Hidden True Crime - BEHIND THE SCENES: Debra and Chris Sterns Interview | Our thoughts

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

We interviewed the parents of Stephan Sterns. Sterns is charged with sexually abusing & murdering 13-yr-old Maddie Soto. Our thoughts and analysis of their interview, the controversy, your questions, and how the interview happened. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime About Hidden True Crime: Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and has followed the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case since 2019. She and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders and prophet. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional about what I wear, intentional about everything, just choosing pieces that feel effortless, still put together, timeless, but also not overthinking it every morning. It's why I keep going back to quince. Their pieces just make getting dressed easier and I feel so classy. I feel elevated. The fits are flattering. The fabric is really high quality. Everything is wearable day to day. I actually got this really, really, beautiful yellow V-neck midi dress from them, and I paired it with some Italian leather sandals. It's one of those outfits that just works. It feels polished but still comfortable. It's exactly what I've been looking for. What surprises me, though, is the quality for the price. Quince uses

premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, but they cut out the middleman. So everything is priced way lower than you'd expect. Refresh. your every day with luxury you can actually use. Head to quince.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, quince, ui ncee.com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. In response to the interview we did with Deborah and Chris Stearns, the parents of Stefan Stearns, this was an episode we recorded last week strictly to share on patreon.com slash hidden to crime. That is the place where you can listen to over 60 bonus hTC episodes that we spontaneously record on our phone's voice memo app while sitting

at our kitchen table. We publish these behind the scenes conversations for our Patreon subscribers. But we decided to publish this one right here in podcast form after comments on Patreon, comments from listeners listening to this episode, they told us it was important to share more widely, despite the audio quality on my phone. So here it is. It's Dr. John and I discussing the controversial interview with the parents of Stefan Stearns,

a man behind bars charged with over 60 sex crimes, as well as first-degree murder in the death of 13-year-old Madeline Soto. We answer your questions. into your criticism and give our take on why this interview was so important. For more of these types of behind the scenes conversations with us that we record only for our Patreon listeners, you can head to patreon.com slash hidden chew crime to hear more. Hello, Patreon, Hidden Gems. It's Lauren and John sitting at our table. And we are actually, we are sitting here having a conversation.

about the Stearns interview that we just did, the Madeline Soto, for those that don't know, we interviewed the parents of Stefan Stearns, which was certainly controversial, and we're sitting here talking about it, and I said, wait, let's flip on my phone recording for this behind-the-scenes conversation we're having and invite all of you in,

because we are talking about some of the comments, and we realize that we want to share a little bit about how we got this interview, what this interview is. Again, Stefan Stearns is the man who is behind bars for sexually abusing Madeline Soto, little Madeline Soto for 13 years, who was 13 years old when she was killed, and he is also behind bars for first degree murder and killing her. So abusing her for years and killing her. And these are Stefan Stern's parents, Debbie and Chris, Stearns, that we interviewed. So we wanted to tell you, a bit of the background, why we did it, discuss some of the controversy behind it, and we're

talking to each other, so we're inviting you in, right? Did I cover it all, John? Yep, thanks for joining us. So do you want to start with, you want to start with how you, how you were able to contact them? Yeah, so let's start with how this interview happened. There had been a lot of questions about what in the world. So yeah, I was the one that got in touch with them, so I'll tell you about that. You know, as we always share, we genuinely, really truly try to get an understanding of all the cases we cover, and we do try to reach out to several people behind the scenes. And these were two of the people we tried to reach out to.

I looked and found her number. Actually, someone helped me find it, Deborah Stern's number. And I reached out with a text. This was probably a couple months ago. And I introduced myself. I said I'm with Hidden True Crime, YouTube and Podcast. We have covered. This was after our first episode.

I said, we have covered your sons. You know, we have covered this. And if you would be ever willing to talk, let us know. And sometimes I send those texts into the abyss and I never hear back. Most of the time. Well, one thing that we're fortunate to have at this point is a large community that's really helpful to us. And so oftentimes when we start covering a new crime, our community will know someone or have some contacts that might have some understanding or deep understanding or some closer contact with

a case. And a lot of times people will reach out to Oz. So we're really fortunate that we do oftentimes have contact with some of the key players in a lot of the cases we cover. Yeah. And of course, understanding the criminals behind the crime is a big part. of hidden true crime, right? So a great example is Heather Daybell. Heather and Matt Daybell, when we started covering the Daybell case, they reached out to us, and of course, they're connected to the criminal, the murderer. And they wanted to offer what they knew to help in our continued analysis,

and they were genuinely very helpful. And that was for well over a year before Heather even decided to interview with us. So there's a lot of behind the scenes that goes on. And this is what John does for his work too. When you're assessing a criminal, you have to get collateral interviews. And correct me if I'm wrong or right. But you reach out to family and you try to get numerous people. Right.

It's part of the process of understanding, you know, developing a deeper understanding of what's going on, understanding family dynamics. And like in my case, just corroborating information. So if I'm talking to a perpetrator and the perpetrator says, this happened in my childhood or this is a trauma that occurred to me. I don't know necessarily if that's accurate. So I typically will reach out to third parties and collateral sources to get their version of the story.

Right. And to corroborate that what they're telling me is accurate or at least to get a different perspective from someone about a similar incident. Right. And to listen to them. Yeah. You know, right. And so that the sterns are no exception to this in trying to understand how this could happen to little Madeline. It seemed like his parents are a good place to start to understand. And we did realize that they were talking to the police.

And, you know, we didn't know where they stood. But that's what I did is I sent a text. and I think I sent that text in a morning, and it wasn't even 24 hours. It was that evening that I heard back from them because they speak together on the text, and they said they didn't know about our channel, but they went to watch it.

And what we had done. We had only done one episode. And they essentially said that after listening to our episode, their attorney had told them not to talk to anyone, but if we promised an off-the-record conversation, they would talk to us. And of course, that conversation remains off the record. I can share that we've been in contact with them, clearly.

But so that's what we did. Well, you talked to them the first time. Yeah. And then they reached out a few times after that. All of this is off the record. I was involved in one or two of the additional conversations. Where we learned a lot. Yeah, we learned a lot about the case.

So, yeah, it's important to reiterate that I'd say most of our sources are anonymous and off the record. And so we obviously value people's privacy and we keep things confidential. And that's a big part of what I do professionally and what Lauren does. and, you know, we know so many secrets on so many cases, but we can't divulge them. They do help us understand things at a different level, but, you know, we're very fortunate that people trust us and they reach out to us, and we learn a lot of things that we can't disclose publicly, but it does help us understand cases at a deeper level. Right.

For example, if the Sterns never decided to interview with us, we would never have ever shared that we were in contact with them. Yeah. So, but I will say this, because we talked about this in the interview, and so I have permission to share this, they certainly have been processing this with the public at the same time. Like, they, they have shift, as evidence has come out, they have shifted their perception of everything.

And I think that's fair to say, and I said that in the interview as much so I can share that here, they have, they have changed. They've been trying to make sense of it. Yeah. And some of their views have changed. Yes. So we've had very different conversations with them over time. And why don't you talk about how they decided to finally.

Yeah. Yeah. So we had these off-record conversations, things there. They have been developed. developing and changing their views too on things and coming to different conclusions and changing their views, which, you know, I do respect that process. I can't imagine. And then every time, I'll just say this to give them to her to, every time we did an episode, we even thought at times that they'll never reach out to us again because we have to be honest in our analysis. And our

analysis was sometimes different than where they were in their processing of the case. And we never veered from just how guilty Stefan Stearns is and that we believed he was. Right. And allegedly, right? And so I actually saw that I got, I received a text message and I actually got nervous, admittedly. I've never shared this in you. And like when I saw that. that they had texted because I thought, oh no, like, oh no, like, are they going to say, I can't believe you said this about whatever. But again, we just stick true to our assessment. And I opened it and it simply said, we understand that our son is the sole perpetrator

and responsible for what happened to Madeline Soto. we would like to be forthcoming and help in any way. And while we've been told not to talk, we feel like with all the evidence out there, it doesn't really matter. We want to be able to help and would like to give you guys an exclusive interview if you are interested.

Right. And that was a Friday, I believe, Thursday or Friday. And then we didn't want to waste any time, given that opportunity. So we've conducted the, interview Saturday the next day. Yes. Pretty quickly.

Pretty quickly. Yeah. And a lot of people, by the way, were wondering if I was distracted or texting on my phone because we had to do this so fast. I wasn't. I was writing time codes on my phone because I knew that we had to put this interview out so quickly. It was important to be timely, in my opinion, with an interview that was this heavy to

like not wait a few days or a week to edit. this needed to be done at this time. So what I was doing on my phone during the interview, if anyone watched it, was I was writing down time codes of things that I wanted to go back and look at before the editing. And then other people pointed out in comments that there were some jump cuts, though they could see that we had edited. I want you guys to know that there were breaks in the interview. And there were a couple places where they, you know, pointed out that, oh, maybe this. And I, and I did, because of the way the interview flowed, it was so kind of all over the plays,

I just picked, I did switch a couple, admittedly a couple of things. Like, I didn't, we, the entire interview took two hours and one minutes and you guys saw an hour and 57 minutes. So very little was edited, but there were just a couple things, and then I did switch the direction of a couple topics

to make it flow better. So thoughts. And they, we told them at the beginning that if there were any issues that they believed were too sensitive or controversial, that they could tell us to remove them. Yeah, and there was one thing. And that's something we give every person we interview pre-recorded.

We'll say, look, this isn't gotcha journalism. We want you to be comfortable doing this interview and not be on guard. So just be yourselves. And if there's something you regret telling us and you realize you do not want that in the interview, we give you that grace to tell us and we'll take it out. one of those. So we did that for them. Yeah. So that's how the interview came about. And do you want to share the why we chose to do it? Like some people are wondering if we should have even given them a platform because of what their son did. Well, yeah. So so I think I think the why is or what we believe

their son did. The why is multi-layered in the sense that often we will communicate with the victim's families and we'll deal with kind of the grief on the victim's side. But it's less common that we have a relationship with the perpetrator's side and the perpetrator's family. And because in many cases the perpetrator's families are in denial and they don't want to talk to people like us and they don't want to show their grief. Or their shame too. Or their shame, right? of it and I think the Stearns felt like they were being inundated with a lot of unfair accusations that were blaming them for a lot of what happened with their son and we'll get

to that in a minute but I think for us our job is to to paint a picture of the entire situation and part of that is the grief potentially the grief that parents of a perpetrator who believe there's some will never see the light of day again, to give them a platform to share their experiences and their grieving. And, you know, one of the things I talk about with Lauren a lot is the idea that my job and our channel, I think, a lot of times we deal with the unthinkable. And this, I think, was one of those scenarios. No matter what people think of the sterns or how much they're being blamed or held accountable

or whatever or vilified, these are grieving parents that have come to the recognition or the belief that their child will never get out, that he's guilty, and he will never get out of prison, and it's going to forever change their relationship with them. So to me, that's grief. And, you know, one of the movies and books I sometimes talk about is there's a movie called, and a book called We Need to Talk about Kevin.

which looks at a mass murderer who's a teenager and how he's raised and the family's culpability. And maybe to a lesser degree, the mother's grief after he commits this mass murder. And it's clear that he's going to be in prison the rest of his life. And so I think that's a valid perspective. You know, how does the perpetrator's family? How do his parents cope with this event? make sense of it? You know, how do they make sense of the unthinkable? Right? And I think part of the job of our channel is to dive into that realm that few people are willing to dive into and to process

what that means. And, you know, part for me, part of dealing with this question of the unthinkable is finding words. It's finding language to express something that's unexpressible. And I think that's what we're trying to do in this interview. Like you'll notice, Lauren said one of the the criticisms was of me, I guess, was that I was being too soft on them, that I wasn't asking hard enough questions. That's not my job in this situation. Or can I tell you one of the most stressful parts for me, the other commenters? I held my breath when you did it, and it was hard for other commenters, and I completely respect what you did, but they gave us some things about him. We asked them for a bio. We asked them for a bio of Stefan Stearns, and they wrote all this stuff. The good, the bad,

the ugly, the good memories and they wrote about how he had empathy and when you brought up tell us about the empathy you saw. Even I held my breath during that moment. I was grateful for your support during the interview because I'm usually interviewing victims, not

the perpetrator's family and you do this every day and I... Yeah, let me talk about that. That's really important. And a lot of commenters were like, what the heck? Like, how could you do that? That's so intense. No, no, let me explain that. So they sent us a bio that was quite lengthy and obviously we're going to jump up. We got it with like two hours before the interview.

So I had to go through it really quickly. It was really important. One of the things I take a lot of pride in with my job is I'll go through every document I can and I want to understand as much as I can about everything before I do an interview or an evaluation. And so I thought it was really important that they, sent this and then I had to read it. And I noticed that they they talked about his empathy. And I thought it was really important to bring that up because it's, again, if we're dealing with this issue of the unthinkable, the unthinkable creates fear. It creates uncertainty.

It creates anger, right? And a lot of times those qualities, that fear and that anger gets projected onto not only the perpetrator, but the parents. And I think that's what we had here. You know, there's a lot of projection of this fear and this anger and this uncertainty that people want to simplify things to the most elemental level so that they can feel like it makes sense to them, right? And the reason I brought up the empathy was because it really challenges that narrative. Like if you have the narrative that Stefan Stern is a monster. And, you know, maybe his mother called him a monster in the interview later. Yeah. But if you have that narrative, then you're not going to see him as some way.

with empathy. But, however, like, my perspective in the, what I was trying to figure out in the, so Stefan Stern's is a different creature in the sense that I see him as more of a sex offender. I see him as more of a pedophile or let's say a possible pedophile, right? And it's important for people to understand that a pedophile is different than a psychopath. A psychopath can be a pedophile. But a psychopath or an antisocial personality disorder, they typically lack empathy. But a pedophile who's trying to develop a relationship with a child, they might have empathy. Yeah. And so what's important about that is to see, is to make a distinction between someone who might be like a stone cold killer and someone who might have empathy and is capable of developing a close relationship with a child and then abusing that child. and then murdering that child for whatever reasons.

We don't know why, right? But like, I want to challenge this narrative that every single perpetrator we deal with is the same. They're not. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door.

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dot com for 15% off today. Some of them like Stefan Stern's might have empathy and they might use it in the capacity of forming a close relationship with the child to abuse that child. And ironically, like in Stefan Stern's case, I really do feel at some level that he felt very close to Maddie.

I mean, I'm not justifying it, right? Obviously, everything he did was immoral and disgusting and illegal and, right? He's where he should be right now. But I'm trying to look at it this from his perspective, right? Like to him, he feels like he's in love with this little girl. He feels like he can walk in her shoes.

In other words, he has empathy for her. Yeah. He's not necessarily thinking, I'm going to develop a relationship with this girl and then murder her as she gets older. I'm just trying to say, like, every narrative of a perpetrator is different. And I wanted to learn about,

I brought that up because I wanted to see how his parents perceived that. Do they understand that he was using this empathy to develop emotional closeness with a child so that he could abuse that child? Right. Like that's what I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. This is not, I think a lot of people want to see this as a case of a psychopath with no emotions and no empathy killing a child. But it's more than that. Like I brought it up to deal with the complexities of this case.

I didn't bring it up because I'm overly sympathetic with them or I'm overly sympathetic with the perpetrator. There was a clear reason. If I'm in a clinical interview, if I'm in a forensic interview, these are the types of things I'm interested in. And for those who really paid attention to kind of my approach in this interview, almost all the questions I was asking were trying to delve into

the origins of possibly the origins of pedophilia. So like I wanted to know essentially like my perception here is this is more about pedophilia than it is about psychopathy or being a psychopath. And so I wanted to know and I wanted our listeners to see what does a parent, what does a parent who's raising a potential pedophile? How do they see it? Were there elements in their childhood that led to their child becoming a pedophile? Right. Right. Like, what are the qualities that, that when they raised this child, what were some of the characteristics and the traits that they saw in their child that might later lead to this type of crime?

That's what my questioning was addressing. And empathy is part of that because pedophiles are quite capable of being empathic with their victims. In fact, that's part of the grooming process. Right. So I wasn't doing this to let anybody off. the hook. I wasn't doing this to create sympathy in the situation. I wasn't doing it, right? I wasn't, I think I was doing this quite specifically to get their perspective on how they perceived him to be empathic and whether that might apply to the situation with Madeline Soto.

Well, and I think it was important because that question and then talking about empathy that they perceived in him actually did help kind of change my view to about the crime and about what more specifically Jennifer Soto. Jennifer Soto, I mean, there's quite the witch hunt online with Jennifer Soto, you know, and I certainly were all compelled by what Jennifer Soto knew or didn't know and how in the world she could be allowing her daughter to be sleeping with her on and off again boyfriend. Like, that's the thing that everyone keeps bringing up. And to hear about Stefan Stern's quote unquote empathy makes me actually think, gosh, he was really capable of getting the trust of not just Madeline, but also Jen. And as the Sterns talk about how Madeline genuinely wanted to co-sleep,

I believe that's true. There are many children out there who desire through fear, anxiety, comfort to co-sleep, you know, maybe Jennifer really didn't know. Maybe she really was manipulated by Stefan Stern. Well, he started the abuse at a young age. Yeah. So, you know, I really do think at some level that Stefan Sterns believed that he loved Madeline and that she loved him. And, you know, for some pedophiles, they just don't, they know at some level,

that's wrong, but they don't really care, right? Like it's, it's, you know, and this is where some narcissism comes in, that he's, he's obviously just concerned about meeting his needs and feeling loved by this child. And he doesn't really, so that's where the antisocial part comes in. He doesn't really care about transgressing normal rules and laws to get what he wants from this little child. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have empathy. That's the irony, right? And so I, I don't necessarily think this is a case of a stone cold psychopath murdering a child. I think it's more than that. It's more complex than that.

Especially with the possible pedophilia. So that's what I was after. And you know, if you look at what the parents said when I read that and asked about it, they pointed to all these stories about him being close to animals. Right? And think about that for a minute.

So there's a lot of research out there showing that almost all serial killers are the opposite. Serial killers are probably the closest form of pure psychopaths we know of. And serial killers, almost every one of them. And again, there's research showing this. They harm animals. They kill animals.

They have no connection to animals. But this guy does. Yeah. Right? And so that's interesting because it does, you know, it was an interesting answer because it does show some degree of empathy. But if you want to understand Stefan Cerns, this is important because the empathy went a long way towards him developing a close relationship with a child. That's why it's important.

I mean, I could not obviously articulate this on the interview. My job is to listen. So one of the things I've learned about walking into a room where we're going to talk about the unbearable and the unthinkable and stuff that people almost. everywhere I don't want to talk about, is that you need to first and foremost listen. My job isn't to walk in there judgmental and formulate an opinion and say you're lying. Although I do that sometimes, depending on the circumstance, I've done that plenty of times. My job, basically, if you want to understand the unthinkable, you need to listen. And that's what I was trying to do.

I was trying to ask questions that would allow that I wanted to give them the space to formulate difficult ideas or difficult feelings and thoughts in that interview that would allow them to begin to make sense of it. And part of that, I think, was, part of that I think was not only kind of letting them process their grief, but asking questions about that I thought were interesting in terms of understanding their son and how he was able to arrive at a point where he did what he did. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for sharing that.

And I think I did understand that as it continued. That's why I kept my mouth shut and just breathe in and let you go. But yeah, and this is what you do for your work. Like this is no different than what you do for your work. So we were seeing you do what you do. Is that right? I mean, no. in my work I'm going to be more focused on, I mean, to some degree, yes.

In my work, I'm going to be dealing with the perpetrator directly, and I'm going to have certain hypotheses. I'm going to come into the room with certain hypotheses about like pedophilia and what I think were some of the elements that might have led to that. So I guess there's a similarity in the sense that I did have some ideas about, possibly about what contributed to the pedophilia and murder. But yes, I mean, I didn't, the challenge aspect of this interview would be less typically than it would be with the perpetrator. Like, I feel like grieving parents are a different thing than a perpetrator.

And a perpetrator almost typically is going to be a more denial and they're going to be more defensive and they're going to be angrier, right? I mean, the parents have some of that because they're being blamed for a lot of stuff. but I think it's a different type of interview in the sense that I don't, you know, like I think they're still trying to make sense of this situation and they're trying to make sense of they are. They're trying to make sense of something that's essentially unthinkable and unbearable. And like, I have a lot of empathy for that. Like, I know, you know, a lot of their answer to why was that he had a traumatic brain injury.

Correct. Right. That's a lot of their explanation. and I'm sure people probably struggled with that. Yeah, a lot of people criticize them for making excuses for their son. But I think what's important to understand about that is this is a grieving, these are grieving parents that essentially at least Deborah acknowledged. Deborah called her son a monster late in this interview.

Like these are grieving parents that are acknowledging that their son did this horrible thing and now they have to live with it and they will never see their son again. Right. And they have to die knowing what he did. And so, you know, I don't disagree with the fact that they're simplifying this and they're probably trying to formulate something that makes sense to them. They're trying to figure out how in the world this could happen. Right. And they're doing it in a way that they're doing it in a way where their parenting has perhaps less influence on the outcome, right?

Like they're trying to probably make themselves feel a little better. But I can't fault them at this point. I don't fault them at all for trying to make sense of it. Like how do any of us deal with the unthinkable? Right. Are we going to like fully embrace, you know. You're going to sing Taylor Swift, me. I'm the problem.

It's me. Me. It's all me. No, you're going to try to look at the entire childhood and be like, what went wrong and when. If there are issues from his childhood that they contributed to, that contributed to the situation, I think it's going to take them a lot of time to come to terms with that. So in terms of making sense of it now and seeing it as a function of TBI, that's part of this process. It is.

And it's part of putting into words. Like one thing about the unthinkable is we can't express it often. When people experience the trauma, they lose the ability to express what they're feeling and what their thing. Like, it upends their entire sense of the world. It upends all their assumptions about the world. And part of trauma is trying to put the pieces back together in language, in words, with feelings that allows us to reengage with the world. I guess we have two choices, right? We can just give up and we can despair and we can say, this was so horrible.

I'm not going to go on anymore, right? I'm just going to be depressed the rest of my life and not move forward. Or we can try to talk to people or at least like reflect on it ourselves and put something into language and emotions, feelings, right? Express something that helps us make sense of it. And I think that's what they're doing. So whatever it is they're saying, you know, even if it's, even if it's, partially an excuse for certain things, let's say, hypothetically, I think that's what I would expect. And I can't, I don't fault them. I don't, right? I don't fault them for, for that at all,

because they're just trying to make sense. They're just trying to put the pieces of the world back together so that they can function and that they can not blame themselves every day for the rest of their lives and fall into this total depression and self-destruct, right? They're just trying to make sense of it so they can go on. And I want to say I admire them for doing that publicly. They were essentially processing it with us publicly, which is something we do not see often with the parents of the perpetrator. And I felt it was real and it was important to learn from.

And it was important to see how perpetrators' parents grieve and process and try to just survive knowing that their son is a monster quote unquote Deborah at the end you know I am grateful for that because if we want to understand the impacts of crime what they allowed us to do I want to say was remarkable in my opinion that they gave the public this opportunity to see them deal with the unthinkable right and we don't and they're not perfect you know we we hear from a lot of victims' families and we see them processing their grief. And it's a similar process in a way, I think, like just trying to make sense of the unthinkable and express something that's often inexpressible. But yeah, I agree. Like, I think what's all lost in the shuffle often times

is that the perpetrators have parents. The perpetrators, right, they have mothers, fathers, whatever. And they too go through a process of grieving. They too. They too. too, like they too have to come to terms with the fact that they put this destructiveness out into the world, not necessarily directly. They didn't expect to have a child that would do this, obviously, but they have to make sense of it. And we don't, we don't see that as often. So yeah, I feel like, I feel like that's why we did this, was just to let people, you know,

since they were willing to share it. Which I thank them for. Yeah. Since they were willing to share it, I think it's, you know, to me at least, it's really valuable to see that other side and to see, you know, because so many of the crimes we deal with, the perpetrator's side, they're in complete denial. Right. Or, you know, the laundries. Yeah, the laundries. But so many families where the dayball kits. The dayball kids. Right. You know, there's so many instances where the reality of being associated with a, quote, monster, unquote, is really unbearable, right?

And that most would never come forward publicly. Right, exactly. And so, you know, to have his parents come forward and to be so honest and open about it, I think, I hope. shed some light not only on Stefan, but also the grieving process on the other side of the equation, the perpetrator's side of the equation. Yeah. Yes. This is a question many people asked, and so it's something I think I can answer. When it comes to a lot of the interviews that Gray Hughes did with people that know the Stearns and New Steffen, and there are some very interesting interviews, Grafews did.

There was one, though, that was a third party. It was someone that said somebody said something. And it was about Deborah Sterns allegedly paying somebody off to keep something that Stefan Stearns had done, like recording footage, like a secret. And just, you know, this is a third party interview. So it's not a direct interview. And from the very beginning, I just want you guys all to know that Deborah, we forgot to bring that up on our part. I was going to ask that.

But so I want you to know that privately, Deborah Sterns has always said that is simply not true. And I can tell you that I believe her. I personally believe her. I'm talking for myself and only me. Because from what else I have seen from Debbie Stern's privately and publicly, she has been very proactive in calling the police, even about possible other things she's now concerned that Stefan might have done. What I have seen leads me to believe her. But I realize different people might believe different things. But I was going to ask her, and she has said that's

simply not true. And she has stated, if anybody ever told me of a crime my son committed or I knew of something, I would call the police. That's her answer to that if anybody is wondering. It's a question we didn't ask. And it's also worth noting that they handed over his computer hard drives. Like if they were hiding something, why would they do that? Right. They have, they let, yeah, they have handed over a lot. And a lot of evidence that people don't know about, too.

Yeah. They have given everything they can think of to. Right, which is inconsistent with someone trying to pay to cover something up, you know. So. Right. And also, I mean, I don't know. It could be true, but I don't think so either. And yeah, we were going to talk about it.

We just, we didn't have the time. And we felt like the direction we were going in, it didn't really fit with the tenor of the interview. But also, you know, third party saying stuff like that in court is not considered evidence, considered hearsay. Right. That's not to say that the California. be some validity to it. Maybe there is, but you know, you have to produce evidence. Right. Right. In court of law, you can't, you can't have a third party come in and say stuff that there's no

direct proof exists. Right. And the interview was somebody said this to me. Yeah. So already you've got, okay, well, let's let's have the person that this happened to come right and they haven't. And I also want to say this. Deborah Stearns wished that she had said, said to people, and this is something they thanked us for, that if stories like that come, they say that they believe good journalists should go to the source and ask or get the other side, or at least allow them the opportunity to share. And so I'm sharing that on behalf of the Sterns. They don't know we're doing this episode for Patreon, but I know it's something that she

wanted known and we didn't make that, we forgot that too, but that they valued that we went to the source with them. And of course, in journalism, there's oftentimes where people writing an article to say, we did reach out to this other side. They did not comment. But at least they tried. Right.

So I'm trying to think what else. Oh, another comment pointed out, you know, her lack of that maybe she was still, Debbie was still perhaps blaming Jen. When I asked the question, Do you believe Stefan manipulated Jen? And her response is a little bit like, what is Jen hiding, feeling some, you know, separately, I want you to know that from Debbie, I've actually seen her give a lot of empathy to Jen more than I think she showed on this interview. So I'm just sharing that.

I'm not trying to make excuses or anything. I'm just sharing an honest thing. But I've seen both, but then them coming to the conclusion. that he's the sole perpetrator sort of says. But I think that they are still dealing with that. I think they are still dealing with what did Jen know. So I'm also not saying like that isn't the case either. I think that they probably, I don't know,

maybe this is a question for you, John, that they maybe do fill a lot of anger or frustration. Well, we saw, I think we've seen it, I don't know, we've seen, in talking to them over the past three or four months, we've seen an evolution. Yes. And so I think it's important to note that I'm sure, while I'm sure they have some anger

about that relationship and towards Jen that to go from I can't talk specifics here but to go from where they were three or four months ago to seeing their son as the sole perpetrator is a big change.

Yeah. And more specifically I want to say the empathy that I've heard from from Deborah about Jen is she is that she is so heartbroken that Jen has lost her daughter yeah and that her son did this to her daughter like she feels like I've had direct conversations with her about that so I don't know where she was in this interview but just you guys know like her heart was out to Jen

from what she's privately told me um I and I think blaming their son for everything is a start is right it's such a big step and you know and people I'm sure that on bad days she's going to go back and forth right like people aren't I think we saw an honest back and forth in this interview I think you know a lot of people didn't like that too they're like they say one thing and then say another I'm like I think that's being human that's people trying to figure out what's going on that's people trying to make sense of the senseless right I mean yeah we all do that you know this is going to be something they're going to struggle with for the rest of their lives right Which they said as much. And I have a question for you, John. I want to know to you what is the most compelling part of the interview for you. For me, it was when I ended the recording. I thought it was like, for me, for me, for me, the most compelling part of any interview,

I think the part that always gets to me is when it's just like the most raw and the most honest. And that, and maybe even the most unthinkable because, you know, the unfathomable. Yeah. at the very end of the interview when she said, and I'll edit in the sound bite here, but when she said, if he's executed, Chris has asked me if I wanted to be there. And I said, yes. We were there when he was born. We'll be there when he does.

I want him to know that there are two people in that room. They're going to be sad when he's gone. And we will send him with, oh, I'm done. Holy crap. like yeah i i think to me that was like unfortunately it's at the very end i don't even know how many people got to that to me that was like how can you even fathom having that conversation with your spouse about your son being executed

and processing if you want to be there yeah that was to me that was the most one of the probably the most emotional moment in the interview because you know as parent as a parent just again getting back to this idea of then thinkable like I don't think any parent when they have a child envisions sitting in a room behind a glass wall watching their child being executed right like I can't even no one thinks about that in parenting no nobody right that's not that's not on the menu when you think about being a parent like you think my child's going to you know have a good life he's going to get married. He's going to, right, he's going to have, he's going to do things in his life that make him happy, that bring him joy, whatever that is, right? That's, and if someone's child does get in

trouble with the law, you think he'll be out one day, he'll have a second chance, I'll hopefully get him parole, you're not thinking, should we be there when he's executed? Right. And I think that also raises the question of whether love is unconditional. You know, they kept saying that. Like, we're going to love our child no matter what. And some commenters said, no, if my son did this, I'd stop loving him. I thought that was interesting. Some comments were like, no, you leave them high and dry. Honestly, I think my love is unconditional for our son. Mine is. You know, it would break my heart beyond shattered and a million pieces. It would break my, I can't even imagine being in a room, you know, where my child is going to be executed and dealing

with the grief and the heartbreak of my child, being in that position and my child harming other human beings. You know, but it's still my child. And, you know, I don't know. I think that's another important part of this interview is, do you love the child? Should we love the child unconditionally, right? Like, even if they do the unthinkable, even if they do the worst imaginable, commit the worst imaginable crime that any human being can engage in, right?

Do you still love that kid, right? Unconditionally. Yeah. For me, I think, for me, the answer is yes. For me, I think I could never not love my child. I don't know how I could do it any other way. I mean, I think I would tell my child, you know, I'm so, I can't believe you did this, right? Like, I would even be disgusted of what my child did.

I would be ashamed. I would die heartbroken. I would wonder if we should have ever had a child, maybe even wish. I never gave birth, but I couldn't stop loving him. And I think that, I think it's important to, for talking about this, to have empathy for the Stearns and for the families of perpetrators. too in the sense that that type of heartbreak has got to be unimaginable, right? Like I, again, if I think about that being our son, I just can't even, I can't even fathom it. You know, I can't even go there emotionally.

And they never said he shouldn't be executed. They never said, we're going to fight that he's not executed. They just said, we will love him and be there. Because we will miss him. They're anticipating that he probably will be executed and he probably will get the death penalty. Of course, it'll take years for that to come to fruition. Yeah.

I think the other thing, too, is people have been discussed that they've sent him money in prison and tried to make things nicer for him, and I think that goes along with the same idea of unconditional love. Yeah, like what are they supposed to do? Punish him? You know, I mean, he's being punished. Rightfully so.

Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I think those are just the things we want to talk about. I'm trying to think there's any other questions people had. Well, I guess, yeah, I have one last question for you. Well, I think people want to know. What are your thoughts in the TBI? That's the quick people want to know what you think.

Like is that, can TBI have that? You know. TBI, a traumatic brain injury can definitely affect personality. it can affect memory. It can affect so much. It depends on the extent, you know, the extent of the brain damage, depends on the area of the brain.

Do I think that the TBI is the sole cause of this? No, I don't. I think that, I think with almost all criminals that there are multiple causes, so multiple causation and TBI, I think could be one of those elements. I think there's more. I think there's no question

that there's usually a combination of nature and nurture that affects these types of crimes. So pedophilia, for example, can involve some structural issues in the brain, like to the frontal lobes and to the amygdala. But that doesn't cause pedophilia. I think there have to be,

there typically are going to be other factors that play a role in terms of like sexual development in terms of sexual interest upbringing right like there's there's always i think going to be more causal elements there's going to be a series of causal elements but you know in this particular case i understand why they see the tBI as being the most important element yeah um do i think that's the explanation, I think it's a partial explanation. I think it's, it plays a role. I don't think it's the final explanation, right? I think that there's more here. If I was doing the forensic evaluation of Stefan, I would dig a lot deeper into a lot of issues, including issues in the family that they probably didn't talk about. So, so no. I mean, does it play a role? Yes. Does it play the role? I

I don't know. Probably not. Yeah. It's a piece of the puzzle. Yeah. It's one piece. Thank you. Thanks for this episode. This is healthy for me to even debrief it. Just a couple announcements. I want to share a few things. Some people have noticed we haven't been going fully live like this, like what we just did here for our Patreon members recently. We've been doing a lot of pre-recorded or the interview with the Stearns or, you know, I just put out an Edelson video.

That's something I recommend everyone checking out because John and I do have plans in the future to do an analysis on the Aitlesons. And I'm trying to do more backstories as well. Thank you for your feedback and saying that you like these backstories. We're going to try to do more of them because we want this analysis and we want to have the understanding and background of the case. So we just did that with Aetledons. Many of you been requesting that we assess them or have John assess this crime and this family. that will happen. It won't happen tomorrow or, you know, Saturday because he needs a lot more time, but we are on our way. And we do have some live scheduled. Tomorrow, I believe we're going to share

an interview that I did. But we wanted to do this for our Patreon because I know people have been missing that, but we are going to go back to our conversations like this too. But if we have this laps because we're doing more deep dives, we will be here on Patreon as well. Yeah, so we're, I'm spending, well, Lauren and I, but in terms of my research, I'm spending a lot of time delving into some cases that just have so many documents and so much, there's so much research to do

that I need to take a little more time. Delphi would be one of those, the Edel Sins. There's a handful. We're also looking at, we're probably going to, since there's kind of been a Menendez Brothers revival recently, I think we're going to be talking about the Menendez brothers. And I need to get updated on what's going on with them. So we're going to be come back live. We're going to be coming back live and forced. We're just dealing with some cases that are unusually difficult and have a huge amount of discovery.

and documents and the research is a little more involved and takes a little more time. So I read an article about a podcast called Acquired, which I guess is about, I haven't listened to it personally, but it's about startups, technology startups, and the guy does like this incredible deep dive in these companies and how they were founded and all that kind of stuff. and I guess he does an episode like every four to six weeks because they're so involved. And I kind of understood it. I'm like, you know, to go week after week after week with lives, you know, it requires so much preparation.

And yeah, I've been kind of burned out. And sometimes I just need a little bit more time to really get my thoughts together and to dive deep into certain cases. And I could totally relate to the acquire. guy and his need to take enough time to like really, really present a detail analysis. So I feel like we're kind of like that. I mean, we're putting out content every week, but we'll be back. I promise that our analyses will be deep and special and we're looking forward to coming

back soon. Yes. And that is a great example. John was a little burned out, and we certainly needed more time for Delphi, and he certainly needs more time for Adelson's. So in the meantime, again, I'm pulling the stories together. The good news is there's two of us. So I'm taking the journalism route, well, you are deep diving into these very important cases. And right now, I hope to be at some, if not all, of the Delphi trial. And then also in Salt Lake City, I will be a guest with Annie Elise in Salt Lake City.

at Annie Elise with Tendalife or the Serialessly podcast on October 17th. And for anyone that is interested in tickets, go to Annie Elise's website. It's her show. I'm honored to have been asked by her to be a guest with her for this live podcast. And I hope to meet some of you there. And I think that's the latest. Yeah. And so, and a fascinating interview again with someone coming, I think we're going to do that tomorrow.

I'm going to be, I'm working on, I'm producing a Patreon-only episode that will be a little different. It's going to be very philosophical. I think it's going to raise a lot of questions about the criminal mind. And I'm looking forward to that. I've been working on that for a couple weeks. now and we're going to be recording that soon. So it'll be different. I'll be looking forward to getting, you know, our Patreon members feedback on it.

But I'm excited about it. And that should be out soon. We might even turn on our microphones for that one, right? Because it's a prepared podcast rather than these on a whim that we're doing with our phones. We'll put the microphones. Yeah, that one will be much more professionally produced than just on the iPhone like this. one, but anyway. It'll be for our patrons.

This is a little afternoon snack. It's like noon-ish in Vegas, one o'clock, I don't know. So anyway, thanks for joining us. That's what we're up to. As always, let us know if you have any thoughts or questions or comments on this little snack. And we will obviously be in touch. Great ending. It's not the right ending.

It's not the right ending, but it works. Yes. We'll be in touch. Give us a call later. Yes. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. We'll see you. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent.

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