Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - New Video Shows Maddie Soto's Mom and Alleged Killer Talking To Deputies: 'She Never Made It'

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Orange County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call on February 26 from Maddie Soto's mom as she reported her missing. Body worn cameras were recording as deputies spoke to Maddie's mom, Jenn Soto, and Stephan Sterns. Sterns, Jenn Soto's boyfriend, is now charged with sex crimes involving Maddie and her murder. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the videos and outlines the major moments in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest 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 & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hey there. Hey there. What's going on? So, my daughter was dropped off close to school this morning, but never made it. Jen Soto, the mother of Maddie Soto, is talking to deputies the night that Maddie was reported missing. Body camera footage just released is giving us a look at the earliest stages of the missing person's case that sadly turned into a homicide investigation. Thanks for joining me for

Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Maddie Soto's mom, Jen Soto, reported her missing on the evening of February 26th. The community had searched for Maddie, hoping to find her alive. Maybe she just ran off, but that really wasn't like Maddie. Sadly, Maddie's body was found days later, and the sometimes live-in boyfriend of Maddie's mom, Stefan Stearns, was arrested and charged with sex crimes related to Maddie. At the time, police said Stearns was the prime suspect in Maddie's murder and disappearance, but it took many more weeks for Stearns to face a murder charge in Maddie's death. The evidence shows an individual that was entrusted to keep Madeline safe made calculated

moves to dispose Madeline's belongings and place her body in a wooded area before she was ever reported missing. For the four days following her disappearance, the entire community was actively looking to find Madeline safe and alive. Tragically, on March 1, Madeline's remains were found. Now we're getting a firsthand look at what happened the night that Maddie was reported missing. Deputies in Orange County, Florida, that includes the Orlando area, got the call and went to talk with Maddie's mom, Jen Soto, and Stefan Stearns. At this point, this was a missing persons investigation. Here's a look at a deputy talking with Maddie's mom in the early moments of the investigation.

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. I'm trying to reach down. Get it on.

I'm trying to get there right now. Okay. 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, nothing. I 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 um so she never made name? Madeline. M-A-D-E-O-I-N-E. M-A-D-E-L-I-N-E. Last name? Soto. S-O-T-O. S-O-T-O? Yeah. So you saw Jen Soto there saying that she got a notification from the school saying that Maddie didn't show up. Soto said she reached out to Maddie's teacher as well. There's been a lot of chatter online from people wondering what the school did or didn't do when Maddie didn't show up for school. Also, you may have noticed that Stearns was standing next to Jen Soto talking on his phone as Soto answered questions from the deputy. The conversation continued from there. Madeline Soto, age 13. I'm trying to get a clothing description now. What was she last seen wearing?

Green hoodie. Green hoodie. White Crocs. White Crocs. Either blue or black pants. I think black shorts. Black shorts? Yeah.

Black shorts? Mm-hmm. Okay. Black shorts. All right. Do you know if she has like friends in the area? She does, but she doesn't know where they live. She doesn't know where she lives. Okay. I asked all of them. Okay. Now what I find interesting about this whole exchange was that Stearns knew what Maddie was last seen wearing, which isn't surprising. He had told law enforcement that he took Maddie to school that morning, but dropped her off at a church.

He said Jen Soto was at home sleeping at the time because she had started a new job working at night. The conversation continued. Is this like, did she like have any places that you guys know that she would usually be at? Any friend any places that I can't hang out Typically, okay Just give me one second. Let me see And what's we should go soon on a creek middle all right cool Do you guys have... Do you have a picture of her? Can you drop it to me?

Yeah, I know. Let me see which picture. I don't know which picture. You mean recently? Probably from the birthday party, right? Yeah, but I wasn't there, so I had to look at it. Go ahead. That's what I'm about to grab right now.

Yeah. Alright, cool, thank you. Is this a good enough picture, or do you need a full body picture? Yeah, that's perfect. Okay. How do I ear drop? I don't know how to do it. I got you.

Okay, where's the photo? Right there. It's on WhatsApp. That's fine. Okay, I'm going to? Right there. It's on WhatsApp. That's fine. I saved it to my photo, so you could... You saved it to your photo?

Yeah, we just Give me a second. I'm going to send it out right now to my other guys. Thank you very much. So Stearns thanked the deputy for his help in trying to find Maddie. Prosecutors and police now say that entire time, Stearns knew exactly where Maddie was because he killed her and ditched her body. That evening, deputies then went with Stearns to the area where he said he dropped her off. Around where these communities were. Oh, thank you. So it's 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 this for? 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. On the second floor. So Stearns is there in his silver Lincoln with the deputies telling them where he dropped off Maddie that morning.

The deputy walked around with his flashlight looking for any sign of Maddie as Stearns stood by. Yeah, I'm trying to see if we can find something. Yeah. The investigation then moved to the church, where Stearns said he dropped off Maddie that morning. Stearns had said Maddie asked to be dropped off in that area because she was kind of embarrassed by his car. It was an older one. Deputies looked at surveillance video from that morning. At home.

At Ventura or what's the other? You know what they were saying, right? She left her phone home to me. It's like, that feels intentional. You know? Like, I don't want to be tracked what time is it right now they're 8 55 already yeah just about. Now, is it 855? Yeah, just about 855. So when does school start, like 9.40?

Yeah, like usually Olivia leaves here at around 9. She walks 9.05, 9.10. They have to be there before 9.30. That's when the first bell rings, yeah. Oh, it's 8.51 actually. Now you saw that there was a black box over the computer screen and sometimes these records are redacted and the police have to put that box up so you can't necessarily see what they're looking at.

Oh, wait, there is adie getting out of Stearns' car since he said he dropped her off at the church. But it turned out it wasn't Maddie. But at the time, deputies believed that it was her on the video. So she leaves sometime within 2059. And that's too quiet. Bring it back to 2058. She gets up on the floor. She got up. She's walking. Yeah. And she walked away. That's why she's gone. Yeah, she's off property by 2059.

So nobody picked her up. No, nobody picked her up. I wanna take just a short break from this update on the murder of Maddie Soto to tell you about something that can help you learn more about the people in your life. It's a great website and it's called truthfinder.com. Truthfinder is one of the world's largest public record search services. Truthfinder has just one goal, and that is to help you and me learn the truth about the people that we meet each day. Here's how it works.

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At this point in time, deputies believe it's Maddie on the blurry video and they see her walk away from the church alone, but nobody picked her up. Alrighty, thank you guys. I got that on my video, so I'll give that to the detectives. Thank you. I'm just going to put the school, the church, as the place that she was last seen. Detectives might be out here to come talk to you guys. You might see a private number or an Orange County number. So that's probably one of them trying to contact you guys through the business line. All right?

All right. Thank you guys again. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Me too. All right. thank you guys again. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Me too. All right, see you again. I hope I see you guys, but on better circumstances. Then the deputy went outside to update a family member of Maddie's.

So it's possible that she came here and sat in the parking lot for a while. It's a blurry video, but it looks like Alyssa Charles is sitting right there. And she's hitting the people here so that they were adamant they seen her on the property. But, like I said, it's a blurry video. And I don't see her getting into anybody's car in the video. I see her sitting on property for give or take 10 minutes and then walking off property. I don't know which way she went from there around like I was saying. Is there any way I could see something from her?

It's really blurry. There's no possible way. I think you can ask them to see if they could allow you to see the video. I can't really grant that for you and just have them see if they have them. But yeah, I had her sitting there and then she walked right off the property. I'm trying to see, I'm going to send that to my detectives, see what they can do with that and get more video. There's no cameras like that to show the bridge or anything like that? No.

So you heard the deputy say that he saw the blurry video from the church that appeared to show a girl sitting on the property. He thought it might be Maddie. Deputies and police would later say it wasn't Maddie. As this was happening, deputies got out a canine to try to pick up Maddie's scent. Hold on, buddy. I gotta fix it. It looks like it's your lead. Hold on. They're gonna fix it. I know. He's...

Well, he... Whenever I open the door, he wants to jump out. Hello. Let me see. You're stinky. Hold on, dude. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you.

I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. I'm gonna go get you. Let me see. You're stinky. Hold on dude. I'm gonna try to get the scent off.

Hold on son. Sniff ya. So I'm gonna... No, you're not going in there. I'm gonna introduce it to him, but I'm gonna drop the bag on the floor if you wanna pick it up again. Okay. Just in case I have to, like, reintroduce it to him. Okay, all right. Sorry.

Now, just in case you didn't know, they had to give the dog something of Maddie's to pick up her scent. That's what the dog handler meant when she talked about possibly reintroducing the product. Then the handler and the dog got to work and it sounds like they started out where the girl on the blurry video was seen walking. She like went straight, walked in the grass or she went towards the road? She walked in the grass and then from there walked back to the road. Kind of curved? Yeah, kind of curved. I'm just wondering. It's going to be hard to tell whether she went left or right.

Yeah. But I don't know if she was trying to walk back home on her own or if she was trying to go to her friend's house. Probably the most I'll say is she would walk back to the grandma's job. The grandma's job is to work straight that way. So that's to sniff again in the hope that he would pick up her scent. No, I knew you were going to do that. When he can tell that the leash isn't on his neck anymore, he can feel it. Nope. Nope.

Fante. Good boy, Fante. He's like automatically trying to go to that bush. That's the ring. Come on. Leave it. He's trying to look for it. The dog then tried to follow a track. Relax. My thing is when he, like an old track like this, he shouldn't be pulling too hard.

Just because it gets contaminated from the kids and stuff walking home. So he shouldn't be. That's how I can usually tell if he's crittering. And he's just picking up like animal scent or whatever, just digging around. As the video continued, the dog handler had a clue that the canine was not picking up Maddie's scent. Older tracks, he's usually slower. Like I'm more like the bottom track. up Maddie's scent. filter through everybody else's like everybody else's like scent cells and stuff that are falling on top of the missing person so it's like it's a little bit harder so he shouldn't be falling but you know pulling so hard with like the fresh ones like if somebody like just robbed a bank or whatever and took off then

he would be like that but usually i can tell when he's not on it, when he's trying to hurry up and run fast. Come on. Dude. It's a tough one. Run over, buddy. We're doing our certifications on Wednesday. Our certification track. And my corporal laid a track today for me to run on Wednesday. And it's going to be like a 45-hour age track.

But it's like where there's trails and stuff and it's not contaminated. So, like in a wooded area, which is like where they excel at. But these kind of tracks are always so hard. Like in a wooded area. Which is like where they excel at, but... These kind of tracks are always so hard. Yeah, no, it's horrible. Let me go a little bit further that way, and then if he's not... If he's acting up still, then I'm gonna call it no he should still be okay dog Oh my god.

Dog. If you watch, the dog keeps going, but just for a few more minutes. I mean, if I had a guess, get out of there. If I had a guess, you probably went that way. Yeah. But. Ow. way. Yeah. But... Ow! Dude.

Just cause, also, she probably... He dumped her off here or he dumped her off... He dumped her off up there. Up ahead. Okay. And she walked this way, coming down. So her scent's probably all over here anyway. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a tough one. What are you telling me? You hear? So her scent's probably all over here anyway. Yeah, that's a tough one. What are you telling me? Are you here? No? Okay. Yeah, we can call it. Um.

I don't know if we want to hold on to that or not. Because I bet I can almost feel like tomorrow they're going to find out she was either with a friend or she spent the night somewhere. Because she didn't want to go home or whatever. Or didn't want to go to school. Or she talked to somebody and she just deleted everything before she... They probably have tracking on her phone, right? Yeah. Yeah, and she probably knows it.

So, yeah, we'll call it. He's just not, it's just hard. He's not giving me anything, like, decent. But, like, if I were to bet, it'd probably be that way, but. Maybe doofus. But who knows? Oh, is that you telling me you're done? Moron.

Jesus. This is what I have to deal with. This is him not wanting to do anything else. Oh my God, dog. Bruh. Seriously, bro. This is embarrassing. You're embarrassing. I know she's just joking here with the dog, but he this is embarrassing. You're embarrassing.

I know she's just joking here with the dog, but he really is so cute. And really, the point is the dog was not picking up Maddie's scent. He wasn't on her trail, and the dog was done. He had already smelled something with her scent on it, and he couldn't pick her up. Then you heard the dog handler say she had a hunch that Maddie would turn up the next day. Sadly, that didn't happen. Meanwhile, deputies went to Maddie's home to check out things. 10-4. Hey, Ron. I just wanna verify the clothing.

What? Stop. The video then goes to black. It's redacted, possibly because the deputy went inside Maddie's house and often that has to be redacted under the law. Within days, Stearns was placed under arrest. He would later be charged with more than 60 sex crimes related to Maddie. The sheriff of Orange County said then that Stearns was the prime suspect in Maddie's death and disappearance. It's our belief that she was killed in Kissimmee and that he moved her body. The day after those body camera videos, Stern spoke with detectives at length. They locked him into a story about what happened that morning, what he did and why. 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 7.30, 7.45-ish, 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 the McDonald's anymore. So we continued on. Stearns then told detectives about dropping off Maddie and why he didn't take her directly to the school. She's got this phase that she's been into lately where she's very particular about what car she seemed 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. And remember the dog handler talking about Maddie's cell phone and how her parents likely had tracking on it? This is what Stearns told detectives about him and Maddie both not having their cell phones with them that morning. Is it normal for her to not have her phone? Unfortunately, she's severely ADHD, as am I and her mother. So it is not uncommon at all in that very, very usual thing for her to forget things. She'd forget her head if it wasn't screwed on. We're forgetful about writing her about that. We'll remind her head if it wasn't screwed on. Worst would be to write to her about that. It will 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 mental health. So she was really spaced. Where is mom working at? What changed in her hours that she needs on this thing? She's training. So it's not a set schedule yet. The sheriff of Orange County said back when Stearns was first taken into custody in early March that he believed Maddie was dead when Stearns left the apartment complex with her that morning. Our detectives have determined that Madeline was never dropped off on the morning of February 26th 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 26th. Detectives later recovered Madeline's backpack and her school-issued laptop from that dumpster. Stearns was charged with murdering Maddie in late April after a lengthy investigation. Remember, he also faces those sex crimes charges. Investigators said they found 1,700 images of sex acts in Stearns' Google Drive, some depicting sex acts with Maddie, some of them while she was asleep.

We also told you here on Crime Fix last month that investigators asked Jen Soto about their sleeping habits. She said that she, Stearns, and Maddie sometimes slept in the same bed, but there were times when Maddie and Stearns would sleep together in another bed, so she could get better sleep because of her anxiety. Investigators said they showed photos of Stearns and Maddie engaged in sex acts. The document is redacted, with names blacked out, but it says Jen Soto asked to see the image of Stefan and Maddie. I pulled out a printed picture from Stefan's Google Drive

that showed Maddie with Stefan's penis in her mouth. Jen said she didn't recognize anything in the picture, as if she was in denial. However, she became visibly upset. I want to be very clear here. Jen Soto is not facing any charges in this case, and we don't know if she will face charges. The police chief said earlier that they had interviewed Jen Soto and she had cooperated. Meanwhile, records released by the state attorney quote some of what Stearns told investigators. Quote, Stefan stated that Maddie always needed human contact when going to sleep. Stefan referred

to it as snuggling. As the interview went on, I asked Stefan if Maddie has ever been sexually active with anyone in the past. Stefan stated there was an incident when she was much younger. Stefan said Maddie did something with a phone or camera, but she wasn't scolded for it. Stefan said she was very young when this happened. Stearns remains in the Osceola County Jail, being held on those murder charges and the sex crime charges. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.