Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - MADDIE SOTO, 13, BODY FOUND: WAS HOME PREGNANCY TEST MISSING?

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

While her daughter is still missing, Maddie Soto’s mother sits down with investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. They show her evidence proving Maddie is not alive. They also show her photos from Stephan Stern's phone, removing all doubt about what has been going on between her 38-year-old boyfriend and her 13-year-old daughter. During the interview, investigators ask the mother about the motive—why would Sterns kill Maddie? Both investigators and the mother wonder: Is it possible Maddie was pregnant? Joining Nancy Grace Today:   Philip Dubé  - Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law; Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst, Author – “Deal Breaker,”  featured in hit show: “Paris in Love” on Peacock;, Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive Robin Dreeke – Behavior Expert & Retired FBI Special Agent / Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program; Author: “Sizing People Up: A Veteran FBI Agents Manual for Behavior Prediction;” X: @rdreekeke Dr. Eric Eason – Board-certified Forensic Pathologist, Consultant; Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD Hannah Mackenzie  - Anchor / Reporter Fox 35 Orlando website: t & IG: @Hannahh_Mackk  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Maddie Soto, just 13 years old. Her body found. Tonight was a home pregnancy test missing. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

I sent them to sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom so that I could get a good night's sleep. I think we need to get you a lawyer. But that was me assuming that you guys had the wrong guy, not that he had done all this to her. I don't know why I wasn't thinking him. I believe the sexual stuff, but I didn't want to believe that he had done anything evil to her. What you just said is the sex stuff is fine. It's not fine. I look back at him now and I'm just like, he was f***ing lying. He was f***ing faking. We can go even worse. She's pregnant. Have you ever found a pregnancy test at home? I have two underneath the kitchen, the bathroom sink, but I haven't seen if there's a layer or not. What color shirt and pants was she last seen wearing?

Hold on, let me ask. Jen, what color shirt and what was she last wearing? Hold on, we're finding out. Okay, and then how long has it been, though, since you guys have last seen her? Since this morning. She was dropped off at school this morning and apparently she never showed up. We called everyone we knew and no one seen her.

Pregnancy test? Missing? Mommy hasn't checked? Her daughter missing then found dead? Joining me, an all-star panel. But first to Hannah McKenzie joining us, anchor and investigative reporter, Fox 35 Orlando. Hannah, thank you for being with us. Could you explain to the non-legal eagles out there that don't know who that was talking?

Who is Jennifer Soto? So Jennifer Soto is Maddie Soto's mother. And what is so alarming about all of these hours worth of investigative evidence and interviews that we've been seeing is this is the first time we've actually heard from Jennifer Soto. And to hear her answering the investigators questions with really little to no information for the first time coming out of her mouth is quite alarming. Guys, in addition to Hannah McKenzie joining us from Fox 35 Orlando, is our now psychoanalyst joining us out of Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany Marshall, author of Deal Breakers. You can see her now on Peacock. Dr. Bethany, I'm just a trial lawyer.

You're the psychoanalyst, but I'm pretty sure I've heard translation. I've combed over the transcript hundreds of times. Mom saying, you know, I saw the pictures you showed me of him raping my daughter, but, you know, I couldn't believe he would do something evil like kill her. Nancy, this mother is not bonded to her daughter. She uses her daughter like bait to hold on to her boyfriend. This mother is preoccupied with the boyfriend. Did you hear her talk to the investigators about, well, he lied to other people. I never thought he would lie to me.

She was more worried about her own betrayal than what had happened with her daughter. And one more thing, Nancy, you know, when children go missing and you interview the parents, there's two things you look for. You look for whether or not they're bonded with the child, whether or not they show concern. In this case, Jennifer shows absolutely no concern. And then you also look for details, credible details, when the child was last seen, what they were wearing, why there's so many details missing. I mean, she didn't know what her daughter was wearing. Her boyfriend apparently left the house super early Monday morning to take the little girl to school. Well, I think we know at this point, the little girl was deceased, but the mother seems to have no understanding about that.

Wait, pause, pause. Dr to look like she was alive because he knew he had to drive past an apartment cam. Okay. And he would be many camps and he would be spotted. So let me get the visual through to you. She's dead. A 13 year old little girl propped up like she's alive like this. Okay. So you take it from there. And mom's like, yeah, you just showed me the, how many was it? Jackie, hold on Hannah McKenzie. How many thousands of images were found on boyfriend's phone? I would say sex related, but they're actually of him videoing himself raping Maddie, the 13 year old little girl. How many? There are photos and videos countless on his phone and on one USB that was seized thanks to his father turning it in. There were 35,000 images of child sexual conduct.

And none of those were on his phone. Hannah, start from where you said 25,000. Right. Just start right there. What? On Stephen Stern's USB that his father turned into police. They found 35,000 videos and photos of child pornography. That was on one USB. You know, Hannah McKenzie, I learned in court that silence can be just as powerful as hearing some lawyer babble on and on. See, my ear played a trick on me. I thought you said 25. You just said 35. 35,000 videos and or still images of what? Child pornography. And that

was just on one USB. That's not even including the photos and videos he had of Maddie on his cell phone. Photos and videos of what? Her blowing out the birthday candles, her in front of the Christmas tree, her on her birthday. Photos and videos of what, Hannah McKenzie? Those photos and videos, we haven't even been able to air the content that was released because reading these files

and these documents that have been released by police and the sheriff's office, they're hard to even read. The details involved include him, as you said, raping her. Oftentimes she appeared to be asleep. He was, you know, inserting his penis in her mouth, inserting his penis in her genital areas. Many of those times, again again while she appeared to be asleep or under a blanket. Dr. Bethany, isn't it true that it is a common tactic of child molestation victims to pretend they're asleep in hopes that that will make the molester go away. Excuse me, the rapist go away. They just pretend to sleep.

And then they continue in that somambulant state or pretend state to remove themselves from what's really happening to their body. Yes, Nancy, it starts out as just simply playing dead. Then the trauma is so severe that they begin to dissociate, to separate from themselves. And in the final stage, the sexual abuse survivors describe that as children, they would float up to the ceiling and look down on the scene as they were being raped and penetrated.

The sad thing too, Nancy, is mother was in the bed at the same time that all of this was happening. And we don't yet know what her involvement was in this. I think this guy was such a prolific offender as intrafamilial offenders are. On average, they offend 344 times against each child because they have access to them as opposed to somebody at school or in a different environment. But I would imagine he was trying to have sex with his girlfriend, with Jennifer, in front of the little girl, just in the hopes that he would seduce the little girl or excite her. That's how disturbed this guy really is. I want you to hear Jennifer Soto in her own words. Listen. I said, you guys, I need a good night's sleep. I need to take my meds. Um, I sent them to sleep upstairs in the bathroom, the guest bedroom

so that I could get a good night's sleep. Suggested that we all sleep together in the same bed together, but not the easiest person to sleep with. She rolls around, she punches, she kicks. Robin Drake is joining me, behavior expert. And I've just got to tell you this. A lot of times I see talking heads. I'm like, what are they saying? That doesn't even make any sense. Drake, behavior expert. And I've just got to tell you this. A lot of times I see talking heads. I'm like, what are they saying? That doesn't even make any sense. Dreek, behavior expert. Why? Former FBI special agent. Wait for it.

Chief of the FBI counterintelligence behavior analysis program and author of. OK, you've got a spy book, Unbreakable Alliances, Spy Recruiters, blah, blah, blah. But the one I like, that's available October 28th, is Sizing People Up, a Veteran FBI Agent's Manual for Behavior Prediction. Now, Robin, thank you for being with us. And Bethany, weigh in on this. And I can't wait to get to the defense attorney, Philip Dubay. But Robin, I have looked and looked and watched and watched, even stopped it and looked at the mother, Jennifer Soto, who now is saying, upon asking, didn't even put it out there. Do you have any pregnancy tests at home? She goes, huh?

Why? Yeah, I haven't even checked to see if those are missing. Raising the specter that this child could be pregnant, because we all know that once a pregnancy occurs, the woman's life is in so much more danger, even in a, in a marital setting, much less this setting. Because if she had become pregnant, then it would no longer be a secret and he would be outed. Now, what would he do to keep that from happening, Drake? Because Soto's his meal ticket. He lives between her house and his mother's basement, please. So did you watch her?

Did you see her behavior as she's talking about sending her daughter off to sleep with her boyfriend? And when the sheriff goes, you got any pregnancy tests at home? She doesn't miss a beat. You know, Dr. Bethany hit everything so accurately on this one. And that is not only was a daughter trying to survive by disassociating, but so is the mother. This is the most abhorrent case I think we've ever covered, Nancy. It's just befuddling about how strongly she compartmentalized. This is Jennifer and disassociate herself from the reality. And every time she was confronted with a truth, a fact,

her reality kept crashing down. And I guarantee you, this is not his first rodeo doing this horrendous acts to children because he was so comfortable with not only abusing this girl and raping this girl, but he seemed to be so comfortable with killing her. It's just amazing. And so is Jennifer. She seems so comfortable in this lie that she's lived that she can be surrounded by horrendousness and see the dissociating compartmentalize away from it so effectively. It's horrendous. Philip Dubé joining me, a renowned attorney with the L.A. County Public Defender's Office. You know what that means? He's in court all the time, just like a prosecutor is in court all the time.

A defense attorney is in court, especially a PD, public defender, like 24-7, 365. Philip Dubé, what do you think about that affect of mommy? Did you see her? Have you watched the video? She's like, yeah, those pregnancy tests.

Yeah, what happened to them? I think in Jen's mind that her little angel is everybody's angel and that she would assume that the entire world is her daughter's guardian angel. She was just so unsuspecting and unwary of what was happening in her little Walter and Minnie mind. Bethany, help me out. In 50% of all cases where children are molested, there's what we call a bystander in the household, a teenager, a cousin, somebody who sees everything but says nothing. In a fifth of all those cases,

the bystander is the mother, okay? This is the mother here. One of the reasons mothers do this, besides the fact that they're not bonded with their children, is that they're afraid of financial repercussions. But Jennifer has a job. She has a car. She drives. She decorates the house. She doesn't have those usual motivations that one would be a bystander or look the other way. I think she was taking pleasure in this. I think she was desperate to hold onto her boyfriend at any cost. I think she's selfish, self-referential. All she talks about in those interviews is herself. This little girl was a thing, an it,

an object to be used, a plaything to put between her and her boyfriend to keep him in an aroused state so he would not leave her. She was used, plain and simple, by her own mother, the one person who's supposed to protect her. Bombshell revealed in a newly released police interview of a murdered 13-year-old's mother. Was this little girl pregnant? Mom, Jen Soto, under questioning on this very topic. Listen. We can go even worse. She's pregnant. That's what questions last night led me to believe when we started talking about her period. I was told that her and her friend, granted, a male, never had a period,

but that somebody found it weird that they were no longer on the same cycle. Could be different because she's a teenage girl. Could be that she missed her period. Have you ever found a pregnancy test at home that wasn't yours? I have two underneath the kitchen, the bathroom sink, but I haven't seen if they're still there or not.

Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst, I'd like to hear your analysis of what we just saw and heard. Well, Nancy, this mother's voice is so vacuous. And by that, I mean empty. It's like she can't even come up with emotions about this. It doesn't have that dissociated, disconnected, traumatized sound to it. It has the sound of a woman who's never cared about her daughter at all. And all of a sudden, she has to pretend to care about her daughter, making stereotyped motions like putting her hand in her forehead, moving around as if she's sad, but she's not sad at all. You

know, Nancy, there's only one reason to have a pregnancy test is if it's, if you're anticipating you might get pregnant. I know she's not somebody who's, you know, been charged in this case, but on some level, it's like she was participating in a crime all along and making sure that her boyfriend wouldn't get caught. The only thing between her and the boyfriend getting caught were these pregnancy tests. I noticed, Dr. Bethany, when he starts talking about the pregnancy test, as if that's a normal topic of conversation, is your teen girl taking pregnancy tests? The mom who has her arms closed in front of her, she's switching legs and she tries to

cross them casually and then puts them in kind of a pretzel as he's asking about the pregnancy test. But what does that mean to you as you observe her? Nancy, what I see in this video, when she kind of puts herself into a pretzel, she's trying to act younger, regressed, more innocent than she really is. This is what little kids do.

They sit cross-legged, they twist their legs around, they twirl their hair, they do all kinds of things. And it's kind of a classic maneuver, I think, behaviorally is to act younger and more innocent than you really are. I thought Robin Drake, that was a sign of being on the defense. It can be, but normally anytime you see a deviation from what we normally see in someone's baseline, it indicates a change of thought. It could be going back to a more innocent time in life. It could be blocking. It could be stress. And that's what I'm guessing here is that this question caused stress and caused a change of thought in her.

I'm just curious about how long this had been going on based on the videos and pictures. Hannah McKenzie joining us, Fox 35. the assaults, rapes, molestations on her daughter by her boyfriend had been going on since Maddie was about nine years old. Yeah. I mean, nine years old to 13. And you got to remember she was a new 13 year old. Her birthday was just that previous week before she was reported missing and also killed. So this was years worth of trauma, sexual abuse that this little girl had to go through. I want you to hear the entire panel, how Jennifer Soto keeps referring to herself and what problems she's having. And I also want to circle back to what she said. Let's address this first.

She says, that's what questions last night led me to believe when we started talking about her period. Who was talking about her period, Hannah McKenzie? So this was brought up multiple times in different interviews with law enforcement, with Jennifer multiple times before the pregnancy test was even brought up. They were kept asking her about her cycle, about her period. And Jennifer is on camera saying, I tracked her period. I knew when she was on her period. And the detective in the office at the time said, well, did you notice any feminine hygiene products being used in February? And Jennifer kind of sits back for a second, kind of how you were describing a shift in the body language again, and says, no, I didn't realize any feminine hygiene products were being used in

February. I didn't notice that. Online, there has been a lot of speculation about this particular photo. Moms online speculating that here 13-year-old Maddie looks pregnant. Now, based off what was found on a cell phone with graphic videos of the defendant, Stefan Stearns, raping the daughter. I also don't hear the police mention anything about a condom in any of those videos suggesting they were having, well, not unprotected sex. He was raping her without a condom. The police were able to see a marking on his penis consistent with other videos and images, which means he was having unprotected sex, other moms point to dark colored circles underneath her eyes that were not there before. I'm just wondering, what does all this mean? crime stories with nancy grace to you dr bethany marshall uh bombshell documents revealing how stephan stern's allegedly killed the teen dumped her body my question, once a pregnancy occurs, does that raise the likelihood of violence?

Nancy, it most definitely does. And there are two reasons for this, actually. One is that the father does not want the responsibility of a baby. And the other is the father is often envious of the unborn baby, not wanting to share the attention with the baby. But in this case, of course, we know it's so much more sinister. That baby is evidence. Evidence that he's been abusing this little girl. I don't think he's trying to hide a pregnancy from Jennifer, by the way, because she knows about those pregnancy tests. He has to hide it from the public and the police. to her. I look back now and I'm just like, he was lying. He was faking. What else has he been lying to me about? I know he's like a master liar manipulator because he's done it to his parents and he's told me and shown me the lies he's done to his parents. But I don't know why I never

thought, not me. To trial lawyer joining us out of LA., Philip Dubé, I guess the defense is going to have that quash suppressed at court because they don't want the jury to hear Jennifer Soto calling Stefan Stearns a liar and a master manipulator, even though she says it's true. They're not going to need her, frankly. They've got plenty of evidence independent of Jen. All they would really establish through Jen, if they even want to call her to the stand, is that they were living together and maybe shared a bed together. But frankly, I think they have plenty of evidence without her. But let's assume that is the case. They decide to put her on. You know, everybody has problems within their relationships, independent of the children. And there is no playbook for how we speak out and lash out at our significant or even our insignificant others. And to suggest that every couple, every marriage is just lovey-dovey, picture perfect and wonderful

would be frankly offensive to a jury. And it would look like you're just trying to pin the whole thing on her. So I think it could actually work to her benefit and certainly to his detriment. Wow. The cunning you display, the thinking that goes into a defense strategy is amazing. The way you analyze that and you're like your rumpled steel skin, you take, hey, you spin it out into defense gold. Wow. OK, guys, I want you to hear Dr. Bethany Robin-Drick how this is all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and me, listen.

And he ugly cried in front of the camera too, so he was big sob crying. Are you saying that now or do you? I'm saying that now. I didn't think that at the time. At the time I thought he was truly heartbroken and not that he had done all this to her. I look back at it now and I'm just like, he was lying. He was faking.

What else has he been lying to me about? I know he's like a master liar manipulator because he's done it to his parents. And he's told me and shown me the lies he's done to his parents. But I don't know why I never thought not me. Bethany, Drake, is it just me? Am I the crazy one? But is she angry because he lied to her? Not that he raped her daughter for four years that we know of and killed her? You, Bethany, ladies first. Nancy, let me take it one level deeper. She's actually suddenly starting to turn on him.

So it's all self-referential at first. Oh, he lied to me. I can't believe he lied to me. Then she starts to paint the picture of the master manipulator. And I think she's starting to manipulate the investigators saying, hey, he's not such a nice guy. He lies to his parents.

So this woman, Jennifer, has the capacity for self-protection. She has the capacity to turn against her boyfriend when he doesn't please her and she wants to save her own skin for herself, but she wouldn't do it for her daughter. Do you see where I'm going with this? She wants to protect herself, but she wouldn't protect her daughter. It's not because she's passive. It's not because she doesn't have a job and she's afraid of leaving him because she has no money or she's been blinded by love. She only cares about herself. That's what's evident in this segment that you're playing.

What about it, Robin Drake? Oh, my gosh. Dr. Bethany is so spot on with everything. I'm just sitting here nodding the entire time. And yeah. OK, Robin Drake, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you run the behavioral science division at the FBI? Let's see what this says here. Robin Drink Counterintelligence Behavior Analysis Program. OK, this is not an echo chamber. Stop saying what she said. But she's so good. But so I'll add to it. And that is in the me, me, me of her life. And she even threw him under the bus, as Dr. Bethany was saying. She's she said that he was faking being heartbroken are you kidding me we saw the videos of him being interviewed and that's why i say he never once

deviated from his baseline of just stoic blah which means he's got a lot of reps of doing this he was not fearful of being caught by her just like dr bethany was saying it was this this entire thing looks extremely contrived. And because she's in complete survival mode, now she sees herself being threatened. She's starting to ponder the idea of throwing him under the bus. 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 stuff fine but what if she's still missing out there what if somebody took her i still wanted

to believe in his i i believed him i believed his whole story so i was just like i kept repeating that part i'm just like what if what did she dick i dropped off what if she i got abducted what if she's missing to dr bethany dr Bethany, did you just hear that? This mother can't even pretend to care about her daughter. If she was really a good actor, she would have seen the pictures of her boyfriend raping her daughter and saying, Oh my God, I can't believe, oh my God. She can't even work up a crocodile tear. She cannot. That's how callous she is to her own

daughter. She's not shocked because she's been viewing her daughter being raped for so many years. I don't think she even thinks it's evil that her daughter's been killed. It could even be a relief to her on some level that this whole thing is over. She's using a very contrived word because she is malingering concern. She's making up concern, but she can't even fake it, Nancy, because she doesn't know what it's like. I thought, Dr. Bethany, you were going to say something about one of your favorite words, other than macho sadism, is narcissism. That it's all about me. I wanted a good night's sleep.

I needed to take my meds. I had to get up for work. He lied to me. He did this to me. I'm so disappointed. I knew he was a liar. I, I, me, me. You haven't even mentioned narcissism.

Well, I would say narcissism on steroids. By the way, narcissism is named after Narcissus. For those of you who have not been schooled by Dr. Bethany, who is a mythical person who happened to look into the water and see his own image and fall in love and then died staring at himself, fell into the water and died. That's what, where narcissism, the word comes from. So hit it, Bethany. Well, so Nancy, also narcissism is a spectrum disorder. So at the milder end, you have narcissism and at the most extreme end, you have the psychopath. narcissism, antisocial, sociopath, psychopath. I would say she's further up the scale towards antisocial personality disorder and probably borderline personality disorder, because what you see with antisocial, one of the criteria is reckless disregard and lack of concern for the rights and safety of others, lying, conning, manipulativeness, failure to pay back debts to society, promiscuity. And you can see all of this in how she's treating

her daughter. I think also the lack of empathy or remorse when another person is hurt. Almost all mothers who are bystanders when their children are being molested are not bonded with their children. There's no maternal bonding. Dr. Bethany, can I tell you something, Dr. Bethany? All day long until we got here, I have been staring at this cell phone. Why have I been staring at the cell phone? Because my daughter had a test today. She secretly stayed up till almost one o'clock studying. And my stomach has been like that all day. How did she do? How did she do? I'm so worried. I'm so worried about her, about a test, a stupid test that in the big scheme of things, it doesn't even matter. And hold on. Bethany. Whole panel.

Watch this. Watch the mom who is not charged with anything, who is not a suspect, who is not a person of interest in anything. But you didn't know that then. I didn't. Then you offered a guy, the police suspect that is suspected of kidnapping, abducting, assisting the disappearance of 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. It's not fine. He has to call her on it and she goes, okay, yeah, it's not fine. But did I get that right? Hannah McKenzie, investigative reporter and anchor Fox 35. Hannah, did Soto,

the mom, offer Stefan Stearns a lawyer or offer to help him find a lawyer? I think in the beginning stages, yes, but she then kind of changed tune when she was speaking with investigators and they were calling her on things that she had said, like we just heard her saying, you know, this is fine. And then them being like, did you just say this is fine? Um, I think she then saw that he was going to be more of a suspect and began to change her tune. Okay. Because they say, didn't you know that then, um, you offered a guy who the police suspected of kidnap, abduct, abducting, assisting the disappearance of your daughter. You offered him a lawyer. Okay, listen to this.

How do you feel when you say he's a lawyer? He didn't believe me. Like, when I told him, like, don't you see forensics is closing down the house? They know something or there's something like. They know something. there's something like they know something something's happening they wouldn't be locking down the house this way if they didn't have suspicions of something but in my i wasn't thinking i don't know why i wasn't thinking him like i was just like no they've got the wrong guy okay i'm gonna try to see this in the light most favorable to jen soto right now but i'm having a

hard time. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. See, Drake, I'm going to go to you before I go to Dr. Bethany this time. I figured you out. Okay. You're not going to get to say what she just said. Drake, she sees the forensic people around the house walking around. You know how they look.

They're like bees swarming. And she goes, hey, you don't see this is happening. Something's wrong. Can I help you get a lawyer? What? I'm pretty sure I would have stabbed him in the heart. But she's talking to him about getting him a lawyer. Yeah, she maintains a pretty pragmatic view of this entire thing just because, again, I think she's witting of this.

Regardless of any kind of mental health issues she may or may not have, who cares? She still made a lot of choices along this path. And the entire behavior she has is completely congruent with compartmentalization of what she wanted to believe was going on and she thought all this was fine she said it out of her own mouth and so it's going to go sideways for her there's no doubt you know that's interesting that he said that uh bethany she said it out of her own mouth because so often when we don't like what a person says we choose to believe they meant to say something else. That's right. Drea just described the mom, Jen Soto, who is not a suspect in any way and I assume is grieving the murder of her daughter. He described her as pragmatic.

That's not the adjective I would have picked, Exactly pragmatic. I mean, when I see forensics and SWAT circling the house, and I know I didn't do it, and I look over at this guy that's been sleeping with my daughter, I don't say, hey, can I dial you up, Philip Dubé on the phone and get you a high profile lawyer to help you out of this mess? Oh, no, that would not be what would be happening in the house. Well, okay. So remember that antisocial personality disorder symptom, lying, conning, and manipulativeness. I hear her more as being calculating and remorseless during this time. And I think she knows that if he goes down, she's going to go down. She was in that bed too when her daughter was being raped. You know, she's not a suspect. I do know that she has not fallen under suspicion. But if somebody is robbing a bank and I don't know that she was in the bed when Maddie was raped, I think she would send them did sleep together a lot. And he did tell another woman he was seeing that he would get an erection in bed with Maddie.

And that woman wisely quit dating him. The three of them did sleep together. That point is without question. Yes. And she would wake up and Jennifer would wake up in the morning and find him spooning. I think the investigator called it spooning. She said cuddling with her daughter, that they would have cuddle time. Also, when she sent them upstairs, she called it a slumber party. And sex, often a euphemism for sex is the word play.

People say, well, we had playtime or we played. It's sort of an adult reference. So I heard when she said slumber party, it's almost like they're going to go sexually play. I think that she was not compartmentalizing. I think she knew exactly what was going on. And I think if he goes down, she goes down too. I know it's an emotional thing and I know it sucks to hear, but where I'm coming from is it seems like something that you can't hide forever. You guys live in a small space, close quarters. You sleep in the same bed. You guys all talk.

You guys all share things. You're an observant person for the most part, I assume. Outside of taking medications and going to sleep, it seems very difficult. A lot of grown-ups, adults can't hide an affair with somebody who doesn't live with them, let alone somebody who does live with them. So at a certain point, I do believe you became aware of what was going on. No. Straight out to high profile lawyer Philip Dubé joining us out of L.A. A Philip question. Do you believe Jen Soto will turn on Stefan Stearns at trial and be a state's witness? Because she will be in for a searing cross-examination if she does.

I do, as a matter of fact. But I do think what could also happen is that she might take the fifth and they're going to appoint her counsel. So they won't be able to use her for either side. Well, let's assume hypothetically that they do decide to put her on and she wants to testify her counsel. So they won't be able to use her for either side. Well, let's assume hypothetically that they do decide to put her on and she wants to testify against Stefan. I think she would come off quite credibly, but then the jury might wonder, you know, why are you being so cerebral? Why are you being so analytical about this? Why aren't you being visceral? Were you in on it? So it could actually be risky also for the prosecution by putting her on. She needs to have something substantive to say to point to his guilt as to the homicide and the sex

offenses. Interesting. So earlier we heard Dr. Bethany say if he, Stefan Stearns, goes down, she goes down too. She's not charged with anything. So I don't see how that would happen. The only way she would, quote, go down is that she would lose credibility as a mom because the jury and others would see that this happened right under her nose. And the only way she would ever be taken to stand if I were appointed to represent her as a witness is for her to take the fifth or to be guaranteed a complete grant of use and transactional immunity. Otherwise, even if she successfully helps the prosecution get Stefan, they could come after her next. So they have to give her some type of an incentive to testify against him because it's too risky. Wow. You know what, Dubé? You're borderline scary. I wouldn't have even thought of

that next step of insisting that she be granted immunity in exchange for testimony so there could never be charges against her. Okay. One step ahead of everybody else. Dr. Eric Eason, the big question tonight is, was this little girl who just turned 13, was she, was Maddie pregnant. And I feel like I'm eating a dirt sandwich just saying those words. But the investigators brought that up in Jen Soto's interview. So Dr. Eason, again, you stated you could tell pregnancy in a murder victim by urine that you would harvest during the autopsy or from vitreous, which is liquid surrounding the eye. Could, if you then see she was pregnant, what do you do?

Remove the fetus and determine the age? Oh, well, it depends on how far along you are. If this was very early on in the pregnancy, there's really not going to be much there. There's just going to be some tissue that's considered what's called products of conception, but an actual fetus is not going to be there. Another option would be to take the actual uterus itself and look at it under the microscope. You can actually see an implantation site where the embryo implanted, but the further along in pregnancy that you get, you're actually going to have a fetus there

and can run DNA testing and do an actual, like a second autopsy within an autopsy on that. I've done that before in a couple of cases. Hannah McKenzie joining us, Fox 35 Orlando. The autopsy report has still not been released, has it? No, that's the truth of it, Nancy. We are, you know, waiting with bated breath to get that autopsy report. We do know the cause of death listed as strangulation.

And we have reached out to the state attorney's office to find out if Maddie's body had been tested for the presence of pregnancy hormone. They got back to us and said that's an ongoing investigation and they weren't able to release those results or whether or not they'd even tested. This entire line of interrogation and questioning that we are analyzing tonight comes from an interview with the mom, Jen Soto, where the investigator asks if Maddie was pregnant. we wait as justice unfolds. But now we stop to remember an American hero, Sergeant Matthew Ryan Fishman, Wayne County Sheriff's North Carolina, shot and killed in the line of duty. Fishman survived by grieving wife, Sarah, and two children, Nolan and Kara, sentenced to life without dad. American hero, Sergeant Matthew Ryan Fishman, thank you to our guests for tackling this very, very disturbing issue, but especially to you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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