Hidden True Crime - Dr. John Analyzes Jen Soto and Stephan Sterns Interviews & Evidence

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Case Background: Madeline Soto was a 13-year-old girl living in Kissimmee, Florida. She was initially reported missing on February 26, 2024, after her mom, Jennifer Soto, went to pick her up from school and Madeline was nowhere to be found. At the time, Jennifer Soto told police that Madeline was dropped off across the street from her school in a church parking lot by her mom's long-time/live-in boyfriend, Stephan Sterns. Stephan Sterns said he watched Madeline walk from the church parking lot towards the school but didn't watch Madeline walk all the way to see that she made it in. A massive 4-day search effort by multiple law enforcement agencies to find Madeline quickly ensued. In the immediate aftermath of her disappearance, investigators turned their attention to Stephan Sterns. Law enforcement found several disturbing pictures and videos on his phone of Madeline. He was later arrested on 60 charges, including capital sexual battery, lewd or lascivious molestation, and unlawful possession of materials depicting sexual performance by a child. Tragically, on March 1, 2024, Madeline was found deceased near a wooded area on Hickory Tree Rd. in Osceola County. This is the same area where Stephan Sterns's car was reported as being seen on the day Madeline went missing. Through several press conferences and news statements, law enforcement has stated that they believe that Madeline was already dead the morning she disappeared and that Stephan Sterns was actually moving her body at the time he was supposed to take her to school. Police also revealed that security footage shows Stephan Sterns dumping Madeline's backpack and her school laptop in an apartment complex dumpster at 7:35 am that morning. Additionally, police have video footage of Stephan Sterns returning to the dumpster, with what appears to be Madeline visibly deceased in the car. In April of 2024, Stephan Sterns was indicted on first-degree murder by a grand jury. On June 10, 2024, prosecutors announced that they will be seeking the death penalty against Stephan Sterns for Madeline's murder. 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, q-u-in-c-com slash hidden true crime for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hidden true crime. Now's the time for a great deal on a new Honda. It's time to take an adventure with rugged capability and commanding. standing style. Check out the Honda Ridgeline, pilot, or CRV. For a limited time, well-qualified buyers can get a 3.9% APR on a 2025 pilot or a 2.9% APR on a 2025 Ridgeline or CRV.

See dealer for financing details. Hello, Hidden Gems. It's Lauren and John, as I always joke. Surprise, as if you thought it would be somebody else. I say it's Lauren and John. Your co-hosts, Your host of Hidden True Crime, John is a, for those of you that are new to our channel, John, Dr. John is a forensic and clinical psychologist and who has worked for decades with offenders as well as victims. And I am his wife and co-host and I am a journalist and was a television reporter. And the case that we're about to discuss live with you tonight is the Madeline Soto case. It's a case that many have been asking us to cover. It's a case that we have both been delving into because there are so many documents that the police have released. And it is difficult to say the least what has come out. I have done separate videos with those documents sharing the evidence. And I recommend everyone can go there to hear that full background.

John has also done an initial show about this case a couple of months ago. but we are going to delve in deeper to discover what is hidden, and I'm going to give the majority of the time to you. So this is also a trigger warning, of course. This is a case that is difficult. It includes a child. It includes abuse. And Madeline is no longer with us here. Her body was found March 1st in a wooded area in Florida. Stefan Sturms has been arrested. in her murder. So that's where we are. And since that time, other things that he did to Madeline for years and years and years has been released. So a lot has changed, obviously, since we first talked about this case, we have all the documents and so much more information. And there's so many tidbits

and the documents that it took me, I had to go through it a few times to really start putting it together because there's pieces here and there that are really critical that are easy to overlook. In our last show about this, I kind of started with the premise that maybe this was just another case of a psychopath who murders a child. And that's a scenario that we talk about all the time. I wasn't sure we were going to pick this up again because I was worried that maybe that's all this case was. But it's not. It's a lot more than that. It's significantly more than that.

But I want to start with Madeline. And the more I went through these documents, the more sorrow, I think I felt. And the more sad, you know, this is a really hard case for me that, you know, it just really pulled on my heartstrings because I kept feeling all the time that this poor girl, this 13-year-old girl who had known Stefan Stern since she was six, and he has been in her life for seven years. So keep that in mind. This is seven years of potentially ongoing crimes.

But the more I looked at these documents and really tried to understand Madeline, the more, I kind of have this sense that she was almost invisible. Like, nobody saw this girl. To me, that's one of the big tragedies here, is that there's this real invisibility. And, you know, Madeline talks about this desire when she's 13 and she just turned 13 before she was murdered. But she talks about turning 13 and then going off to live alone in the woods. You know, you could say that she wasn't serious about that, but she talked about it a lot.

And even if you see that as more metaphorical, it's almost like this victim goes from being invisible to those around her to going in the woods and wanting to completely disappear. You know, and that, that's just heartbreaking. There was a moment in here when I read, there was an interview in the documents by the Kissimmee Police Department, one of the detectives. And the detective did an interview with Madeline's best friend. I'm not going to mention the best friend's name. It is in the document. It's not redacted. But I'm going to refer to the best friend as S.

And I just want to read a little bit about what S says about Madeline. This is fairly insignificant, I think, in terms of understanding this whole case. And yet it's not. This is like one of those moments that really, it's something you really would easily overlook in these documents, but it really grabbed me. So this friend, S, is talking. talking about Madeline's birthday party. The detective asked how Madeline was acting at her party. And S said, quote, she stated when she got there,

meaning when Madeline got there, she was getting upset. S then explained that Madeline was upset because some of her friends canceled going to the party the day before. So she's got these friends. She's anticipating they're going to be there. This is the 13th birthday party. She's excited for this. And all of a sudden, all of her friends cancel.

They're not going to show up. And Madeline is really shaken by this. She's upset. At the very least, she wants her friends to show up because we already know that her mother doesn't really see her. She's invisible to her mother in many ways because her mother is so self-absorbed and because her mother is so invested in this relationship with Stefan that she treats Madeline in many ways as kind of non-existent. We know that there's a history of conflict between Jennifer, who's the mother and Madeline, that they feel. fight a lot. There's a point in these documents where one of the friends says that Jennifer tells Madeline, I can't wait until you turn 18 so that I can basically put you out in the streets

and let go of you. I just want to get rid of you. She says that. So here we have this 13 year old girl. She just turned 13. She has all these expectations of this birthday party. And then her friends all cancel, except for one. There's one friend who decided to go. Her best friend showed up, S showed up, and then another friend showed up. Her name initials E. And when E showed up, Madeline cheered up considerably. But she was still upset that all of her other friends basically abandoned her for this party. S goes on.

Quote, S assumed Madeline was upset at the party because Jennifer was not there. So all of her friends cancel on her and her mother doesn't show up either. Her mother doesn't show up because she started a new job. And you might say, okay, it's a birthday party. that big of a deal. It is to Madeline. It is to a 13-year-old girl who has a limited number of friends who's really not seen at school. She's not seen at home. She's not really seen anywhere. It matters to her. And I think it matters to understanding this case, this idea of invisibility and not being seen and not being heard. We received, we received so many emails. And I just

want to apologize to many of our listeners out there who write to us. We try to read them. We just, we can't get to all of them. We wish we could. But we did see this email, and I just want to read quickly a piece of it. This is from one of our gems. The gem says, quote, I believe in my heart that Maddie's story is hitting so many people because her mother didn't listen. We are disgusted and triggered by Jen. I hope you will touch on this more and help. us deal with the deep wounds that are there as a result of our mother's not protecting us. Here we have an email from a gem who's saying that this story really resonated her. For some of the reasons I just identified, that she's saying that Jen didn't listen to her daughter.

Jen didn't see her daughter. So we have the same idea, I think, that, you know, that nobody sees her. As far as Stefan goes, I want to talk about this idea of invisibility with Stefan. He sees her. He just sees her as an object. He sees her as an object to be used for his own gratification. He doesn't see her for who she is or for what she's feeling or for what she wants or desires or needs. He doesn't care about any of that.

And her friends, as I just pointed out, her friends really don't see her either, sadly. I think a big part of our discussion tonight should be how and why did this happen. How is it that all these people are not able to see her and to understand her? There's some documents where the police conducted interviews with a number of friends and some school personnel, teachers, guidance counselors. And I want to read a few of those, or at least summarize what some of those, the people said. A 33-year-old teacher, a name is redacted. I wouldn't read it anyway, but a 33-year-old teacher was interviewed. The teacher said that Madeline was always, quote, fatigued, unquote, which the teacher took to be a, quote, a sign of depression.

A student told this teacher also that Madeline just wanted to live in the woods when she turned 13. This was being repeated so much that it was getting back to teachers. Another friend, a different friend, not the best friend, a 13-year-old, another 13-year-old friend, said that, quote, Madeline cried often, and she would often tell me, I just want to cry. So even at school, Madeline can't suppress this deep sorrow, this invisibility not being seen. Another 12-year-old friend said in the interview with one of the detectives, quote, she seemed pretty sad all the time. A school counselor, this is important, a school counselor was interviewed. The school counselor said that Madeline had come to visit the counselor six times since the beginning of the school year. With the counselor, Madeline talked about anxiety and panic attacks.

She talked about the constant fights with her mother. She described Stefan as, quote, weird. And she said she, quote, didn't like him because he made. makes me feel uncomfortable, unquote. It's interesting to note that the school concert also said that in December, January, Madeline's grades improved significantly. They went from a D average up to passing. December happens to be the exact month that Stefan left the home and moved back to Northport,

Florida. Yeah. He left and moved out. So another thing to know about Madeline is that the detectives identified that from some of her records that she had been diagnosed with ADHD. Her mother, Jennifer, had said that she was believed to have autism, although that apparently was changing. She was also diagnosed with some type of anxiety disorder, which could have been the panic attacks, the school counselor identified. When I look at this, when I look at these interviews, my first thought is these would all be

signs of depression. And again, I'm not diagnosing here. I need to put on my shirt saying I'm not diagnosing. What's interesting to me is that all these people, all these friends and people at school identified all these symptoms of depression, the crying all the time. There's more, by the way. Another one of her friends said that Madeline talked about running away and living in the woods and that Jen threatened to kick her out of the house and disown her when she turned 18. The friend also said that Madeline, quote, she went through a depressive phase earlier in the year, unquote, and she wore red makeup, which made it look like she was crying. So presumably she wore red makeup because she was trying to cover up her tears or constant crying.

You've got all these people identifying all these symptoms of depression. And yet the detectives asked almost all of them, do you think she was depressed? And they all said, no, she's not depressed. So getting back to this idea, like who is looking out for this girl? Who is seeing this girl and her needs? Does anyone see that she's depressed? Does anyone see that she needs help? It's so frustrating to go through these docs and to see these signs over and over.

Not a single person really connects to that depression. Not a single person connects to her loneliness and her isolation, including, obviously, her mother. The school counselor is interesting because Madeline talked about Stefan with the school counselor. And the Madeline described Stefan is weird and making her feel uncomfortable. Now, if a 13-year-old came in my office and said, somebody is weird and makes me feel uncomfortable, I'd say, tell me more about that. How are you so uncomfortable around this person? But there's no indication whatsoever that, I mean, maybe the school council were asked her that,

but it doesn't seem like the person did. It just seems like Madeline said, you know, he makes me feel uncomfortable. Okay, well, why? And so I think I want to lead with this because we want to give Madeline a voice and I want to acknowledge all these struggles that she was encountering and how in some ways she was screaming to be. be seen and nobody cared. Nobody was willing to look and see and notice her depression. I mean, people noticed her anxiety, I guess. She had panic attacks. But when a 12, 13 year old is coming to

school and crying all the time, when she's falling asleep at school, when a teacher notices that she's fatigued and probably depressed and nobody seems to care, to me, that's problematic. So by way of introduction, I think I just, I want to pay tribute to Madeline. And, you know, I hope can give her a voice by really delving into some of the deeper issues that are going on in this case. And there's a lot of them. But it is a heartbreaking case. And these are the kinds of little tidbits in these documents that I kept running into that are just so heartbreaking. You know, the email I just read is very critical of Jennifer. I think that has been a big part of this case is, you know, what did Jennifer know? Why didn't Jennifer intervene, right? What kind of mother would kind of

throw her child of the wolves, you know? How is that possible? So I want to talk about both Stefan and Jennifer. I'm not sure which order to go in. I think this case is about Stefan Stearns. This case begins and ends with Stefan Stearns, because if Stefan Stearns doesn't enter the picture, or if Stefan Stearns had a moral compass, we wouldn't be talking tonight. It's true that Jennifer is no heroic mother. That's for sure. That there's a lot to talk about with Jen. And we'll talk about it. But I think we have to start with the premise that this crime is committed by Stefan Stern's. I said this on our first show, it's possible the police may find evidence implicating Jen as a co-conspirator, but so far we don't, I haven't seen that evidence.

So right now, my presumption is that Stefan acted alone. And as far as we know, Jennifer may be a horrible mother, but I can't reach the conclusion at this point that Jenner. Jennifer was involved in the murder or knew about the murder or participated in it. So in that sense, I think it's really important to place blame where it belongs. And that's with Stefan Stern's. It doesn't appear at all. I mean, Jennifer did make some inconsistent statements. She initially said that she saw her daughter, Madeline, in the morning, on the morning that she disappeared.

And she changed that and said that she didn't see her. She said that she heard her getting ready for school. However. Big difference. But even I have a question there. too, by the way, even hearing her. I don't know. I question that. My guess is that Madeline was deceased by the time that Stefan left the home in the morning to supposedly take her to school. I agree. So, right? So Jen, Jen is saying that she heard her. I don't know how that's possible

if she's deceased. So she heard she heard footsteps and she heard Stefan. Right. Right. But she's, she's claiming she heard her. She's, she's claiming that she heard. Madeline alive. I mean, I don't know if that, I don't, she's not very specific about it, but. Right. I disagree. Did she, you know, what does that mean? Did she hear her voice? It seems unlikely that she actually heard, you know, Madeline in any real sense. So let's start with Stefan. This is going to be an intense discussion here. And it's, you know, just a trigger warning here. There's going to be a lot I'm going to talk about here that could be upsetting. This is what John does. By the way, he assesses criminals, but

More specifically, he's worked with more sex offenders than any other. Yeah, I've worked with hundreds of sex offenders. And the reason that's true is because in the criminal justice system, sex offenders are the most difficult to place. Sex offenders are the most difficult to assess and to place in the community or not or to have them stay in prison. It depends on their crimes. But when somebody is murdered, there's less of a gray area. But with sex offenders, there's much more of a gray area. If a sex offender engages in sadistic sexual homicide, there's not much of a crime.

a gray area. But with the sex offense, obviously it's a huge trauma and it's horrible, especially with first-time sex offenders, the system is more open-minded about giving them a chance. With repeat offenders, it's a little more clear-cut. But that means that the system, the judicial system, has more uncertainty. They need more forensic evaluators like myself to assess sex offenders because of the gray area, because it's not as clear-cut. Whereas, you know, typically if you murder someone and the evidence is overwhelming, you're not going to be eligible for parole or probation in the community. I mean, and oftentimes murderers will take a deal right away to avoid the death penalty or to avoid going to trial. But sex offenders, it's much more complicated.

So let's start with that. So Stefan Cerns, just based on what was found, the images and videos that were found on his phone, is undoubtedly a sex offender. I mean, he hasn't been adjudicated. He's not a convicted sex offender yet, so I guess I have to say he's an alleged sex offender. But there are images and pictures. Let me say this. They found over 35,000 images and videos depicting exploitative material involving children. That's a lot.

It's a huge number. In some states, that'll get you life alone. In addition to that, they found thousands of pictures of him, specifically with the victim here. Not one, not two, thousands. And that's, by the way, that is why he was so nervous about his phone, about police confiscating his phone. That's why he, when he went up to visit his parents,

he tried to get on their Wi-Fi to get into his accounts to delete all the pictures. In the end, it really wouldn't have mattered that much because the FBI and law enforcement have ways of retrieving most of those images. Sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes they can't. But for the most part, they're pretty good about finding these images on, I don't know exactly the technology, but they're able to do it. Even if they're deleted, they can go retrieve them. So I think to understand Stefan Stearns, I need to talk about something called a parapheria. A parapheria is, according to the DSM, which is our diagnostic and statistical manual. In this case, the fifth edition is the latest. There's a revision. to the fifth edition. A periphylia, it's persistent and intense sexual interest, urges, fantasies, or behaviors that are atypical in nature. In other words, a parapheria involves what

in my field we sometimes call deviant sexual interest. An example of a periphylia would be pedophilia. And pedophilia, one thing about a parapheria, by the way, a couple things about a parapheria. Number one, for it to be considered periphylia to be considered a disorder, it has to cause distress for the individual involved and or... 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. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN.

ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one. one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at ora.com slash remove. Or it can involve harm to others. So a pedophile, for example, is someone who is essentially attracted to children, typically prepubescent children, 13 and under. And you could have a situation where somebody could have that attraction and it could be a primary attraction, but it doesn't cause them any distress. But it's considered a disorder because obviously if you have that attraction and you act on it, you're going to harm a child. You're going to harm a vulnerable member of our society. And that would then be a disorder. What's one financial lesson you learned

the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns, let's you get started with the spare money you have right now. And one of the best things about acorns is they allow you to see projected growth on their website. Simply go online, type in how much money you'd put in and see the potential future balance of your account. Sign up now and join the over 13 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $22 billion with acorns.

Head to acorns.com slash hidden true crime or download the acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positive. positively promote Acorns, Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involves risk, Acorns Advisors, LLC, and SEC registered investment advisor. A few important disclosures at acorns.com slash hidden true crime. Hormonal changes are so hard to see the least. Hot flashes, anyone else. Add in the thousands of hormone disruptors that are in our environment, and it is even worse. From our water, food, the air we breathe, and the clothes we wear, they are everywhere.

But the good news is that when hormone harmony enters the picture, it can help reduce hormonal symptoms in women of all ages. Hormone harmony is a supplement that contains science-backed herbal extracts called adaptogens. The best thing about adaptogens, they help the body adapt to any stressors like chaotic hormonal changes that happen naturally throughout a woman's life. Hormone harmony is actually part of my personal 2024 playbook. Hormone harmony makes no compromises when it comes to quality and it shows. limited time, you can get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com. That's happy H-A-P-P-P-Y mammoth, M-A-M-A-M-M-O-T-H.com. Just use the code Hidden True Crime at checkout.

That's code Hidden True Crime. Use that with Happy Mammoth.com for 15% off today. Does anyone else find themselves saying, I feel way older than I actually am or I feel way younger? Did you know there might be some truth behind that feeling? That's where true diagnostic comes in. With their true age test, you can discover your true biological age, plus get insights into health risks for heart disease or Alzheimer's, even your mortality. I just ordered my true diagnostic test, and while nervous, I'm looking forward to what it may tell me about my own health so I can take control of things now. When taking tests pertaining to my health, I want to make sure it's scientifically backed and true diagnostic is.

Their true age test is based on peer-reviewed research from scientists working at Harvard, Duke, and Yale. And by tracking your biological age, you can actually see how the changes you make, whether that's exercise, diet or sleep, will affect your health over time. Ready to find out your biological age? Right now, our listeners can get 20% off their entire order at true diagnostic.com by using code hidden true crime at checkout. That's true diagnostic, T-R-U-D-A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C dot com. Just use code hidden-true crime to save 20% off.

Plus, if you subscribe, you'll get an additional 20% off. Discover your true age today. It's interesting to think of Stefan Stern's coming into Madeline Soto's life when she's six years old and he's 30. I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that Stefan Stern's primary relationship is with Madeline and not Jennifer.

And that's problematic, obviously. Obviously. Some of the evidence for that, the best friend I just talked about told detectives that Stefan was always, quote, always on the phone texting and talking with Stefan. So over the course of a day, Stefan was in touch with Madeline all the time. A friend who was interviewed, a gaming friend of Stefan for several years was interviewed by detectives. His name is Frank Peralta. He said, quote, Stefan was more upset about the bond he created with Madeline than having a relationship with Jennifer after Jennifer ended the relationship with him.

So in other words, he didn't care that Jennifer broke up with him. He cared about the fact that his bond with Madeline was severed. We also know, based upon these documents, that Stefan really didn't have much of a sexual relationship with Jennifer. Jennifer said it was because of medication she was taking, but it seems to me that it was more than that. And we'll talk about this in a minute because Stefan dated someone in 2022. Maybe it was a moment when Stefan and Jennifer had broken up. I don't know. Yeah, that was an interesting relationship. We'll get to that. You have a situation here where you have a 30-year-old who's developing this really close bond with a six-year-old who really doesn't have apparently have much of a physical interest in the mother.

He's spending considerable time with Madeline. He's texting her all the time. He's talking to her. He tells this girlfriend, her first name is Marilly. He tells Marilly, Marily, merrily asked him to stay over at her house. This is in 2022. He basically can't do that because Madeline can't sleep unless he's in bed with her. With Madeline. So with Madeline, right. So he has to go home. He can't be with the girlfriend.

He has to go home because Madeline expects that he's going to go to bed. And the Madeline has a strong need to, quote, snuggle with him to go to sleep. Obviously, these are all red flags. This is not normal behavior for a 30-year-old, 30-to-37-year-old and a 6-to-13-year-old. So that's the period we're talking about. We're talking about seven years. So the research on pedophiles is not super clear cut, but there are some broad findings that I just want to talk about quickly here. It's believed that pedophilic disorder develops during adolescence, and often pedophiles come from abuse or neglect in the home, or many of them are deprived of close relationships in childhood.

There's some probability that they're going to have attachment issues, which, as many of our listeners probably know, is seems to be a common theme among all. a lot of criminals. They often experience sexual and relationship difficulties that lead them into relationships with children where they feel in control and they feel a greater sense of mastery over those relationships. So that's a big part of this. I've worked with a lot of sex offenders and a lot of pedophiles over the years, and that is a common theme that I've observed, is that there's this discomfort with adult relationships, that they're more at ease and they're more emotionally connected to children than pedophiles are to adults. And one of the, the reasons for that is that they believe they can control children's reactions to them,

that they can prevent children from rejecting them, they can prevent children from belittling them, right, that they have more control over how children are going to treat them, whereas adults obviously are more independent and have the capacity to reject and to leave and to give them negative feedback to let them know that they have flaws. And pedophiles aren't fond of learning that they have flaws. So often they're quite insecure about that. Some other elements of pedophiles typically that they're immature and they tend to be quite anxious. As I just mentioned, they tend to be quite anxious about normal adult sexual relationships.

Another element is the pedophiles have a tendency to blame children for their sexual relationships. This was something I found to be very common. I remember there was a pedophile I worked with for like seven years and his thing was always, it took years to get past this. But his argument was always that his victim, who happened to be around the same age as Madeline, that she came on to him, that she was giving him signals of interest. And of course, so of course he had to act on that because she was showing romantic and sexual interest in him. And that's quite common in pedophiles that there's a tendency to blame. There's also some research or evidence showing that brain abnormalities may play a role,

specifically the frontal lobes and maybe the amygdala, they might be implicated in some of the attraction to children. And typically pedophiles also have at least one other major psychological disorder. So many of them have other mental health issues that are concurrent with the pedophilia. And I think that's probably true here as well, by the way. And I don't know what that is, but it's interesting to know that on this issue of blame that Stefan told his father, Chris, was having a conversation with Chris, and the detectives heard this. And Chris asked him if Stefan was involved in what happened. He answered, yeah, and then he said something interesting. He said, yeah, well, I didn't start it. Now, I guess there's a lot of ways you can interpret that,

but one way that I would interpret it is he's blaming the victim. He's essentially saying, well, I didn't start it. Madeline started it. That's how I take it. She showed interest in me. she's the one who came on to me. And along those lines, there was a moment in the documents when Stefan during his interview mentioned that Madeline had engaged in, he was very vague, but he said that she had engaged in some sexual stuff when she was much younger on her phone.

And he couldn't recall what it was. But the implication of that, again, it speaks to this issue of blaming the victim. The issue there is he's implying that, well, yeah, you know what? Madeline was already sexual before I met her. She was already overly sexualized as a little girl. And there was a sexual stuff. I don't quite remember what it was. He describes it in his interviews as a sexual incident when she was younger. And he said, yeah, there was a sexual incident. He said, but quote, but she wasn't scolded for it.

He said that. He's clearly trying to pin this on Madeline and suggest that she's the one who's sexual. She's the one who came on to me. She's the one who wanted this. You said something was wrong with their brain, and we got like six questions all at once about a possible TBI that he had when he was younger, a traumatic brain injury. Do those, and I know it's a bit of a tangent, but to ask because so many questions came down about it, can that also play a part? He had a traumatic brain injury as a child, Stefan Sternstead. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, it could absolutely play. a role. I mean, there's no clear-cut answers to what creates a pedophile at this point. But yes,

the brain abnormalities could definitely play a role. That's worth pointing out. Thank you for pointing them out. Because, yeah, the TBI, depending on the severity and the parts of the brain, it affected, especially if it affects the amygdala, which is kind of the emotional center of the brain, that could have a real impact on his ability to connect to other human beings emotionally, which could lead him to this immaturity and it could lead him to kind of these developmental delays and these relationship deficits, which

leads him to congruence, the term we use is he has emotional congruence with kids. So it leads to this emotional congruence with kids where he feels more comfortable with kids. In some ways, you could argue that the TBI stunts his development. So if the TBI occurs when he's

eight, let's say hypothetically, then maybe in some ways he's similar to that age. And he relates to children that are eight. That, by the way, could be part of the issue here. I think one of the things that Stefan Stearns was struggling with was the fact that Madeline was reaching puberty and she was developing a crush on different boys. She was talking about boys at school and at home. Stefan actually heard her talking about that. So there was this increased sense of independence. My guess is that these changes were having a major impact on Stefan. In many ways,

I think Stefan was interested in keeping her regressed or keeping her infantile. He didn't want her to grow up. And that's something, by the way, I've seen with a lot of pedophiles. If they target a specific victim and that victim now starts reaching puberty or getting older, a lot of times they'll lose interest and they'll try to find other victims at that point that are more consistent with their fantasies. So let's say hypothetically, and again, I don't know for sure. It seems like he has some qualities of the pedophile.

but I mean, I can't diagnose him as a pedophile. I haven't met him or talked to him or interviewed him, but he clearly has this interest in this young girl. And it appears to me like he's targeted Jennifer to reach Madeline. It kind of reminds me for those on the book club one month, we talked about abducted in plain sight, which I'm sure you'll remember well, is about a pedophile who targets a young girl.

he develops a relationship with the parents to get to the young girl. And in fact, he goes so far as to have sexual relationships with both parents so that he can have access to their daughter when he needs access to the daughter. And if he's because of those sexual relationships, he has leverage and he uses that as a type of extortion to get his way. So let's take a little bit deeper. You have this potential pedophilic interest in younger children. But one of the things in the documents that's really fascinating is on his phone, there were a number of images with Madeline. So on one of the pictures, Stefan is engaging in sexual activity while, quote, quote, while the victim appears to be sleeping, unquote. Image number two, Stefan is engaging in sexual behavior, quote, while the victim appears

to be sleeping, unquote. Image number three. three, Stefan is engaging in sexual behavior, quote, while the victim appears to be sleeping, unquote. I can go on. Image number four. Image number four. Stefan is engaging in sexual behavior, quote, while the victim appears to be sleeping, unquote. There's a theme, and there's a term for that.

That also was another parapheria, so that's why I wanted to lead with parapherias. There's a parapheria for this. It's called somnophilia. I've assessed hundreds of sex offenders over the year. I've had probably, I don't know, two or three cases of somnophilia. They're very rare. But this is a really critical component of this case. So somnophilia is essentially sexual activity with someone who is sleeping and or unconscious.

So there's some dispute about this, by the way, because initially somnophilia, initially it was called sleeping beauty syndrome. And what that meant was that someone who was a somnophiliac, they would target someone who was sleeping. They would engage in start sexual activity through that person. The person would wake up, sort of like sleeping beauty when the prince kisses her. She wakes up. Same thing, that a somnophiliac was initially thought to derive their sexual interests from someone who woke up from sleep when they started sexual activity. However, that definition has changed over time to include unconscious people.

unconscious victims. Because it's not at all clear cut. Current research is much more complicated. It doesn't appear that the main type of arousal is from the victim waking. And I'm going to talk about that in a second. This is an article called somnophilia examining its various forms and associated constructs. This is from a journal called Sexual Abuse, 2021, Volume 33. It's Elizabeth D. Han and Ross Bartels.

This is an important article on somnophilia. What the authors found was that somnophilia is highly correlated with, I hope you're sitting down for this one, somnifilia is highly correlated with necrophilia, sadistic fantasies, sexual dominance, and assault fantasies. There's a parapheria called biastafilia, which is essentially, beastafilia is essentially where arousal is dependent upon assaulting and unconcifal.

consenting person. What the research is showing now is, and necrophilia, for those who don't know, that is arousal with a deceased person or a corpse. And what's important about this is what they all have in common is not only the lack of consent, but sort of this violent component. Yeah. There's right. There's absolutely no, there's absolutely no empathy for the victims. In their study, they say, quote, these results provide support for the view that somnophilia is linked to an interest in non-consensual sex. They go on. Sadistic fantasies and the need for sexual dominance were correlated positively with active somnophilia.

If you think of consent as occurring along a continuum from obviously someone who's conscious to someone who's completely unconscious on the other end, or let's go further, someone who's deceased, Somimophilia is definitely at the end towards deceased. So there's different forms that this periphylia can take, which is that someone could be sleeping, they could be drug, they could be comatose, or they could be dead. And I'm going to continue reading from some of the documents. Quote, there were text messages between Stefan and Jennifer

claiming that Stefan gave Madeline an extra dose of her medication and when it was not necessary. What was her medication? She took hydroxazine. Hydroxazine is an anxiety medication and it's also an anesthetic for surgery that can render people unconscious. He, Stefan, when they searched his cell phones, Stefan did a search for a drug called suvo-sevo-fluorane. Sevo-flurane is also a general anesthetic that causes a loss of consciousness before and during surgery. Stephen was searching for the item he searched for specifically and looking for this drug was, quote, show up in a drug test, unquote.

Hopefully I'm developing a picture here where this is someone who is clearly pushing the boundaries when it comes to consensual sex. I mean, a pedophile obviously doesn't engage in consensual sex because it's a minor, right? But if you take it to the next level and you start getting into somnophilia, you're rendering someone. and unconscious. So this next piece of information is just stunning. So I'm going to read this. Stefan dated this woman. Her name's Merrily.

They had a brief intimate relationship. The detective asked her about their intimate relationship. In other words, her intimate relationship with Stefan. Marily disclosed that, quote, Stefan had a tough time having an erection. Merely described one very weird occasion where Stefan had her lay face down completely flat, as if she was dead.

and he had sexual intercourse with her. Merely said that was the only time that he was ever very erect. Now you can see how somnophilia could be related to some of these other, to necrophilia. When you learn this about Stefan Stearns, it really raises the question for me. It raises the question of what happened that evening that Madeline was harmed, right? Was she drugged?

We know that the cause of death was strangulation. right was she drugged so i'm sure our listeners can go to some of the i'm sure their imaginations will carry down to some of the darkest spots you could imagine but i don't think it's unreasonable to go there here when you learn that he's having necrophilic fantasies it doesn't take long to figure out what what the possibilities are here and how horrid that is did he harm her because of those fantasies i think this is going to push us closer to what occurred that night. I think basically there's two scenarios that I can come up with here. One is that there was some type of altercation where...

That's one possibility, yeah. One is that there was an altercation where Madeline, maybe she was drugged, she woke up. She was, even for her, it was too much, she fought back, something like that. There's some situation where Madeline becomes upset and Stefan has to subdue her, strangle her. The other possibility, I think, is that it may have been an accident that perhaps he was engaged in some type of erotic asphyxiation. It seems like something he would probably do. Maybe she was partially drugged. I don't know, but he didn't intend necessarily to harm her.

And he did. He went too far. The argument for that, I think, would be the fact that he knew that Jennifer was downstairs. And if he inadvertently killed her, I think he probably. probably recognize that he would have to find a way around Jennifer and he, right? Like, if you're going to do something like this, this completely premeditated, you're probably not going to do it in an upstairs bedroom of your ex when she's downstairs and can hear you.

But then again, this is someone who is pretty, Stefan is someone who's, by most accounts, he's pretty impulsive. And so it's probably not something he was thinking about. I think he was obviously thinking about his own gratification. And, you know, this event occurred and then he had to try to solve it, not well, by the way, but I mean, but he was he was put in that predicament. So the important point is that when you combine for me, when you combine some elements of pedophilia with elements of somnophilia with some necrophilia, necrophilic fantasies, that's a prescription for, you know, that's a prescription for disaster. And that's what happened here. And then when you take the fact, I think that Madeline was getting older, I think she was becoming more independent.

There could have been some jealousy about her new crushes. He could have been threatened by the fact that he couldn't control her as much. If one of the goals of a pedophile is the master of the relationship and control the relationship, then he was probably losing some control as she got older. he was certainly losing control when Jennifer kicked him out of the house essentially and he wasn't around Madeline as much. So maybe he saw this as a window of opportunity to engage in this type of behavior one last time before he was exiled back to Northport.

I don't know. There's a lot of possibilities here. I think the fact that Madeline was reaching puberty and menstruating also meant that she could get pregnant. Is it possible that she was pregnant? pregnant? 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. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem

to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. ORA actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring, or just a VPN. ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at ORA.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. Did he, I don't know. Like, I mean, I presume law enforcement

is going to look at these things, but did she have drugs in her system? Was she pregnant? Right. If she was pregnant and she told him, I'm keeping this baby, that would not go, I'm sure that would not sit well with him. So. Or just the fear that she could be. Or the fear, right. Could that be a motive? You know, I think there's some interesting motives here. I mean, obviously they're all tragic, But if we're trying to figure this out and understand it, I think these elements are absolutely critical for really getting below the surface and getting a picture of what really happened that night. So this narrative about that I initially started with that maybe this is just a psychopath

that engages in murder. I don't think it's that. That's not to say, I don't know Stefan Stern. So that's not to say there couldn't be some elements of that. There might be. You could have a psychopath who's a pedophile who is a somnophiliac. Right? You could have, that has a necrophilic fan. You could have all that. But it seems to me that this really starts with the sexual deviance, with the parapherias.

And that you have to understand those to understand Stefan Stearns. And if you throw on a personality disorder or some other stuff, sure, that would help that would help our understanding. But I really think what happened that night of the 25th, February 25th, it really had to do with the sexual deviance that Stefan Stearns was struggling with or, you know, these parapherias that, he had. Okay. I guess I should say he allegedly have. And where was her mother this whole time? Right.

Where was her mother? Yeah, let's, should we start? You want to close in on that question? I would like to. Yeah. I would like to know about Jen because this is heartbreaking. We learned about Stefan, but her mother was downstairs and had been for six, year, seven years, or in the same room as her. So not just that night.

I just want to close this thought on somnophilia with a quote from DeHannin Bartels, the article, because I think this really helps make sense of what somnophilia and necrophilia are about. And the quote is, quote, it could be argued that non-consensual somnophilia is driven by an underlying interest in passivity, power, and the elimination of the possibility of rejection. rather than an overt interest in sexual aggression. And that's really important because I do believe, and this is true of pedophiles in general, one of the reasons that they have this emotional congruence with children

is because they don't want to get rejected. They don't want that feeling of being abandoned, and they can have moral control over those relationships with children. And that's exactly what they're saying about somnophilia, and that would be true of necrophilia and beastophilia as well. this idea of the sex offender seeking power and strength and control. And in fact, there's a quote from Jen saying about Stefan that he would become angry at Maddie if she, quote, she didn't want to do what was asked of her.

Well, there you go. So apparently he was mad at her a lot. But he was obviously interested in this issue of control and power. And this, by the way, this is a predominant theme that we always talk about with many, many criminals, which is this transformation from weakness and vulnerability and shame and rejection and transforming that into the sense of dominance and mastery and omnipotence and power. And you see that here, I think, that the reason he's targeting Madeline, a young girl, is to feel this sense of a power and to eliminate the possibility of rejection.

Ashley's President's Day sale is going on now for a limited time. field of freedom to shop incredible hot buys. Your style, your choice, all at an unfeatable price. Plus pay over time with up to 60 months special financing. From bedroom looks to living room styles and every room in between. Our hot buys make saving big and styling your space easier than ever. Only at Ashley in North Charleston and Mount Pleasant. Subject to credit approved, minimum monthly payments required, minimum purchase required. See store for details. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now boarding group A. boarding passes ready to scan. If your phone is cracked, old, or was chewed up by your Chihuahua travel companion, please refrain from holding up the line. Instead, go to Verizon and trade in any phone

in any condition from one of their top brands for the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus with Galaxy AI, and a watch and tab on any plan, only on Verizon. With new line on my plan, service plan required for watch and tab. Additional terms apply. See Verizon.com for details. Now's the time for a great deal on a new Honda. It's time to take an adventure with rugged capability and commanding style. Check out the Honda Ridgeline, pilot, or CRV. For a limited time, well-qualified buyers can get a 3.9% APR on a 2025 pilot or a 2.9% APR on a 2025 ridgeline or CRV. See dealer for financing details. Let me start with a couple of things with Jen.

The detectives do an interview with Jennifer and the detectives showed her some of the photos. photographs of the images that I just talked about earlier, which clearly show Stefan engaging in these illegal behaviors with Madeline. And Jen said that she, at that point, Jen said she thought Stefan was guilty. And then she said this. The detective said, I asked her what she thought Stefan was guilty of. And she replied, quote, he's been grooming and abusing my child. Yes, Jen. Yes. I asked her what she thought Stefan was guilty of and she replied, quote, he's been grooming and abusing my child. So my question there, I mean, I don't think that's one of the most important statements

in all of these documents, by the way. She recognizes. So the question here is, does she know that before? Right, that's the question. Or does she have the insight after, right? Like that's what I'm struggling with here. That's the question. Right.

Is okay, she realizes in this interview, but did she just all of a sudden suddenly realize this after six or seven years? Or did she know? Right. And that's the big question. I mean, I kind of go back and forth. I don't think that grooming is a term that a lot of mothers typically would know

unless they've thought about it. So if I had the guess, it seems to me she's been thinking. about this? Yeah. Or considering it, which would imply that she knows. Right. And then, of course, we have this statement about early on the detective asked her, pressed her about whether there's sleeping arrangements in the home.

And Jen initially says, no, I've got a strict rule. I love this. I've got a strict rule that there's no sleeping. It's, it's, I'm sorry, I'm not, it's, it's funny because. it's so absurd, like to go from having a strict rule about not sleeping in the same bed to, okay, yeah, you know, I needed some sleep because I had a new job. It's preposterous, right? And also it shows her state of mine. Like, I mean, she's lying. She starts out by trying to deny that they slept in the same bed. She's flat out lying. And then she gets, finally, they press her and she caves

and says, yeah, you know, I wanted a good night's sleep because I'm starting a job. And I sent my daughter up to sleep with them. But, you know, hey, I trust him, right? She also said that. She said, I trust him because he treats her like a father. Okay. Not a good father. Some people suggest she was willfully blind, willfully ignorant, and bringing up that she said that after learning about the photographs. Yeah, I don't know. This is where we lie. I know. This is what makes this so difficult. On that issue, by the way, so this is something I encountered all the time in the child of protection system. There's a child maltreatment charge called failure to protect.

I'm going to read from an article here. This is from the journal Children and Youth Services Review. The title of the article is Substantiated allegations of failure to protect in the child welfare system. It's by Colleen Henry at Al. Quote, failure to protect, also abbreviated FTP, failure to protect, a subset of neglect is used by child welfare systems to categorize and substantiate allegations of child maltreatment. Scholars and advocates have raised concerns that failure to protect is disproportionately used

to substantiate mothers and people of color for harm perpetuated by others, particularly in the context of sexual abuse and domestic violence. So why is that important? because this would potentially be a clear-cut case of failure to protect. However, the criticism around failure to protect is that if Jen doesn't know, if we argue that her grooming comment occurred after the fact, after she learned what happened and was shown the picture, and then she has this realization of what happened,

and she doesn't know. Let's say hypothetically she really doesn't think abuse is occurring. Right. Then you're blaming the victim. She's a victim. She lost her daughter. She is a victim. Right.

And she wasn't there. Yeah. The problem with failure to protect is, and I've done groups with a lot of women, these are like the angriest women I've ever worked with in therapy, by the way. They're called non-offending parents groups, not offending. Failure to protect applies to the parent that didn't offend, the non-offending parent. And the reason why the women in these groups were so angry is because they're arguing. was they didn't know and they didn't do anything wrong.

And here the system is targeting them when, in fact, the onus should be, the responsibility for the offense should be squarely placed on the shoulders of the offender and not them. Right? That's the issue is if she doesn't know, I mean, let's say this. At the very least, she's a really bad mother. Okay, we can say that for sure. but let's just say for the sake of argument that she really doesn't think there's any abuse going on.

Okay. For the sake of argument. Okay. Right. Should we then vilify her? Why are we vilifying her when, if Stefan Sterns has a moral compass and doesn't commit any crimes or do what he's doing,

then we're not here now. We're not discussing this. None of this happens. So I think a lot of this hinges on what she knows, what Jennifer knows and when she knows it, right? But let's run through some possible reasons why Jen in particular, but more broadly, parents or mothers failed to protect their kids. Sometimes the first would be fear, plain and simple fear,

that Jen is afraid for her physical safety. She's in a home with course of control. We talked about this in our first episode. In those interviews, you see Stefan hovering over her, right? He's got this menacing kind of hovering quality where he's looming over her at a basic level. And let me say, too, I'm not here to excuse her behavior. My job is to try to promote some degree of understanding. When I go in and assess a criminal that's committed murder, my job is not to vilify that person.

My job is to try to be as objective as possible and to develop some understanding of why this happened and what the consequences should be. And so I'm not making excuses for Jen. I know when I talk about this issue, I know a lot of people, some people get upset and they say, oh, you're excusing it, you're letting her off the hook. I'm not. I'm just trying to understand it.

It's a puzzle. If she knew that her child was being abused, then please charge her. If she knew that if she was a co-conspirator and the murder and you have the proof, please get her for murder. I'll be the first person to go along with that. But in the absence of that evidence,

let's try to figure out why, this happened. The first reason is fear. So this is a real primal basic explanation, and that is that Jen Soto is afraid for her life. There's a safety issue here. She's with a guy that's coercibly controlling. She's with a guy who wants to exert power. She's with a guy that has necrophilic fantasies, for God's sake. This guy knows no limits. So she feels a threat to her physical, emotional, and sexual safety. That's pretty compelling. So let's start with that because that's a really basic reason. There's other reasons.

Let's stay with the fear issue. I think a lot of women in her position, if they report the abuse, they have a fear of being seen as a bad mother. They experience a lot of guilt. They're going to experience a lot of shame over the fact that they didn't protect their child. They have a fear of losing their child to CPS. If they report, a lot of these women are afraid that the child will be taken from them and placed in the foster care system, worst case. Jen Soto also appears to be the victim of abuse herself.

There's another fear, and that's the fear of being retramatized. She's afraid of being retramatized based on her past abuse. She's afraid of uncovering all those feelings of shame and inadequacy from her own abuse if she discloses. So you have all these unbearable emotions, all these overwhelming emotions from her own abuse that she probably doesn't want to revisit. So that's another fear.

There's more reasons. Often women that don't protect their children, they tend to be somewhat narcissistic. They're self-absorbed. Sometimes women, they find the ideal of having a child. The ideal of a child is more compelling than the reality. A lot of women will have children with this silly notion that they'll get unconditional love from their child. And then when they have a child, they start realizing that it's the other way around. parent's job is to provide love and protection to the child.

It's not the child's job to do that for the parent. So there's this naive, kind of magical idea that if you have a child, that all your problems are to be solved, because now you're going to feel the love, you always wanted to feel. But the love is for you. It's not for the child. It's not reciprocal. A relationship with a child is not reciprocal, right? It's more sacrificial.

The parent's job, the parent's job is to provide for the child, not the, the opposite. And I think oftentimes with women that don't protect their kids, they have this irrational idea of how being a parent will be and what a mother means and that somehow this child is going to give them all this love that they never had, heal all their wounds. And that does not, that clashes with the reality. Another reason that sometimes the parents don't protect their kids is mental health. That clearly Jen Soto is someone with serious mental health problems. In fact, her first husband, her first husband, Stephen. Stephen, not to be confused.

Not Stefan. Not to be confused with Stefan. Stephen. Stephen. Stephen left, divorced Jennifer in her first marriage in 2015 because of mental health. He said essentially that she was falling apart, that he was taking over all the household chores and responsibilities. She was doing nothing. He was afraid of how bad her mental health was getting.

And so he left because he couldn't go any further. So he divorced her. So that would indicate that you have someone basically who she might have depression, she might have anxiety, she might have PTSD. So she's got these traumas. She herself says in her notes that she can't function. And so if you have someone with severe mental health problems, and they can't even care for themselves,

they're going to have a really hard time caring for a child. So in this case, I think, you know, you have a really limited human being. with limited capabilities. And I think because of that, it does create what psychologists call inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness is that sometimes we refuse to see the obvious in the situation because we're so focused on our own needs and our own survival. And I think that's true here. The classic case of this is an experiment called the Invisible Gorilla,

where these subject come in and they're asked to count the balls that people are throwing around in a circle. And then these guerrillas come in the room. and kind of mix with the group throwing the balls around, and then the gorillas leave, and the researchers asked the participants, did you see the gorillas? And the numbers are astonishing.

Like upwards of 60% of the participants don't see the gorillas. And the reason they don't see the guerrillas is because of inattentional blindness, because they're so focused on counting the balls. They think the purpose of the experiment and the goal is to count the balls. They don't know that the purpose of the experiment is to see if they can focus on the gorillas

in addition to the balls. But for Jen Soto, she can't see the guerrillas because she's just trying to get through the day. She's just trying to survive. She's just trying to manage her depression and manage her trauma. She's taking a lot of medications to do that. So I think that factors into this. And again, I'm not excusing. I'm not saying that she shouldn't protect her child, but I'm trying to understand.

I'm trying to provide a possible explanation about why protecting Madeline was different. for her. Not impossible, but difficult. Another reason that a parent might struggle to protect a child is dependency. You and I talk a lot about attachment issues and attachment issues are really key in terms of developing healthy relationships. So, you know, you see that with, you see that here. One of the detectives said is in the documents that he's, she's protecting Stefan over her daughter and that she's prioritizing Stefan. That's in the docks. Yeah.

In an interview, Jen says that she shares much more with Stefan than Madeline. She told the Orange County Sheriff that. Her mother, Yolanda, Jen's mother said, Jennifer just doesn't want to be alone. When asked why she stays with Stefan, that's what her mother says. That's an important part that often gets overlooked. We say that one more time. This is in the docs from her mother. Yeah.

This is from Yolanda Zambrano. who's Jen's mother. The mother said, did you like Stefan? She said no, because he doesn't work and he's lazy. And the detective said, well, why do you think she stays with him?

And she said, Jennifer doesn't want to be alone. She just can't be alone, right? And that speaks to this issue of dependency. You know, sadly and tragically, some parents, women, mothers, they would prefer to be in the most dysfunctional, unhealthy relationship,

no matter what, just so they don't have to be. be along. This is what we believe is Jen's notebook. It is not labeled, but we have done our handwriting analysis and our writing analysis. And we have come to the conclusion, the two of us that this is Jen's notebook. Some people online have referred to it as Maddie's. We do not believe that this is Maddie's. We believe that this is Jen's notebook. So she writes, number five, my fluctuating moods, anxiety, and trauma-related symptoms affect my memory, concentration, focus, and energy levels. I also have severe trauma responses when I encounter all males.

My illness and conditions, this has crossed out, limit my ability to work by affecting my memory. also erased or crossed out as something about being reminded of her perpetrator. Perpetrator is that very last crossed out word. What does this say about Jen? There's all these elements, these fears for her physical safety, there's these mental health issues, there's her past abuse, there's some narcissistic features, there's this dependency in relationships,

and this need to be, you know, to not be alone that even her mother recognizes, right? These are all elements that kind of combine, they aggregate to create this scenario. Again, I'm not excusing it. I'm not justifying it. I'm just trying to understand it. I think I cover some of the main points I wanted to make about protecting children. I'm sure there's others. And I'm sure some people will disagree with me, which is fine,

because one of my goals here is to stimulate some really meaningful dialogue. These are hard issues. Let's talk about them. I'm not going to ever say that my version is correct. I'm just presenting my perspective, and it's a perspective, hopefully, that I've acquired through a lot of experience, but that doesn't mean I'm right.

So feel free to chime in and let's talk about it. And yeah, every time I talk about this issue, I think that there's a natural response to make that argument. that I'm just providing excuses. And I want to make it clear that I believe that Jennifer, at the best case, she's a horrible mother. And that's the best case, right. You know, worst case, she should be charged for murder.

But if that's the case, you've got to show me the evidence. If she's a co-conspirator, there should be some evidence, you know, demonstrating that. And so far, there's not enough evidence. Right, there isn't that evidence. That points in that direction at all. Here's an example. So the images they found, the thousands of images they found on Stefan's phone.

If she was a co-conspirator, you'd expect to see her in a few of them. Or to make it look like she had taken them or something. Yeah. Right. As far as we know, maybe this will change. But as far as we know, she's not implicated in any of the images. There is no evidence that we can see of the things that have been that could get her charged. I think.

So let me just circle back. I started with the idea that Madeline felt invisible and nobody really kind of saw and heard her. And so I think what's important, you know, initially when I was looking through these documents, I thought this was a story about really bad parenting. But then when I thought about it more, you know, I realized that while bad parenting plays a role, I think it goes deeper than that. I think this is about this is a story about being seen and being heard. And so the way that you can, if somebody's invisible, the way you can make them visible is to really listen to them, to really see them, to pay attention to them, to pay attention to everything.

If they're crying in school, to see that. If they're saying that their mother's boyfriend is weird and they feel uncomfortable around them, to really listen to that. And I think that's probably true of Jen Soto, too. I don't think she felt very seen or heard either. And so for me, being seen and being heard is in many ways about feeling and experiencing love and feeling like we have a place in the world, feeling like we have a home. And I think one of the things that breaks my heart tremendously about this case is this persistent theme that Madeline has about wanting to run away and go to the woods.

When I hear that, I always have this sense that she really never felt at home anywhere. and that by escaping into the woods in some way, she just wants to disappear from the face of the earth. And, you know, I guess my wish is that someone in her world, in particular, her mother, I guess, would have taken more time just to see and hear and love her daughter so that she felt it home. Because running away in the woods is not home.

And so I guess I will just end with the idea that just the importance of really taking the time to see and hear the people in our lives in a meaningful way and to really be present with them when we're around them, not to take them for granted. And I think by doing that, hopefully we create a sense of inclusion and a sense of being home. Your old or broken phone can let you down. But at Verizon, trade in any old phone from our top brands and get iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence, with a new line on my plan and iPad and Apple Watch Series 10. After all, you don't want your old phone to die on you when you're lost.

Perfect. Or for your broken phone to glitch at the worst possible time. Hey, can I get your number? Oh. Trade in your old phone for a brand new iPhone 16 Pro, iPad, and Apple Watch. Visit Verizon.com today. Additional terms apply. Service and required for Apple Watch and iPad.

Now's the time for a great deal on a new Honda. It's time to take an adventure with rugged capability and commanding style. Check out the Honda Ridgeline, pilot or CRV. For a limited time, well-qualified buyers can get a 3.9% APR on a 2025 pilot or a 2.9% APR on a 2025 Ridgeline or CRV. See dealer for financing details. 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. That's how your information lands in the hands of scam. spammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker's sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support.

Companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at Aura.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove.