint, you're saying bad optics it's frustrating now the prosecutor has cited him um he has to show up in court i found it interesting in december so the court date has been scheduled in december you know what that means it's after the election so why why

schedule this out into december and the sheriff can make this go away by basically just paying the $500 fine. Do we know if he's up for reelection this cycle? He's running. The court can handle this hearing next week. It doesn't take a lot. Or even in August. He's certain the court can get the evidence and make a finding. So they did it past the election, which is not surprising.

You know, that's not surprising either. But he could make it go away by just paying the $500 fine as well. I mean, he signed the summons or the, you know, the citation. He probably should do that and say, I made a mistake. I should have done it. It got there. It was a mistake and I paid for it. That would be better than to have this thing dragging on and kind of not being fair and truthful to the voters people expect people to make mistakes and we forgive people when it's an honest mistake um but it drags on you're right it doesn't look good and he's been on crime fix before i mean for a totally unrelated case um we had him on um for something involving a sex offender. And, you know, they're very media friendly, very media savvy. He's always putting these videos up

on his Facebook page to catch most wanted fugitives and things like that. So he knows what he's doing. But, you know, I reached out to them back then when this photo appeared, no response. I reached out to them. And at this photo appeared. No response. I reached out to them. And at the time we're recording this, they've not responded about the citation. No comment whatsoever. So what does that tell you, Joe? I mean, they're like basically making this try to go away. Well, like they say, the cover up is always worse than the crime.

Right. So just like Tim has said, sometimes it's just better off for yourself on the sword and move on, pay the fine. I mean, it's a civil case. They're not going after him criminally, which they could have. You know, and that's that's I think is a big, important factor over there. So maybe the attorney believes that it was inadvertent because it was put in with a group of pictures. If I remember correctly, of a senior citizens event that it kind of got snuck in there. So I guess, you know, you could blame a fat finger mistake that they were, they were just selecting photos.

But the issue that comes down to is why did he have the photo on the phone in the first place? And therein lies the problem. And we've seen a number of States now come up with laws banning first responders from taking photographs at crime scenes and accidents, because, you know, think about the damage it does for the family and everybody else that goes on and also it it breaks the public trust too and because they they want to believe that the police are doing what they're supposed to be doing and not stuff like this what we used to refer to as ghouling where somebody would come and take a crime scene

photo just for the sake of having it for a collection with tmz some of these photos and high profile cases can be very valuable, very lucrative. You know, people that saw Michael Jackson die and people do it. You got people in hospitals that do it. Ambulances that do it. And it's very lucrative. But not even I don't think I don't think any news outlet would touch something like this. I mean, this is a 13 year old girl i mean it's it's

it's obviously a legitimate photo based on what we've read in the crime scene documents in the reports about how her body was discovered and it's just so terrible um but yeah it just raises a lot of questions about judgment and why anybody beyond a crime scene technician or a crime scene analyst or a detective would be documenting this scene because it even says guys in the crime scene uh reports that the deputy who discovered her body saw that there was a body right there he immediately backed off according to him backed off and kind of court you know isolated that area knowing it was a crime scene and he got out of there and called the proper people in to to take care of this crime scene uh thank you so much guys uh Joe Jackalone and Tim Jansen I appreciate it anytime thanks bye

and 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