Hidden True Crime - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Debra & Chris Sterns Break Their Silence | Disturbing Case of Madeline Soto

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Lauren Matthias and Dr. John Matthias of Hidden True Crime sit down with Chris and Debra Sterns, the parents of Stephan Sterns, to share their story for the first time. Find out the easiest way to get to sleep, and stay asleep when you click https://shopbeam.com/hiddentruecrime and use code TRUECRIME to get up to 35% at checkout. 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

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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 wish I could find somebody that acted like they cared. Really, you know, no. Maybe somebody who's dealt with other people going through this. I don't know. This is a small town.

I don't know what's a vehicle here. But, I mean, what do you do? Advertiser, hey, mother of a monster seeks help. You know. If you are new to our channel, I am Lori Matthias, and this is hidden true crime, where we delve into the why behind crimes and criminals with my co-host, criminal psychologist, Dr. John Matthias. This exclusive interview that we are about to listen to is with the parents of Stefan Stearns, and it was recorded on September 21st, 2024. Their son, Stefan Stearns, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 13-year-old Madeline Soto. Stearns was the on and off again boyfriend of Madeline's mother, Jennifer Soto.

We have been in touch with Deborah and Chris, Stearns for quite some time, and have listened to them process their grief as facts have come to lied in this heartbreaking case. But we've always done so privately until now because now they are ready to share more. Take a listen. Hello, Hidden Jens. We are with two very important guests today. This is an exclusive interview, and we're going to let them share why they are choosing to do this interview with us, a hidden true crime. But we are actually with Deborah and Chris Stearns. Many of you might recognize their names from interviews with police that you've heard, or their names from documents, FOIA documents.

They are the parents of Stefan Stearns, who is now behind bars charged with. crimes against Madeline Soto. I'll leave it at that. And I just want to say, no one wants to be in your situation right now. And we are so grateful, though, that you feel safe coming here to hit into crime, to sharing your side of the story and what is going on in your hearts and in your minds. And so with that, why don't we start honestly with sharing what I think many people might be wondering, why are you choosing to do an interview today? Well, we've had, first of all, you've thrust it into a limelight that you would never expected to experience in your, in your tiring life.

I apologize for having Lacey here, but we want to have as much silence as possible from the dogs. We need to bring the ringleader in here. So she's the one that's quite vocal. wants attention, so I apologize. She'll be quiet, hopefully, right, Lacey? Okay, but anyway, you know, no one, no one ever grows up expecting to experience this.

You've seen it on the news. You've seen it in the papers and, oh my gosh, you know, how tragic that is and all of a sudden you find yourself in the same similar situation. You know, we had provided from the very beginning, proactively, very cooperative with the police authorities. I mean, I was caught off guard at Wednesday that Stefan was arrested, not even aware that he was being arrested that evening. I thought I was waiting many, many, many hours to have a conversation with the police

to learn what was going on. And if I could contribute any information, I would in not realizing that he was already arrested and actually have been transported away from Orange County down to Osse Oaksie. County never learned until days later that he was arrested. I thought I was just there to help provide some information regarding the disappearance of Maddie. And obviously we'd learn much later that this turned into something more serious. You know, that's and we also, at least I thought and continue to think later with the police interviews here at our home that our conversation was confidential and will certainly wouldn't be released to the public only to have every word and

nuance scrutinized and analyzed and opinions informed about it that is so uh is so out of mischaracterizing us and just a lot of speculation and conjectures so anyway um the reason we're doing this today Lauren and John is because with the docket dump that went out there, we no longer feel constrained to keep silent and let people keep castigating us and dragging us through the muck for no reason, using lies, conjectors, embroidering facts that they do have, making up facts that they don't. It's become a very incestuous snake pit of lies, innuendo, and just ugliness. And I don't understand why any parent would be subjected to that because we didn't take part in any of the crimes.

Is it a crime to give birth to somebody? I mean, why are we blamed? Perhaps maybe we need to share something with everyone before we go any further because it might not be obvious to many watching. Where are you in accepting the reason your son is behind bars? Are you in a place of understanding what he did? Are you believing where are you? Totally. I mean, the last data dump that they had a few weeks ago and I went through line by line

and then shared with Debbie, the chronology of the events, the narrative summary and such that it's very conclusive and it does in our mind indicate Stefan is a loan perpetrator as much as we want to believe what he said that there are other people involved. And again, that's out there in a prior phone conversation that Stefan said. But you look at the evidence that that's been presented

and it's pretty conclusive that there doesn't appear to be anybody else involved in that he is the lone loan perpetrator. Certainly he was guilty of the images that he found on his phone. And then later the charges were expanded to include murder. Whether it was premeditated, I don't, I don't, we don't think that. Again, we won't know 100% of the story until if and when he ever provides testimony. But obviously, he was involved in her death and nobody else.

was, but I don't want to believe it was premeditated, but I can't rule that out. But we hold them 100% accountable for his actions. And we obviously are extremely disappointed by that. Yeah. And I'm sure it's been a process. But in other words, you're learning everything as the public learns it. Yeah. Yeah. We're not proven. Nobody's giving us a heads up on anything. Yeah. We're, we're mushrooms. We're kept in the dark. The only time we know was all of a sudden we're getting these text messages and heads up alerts from our friends you go, hey, you got to see this out there. And I go, oh my gosh, what does this mean? I mean, I looked in the looking for the news every day and I don't see anything.

And all of a sudden it's out there and these these videos and YouTube channels have a field day out. And it's been that way for weeks ever since. And the challenge is going to be is that we do know that we were told the other day that this is going to be multiple years before it goes to trial. Given the gravity of the charges and knowing what the penalty is, we're resigned to accept that fate and the fact that we could lose them in a multitude of ways. You know, in a given time, some prisoner in the jail could off them. And, you know, we're just deal with another day-to-day basis.

You know, we could get that phone call one day. So we'll wait and see what happens. Yeah. As I told you, I think, before, this is the most protracted death of a child that you can go through because they're already gone to you. We'll never touch him again. We aren't allowed to see him right now. and you know he's out there but he's not available.

I mean, it's been hit by car. It would have been easier on us because the grieving period could go instead of grieving for years and years and years while he's still alive and we can't have any access to him. Matter of fact, we haven't even heard from him for over three weeks now and we don't know why. I called the other day inquiring about his wellness and the jail correction officer says, what does that mean?

I said, well, it's a wellness check. We want to find out if he's okay. Because we haven't heard from him. Well, if he wants to talk to you, he'll talk to you. He wants to talk to us. We don't know of any reason why he wouldn't unless he's being denied access to communication, which we think he is. And I think it's the result of the most recent data dump that the guards are intentionally

preventing him from giving access to where we can communicate with them. He's in solitary confinement. It's been that way since February, nearly eight months. Okay. Wow. Wow. And yeah, I remember you telling us that in an earlier conversation, too, that it would be easier almost to, it would be easier to mourn his death than this, because you also have

to realize and mourn Madeline, who you knew as well. One thing we do and we're accused of being cold and impartial people and I mean They made a big deal of the fact that I went outside and was screaming Madeline's name I wasn't looking for her in the woods I was talking to God that's my privilege to talk to my God I was asking why Madeline and where is she I'm sorry but we you know every day all of this is in our minds you know we talk about it off and you know, we're private people. We keep our motions to ourselves as best as possible,

but we certainly, there's no way that this will escape us on a daily basis. It's impossible for that to happen. We're forever living with this. And I just wish there was a way that we could have. possibly known that there was a problem going on with Stefan had no idea. Yeah. The only thing that we knew that was wrong and we addressed it immediately was when we became aware of the close sleeping arrangements.

And they were here at our house. And at that point I put my foot down and said, Madeline's not sleeping in the room with you. She's too old for that. and I said, you need to stop doing that at home too. And I'll talk to both Jen and two separate. And Jen says, well, she comes in at night. She gets scared.

She comes in at night and climbs into bed. And I can't stop her. I said, did she do you have a lock one? She said, yes. I said, well, then you use the damn lock. It's ridiculous. And then to send your child off to sleep with a man in another room in a single bed together, who is not a biological relative and even biological relative.

and even biological relatives can't be trusted. I mean, seriously, how many people have you heard of in that situation with family members? So I just saw, I saw red when I heard that. And it's weird. On that issue, did you, I know you, it sounds like you, you chastised them about sleeping in the same bed, but did you ever get a chance to sit down and talk to Stefan about that issue?

in more detail? I didn't think I had to. I did not think I had to. But I did bring Madeline in, and she stayed with me in my room anytime they came visit. Right. Yeah, you guys said that in one of your interviews, that she was in, was it, was it both of you guys bad?

Or was it, was it? No, we are what they call now, sleep divorce. We have secret rooms because we can't sleep together. We love each other. Absolutely. She's a night, she's insomniac and a night person. I'm a morning person and, and, uh, we both snore. We both snore and so it would be the battle of the lumber, um, lumber jacks.

And, so in order for both of us to get sleep, you know, we, we sleep in, uh, separate rooms. Um, and, uh, we sleep with the dogs. We let the dogs up. We call the, we call the bitches and bros. I get the boys. She gets the girls and, you know, they provide warm, warm comfort and they're security. They're great sleep mates. So, and of course, if I'm not here, they all sleep with Debbie.

And God forbid somebody tried to come in the house. They're going to have five Doberman pictures with hair on their ass going after them. They'll tear them a new one. So warning, heads up. Yeah, to all those YouTubers. is we'll get into that too. But Debbie did talk to Stefan and Madeline individually. And together.

Yeah. So. One year and out the other because they didn't stop, but they never got to do it here. And I did not. And then we were chastised because we didn't allow them to vape in our home. And somehow they figured out that we don't smoke. we only drink occasionally.

I can't turn down a margarito at a Mexican restaurant. And we don't do drugs. I don't even like doing prescribed drugs. I won't take pain pills. I did the whole heart surgery on nothing but extra strength Tylenol. I can't take it. Some of it I'm allergic to. But they said we thought we were superior because of that.

That's not true. That's our choice. But also my choice is, I don't want a cigarette smoke and marijuana smoke in my home. It makes me ill. I don't like the smell of it. I don't want to be around it. It sounds like Deborah, that Madeline occasionally was in your bed.

Did you guys have a close relationship with Madeline? Could you talk about that for a minute? Yes, I taught her to crochet. We sat and did artwork together. We did projects. I was teaching her I'd cook. She spent a lot of time with me when she wasn't in there watching movies with them. we actually put Disney on our TV here so she could sit out in the family room with us while

I thought we were giving Jen and Stefan a long time as a couple. I tried to be, I tried to be respectful of their space taking on Madeline. But Madeline was an absolute joy. The girl was happy, precocious, smiling. She walked with a bounce. She was interested in everything. she had. Giggled a lot.

She giggled a lot. This is a horrible loss in the world. She had a child. You should still be here. She still be here. Yeah. Did you, so you just described kind of the bright side of Madeline that she was happy and giggled a lot. Did you ever, you know, she was next to you in bed.

Did you ever notice any distress from her? Did she ever feel like maybe she wanted to talk to you about something she couldn't? Or did you get any of that? There was none of that. In fact, just the opposite. She would step in and be sitting on the sofa. She would go and sit on the arm of the sofa and break her arm around him and give him what kids and tell him she loved him. You know, I just, and when she, and Madeline is the one that told me about the co-sleeping.

Not Stefan and not Jim. Madeline did. When she related, she said it was a funny story. She says, oh, I was in bed with Mom and Stefan. And when I woke up in the morning, my leg was draped over him. And she went, isn't that funny? I said, no. I don't find that funny.

Yeah. That's when I had to talk with them. Because to me, I'm sorry, that sent up a big red flag. Yeah. She said that. She said that in a playful manner, but not in a, you wouldn't see that as kind of a cry for help. I did not see it as a cry for help. I found it to be disturbing to me on levels.

So other than that, we had no recollection, we had no indication of any way that something unless it was going on. Yeah. Yeah. And when you told Stefan, you shouldn't be co-sleeping with Madd, Adelaan, as far as you could tell, he heard you. He said, okay. He heard me.

He and Jenbo says, well, you know, but she wants to be with us. And I knew no matter what I said to him, they're going to do what they're going to do anyway. Right. It was very obvious to me. 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,

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You've mentioned that Stefan would often say, thing, but do another, right? That you didn't know. Oh, yeah. Modus operandi. You didn't know what was true and what wasn't sometimes. I mean, you never. He made it.

He made it. He was a gas lighter. You know, he could, he could make you think things were one way when they were a total other way and do it with such sincerity that you questioned yourself. Interesting. And when we got to figure that out, things changed for him and they didn't change for the good. And he was no longer a happy camper because we challenged him on everything.

We came up missing money. We came up missing jewelry. Came up missing my father's, my deceased father's Rolex. And I know he took it, but he won't admit to it even now. 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.

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And when did you take the Rolex? Last year. It started when he was a teenager. Okay. And, you know, a little. stuff and then they just got bigger and bigger as he got older. I mean, you never got the truth about anything. I mean, he he wrecked his car and never got the true never got the true story never got the true story in that. So very similar to to to the incident of Maddie's disappearance, you know, coming up with with with

something like that, you know, when he called me that that afternoon, second call that day, you know, flat tire, listen to that BS. And boy, when you look at the images of that of that of that tire, I mean, there wasn't, there hardly any of rubber left on that on that wheel whatsoever and then in there show pictures of all these chunks of rubber laying in the ground. And Stefan trying to explain to me that he had a flat tire and he was in the inside lane of a highway in a high, high density commercial district and he couldn't pull off the road. again, you know, it was a story that I didn't believe and then getting a call of 90 minutes later, less than 90 minutes later about Maddie's disappearance.

And I go, that's too coincidental, two events like that in a single afternoon. I don't believe in coincidences, you know, didn't believe that, but wanted to, you know, I was there to support the story until it was different. And unfortunately, I found out a couple days later if I had seen that TV. interview that they held the next day, my attitude and demeanor with him would have been considerably different than me making the trip to Orlando and helping he and Maddie out or Jennifer out for sure. They, they, the police kicked everybody out of the townhouse and quarantined it, ripped it off. They had no money. They had no place to go.

He didn't want to go to the animal's house, of course, or to her mother's house. they got along my photo order but it was Chris went there to get them into a hotel and to be there as emotional support

for them for a missing child for anything else not for an escape route or to hide them to you knew that Madeline was missing you didn't know why and you thought I can give them a place to stay

yeah And then, you know, I wanted some quality time with them. And again, I just kicked myself from not seeing that TV interview because my conversation would have been... It was after. You couldn't have seen it. I know that. But the interview took place before I got up there. That's the thing.

But I didn't find out about it until Friday, and it happened on Tuesday. But my conversation with him would have been very confrontational. And I wouldn't have been satisfied until I got the truth from him. I question him as best as I could. Now that he was in incarceration, obviously he couldn't give me the answers. The best he could come up with is that I wasn't able to think. Well, he was thinking a lot of other things and taking a lot of actions and doing a lot of things that obviously he was thinking. But again, that would be an appropriate.

response from Stefan because, again, keep telling the lie. But the amount of time that I have from 2.15 Wednesday morning until 4 p.m., I spent a total of 35 minutes with him. And it was three different occasions. First of all, find that he wasn't at the hotel that morning. and then to learn later that he had left that hotel, went to St. Cloud, went to Northport, and came back. And then obviously so exhausted, he passed out and then, didn't see him again until 3 o'clock. And again, no time for conversation

because now we're down in the lobby of the hotel, and he's now being escorted to supposedly a press conference, which there was a press conference, but he was immediately taken to the rear of the, sheriff's apartment and put in the detention room and later that evening they arrested. Never had a chance to have a conversation with them. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. And there was some issue about one YouTuber who called called out Chris as a liar because he said he saw a picture on the phone. Yeah, much later, I mean, I'm having a conversation. Again, thinking I'm having a private conversation with the deputies back in July. and you know Jen that evening had provided some very graphic detail of the image there was a she told me in her story was that there was a group of photos that they had downloaded off at stephen's phone they wanted to show these images this package of images to Jennifer she said that she couldn't see them but agreed to look at one then she shared with me in graphic detail with that image was. Five months later, I'm thinking throughout that time that she had the opportunity to maybe grab a photo of that because once you're described that to me, I can't get it out of my

mind. It becomes ingrained and printed, and I'm thinking that there's an image in my mind that I must have seen a photo. And I, instead of asking a question, I made a comment to the police and And then one of these YouTubers accused me of lying and making this stuff up. And it was really my bad. I apologize. I thought it was an image I saw when, in fact, it was a graphical image in my mind, but I thought I'd seen a photo. So I apologize for that.

But again, you're dealing with this stuff seven, eight months ago. There was a lot of stuff going on that evening, especially, you know, trying to gauge Jennifer's demeanor after learning that her daughter had been essayed. If it was me, I'd be beaten to crap out of somebody, whether I physically could or could not. And she was totally composed and quite calm about the whole thing. It was just very strange. Now that we're on this topic, there's a rumor out there about about there being essay in Stefan's background.

I think some of the rumors involve you guys even. There's rumors about giving him explicit material. Again, I can't use terms because of YouTube. But could you guys set the record straight on that? You bet. Number one, it was, from what we heard, it's Hustler magazine, the nastiest magazine that was ever printed. never came home. I would never buy it and I would certainly never give it to my child.

I mean, none of that material existed in our house. But, you know, I'm sure, you know, back then, that day and age, you know, magazines tossed to the, tossed to the street in trash can. Somebody has it. Other kids bring it to school. Maybe they even try to sell it. But, you know, certainly that type of stuff circulated and what have you. Have no idea where you came in possession of this, It was not provided by us, and there was never any physical abuse or sexual essay abuse at home. None of that. He was always provided a warm, loving, caring environment.

So none of that's true. Did you think there were any red flags in that area in terms of, I don't know, maybe some of the girls he was dating in high school or did you see any red flags about any sexual unusual sexual interests or problems his first girlfriend he had in California he was really had a big crush on her you know we met her sweet girl we left left California when the state went back shit crazy excuse my French, but hey, it's California. And we left there and came to Florida.

You know, at that age, your kids circulate through kids like people go through revolving doors. You know, one kid comes in, hey, this is so-and-so, okay, and then you never see him again. There's a parade of those instances that would have you. one of the dogs, a friend of his came in, or acquaintance of his came in, and she didn't appreciate him. She let it be numb to,

kind of nipped him in the backside. She wouldn't let him in the door. She backed him up against the wall. Not coming in. And nipped him on the butt until he went out the door again. And we later found out this was the same friend of his that overdosed on heroin and died. there was another incident

and I don't think we've ever brought this up before and that is in California he was walking down the street with a couple of friends and his girlfriend and this man was very inappropriate with them and I'll let just tell you the rest of it

but well yeah cat call or something and there's lewd cat call there was a shout out to him and the truck spun around and came back this guy unfolded himself out of the truck he was that big and physically started assaulting stephen to the point that he was choking him to death um is coincidental to that we had just come back from sequoia national force we went camping with the church

group and Stefan had a pocket knife in his pocket and stabbed the guy in the chest to defend himself. The guy was later arrested for physical assault and Stefan defended himself, but didn't realize that he suffered PTSD from that. I didn't realize that until several years later that he was experiencing that. He was haunted by it. Yeah. Just to clarify, what was the trigger? What was the cause of that? There was a very lewd remark made and they shout back to the guys and it turns out the guy was a meth

but a shout out to the guys that went driving by the truck maybe an FU or what have you and they spoke around and they came back the bird. They flipped the bird guy and he spun the truck around and came after him. And Stefan was the only one that was physically attacked.

Karate or no karate he couldn't get the guy off of him. And he's how was Stefan? 16, 17, 18, 2016? Okay. Yeah. He was a really thin guy back then, you know.

Was there? When you talk about the line that was starting during his early adolescent years, it sounds like, did any of that become criminal behavior at all? Or did he ever get disciplined for any, you know, anti-social or unusual, you know, problematic behavior at that age? No, that's the thing. There was never any issues with him. You know, I guess a parent's greatest fear is that a kid becomes an alcoholic or a drug addict.

I mean, I, I, I, I, in conversations with other friends or what have you who tell me stories about not their kids per se, but other kids. And, you know, it's tragic what happens. with these kids. They get started at this stuff at such a young age. You know, and you know, there was an incident one time where we were gone for the afternoon and came home and, and I went up, up the stairs and Stefan was coming down to stairs and I had to stop midway. And I go, whoa, time out. Oh my gosh. I said, come here. And I said, have you been drinking? And he just reaped of alcohol. Well, apparently he spent the afternoon. He spent the afternoon sampling every alcohol that we had and we soon got rid of all the alcohol in the house

and believe it on now he was heading out the door to take his friend home what was his age what was the age at that time 17 it was just before california i don't know 17 and uh sent him to his room and didn't see him for two days um passed out and I took took the friend home who told me what had been going on that afternoon. But, you know, that's the worst thing that we had experienced at that time. What did, so when you, when you have these incidents, did you, did you, did you sit down and kind of have a heart to heart with him at all? I mean, what was communication like between you guys? Oh, we have, we had open communication and dialogue with them all the time. What we didn't have

from him was truth or that if he was having a problem, he would come share it with us. He was very close and close knit to himself. I mean, never came to us very rarely, unless he needed money, you know, that he came to us with a problem. Hey, I got a problem. I mean, I felt and told Stefan that why didn't you come to me with this problem that you experience on Sunday evening or Monday morning, whatever this took place. Hey, I screwed up. Oh, okay, you know, because the first thing I would have suggested is I'm coming there and then

I'm going to take you into the place. You know, you got to turn yourself in. That's get, that's be out in front of this. Now, always told her to be out in front of this. The minute you've done something wrong, own it, fess up to it and get out in front of it. And again, And I guess he thought he was smarter than the average bearer, what have you, because obviously if you look at the timelines and the sequence of the chronology narrative summary, what have you, it's like, how can he not realize that his trail was being followed? They know everything he did. How can you in today's technological environment that we live in,

do you think you can get away with anything? You can't sneeze and not know that you've sneezed. I don't know how he thought he could get away with any of this. So our deepest desires to discovery, it's discover more about Stefan, learn from him. And we're going to kind of lean on you, John, to help us provide some clarity to Stefan. You know, it's a son that we did,

know versus what we did know about our son and the complete opposite of one another. You know, we were, we feel blessed that we found you guys. You reached out to us and it gave us the opportunity to do a deep dive into your channel. And it was a welcome relief to see, you know, the professionalism of what you guys put out of. there and the fact that John's got a medical background brings a lot of legitimacy to your to your channel. You guys truly represent what we believe should be represented in these crime channels that exist out there and not the circus that they do represent. I mean, but you know, it's it's it's a shame. It's it's reckless abandonment that they that they utilize. It's basically inciting a

a lynch mob against us and God forbid anybody if she crossed their paths because they'll just attack you. I mean, you look at these broadcasts that they have and then you just walks the thread of comments that are made as if they're really relevant. But I guess the people feel that maybe you can answer this, John, is that why do people feel like that they have to lash out if not to make themselves feel better about themselves. I truly don't understand that. The fact that they spend these hours watching this stuff is just amazing. Don't they have lives? Yeah, and I want to say, you know, it's almost, this is what I've seen oftentimes in the true crime community. It's almost like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. None of us can imagine what you're dealing with right now. maybe there are some people, I'm sure there is a small club out there that understands a bit

of what you're going through. But I would say the majority of people have no idea the type of situation and what that is like for both of you. No one, I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. And it's true, if you don't speak, shame on you for not speaking up, right? And if you do speak, they're going to scrutinize everything that you say. So we've been handcuffed for the last seven months, almost eight months, we've been held to strict silence. And so I think we've been chastised, criticized for not responding, but people don't realize that there's some legal proceedings going on here. And we don't want to misspeak. And now that all the information is out there, not that we knew anything, because we didn't know anything until it was released to the public. So we're

learning just as much as everybody else does whenever this information is released. Stefan is constrained to tell us anything because he's under instructions from his attorney. So obviously what we have learned has been quite shocking to us. And very disappointing to say to least. And then, of course, now we're trying to self-analyze what we did or didn't do that caused this. And we're not even sure, well, we know we're not the cause of it. You know, we're trying to pursue a conversation about an accident, Stefan had 30 years ago, as to possibility of, you know, causing this, TBI.

You know, 30 years ago, when Stefan had this accident, just so the public can know what that consisted of, Stefan was literally run over by a pickup truck twice. He and a friend were playing in a parking area. When he was seven or eight years old, the guy came out to his truck, a small Toyota pickup truck. Hey guys, how you doing? Gets in a truck and immediately backs over them. Pushes Stefan down into a bit of a hole in the parking lot,

drove right over him. And, you know, hit him in the head with the bumper. as he backed up the first time and then if that was enough, he pulled forward and ran over him again. The fact that the, Stefan isn't- Hit the hitting in the back of the head first and then when Stefan raised up to look, he heard the kid screaming, he quickly put it in gear

and throw forward and hit him in the front and then came up over his body, up over his pelvis area. The fact that he wasn't, wasn't permanently disabled and wheelchair bound is a miracle. Thank the mud. But the, there wasn't, when he released from the hospital, you know, the doctor said, hey, you know, be cognizant of any, any difference in his, in his attitude and his demeanor and such.

And we press for more information and we just told that he could have some headaches, Disney, his nauseous, sensitivity to light and stuff. may not be able to wake up or go to sleep. And there could be some other physical traits. He developed a tick for a while. And after that, he did suffer from PTSD and also separation anxiety. But we just never knew what to expect, but they just told us to be on the lookout for things. And what we did find is that his personality changed.

He changed 180 degrees. He was a high, a high energy kid, full of love, laughter, and such, and to something totally different. The trouble right. And, you know, and then he started experiencing some educational problems and Debbie can relate to that. You know, we had to put them into an individual education plan and would have you. And we finally realized that we needed to take them out of the school

and put them into a homeschool environment, which was held to a strict regime. And Debbie did a great job of managing that for him. We also did as much as we could to encourage him to participate in sports. and I tried to expose them to as much sports as possible. He didn't seem to have a lot of interest in group sports per se. Kind of gravitated towards track. He was fast.

He was always fast as a kid on his feet. And in spite of his injury, he was his speedster. But that didn't last long because he apparently had a kidney disorder that required some immediate surgery and he had to have some emergency surgery to take care of that. Again, he discovered an interest in Shokan Karate, did well with that. He managed to get a brownbell in that, but we were forced to move the way or moved the way to California. Oh, actually, no, where did we go after that?

He was in Georgia. Yeah, we went to California. My wife's mother was dying of cancer, so we went out to be with her in her last few years. But we later introduced at the scuba diving. You know, we kept trying to introduce into things that would be motivating enough to provide enough incentive to where maybe he would be motivated to go out and get a job and earn some money to pay for these things because it didn't. didn't try to over indulge him with money and access to money per se we were trying to i was trying to use that as an incentive and motivation to go out and get a job obviously that didn't work too well but you know everything seemed to be focused towards solitary pursuits you know we love reading games Pokemon games warcraft and and other things if he liked something man he he he drilled in on it he he

he focused in on it. He really truly excelled that and things that he did excel at. You know, again, try to encourage him to to assimilate, you know, a normal flow of life. And there was almost always a disconnect. It had been a very frustrating experience for us to get him to assimilate into a normal life. we were getting on in our years, you know, we're in our early 70s. Yeah.

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You can also just click the link that's in the description of this video. That is there. Shopbeam.com slash hidden chew crime. So you talked about communication was open, it sounds like, and you were able to talk to him about quite a bit, at least when he was willing to talk. What about the emotional connection? How would you guys describe your emotional connection to your son

when he was younger? I thought it was very close and loving. Yeah, it was really close up until the accident, and not that we changed, he changed. I mean, he was, you know, if you show you photos of him, you know, as a kid, and he was running through the house on the tits of his toes and, you know, just a little speed deeming, laughing and giggling all the time. Really a quite bubbly personality.

I mean, we discovered very early on that he was, if he was focused on something, forget about it. You know, we were at a hotel one time and he got the key to the, to the refrigerator. or bar in the room and he was sitting there at the age of three with that key and he was relentless in getting that key into that lock and unlocking that lock but that's how focus he could be but he was we love that kid to death smothered him um but i what he didn't smothered them well smothered them with love whatever but you know we we we there was never any any any denial of any outward affection from him and us.

And even to this to this day, still a lot of outward display of love and affection. Nothing, as I said, ever gave us any clue or warning to his recently discovered behavior. I mean, like I said, this is the son that we don't know. It's not the son that we do know. So, Debbie, you even homeschooled, Stefan, for a time,

and that's actually been brought up in numerous conversations on YouTube as well. Do you want to share a little bit about why you chose to do that and what that was like? Because it was a daily fight to get in my bed,

dressed and out of the door to go to school. It was a daily fight to get him to do his homework. We had several conferences with teachers, and even on the IEP, he was not progressing. So I talked to the principal of the school And I said, what can I do?

And she said, have you ever tried homeschooling? And I said, well, no, don't you have to have a full college degree for that? Because I'm short a few credits. I don't have my degree yet. And she says, no. You don't have to because you are going to be supporting him, but he's going to be doing his classes with Florida Virtual School. So that's what happened.

And we were able to get him up at 10 in the morning. it was easier. So maybe that's calling him, but it was easier on me too because I usually don't go to sleep until two or three in the morning. So hey, I didn't have to be up at 6.30 in the morning to get him up.

He was able to eat food and we were able to take short breaks and progress at a rate that would interest him because some stuff he could just speed through. English language, sentences, reading,

um, history, science. He loved all of that and he devoured it. Math. No. Hates math. Math for me, no. So I called it a tutor. You're usually good at one thing.

If you're good on the, on the, on the, the historical, on the English side, you're usually not good on math. I'm not a linear, I don't have a linear brain. So, um,

I had to bring in a tutor. But he had to take his tests orally with a proctor over the phone. And I could not be, in the room. And did I help him with his homework? Yep, I did. Don't most people help the kids with their homework?

I didn't do it for him, but I helped him. I wish you were my parent because I never got help with homework. No. Anyway. And we also, I also gave him courses that they weren't offering in school. We did marine biology. We did oceanography. We did stuff that he liked.

He loved dinosaurs. We looked into that. So I feel like he got a better education at home that he got in school. He didn't have the distractions. He could concentrate on his work. He wasn't distracting the kids around him, and he wasn't frustrating the teachers. But when he described his algebra teacher to me as a woman who stood the blackboard with her back to the class, talked to the backboard while doing combinations up on the board, doing algebraic expressions,

they couldn't understand her, couldn't hear her, and she never helped anybody do anything. And I said, why does he even hear? You were still allowed to participate with the school because you were still basically enrolled with the school. So he still got to go to prom. He still got to go to graduation. He walked and got his diploma. Got the cap and gown and the whole thing. Yep.

So was he in the virtual program throughout the entirety of high school or just a few years? What was the? One half years. high school. Okay. And you mentioned earlier that he tended to be a bit solitary. Was that after high school or was he a bit of a solitary person in high school as well? Yes. He had his cadre of close friends. He didn't have huge group of friends. He had four or five close friends. And that was all he wanted in his life. Just just his little circle of friends. He didn't have a huge group of friends. He He was not a social butterfly by any means.

And do you think that the accident had something to do with that? I think so. He was quite gregarious beforehand. He would run, he would go and knock on people's door and say, do you have somebody my age that I can play with? He would introduce himself to people. He would run around and walk right around his bicycle, looking to see if there were any games he could join him.

Now he did do kickball and stuff like that and he went fishing taught him to fish I was the fisherman not him I kind of was more of an outdoorsy person because of the horses and I also got stuff in a horse

he wanted a horse he got a horse but he had to promise to work with me in the barn and that meant cleaning shoveling poop bringing shavings in hauling hay with me going and picking up more

shavings which all the kids love that because they got to ride in the pickup truck on top of all the shavings. But, you know, and now people are saying that sounds like this. The worst thing I could ever do is to have him actually work to support his horse and to help me because I was having some physical problems

from these surgeries I had on my feet. So there was some things that I just couldn't do. But he loved he loved running out at night. He would just grab a hunk of mane hop on their beer back and they just run around the pasture. Every night we went out together and gave the horse's peppermint candy before we went to bed. So it was, to me, that was an ideal life.

He was able to go into the woods and go fishing, catch frogs, catch lizards, catch snakes. You know. Just, you know, you guys are helping me kind of develop a picture of your son. and the more you talk about them, obviously. You know, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it feels to some extent like your son was very childlike in a way. Like it's almost like with his interest in games as an adult and, you know, the solitary pursuit,

it almost sounds like he really struggled to grow up. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It met well, and I will also say he's a narcissist. Okay. It was all about Stefan. When Stefan wanted something, Stefan wanted it then.

He didn't want to wait. He didn't want to wait for Christmas. He didn't want to wait for his birthday. It was now, now, now, now, now. And he would throw fit. And that was hard. That was hard on us, but it was harder on him because we didn't give into it. Even when he was younger, he would, you know, teenage years, he never,

he never grew out of that? No. No, you know, it kept waiting for, it seemed like there was a disconnect. You know, you were like kind of this close and all you needed to do is make this connection. It is like. John, he had no impulse control. Yeah. Really, if he wanted to do it, he did it.

And then he paid the consequences later. He got put on restrictions. He had his car taken away. At one point, I went in and stripped his room of everything that he had because he had gone for six weeks without cleaning his room. and I had begged him for six weeks, please clean the room. Or I'll come in and do it. No, no, no, no, I'll do it myself. Okay.

Well, finally, I went in there, and I took his wallet. I took his car keys. I went out and took the tags off of his car. And I told him, you were grounded. Period, until that gets done. And his friends were laughing their butts off at him, saying, you just got jacked by your mom. So get in there and clean the closet and clean up your room,

which he finally did because of his friends. not because of me. Yeah. So it's like. It was always, I'll do it, I'll do it and never get that. Yeah. Tomorrow. Everything was more convenient tomorrow.

Everything was a procrastination unless he wanted something. And then he was joining on the spot to do it. Tell me about the, tell me about his friends. What were they like? What was what? Tell me about his friends. What were they like? Well, so.

We were never very approving of them because, you know, you're the sum of the five people you know, and these people, these kids were not very motivated. They had their own family issues. A lot of them came and stayed with us when they were having real announcements with their parents. They had, they seemed to be more interested in drugs, alcohol, partying, sleeping, and just and not doing anything. And I just need, I grew up differently from that. I was blessed to have, you know, a good circle of friends, Debbie, the same. But how he seemed to gravitate toward these people that weren't a good influence for him, which is why we disapproved of Jim because, again, she was not a good influence for him.

But that's what he seemed to gravitate to. What do you think drew him to those types of people? Do you have any thoughts about that? I do. I do. We used to call it the Wounded Bird Syndrome. He needed somebody he could coddle and protect. And he did that.

And he treated those girls very, very well from what I heard and saw. I wasn't with him in the bedroom. I wasn't with him when he was doing whatever he was doing. and didn't want to be. I think he just felt so his self-esteem was very low that maybe he just gravitated. It didn't feel that he was worthy of somebody

equal to him, greater than him. You know, you're always better off, I think, associating with people that are smarter, have more to offer than somebody, certainly beneath you because they're just going to drag you down. There was in this most recent interview with Jennifer on our on our channel. She mentioned the police officers asked her about his previous relationships. And she mentioned a possible younger girlfriend in high school.

Do you know about that? She said that Stefan would have been graduating later. So he would have been like 19 or 20 and she might have been 15. I think that was said in the interview. but that's not that's not accurate. He graduated on time. He graduated at 17. Okay.

Who she's referred to, we have seen in some other conversations with YouTube about the possibility of somebody younger, maybe underage. There's a possibility, Debbie and I don't recall, we might have met her once. Again, like I said, there was always a parade of kids passing through one time, but I've seen some information out there about this person. And I think one of his friends alluded to it in a conversation on another YouTube about a younger girl. But I only assumed that it was an acquaintance and that there wasn't any type of relationship. And again, later from what I'm seeing, from the information I've seen out there that there was never, to my understanding, there was never a relationship there. But we were made aware that this person was younger than what she appeared to be. In the last few months, never then.

But the other thing is, do most parents stop their friends, girlfriends at the door and say, excuse me, do you have idea how old are you? the only thing I remember of her was Chris, Stefan coming in and saying Hi, this is so and so I can't even remember her name That's horrible Yeah, like I said, it's just a parade of people We're going to go up and watch some TV Is that okay? Yeah, sure. Would you like some snacks?

You know, get to some coax, the chips, whatever Go up with you and that was it She came back down, she wasn't adjusting her hair She wasn't adjusting her clothes I don't think they were up there having sex They were just visiting And it was only like a 45-minute visit So who knows?

Right. No. And I never questioned anybody. The other girls that he was with, he was in school with at the time, so they were to his age. Yeah. I was going to ask that were most of his friends his age, or was he drawn to younger friends? They were all his age. As far as we know.

As far as you know. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Someone, it's also been mentioned, and I guess this goes back to John's question about him being childlike Pokemon cards and some toys as an adult. Was that an interest of his? Was it toys or was it simply Pokemon or? No, Pokemon died when we were in Windham here. Oh, no.

Pokemon, obviously it's a big cult's collection now. Yeah, it is. It had told me fairly recently that it had become a big, thing. Stefan was big into that at the height of Pokemon. But he said that the cards have a higher value now and that there's a cult out there that collects this stuff and it lives. And, you know, he's always into the latest and greatest of toys. And my God, being exposed to all the toys available at Disney. Forget about it. Oh, my gosh. You know, he was... Star Wars.

What's one of those... Kim, Giacis. Thank you. Thank you. Those things. Boy, he had a collection of those, you know. I don't know. Unbelievable. Saper, lightsabers. Boy, you could come down.

Forget about coming to the house. You could get your head lasered off, you know. You know, lightsabers all over the place. You know? and spent all those money on that. It's like, hey, but we're not taking care of your car. Right. So we're talking lightsabers as a 37-year-old, not 16.

Correct. Well, both. Both, okay. Yeah. Never got over. Gotcha. Okay. Maintaining.

But, yeah, it's odd to me that a 37-year-old man would buy one of those, what is it that the white helmets on the bad guys star wars helmet whatever you know and and love whatever the glove was that uh well listen you've got these these guys that are just into this and they just collect the stuff and he obviously had a had a fetish for it what can i say John do you have any more questions about um Stefan growing up or these types of Do you see the disconnect, how we were just never able to just get him to assimilate into, into, you know, adulthood and said, hey, draw the line in the sand, step over the line and now we're an adult. Leave this behind or just visit it every now, but the focus is being an adult. I kept waiting for that shoe to drop, and it just never got there.

The other thing that we were chastised for, apparently, was allowing him to have a firearm. that was brought up and that was for his was it 25th birthday? No, 21st birthday. He was... 21 was a tattooed.

Again, he was robbed at gunpoint at 18th. And he swore up and down that when he became legal age, he was going to be able to defend himself. So when that happened, I immediately

joined him and we I hired a a black ops former black ops guy we spent 40 hours Stefan and myself with us instructor for 40 hours doing not all at one time right one to one training with him did competitions yeah we participated in competition he was very responsible with that you know taught me taught me a lot because you know I I invested time in educating himself about firearms and what have you. But it was a method for me to bond with him because I wasn't going to hang out in the Star Wars arena. I wasn't going to get caught up in gamagachis. You know, it wasn't going to be doing that with him.

Or Warhammer. But we did go, we did go and participate and compete in gun competitions. And it was fun. It was a bonding opportunity. that's why I got involved with it. Yeah, Lauren, I did, to answer your question, I did have another question. After the accident, you guys mentioned that you thought there maybe were symptoms of PTSD. It sounds like maybe there could have been some depression too.

I'm not quite sure, but. Yes, yes, yes, completely. Did you guys ever consider, or did you get him into counseling, or did you try to get any help for him at any point? Well, he, you know, as an adult, he was in counseling. It's been years. Yeah, for years. So I don't know. Obviously, we're not privy to what was the person would have you, but. Yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not faulting you. I think I'm just more interested in whether you, I guess part of my question is whether you thought that his problems rose to the level of seeking help, or do you feel like, do you feel like they

were kind of under that bar still as a child. I thought they were under the bar. I never thought that, oh, my God, you know, he's so bad. We need to go and get him help, you know. Let's let's go put him in a hospital somewhere. No. No, there's nothing like that. I mean, again, the son we knew versus the son we now know two different people.

Yeah. Yeah. And when he did get counseling as an adult, do you know anything about that? you know, like what age and how long? Or did he talk about that with you guys at all? He was still going through it up to three months before he was incarcerated. He was with counseling for years. Yeah.

It was something he sought out voluntarily? Yes. Yeah. I think he did it because he wanted to get a marijuana. Oh. Okay. So in other words, so that would imply, that the reason he was going was for symptoms of trauma?

I guess we don't know. We don't know. He, I think he felt like he needed it to, to, I don't know, for anxiety, depression. He had anxiety. To calm him. I don't know. John, he didn't want to, he didn't want to attempt to do something unless he thought he could do it well. it didn't it was hard to get him to take that first step to try something new

okay so he it sounds like he was also a bit of a perfectionist self-perfectionist and a perfectionist with everybody else around him you know he's he was I think he was an emotional bully could you say more about that well because I think he wanted people to rise to his level when when they're talking you know if they're if they're talking and they're not making sense to him he would say something about it people don't understand step in stephen had an IQ that bordered on genius seriously i'm not i'm not saying that because i'm his mother i'm saying he was tested he was very high very high IQ but the functionality level that he had with that IQ was not there.

It didn't match unless he wanted it to. And when it matched, it was magical and it clicked. He could become almost expertise in anything once he did a deep dive into something that interested him. Unfortunately, nothing that he went to find a job with interested him. Yeah. Was that testing done, by the way, as a consequence of the TBI? or was it was it I let me back up a little bit that after his his accident and the traumatic brain injury and I guess I should say with a TV I guess we haven't defined TBI maybe some people at this point don't even know what the TBI stands or traumatic brain injury so in other words it would be in simplistic terms it would be potential brain damage so was he could you

Talk a little bit more about the aftermath of that. Was he hospitalized for a period of time? Nope. No, they treated him, kept him for a couple of hours, did a bunch of x-rays, did an MRI, him home. Because I actually, I think they offered to kick him overnight, but I wanted him to become home.

I would rather be home than in a hospital, exposed to a lot of germs. I'm kind of weird that way. I don't know with hospitals, but. I did. I ended up having to take him to a chiropractor to get him to walk straight again. He was walking on a cane for over a month. Wow. Okay.

So he walked in there on a cane. He walked out twirling it around like, you know, Groucho Marx. So it worked. But the car had run over his pelvis and his low back when it hit both. So he got double-swatted. Did you notice any memory loss from the... after the accident? Yes, yes, I did.

I did. He couldn't recall things easily. We would have to sit down and refresh his memory on some things that happened. He would look at pictures and he would say, you know, where was this taken? When was this? So yes, he lost a chunk of memory.

And so was the cognitive testing or the neuro-testing, neuropsychological testing, And was that done later to kind of assess? That was because of the school system. Oh. They highlighted him as they thought potential ADHD. And we ended up going through a doctor then who evaluated him,

gave him all kinds of tests and everything, and found that, yes, he is ADHD. And he wasn't before. He was very, John, he was very focused before. I mean, the kid was laser-scope focused on. things he after that he couldn't keep a conversation going or he would skip a hey he would know what you were going to say he could he could project out what you were going to say and he would start answering what you were going to be talking about in five minutes before you ever got to it

and it drove his teachers bananas gotcha and so i i presume that the whoever did the testing knew about the brain injury. Yes, they had all the records from the... Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting.

That would be an interesting report to read for sure. I wish I could find it. I can't. I don't know. It could be buried somewhere, but I can't put my hands on it. I can't, in fact, we would like to see the doctor's reports, too. And I believe that because there was a lawsuit over the accident, there is a copy of it someplace in Sarasota in the county. Yeah.

His defense attorney will probably want to see it at some point, too, by the way, potentially. They know about it. They said they would find it. We got all the, he was, when he had that kidney surgery in California, he was one of the first people to be that they used the robot on. and so they use his case in a book. Oh, wow. Wow. It involved one of his arteries being looped over the top of his urator.

And as he grew and his body, his trunk expanded, it was pulling that artery tight, like crimping a hose. And he was at a track meet. And after the track meet, he was in so much pain that we thought he was having appendicitis and rushing to the hospital. It was, the pain was similar to having kidney stones. I mean, he would, he would be in such excruciating pain he would throw up. Wow.

But he was, after the surgery, he was okay. It was successful. Yes, except that it kept him from the military, which is what he wanted to do to begin with. He wanted to join the Air Force. He went through, he joined ROTC in high school, loved it. but when he went to enlist, they saw the scars. They were just a little puncture scars and asking what it was. He said, well, that's where they went in and they just, they fixed the artery over the urator.

There was no problem with his kidney after that. But because there was a kidney involved surgery, he was being disqualified. Passed all in his testing with flying colors, but because of that, they didn't let him in. And that was a real, that was a real blow to him. It kind of upended everything he thought he wanted to do with his life. Yeah. So, and he would have been roughly, what, like 19, 20 at that point when he applied for the Air Force? 18.

18. 18 straight up. Gotcha. Okay. In fact, I took him to, I took him to the recruitment office. I was in. Did you? Did you notice after he was rejected for that?

Did you notice any changes in his demeanor? Very depressed, very angry and very angry, which ended up being so minimal was going to cause such a huge rift in his life. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And I presume that he couldn't revisit that after they were just. him once, then it's...

No, it stays on the record forever. Did you, Lauren, did you have... It sounded like you... Yeah. Oh, sorry. There was a phone call I was getting in it. It came up on my earphones and I thought everyone could hear it, so I apologized. But I didn't mean to... I couldn't hear it. Couldn't hear it.

Okay. No, I'm waiting for you to make sure that you have all of your questions. I have a few more questions, but not until you feel like you understand enough of yourself. You know, thank you, thank you guys for sending over kind of a summary of your thoughts before this interview. That was helpful to me. You know, there was one thing that I wanted to read here that really stood out for me. You said, I mean, there's a lot of things that stood out, but this is this is one that I thought was really interesting, given what we know about what happened with Madeline. I don't have page numbers here, but I'll just read it.

You said, Stefan has a deep empathy for people and was the person most of his friends turned to when they were in trouble? Yes. And you also talked about how he considered becoming maybe a drug counselor and helping people with that, right? And so... Yeah, that was after David's death. Yeah.

And so I think what's interesting, to me, I'll have you guys talk about that in a second. I just want to reflect on that for a minute is, you know, that I think there's this tendency to want to pigeonhole people and say, you know, this guy's a monster, he's a psychopath or whatever. But when you say that and you talk about that side of him, you know, I think it's important to recognize this is your son. And this is a, this is a complex human being with a lot of different emotions. And even though, you guys describe him as a liar and a gaslighter and all, you know, he's all these negative things. It's also important to remember that this is someone with a lot of empathy and someone who

did, he, for the most part, it sounds like he did want to do good or he wanted to, to, right, to be close to people, to be close to you guys. And so I just want to point out that people can be contradictory. Things are never as simple as they seem, right? And so I thought maybe I would just throw this over to you guys to talk about, to talk about those contradictions in your son and how he wasn't just one thing. He was a multitude of things. Aren't we all? Right. But could you, so could you maybe, could you maybe talk about, can you tell us a little bit about the empathy and the positives and the things you really loved about Stefan. Okay.

I'm a big animal person. He had such a worker animals. He was so careful with them. I mean, even when he was living with Jen, they found a kitten in the parking lot that was basically dying, and they scooped it up, took it down, and brought it back, but she still got the cat. When he went to help us

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She's an assisted living. She has dementia. Yeah, she has advanced dementia. But she had a dog. Well, they found that dog in the apartment in horrible conditions with a harness that was grown into his body and Stefan couldn't leave the dog behind. He brought the dog home with him. and on the way home

he called, he said we've got to get him watched, we've got to get him groomed, he smells, he's got poop all over him and, you know. And so we did, we paid for that. And he brought that dog home and that's sailor. And that's who Jen has now is her ESA. So he loved, he loved the animal, loved his horse roo, really did,

loved all the horses, loved all the poodles here. He had his own poodle for a while, shadow. But then when he left home, he could take Shadowwipping. And Jen didn't want a big dog because he would jump up and knock Madeline over. So when the chance came to Rehom Shadow, we did. And that broke his heart because we did that. Skippy the Squirrel.

Skippy the squirrel. Yes, he was always bringing animals home. He got bitten by a snake. and he came and got me. He says, he's holding his, it bit me. I'm going, okay. Found a bucket. Had a splatter screen from the frying pan.

I put over the top of the bucket. We jumped in the car, ran to the emergency room, and I'm going in there and saying, I don't know what happened or what it is, but my son's been bitten my snake. well this is Florida you know we've got quite a few and I remember that the guy said well can you describe the snake

I said well yeah I said here it is and I handed him the bucket and everybody cleared the room I mean people were people were running so found out that it was it was fairly harmless but still I he would just he would just reach down and grab him up lizards the chameleons the aquarium

oh my God and then he brought home this huge soft shield turtle that had been hit by a car. Well, we had a pool in the backyard where he could rehab that. And my horse was badly hurt in an accident. And I rehabbed him. And really, I think all us kind of tended to go in that direction with rehabbing animals. And he was going to try rehabbing people, I guess. You know, I don't, I don't say that casual. I mean it seriously. You know, he had his ups and his downs and he had things that he had done wrong. And he dabbled in stuff that he shouldn't have probably.

But he never got addicted to it. So I think he empathized with people who did if that helps. I don't know. He always, he always thinks that really made me angry, still does. is he always covered for his friends. He would lie to us about what they were doing when they were doing something wrong. And I felt like that was disloyal to us

because he would bring them into our house and ask us to help them. And I would because my mother did the same thing to me. You know, any of us who had a friend in need, my mother's house was open. If she had a child in need, house was open. She took me back in when I needed it.

You know, during our almost divorce that everybody sees to be so interested in, that happened over 30 years ago. And if we could get through the, get through it and forgive each other and come back stronger, why can they just leave us along about it? And I don't think that affected Stefan. Didn't last that long. What was it? Three or four months?

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because I had to have some surgery done and I needed to have somebody that could help me rehab from it because I was not. He was never exposed to it. I would know. He was not. So it was like a moot point. I guess it was point. But I didn't run away to California just to escape Chris.

I went there because Chris was working and traveling and I needed help. And my mother offered to help. Okay. So you don't see that as having any impact upon Stefan? No. No. He was what seven years old at that time?

Yeah. He was a little elementary school. Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't part of it. There wasn't any confrontations because we were separated at the time. So it was not involved. So just in general as a child, how overall, how would you describe Stefan? Before or after?

I would say, I would say it's two sides of the same coin. There was one side absolutely delightful and beautiful and wonderful and proud to be his parents. And there was the other side that came later that sometimes you didn't even like him. I mean, I can say I can love somebody, but I don't have to like them. I don't have to like the way they act, but that doesn't mean I don't love them. And that doesn't mean that we're ever, ever, despite what anybody on YouTube says or anybody can't say that. We are not abandoning our child. He is wounded.

He is having PTSD in jail. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight. He is on heart medication, high blood pressure medication, which he was not before. And I understand that people think that he needs to suffer. Well, yes, okay. He needs to be punished and maybe he needs to suffer. But don't expect me as a mother to turn off my heart and say, but you're on your own.

I don't like you. I don't like what you did. And I'm not going to stand by you in one bit because I want him for the time he has left on this earth. And we don't know how long it is. I will give him as much support as he wants and needs. I want him to be strong in body, mind, and spirit. I want him speaking to God. I want him asking for forgiveness.

If we can do what we can to keep his mind active because he is in solitary and has been for eight months, I will send him as many books as he wants to read. And it's nobody else's damn business what I do with my money or where I send a book. they all have to be approved by the jail and if we want to give him commissary money so he can have coffee

or hard candy whose business is it of it? Really? Wouldn't they do the same? Wouldn't anybody? I mean, I don't understand throwing them out like, you know, bad fish. Yeah, our love is unconditional and unwavered.

going to happen. So I don't know how a parent could take that that attitude and just abandon their child in spite of what they did. Obviously there's there's a reason for what happened. I certainly wasn't raised that way and we're just not going to abandon him. It's not going to happen. You're as parents. Yeah. I'm going to read just Just to reiterate this point, I'm going to read another short paragraph here that you guys sent that I think makes this point very well. And this is from you guys prior to our interview. It says, as long as Stefan remains on this earth, the love for our son is deep, unconditional, and unwavering. We will not abandon Stefan.

We also are not trying to make excuses for him. He did this and we know that now. Yep. Yep. So I think it's important to reiterate that not only the unconditional love, but also the recognition that your son did a horrible thing. Can't escape that. We are 100% on board with the fact that he is possibly identified as the lone

perpetrator of all this. that does not mean that I'm letting Jen off the hook at all I cannot believe that somebody let this go on underneath their nose for seven years I don't understand how she didn't have a connection with Maddie enough that Maddie could go and say hey you know maybe my you know something's not right here well even the roommates scared or whatever

roommates even questioned Jen I said you're okay with this you're allowing this and I was like huh you know and apparently she did but the immunity just gauze me I'm sorry it gals me all of the lies all of the all the things that she did are all white clean she never has to worry about it again does she did they give her complete immunity additional well I think it's I forgot what they call it derivative no derivative derivative derivative immunity yeah it's which essentially means that at this point in time,

she cannot be charged with that interview that she gave or what she shares with police, but if there's additional evidence of a crime that shows up, she could still be charged for. Yeah. Well, ask yourself the big question, the really big question out there, all of that stuff on the computer,

all of that stuff on his phone, all of the money that was coming in by the handholds and the way they were spending it, where did it come from? And could she, I mean, obviously she also participated in spending the money. So do you think she was at all culpable? We don't know that. Don't know.

Very suspicious that there was some sort of enterprise going on. And of course, the police won't tell us anything about that. That was one conversation or question I had with them. And it almost sounded like. like they acknowledged Stefan and eliminated Jen, but something definitely was going on. And I haven't been able to figure that out. But I feel there's something else out there.

There's a bigger web, possibly. As far as I know, I mean, that in all the images they have, there's not a single image that I'm aware of where Jen is in it. From what I read, everything is perpetrated by Stefan. Right. I think there's definitely a lot of interest in Jen's potential role. And it's certainly something we've raised on our channel in terms of what did she know and what was her involvement. And right now, my presumption is that while she may not have been the best mother, there's not sufficient evidence to really charge her with any crimes at the moment or to implicate or, you know, in any of the illegal

proceedings that we know of. And that's not to say that can't change. Yeah. You know, so at this point, we, I guess the next step is the trial unless, like I said, another shoe drops, but we're expecting anything else. Of course, we haven't expected any of this either. So, you know, we just sit and wait for the next wave of information if there is anything. I still think it's an open investigation to some degree, but to what extent I don't know. I would like to say something. Please. And that is that for all that I thought that their relationship was toxic, which I did, we loved Maddie and

I liked you and I didn't love Jim but I liked her and I feel great pain for her having lost this child and her family I can't

I can't put that aside that she has lost her child and so for that my heart comes out to her and I say prayers for her I say prayers for Maddie I say prayers for Stephan

yeah so much I'm glad to all this It's just, you know, what started out as going to a birthday party is turned into an absolute nightmare. I wish I was able to prevent him from going, but it was Maddie's birthday, and that was an occasion. She called him to come. So. She called him specifically asking to come. Oh, yeah.

You know, you happen to live with. talked about this in the same city as the laundries, the laundries, but Brian Laundry's parents. And people have compared you to them. And I want to point out something that I think is very clear from the FOIA documents. And that is that you've continuously cooperated with police. And I want to point that out and thank you for that. And while your voices have sometimes shifted through the process because as you've stated, you learn things along with the public. You were processing things. I know that since we've been talking to you, and admittedly we have talked to you before this

interview, you share different views. And we've watched you sort of progress with the truth and the information that has come out there just as we have, just as everyone has. And I want to point that out and acknowledge that for you. and see that you're changing your views and you're shifting your views and you're open. You also shared with us something that, you know, I can't even fathom as you learned about things slowly

and we're again processing and taking this in and you handed over evidence to police. Here you go. Here's this, you know, here's this hard drive. Take whatever you want. You let them into your home. Police is what I mean. And our dogs in.

Yeah. I mean. Let her finish your dog. Okay. No, no. Go ahead. You can interrupt any time. This is for us to listen to you.

Well, what's interesting, like I said, that Wednesday, back in February, while I'm waiting to talk to the police, not even sure they're even going to talk to me. Opening conversation was, were you aware that Stefan was in Northport? What exit do you live off of? Do you know that Stephon? was in Northport he go what you're serious I just drove the middle of the night tucked him into his hotel room I went to bed and within an hour he's out of there he actually runs to St. Cloud and he goes to Northport and I said you're kidding me

of course I learned hours later when Jett called me and go do you know where Stefan is I go no when you where's Stephanie isn't with you but you know I asked him I said hey look there's a desktop computer at home. Maybe you guys should come get it. He said, okay, we'll make arrangements to do that, only to find out that the hard drive was removed from it. I know it was there Sunday morning when he left, because I told the police that after I found that out. So he purposely removed that hard drive. Why? Well, again, as I explained to the police, very forthcoming, that Saturday evening, he was having some sort of anxiety panic attack and I've never ever seen this expression on his face never and something had he had some sort of information and had no idea what it was but he was he was

really panicked and then to find out that this hard drive was removed so you know we're cleaning out his room a few weeks later come across this USB drive two of them as a matter of fact I put one in both of them computer one had nothing just like the evidence shows the other one I just hovered my mouse over the fields didn't see any image because again you can't unsee what you see it's just file names just file names and just from the description I said this is not good and I text the detective and told them that I had some evidence to turn over to them it It took them three weeks to come collect it. And in fact, I had to remind them I had this and that it was sitting here waiting for them to come collect.

And then to learn later in July when I had a conversation with them before this information was dumped out that there were 35,000 images on that USB drive. And I just, I couldn't believe it. That's unbelievable. I mean, somebody, he had to get access to a data dump of some sort, but it was just unbelievable. And why did he have possession of something like that? But every time we turned, found evidence, I immediately notified the police. I mean, we didn't want it in the house. It was toxic.

Yeah, didn't want it in the house. But at the same time, we didn't want any appearances of being complicit in trying to cover anything up. At this point, you know, we weren't interested. We wanted the truth out there. Yeah, I remember you sharing that we're discovering those, that, you know, 30, over, you know, I just can't even imagine how many images and learning, right, that Stefan had this in his possession. And, yeah, I could only imagine. I didn't even know you, I don't know how big that drive was, but I didn't imagine that you could hold 35,000 images on it, you know. Well, I guess they can hold gigabytes of stuff, so I guess they can, but it's just hard to believe it. I feel sorry for the person who went through it and looked at every single image.

And the detectives did. I mean, how do they unsee that stuff? How do they even? I feel like I need to give prayers to them. Really, that had to have been so hard. So hard. And people who said that he should have thrown Maddie in a lake and let the alligators eat her or, you know, throw in the woods and let bears eat. or whatever.

I don't think that he did that. I think he was careful in placing her where she would be found quickly. I think somewhere deep down inside, he did not want her out there very long. You know, I went to bed, and Debbie went to bed that Monday night when the supposed disappearance happened and stuff in describing trafficking and what have you, I went to bed thinking the worst that she's in a shipping container,

you know, cramful of other kids and going to be deprived of food and water and access to the bathroom for days on end and what have you. That was the impression I was left with Monday evening and then carry it over into Tuesday and even later until that night and not discovering until much later that it was all made up and that there was something more serious involved. I mean, really, really tick me off. Not only that, but it caused. us high anxiety, which we don't need in our condition. And that was what I was doing out there screaming at God. You know, why?

Why would you do this? I am a Christian. I don't know that I'm a great Christian, but I am a Christian, and I do love people, and I just don't understand them all the time. But I do have empathy for them, and I do, even these people who have sent me some ugly things, I know it's probably hard for anybody to believe that I would actually, say prayers to these people, but I think something triggered them, maybe something in their background in their life that was similar. And I feel so bad for them that they see these

things and then they relive it. I can't imagine it. I know what it feels like to feel helpless. Do you feel that setting aside Jen's responsibility that still unknown, right? You know, we can speculate, as you said, we're speculating. We don't know. Do you feel, though, that Stefan manipulated, Jen? I think they manipulated each other. Yes. Yeah.

They manipulate. She was. He don't, he, you know, based on his actions, that's, that Monday morning, he certainly knew, knew how the manipulator. I mean, going in to collect the dog, making sure she didn't come out of the bedroom, you know, he's got maddy up hours ahead of school. School then starts until 938, he's got her up at 7. Right.

And he's going out the door at 7.30, what's he going to do for two hours? I mean, when you see this timeline of stuff, and he goes, oh, my God. But again, taking the steps necessary to preserve, you know, his privacy or his actions and going in and collected the dog. taking the dog out and hey Jen you go back to bed oh okay thanks appreciate it you know definitely wanted to keep her where she was at yeah it was over candid sneaky I mean if yeah Warren if it's if it's I prayed God that it was an accident that he got mad and that it was an accident because he had gone that far sure because he did

tell us if he put her you know she went to bed and that when he went out to walk around and blow off some steam, he came back, and to check on her, and she was cold. He said, he discovered her. Okay, so. Don't know if that's the truth. Yeah, don't know if anything's a truth. Don't know if anything's a truth. But it's what he told you.

Yeah. It's just. Lips are moving. Don't know if it's truth. Right. It's just what is relaying. Yeah. And I'm sure you do a lot right now to protect and process what, what, you know,

what happens. I just, I guess, do you have anything else, John, to say when it comes to this? Yeah, you and I, we've talked about this on previous shows, but I can come up with plenty of scenarios where it seems like a very logical explanation to say it's an accident, at least as much as saying it's premeditated. So, yeah, I don't think it's clear-cut. I mean, Stefan knows. Stefan knows.

Yeah, Stefan knows. Whether or not he's telling us, we don't know. Yeah, whether he'll ever tell us the truth, who knows, right? But I presume if somebody's going to find out it would be you too. Yeah. So, but. I don't think he wants to put himself in a bad light with us. I think he wants to preserve some sort of image of himself as being culpable, but not completely culpable.

Yeah, there's just no way for him to communicate with us without everybody knowing. you can't have face-to-face meetings. Everything's either text with a tablet or a phone call, and it's all monitored. So we'll never know. But while, oh, go ahead. Even when they are recording you, they still write things in their reports that are wrong.

Can I assure you that I was never taken out of this house and gone taken to an emergency room by the police? Oh. Where's the bill? Where was the bracelet? I never left my house. I had, I'm a diabetic. I hadn't been eating for over 24 hours. Okay. Right. I had a busy spell. They did bring in an EMT. Check my blood pressure. It was a little low. They asked if I wanted to be transported anywhere and I said no. I'm fine. I just need to. That's not the report. They said they transferred. They gave the name of a hospital. They smoothly took me. to, which I've never heard of before. So I don't know how that happens unless they confused two different actions that night and put me in one place with somebody else. I don't know.

Well, the two of you are going through the unfathomable. Like, honest, I don't think anybody, I can't comprehend it. While you're learning that a little girl that you love is missing and then learning that your son is responsible, you two are all. dealing with a lot of, I mean, I'll call it this harassment and threats while you're just trying to process your lives falling completely apart or what you thought was your reality, completely being turned upside down. Can you talk a little bit about that too? Because I just feel like in this true crime community, the way we cover crime is important and we so often

dehumanize the people were discussing. And I just was wondering if you could share a little bit about what you two have been dealing with. Well, like I said, there's not a date that doesn't go by that we don't think about Maddie. And certainly we wonder about Stefan

and we wonder if we'll ever know the reason how and why this came about. When did this start? How he got to this point? why he didn't feel the need to come to us and tell us that he had a problem. That's not the question. What's the question?

The question is how we're dealing with the harassment, and I'm the one that's getting the harassment. Okay. I'm getting the ugly text messages. I'm getting the ugly phone calls, the horrible, horrible descriptions of what they want done to my son, the horrible descriptions of what they want me to do to myself. They've suggested several ways I can kill myself. One woman was so, so, it was funny actually. She called, she sent me a text and says,

Deborah, there's a man in the woods. I'm sure that was supposed to scare me. Like there's somebody out there, you know, taking pot shot. I'm going to take pot shot at me. Well, good luck. But I get, I, because I'm from the South, I guess I had a lacking sense of humor, but I wanted to send her a text fact that says, sweetheart, this is the South.

There's always men in the woods. We don't know what they're doing. They're pissing. They're spitting. They're shooting. I don't know what they're doing, but they're in the woods. So if you thought you were scaring me, no. But we have people trying to scare you.

Yes. Yes, we have people saying that they're going to come down here. We have people saying that what they would like to see happen to me. And then have graphic descriptions of what they want to see happen to Stefan. Male and females do this. It's not that. And they can get to us no matter where because every time, We do something like change our phone number, then they docks us again on YouTube and give them the new phone numbers.

So, I mean, how many times do you have to change your phone number and your business cards? Gosh. What do we have to do? Do we have to live in self-confinement all the time? Afraid to even go to the grocery store because somebody might walk up to me in a parking lot and it costs me? Is somebody following us as we go around and we don't know? car's parked around. We don't know if somebody's hiding and then watching us. Chris

walked out the other day and there was a person out front with a cell phone taking pictures of our house. So, you know, said he was, what did he say he was? He was taking some B-roll for somebody. What I'm where B-roll is, taking B-roll for a television

show, I guess. Yeah, but. We're not the story. We're not the face of this. You know, like I said, we're just as shocked. by all of this. And we know as much as the public knows. No more and no less, whatever is out there. And if we've missed something in some of these reports,

well, again, as I said, we've seen enough evidence to convince ourselves that Stefan did this and was involved. We're not denying that. I'll admit that I didn't believe it at first. I didn't. I said, you know, I do. I'm not making excuses for him.

But as for me, the more people screw with us and the more lies they say, the more angry I get at them. Because why? What gives them the right? They have no skin in the game. They don't know any of us. They don't know anything about us. But they can sit there and just hold court on these shows either by writing or by calling in and describe what they think we are and how we should be treated. Why? Why? What what does that do for them? And what does it do for us? Right. You've got people who are brokenhearted and your life is falling apart and everybody's picking at you.

Why? Why does people so mean? Why are they so vindictive and why are they so ugly about it? I don't understand that. We don't do that to people. We wouldn't do it to somebody else. You think we wouldn't live here with the landings are. Do you think we went harass the landries? You said, why did you do this? Why did you help him get away? Why did you do that? You know, didn't you know what was going on? No, it's not about business. Well, it's none of their business about us either. That's the whole thing. Yeah. But they're, they're so attracted to it and they're so inflamed by what you hear on the on the YouTube channels and they're allowed just free rein. And somebody, somebody, somebody, somebody,

said that we put in a complaint against YouTube and we didn't have enough done anything like that. We believe in the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, you know, is freedom of speech. But by the same choice or chance, you can't scream fire in a crowded room that's against the law. Well, why would you turn somebody?

Why would you paint a target on my back, on my husband's back? Fine. What good does that do? You're not punishing the perpetrator. You're punishing people who had nothing to do with it and didn't know anything about it. And are just as brokenhearted as anybody could be, maybe more so, because we actually knew these people and lived with them. These other people with them, they have no idea who we are.

Well, hopefully today will help with some clarification and some understanding. of your story and your situation. And fear is a very potent toxin, right? You don't know how that toxin is going to affect people, but you're seeing it. Unfortunately, I think you're seeing it day to day. Yeah. And I can't imagine how difficult it must be to deal with

just an unimaginable grief and at the same time to go through the harassment and all the things you're going through. That must be just a really difficult combination to deal with. So I feel for you guys. You know, I saw help. I saw, I would see a counselor. And I saw six weeks.

And then I finally, just on the last visit, I said, this isn't working out for us because you're not listening to me. You're falling asleep when I'm talking. Like, you know. And it gives me a bad, a bad taste in my mouth about counselors, you know, are you just nothing but a paycheck to them? And I went there for help because I am dealing with my own depression. And I commend you for seeking help whether or not this was the right counselor for you.

It sounds like it is definitely not. But, you know, yeah, just to go and to seek that help is difficult. And I commend you for that. Thank you. I hope that, yeah, I hope that we can find something better. I'm sorry. I wish I could find somebody that acted like they cared. Really?

You know, no. Maybe somebody who's dealt with other people going through this. I don't know. This is a small town. I don't know what's a vehicle here. But, I mean, what do you do? Advertiser, hey, mother of a monster seeks help. Yeah.

I'm sorry you went through that. The only thing I can say is sometimes in the mental health field, some therapists are good fit and some art. So not like I can drive over to your house. Yeah, all right. But I thank you for listening to us. It's been helpful and you guys have been, you've been supportive without being,

enabling and very professional and I appreciate that. I appreciate the way you present things in your podcasts or your YouTube channel. I think you go for the truth. And I don't think you even, you don't embellish it. And that's my problem with some of these people is letting people on there to vent that are lying. And they don't know it and they've just been used. that's sad but it's true

and in the meantime you know we're sitting here being told don't answer any of these don't contact any of these people don't try to refute it because you just make it worse

the attorney's told as that said just be quiet don't don't don't try to don't try a clue up for yourself well I'm not real good at not standing up for myself but I'm taking it for a long time now and I'm and frankly we're tired of it.

Yeah. Understandably. Well, yeah. Thank you for allowing us to listen and your voices, every voice deserves to be heard and to listen to. Is there anything else you two feel like you want to share right now? I am afraid that we will pass before step in us. And I worry about that. I worry about who will take care of him.

I heard about who's going to bury him. And that bothers me. We're too old to go through this crap. We are. Too old and too beat up. 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. I think we will send him with a time. I'm going to hit and recording now. Thank you, both of you. Thank you.

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