Hidden True Crime - The Mind Behind Stephen Stern’s Final Words | The Psychology Hidden in his Sentencing Speech

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

Stephen Sterns was recently sentenced for both the abuse and the murder of Madeline Soto after taking a plea deal. Clinical and Forensic Psychologist Dr. John Matthias is here to assess the sentencing statements, the risks of re-offense, and more. Save 20% off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/hidden About Hidden True Crime: What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, we have an important show for you tonight before we begin a trigger warning. we will be talking about the murder of 13-year-old Madeline Soto. Madeline Soto disappeared in February, 2024. She was found March 1, 24. Her body was found. She had been murdered by her mother's boyfriend, Stefan Stearns. Stephen Stearns took a plea deal, and he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for both... Being 13-year-old Madeline as well as murdering 13-year-old Madeline Soto on July 21st, 2025, just less than a month ago.

It's something that John and I were following and have been following and have wanted to cover the sentencing. I think that many understand the trigger warning now that I've shared what this is going to be about, but John is going to go back. Dr. John Matthias is a criminal psychologist as well as a clinical psychologist. We have been covering this case. One thing John does is assess offenders and you plan to talk in depth about not just the sentencing and Stefan Stern's statement, but to revisit some of what we discussed early on when we discussed this in September of 2024, I believe, or, or, when we first started talking about the murder of Madeline Soto. So to catch everyone up before we jump in,

I just again want everyone to understand that Stefan Stearns was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And he was initially arrested in 2024 after investigators discovered disturbing videos and images on his phone depicting him assaulting Soto. Investigators believe that the abuse began in 2000. 2019 when Madeline was only eight years old. Stern faced 60 charges related to abuse. And that was brought against him on March 12th, 2024.

He had a trial set just for the abuse that Madeline suffered, not the murder. And right before that trial was to begin, he took a plea deal and now again has been sentenced for both, both the assaults, the abuse, as well as her murder. The sentencing was heartbreaking. Stefan Stern's made a brief statement. Madeline's biological father also made a statement, as did in many others. And we plan to talk about it today to also remind people of our coverage. We have an interview with Stefan Stern's parents, the parents of the murderer who has now been sentenced and that is how one of the many things we did in covering this case. So Dr. John, my co-host, I will give the floor to you. Yeah, thank you. So I want to, we're going to examine

Stefan Stern's statement at sentencing because I think it, it, it, even though it's very short, I think it does reveal a significant amount about the criminal mind. And that's, I think that's one of our jobs here is to tell a story, to investigate and tell a story about a crime, but then to analyze it deeper, to find what's hidden in that story, and specifically what's what's hidden about the criminal mind. And so there's a lot here that's hidden still, by the way. So in the sense that there's a lot about Coburger, Brian Coburger, that we don't know because Coburger didn't go to trial and we didn't see evidence. Same thing is true here. I think there's a lot about Stefan Sterns that we don't know. And I'm going to, so I'll speculate a little bit about

what I believe happened and how we got to this point. And I think hopefully I'll be in the ballpark, but I don't know for sure since we didn't see all the evidence at trial. But I want to set the tone with some research. I usually don't do that. I usually like to lead with something a little more dramatic for my case. But I'm going to refer to an article here that's a very well-known article in forensic psychology related to risk factors for sex offenders. The title of this article, this is a 2010 article, it's by Mann, Hansen, and Thornton.

For those who do work with sex offenders, they'll recognize Carl Hansen as one of the pioneers in sex offender research. He's Canadian. He's an amazing researcher. He's done so much to advance knowledge in the field. So we're all, you know, those of us who do this day in and day out, we're very grateful of Carl Hansen. for all of his work. But this article is a phenomenal article because it actually looks across a number of studies and its goal was to find psychologically meaningful risk factors. So the title of the article is assessing risk

for sexual recidivism, some proposals on the nature of psychological and meaningful risk factors. Now the reason I want to start with this is because I'm going to point out, because it's going to guide us for the rest of our analysis here. I want to point out the number one risk factor for sexual recidivism among sex offenders. And I just want to say recidivism is the, can you explain what recidivism is?

Yeah, recidivism is. So when you commit a crime or when a crime is committed, for example, with my job, for example, a crime is committed. and then part of my job is to go in and evaluate an offender. It could be a violent offender, sex offender, and then to make some determination of future risk. Future risk is called recidivism. Recidivism is when you reaffent.

It's when you commit a crime again. And so a big part of my job is making determinations about whether someone will recidivate or whether they'll commit a crime again in the future. And the reason that's important, obviously, is because the courts prior to sentencing are trying to determine if someone can be placed safely in the community. And the only way to determine that is to determine the risk. Is this person going to be a high risk to reoffend or low risk?

And obviously, the lower the risk, the more the higher the probability is that defense counsel for an offender, for example, might be able to get a placement in the community or probation. Ideally, defense attorneys want the most lenient sentence for their clients, right? So their ultimate goal is probation. Well, I guess their ultimate goal is acquittal or dismissing all the charges. But short of that, if there is a conviction or a plea deal, their goal, the way they see it, is to, assist their clients in the best way possible.

And the best possible situation for most clients would be probation or parole. So recidivism is the risk of reoffending. And so this research article looks at a lot of the cycle, more important than risk alone. It looks at the psychologically meaning risk factors. So in assessing risk, there's essentially there's two types of risk factors there's static factors and there's dynamic factors dynamic risk factors static factors are variables like age they don't change right you can't change your age you can go to treatment all you want but you can't change your age so that's static

right a dynamic risk factor would be something like substance abuse substance abuse if you have an addiction or a substance abuse problem you can change it you can stop so it's dynamic it's fluid, it can be changed. What hasn't really been, until this article, what really, there wasn't a lot of examination of psychologically meaningful risk factors. In other words, what are some of those psychological elements that contribute to recidivism? And the reason this is important, because I want to, I'm going to point out the most important risk factor, the risk factor that has the highest probability of recidivism from this study.

And I'm going to report that right now. So that element is emotional congruence with children. So if you're an offender, specifically a sex offender, and you show emotional congruence with children, meaning that what that means is congruence obviously means affinity or closeness. Now you can have emotional, you can have a close relationship with a child, but this goes beyond that. This gets into essentially feeling more comfortable with children than adults. That you have an emotional bond with children that you do not have with adults. And if you have that, if you're, if I'm a self.

a sex offender that has no history of significant or meaningful relationship with adults. And then they have some sexual offenses with children. And they have some history of close relationships with children, let's say nieces and nephews and families or whatever, right? Like, that's a problem because it shows me that this risk. our emotional congruence with children is at work, it's in play. And if I know that, it's very, very difficult to, it's very difficult to get someone to change that. That if you have, if your primary emotional bond and emotional security is with children and not adults,

it's difficult to change that. And so that's why it's such a significant risk factor. Because when you have that, your risk for reoffence goes up dramatically. And of course, I mean, it's a risk factor for offense in general also. These also play into, these are also risk factors for committing offenses. So not just recidivism, but also prior to, the commission of a crime. A quick word from our sponsor.

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Tell them we sent you and you help support our show. Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapeware on the market. Save 20% off Honeylove at honeylove.com slash hidden. Honeylove, the new standard in bras and shapewear. Is this, is this, I guess emotional congruency isn't, it's not necessarily, are you saying that could lead to pedophilia? It's not pedophilia. Well, I think the implication is that it's it's correlated with pedophilia.

Okay. It's correlated with it. I guess you can, I mean, it's slightly complicated in the sense that you can have a closer emotional bond to children and feel safer to children and perhaps not have any type of sexual attraction to children. Right. Right. Absolutely. And so in that sense, if you're capable of having a normal, adult relationship, then it may not present a problem.

Although it's peculiar, right? Because it suggests that whatever adults bring to the table or the complexity of adult relationships, you may struggle with that. Because you find children easier to relate to. You find children safer to be around. And it, you know, so oftentimes there's going to be a correlation. If that's the case, it's going to often occur hand in hand with an attraction or a sexual attraction to children as well. If you feel safe with children and you don't feel safe with adults, then in many ways you're going to feel safer sexually with children too.

So the two often go hand in hand. And obviously that's the problem. There can be some differences. I think it's important to note too that in pedophilia, there's different types of pedophilia. There's the exclusive type, which is essentially an exclusive attraction to children. So pedophilia would be an attraction to children 13 and under.

And exclusive pedophilia is strictly an interest in children. And then there's the non-exclusive type, which is you have an attraction to children, and you have an attraction to adults potentially, or you're at least capable of negotiating relationships with children or relationships with adults. Your primary attraction may be to children, but you're still capable of some type of sexual attraction

or maybe engaging in sexual activity with an adult if you're non-exclusive type. Now, Stefan Stearns is interesting. It's an interesting case because it's not clear, whether he's exclusive or not exclusive. I mean, he was obviously in a relationship with Jen Soto, Madeline's mother, and he had other adult relationships. But some of those adult relationships were strange, right?

In fact, in fact, we, you know, we didn't talk to her, but we saw some statement. There were some interviews with one of his exes. One of his exuses named Marely Alejandro. She's the next girlfriend, apparently, and she told an interviewer that Stefan often didn't spend nights with her because he wanted to be with Madeline, and he wanted to be McManolin because according to him, she, he put it on Madeline. He said, Madeline could not sleep without him. She also said, and this is interesting, we're going to come back to this. Marley Alejandro said that oftentimes he could not become a real.

aroused around her. And the only way he became aroused around her an adult was if when he asked, are you ready for this? We talked about this before, but here we go again. The only way he could become aroused around her was if he asked her to lay down dad. If she played dad, then he would become aroused. And this is going to be an important part of this story, by the way. So for those who listened to our earlier Stern's shows, we did discuss this, but we're going to revisit some of this because all of this is going to be relevant in terms of understanding stuff and stirs.

So there's a question here. I mean, I don't, I can't even, you know, I wouldn't diagnose them as a pedophile, by the way. I just don't have enough information. It certainly, it certainly seems like that would be a reasonable diagnosis. but there were a lot of images of him with Madeline. There were a lot of, you know, inappropriate. A lot, right. So, I mean, even without the murder here,

he was going to go away for a long time. It's based on what they had. And as you pointed out, initially the trial wasn't even for the murder. And they could probably get at least 20 to 40 years, maybe life without the murder. So, so clearly this is someone who pushed a lot of boundaries before the murder. So it's not, it's not totally clear whether he was an exclusive pedophile or not. It seems like based on the fact that he had some adult relationships that perhaps he was not exclusive,

but there were other elements in play here. There were parapherias. We talked about that before, too. Paraphilias are, parapherias is basically a condition characterized by abnormal sexual desires that can cause distress and often they cause harm to other people. Obviously, pedophilia would be one of those. For some pedophiles, it does cause distress. For some, it doesn't.

I think in broadest terms of parapheria would be defined as sexual deviancy. So abnormal sexual desires and behaviors and phantias. that typically kind of cross a line in terms of laws, legality, and in terms of societal norms. Again, pedophilia would be an example of that. I think clearly, to me, there's a lot of parapherias going on here. But I want to start with this idea of emotional congruence with children because that's really going to set the tone for understanding the sentencing. Okay. So let's, if we could, let's start with Madeline's biological father.

He gave a statement. It's fairly short. But I think it's going to be important to play Madeline's father first. Okay. Because I want to contrast that with what Stefan Stearns is going to say later. Just in terms of tone, in terms of. attitude there's so much there's just so many differences between these two my name is tyler wallace tautiana wallace and tyler what's your relationship to madeline soto madeline soto was my daughter

go ahead madeline soto was my daughter she was happiness she was a joy to be around she was corky and intelligent she was curious a little forgetful like me too that happens sometimes but I just loved her so much. And I was not able to be in her life as much as I would like to, to circumstances and choices I had made, to the way finances worked. I was strained in my relationship with my daughter, and that was finally getting better.

The last time I saw her was in October of 2023, and she had come to visit for a few days. And when I took her back to the airport, I said, you know, you're turning 13 soon. When you turn 13, you have a choice of which guardian and you're interested in staying with, would you like to stay with me and talk to eat? And she said yes, that she would.

And so I was this close to having my little girl, sir. Because of the actions of this depraved man, I will never meet the woman she was becoming. And I can't, I can't grasp it. I can't grasp the selfishness of you, the deplorability of your actions, you're depraved, you're weak, you're a coward, You're a sneak thief.

You crept into a family and took advantage and exploited them when they were weak. It's tore my family apart. It's led to arguments about who can go where and who can get what and who can help who. But we're all on edge because it doesn't heal with time. This isn't like other deaths that I've experienced. This just gets worse. It just gets worse every time I rethink about it and the true horror of what this man visited upon her. and I can only hope that he lives a long time in prison

and has those same horrors revisited upon him by his fellow inmates. Thank you. That was the first time I heard that, that was really hard to listen to, especially the revelation that Maddie wanted to come live with him at 13. I think we can surmise why she wanted to come. live with him, right? In retrospect, I think it's apparent. Absolutely. Right.

So in spite of Tyler's problems, there's something he said I want to acknowledge right now in terms of contrasting this with Stefan Stearns, which we're going to do in a minute. When it comes to weight loss, you don't need more advice. You need more of what works. That's Weight Watchers, with real tools designed to take the guesswork out of what to eat. how to move and how to build habits that actually last. That's why Weight Watchers members lose more weight. Real people, real results.

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that says so much in terms of he acknowledges that Maddie is someone that's growing and maturing and going to become her own unique entity. But he acknowledges that this is someone that he needs to protect and help to achieve adulthood or reach adulthood successfully. He says, so in that little statement about that he'll never get to know the woman she was becoming. It's so important because he recognizes that his job as a parent is to protect her so that she can grow into a future as an adult. Right. Right. And that's the very thing we're not going to see with Stefan Stern. If we go back to this idea that this risk factor,

which is emotional congruence with children, you're not going to see that with the bio- you're not going to see that with Tyler. What you see with Tyler from that one statement, and just from this little brief snapshot of Tyler is this desire to take Maddie back when she's 13, to protect her, and to lead her, to help her become the woman that he sees her becoming, to lead her into adulthood, to become this successful, happy, right? He says she's happy, she's quirky. He sees these qualities. He wants to nurture these qualities. He wants to lead her into adulthood and protect her. That's, I think, that's why that statement was so moving to me and so important because it's everything that Stefan Stern does not tell us. Yeah, that's true. So let's, having said that,

and having looked briefly at Tyler's statement, it's a short statement, but it says a lot. You can read between the lines. Let's move into Stefan Stearns. Yes, Your Honor. I would like to make a brief statement. I agree that it's not fair, that Madeline is not here anymore. I still have a hard time contemplating a world where she's not around, a world which feels less vibrant and less colorful

than it did before. I have prayed to God countless times to trade places with her to take me instead. And unfortunately, that's just not how he works. I have nothing but sorrow for her loss. And I miss her all the time. Her passing has torn me and my family apart as well. And she truly was a joy.

I pray to God that she is in heaven and that he's taking good care to her. And I hope she gets to join the choir because she had a beautiful voice. I will miss her all the time. I'll never not honor her memory. And I apologize for all the pain. So he gives us very brief statement. Yeah, very brief. it's more than sufficient to really dig deeper into who this person is and to really kind of

look at some aspects of the criminal mind that may not be obvious if you just listen to it you think okay this is someone who doesn't really seem to be taking responsibility right like i listen to some of the i listened to some of the talking heads lawyers attorneys mainly after the trial talking about it. And they all said one thing. They all said, this is a guy who really didn't take responsibility. He really didn't apologize. There's no remorse. That's all true. But let's dig deeper than them. Since we're hidden, that's our job, right? So let's dig a little deeper than the standard tropes about he didn't take responsibility. Yes, he didn't take responsibility. However, I divided his statements. So we're going to go through every statement. I divided his

statement is in four categories. And each of those categories, I think, will tell us something about Stefan Stearns. Let's start with what I think is the most important category. And that's what I would call the category of emotional congruence with children. Right. Again, that's going to drive our analysis tonight. This is the biggest risk factor for recidivism, for sexual offending against children, emotional congruence with children.

Another way to say this, by the way. So it's not just this idea of emotional closeness with children. It's also, it goes beyond that. It's also what I would call romantic, a romantic connection to children. And so my category here is not just emotional congruence with children, but romantic overtones or emotional, romantic connection to a relationship. to a child. And so let's break down what he said.

He says, I'm going to read the four statements he made that I think fit this category. He says, quote, I still have a hard time contemplating a world where she is not around a world that feels less viral and colorful than it did before.

Okay. So that sounds like somebody who would make that statement is essentially talking about someone who's that it sounds like, a romantic relationship, right? Absolutely. It does. It's vibrant, less colorful.

Like, this is someone who misses someone that they were romantically involved with. I agree. He then says, quote, I have nothing but sorrow for her loss and I miss her all the time. Notice again, too, he's talking, he's not, he's not talking past tense here. He's talking present. He's acting like, in some ways he's acting like he's still in this. romantic relationship and that's how he comes off that's how he comes across nothing but sorrow for her loss it's like it's like he lost and I mean we're

talking about a 13-year-old so obviously this is depraved right but like he's talking about losing his romantic connection losing his lover essentially yeah that's what it sounds like she truly was a joy again the romantic overtones emotional congruence and the final thing, he says, I will miss her all the time. I will never not honor her memory. These all fit into this category of emotional congruence to children or romantic overtones. And so I think what's interesting here to me, so again, if we're contrasting this with Tyler, who's interested in Maddie becoming an adult and the journey towards adulthood and getting

there safely, Stefan Stearns has no interest in that whatsoever. He's acting like, this is a romantic interest that he's lost and now he's feeling sorrow and he misses her right he's saying all the things you would say if you lost your spouse i agree that's i i agree and so that really stood out to me you know the first time i heard his speech i thought or a sentencing speech i thought this is exactly the risk factor that i you know that that that i have to examine every time i do an evaluation with a sex offender. Is there, especially a sex offender that is

interested in younger children? Is there an emotional congruence with children? Clearly there's an emotional congruence with children. Does that make Stefan Stern's a pedophile? I mean, I can't diagnose him, but I think it's fair to say that based on the images they found

that this is someone who has an attraction to underage girls at the very least, right? So, So that's number one. Number two, this idea that he's not taking responsibility that everyone's pointing out, let's examine that. Let's go a little bit deeper than that, actually.

So it's not just taking responsibility. It's also exhibiting what I would call the victim mentality or the victim stance. He opens with this statement. He says, quote, I agree it is unfair that Madeline is not here anymore. I agree that it is unfair. It's unfair because you murdered her, right? Like I know that was that was really a despicable line. It was unfair.

So he's he's playing the victim. He's saying and also notice the way he says it. Look at his language. He says, I agree it is unfair. It is unfair. Not it's unfair because I murdered her. It's it is vague. It's unfair that Madeline is not.

He's not here because. of you, right? But somehow he twist this so that he's the victim. It's unfair. I don't get to have my lover anymore. I don't get to have my 13-year-old, right, romantic interest anymore. So that's this victim stance. So people are talking about this. They're just not unpacking it the way I want to unpack it. So that's number one. Number two, he says, quote, you're going to love this one. Quote, her passing has torn me and my family apart. as well. Victim.

Right. Oh, but not only is it victim, by the way, but you'll know, if you go back to Tyler's statement, Tyler says, this is torn the family apart, and we don't know how to heal. And then a few minutes later, you have Stefan Stern saying, her passing has torn me and my family apart as well. Think about that.

on the heels of Tyler and his deep sadness and grief over this entire tragedy. You have the murderer basically saying, like going tit for tat with him. Her passing his torn me and my family apart as well, so shut up, right? Like, what?

Talk about insensitive, right? Like, I don't know how you could be more insensitive. I mean, he's basically like mocking Tyler in a way. I mean, and so if we're thinking about, this in terms of the criminal mind I mean this is a good example of not just a lack of remorse and this whole idea of this kind of victim mentality or victim stance but also this utter callousness and insensitivity to Tyler to the father like well it's torn it's torn us apart too and I mean and we know you and I know we talked to the the parents we've talked to

Stefan's parents and they've had a hard time dealing with this it has torn them apart but but to say that as part of your sentencing statement after the biological after Tyler says it is just to me and when he said that I was like oh my God like that's that's so callous right and I talk about this all the time but callousness as a trait callousness as a factor in assessing criminals is often correlated highly with psychopathy. So psychopaths, one of the biggest elements or one of the most common elements of the psychopath is callousness. And again, I don't know if Stefan Sterns fits the category of a psychopath, but...

Sure. But I will say this is a very callous moment. And we know that there's a tremendous amount of research showing that the, The biggest predictor of psychopathy in children is this variable of callousness. Children that have no empathy and they're completely callous and indifferent to other children's feelings that stay that way from the time they're very young until they're teenagers or adults, they are high risk to become, they're at higher risk to become psychopaths than children that aren't callous. So I thought that was interesting.

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So I think he's using this idea of religiosity or spirituality or spiritual contrition to kind of rationalize away his actions and his behaviors. Let me read you. So I'm actually going to go through everything he said, by the way. I'm just breaking it up by categories. So under this category of spiritual contrition slash rationalization, he says, quote, I prayed to God to trade places with her to take me instead. But unfortunately, that's just not how he works. Oh yeah, that was, that was so. Yeah. Right. I mean,

if he really felt that way, then he wouldn't. He's kind of blaming God for taking, he's kind of blaming God for taking her, not himself. That's how I took that. This has nothing to do with God. This has to do with someone that murdered a child. Right. Exactly. And so in that sense, it's very much a rationalization. It's a way for him to feel better about it. He does that in another line. He says, I pray to God. This one's worse, I think.

Quote, I pray to God that she is in heaven and that he is taking good care of her. And I hope that she gets to join the choir because she had a beautiful voice, unquote. So again, total rationalization, right? he's saying if God is taking good care of her care of her and she's in the choir then maybe my actions weren't so bad right like he's minimizing it yeah imagining her happy sort of like lorry valo in a way you know my my children are happy in heaven they're they're they're busy they're busy right it's it's yeah it's lory daybell ask in that sense that and some this is is in some ways making him feel better about what he did. This is minimizing what he did. This is

justifying what he did, rationalizing what he did. It's okay because God's, she's in a good place, right? That's exactly what Lori did in her statement. Well, they're up in heaven with God and so they're happy and they're fine. So it doesn't matter if I murdered them. It's similar. It's a similar dynamic. The other element here, too, there's a couple other elements here that we talk about, oftentimes with criminals. One is the, you know, from this statement is the utter lack of insight and self-awareness, right?

It's what I would call pseudo-religious morality. Like he's using this moral take on this situation, again, to feel better about himself. and it just lacks any type of insight, right? Like it allows him to put his crime at a distance and not take ownership. So you have, you know, this is very typical. It's called mentalization or metacognition that a lot of criminals just, they lack any insight, they lack self-awareness, they lack this capacity to reflect and to really evaluate their lives. And because of that, they can't evaluate their behaviors and their crimes.

They just, they don't, they don't have the capacity to step back and reflect on what they're doing. And so that, that creates more impulsive behaviors. That creates behaviors that are driven more by instinct and by sexual desire in this case, right? Like, they're not, they're not thinking about what they're doing. They're not thinking about the consequences. is they lack that intrinsic capacity to reflect. And so many criminals, it's called, you know, it's, I call it, we call it mentalization. It's many criminals don't have this capacity for mentalization.

And so they're driven, they're driven by their base instincts, right? They're driven by the wrong elements of, if part of being human, if a big part of being human, maybe the biggest part of human is our capacity for rationality, and for thought and for self-reflection and for being conscious and insightful about our actions, many criminals don't have that. They lack those elements. So you see that here. He's pushing it out on God.

He's rationalizing this through God, and he's not, not only is he not taking responsibility, but he's not showing any insight or self-awareness or any capacity to reflect upon himself and his behaviors. And that kind of related to all of that is this idea of literal. How literal he is, right? We saw this again. You mentioned Lori Daybell. Same thing, right? There's a very literal element to his thought in the sense that he says,

he hopes that she's in the choir. I mean, I don't want to say that, I don't want to rule out the possibility that there's not a choir in heaven? I don't know. Who knows, right? But like, it's still being pretty literal. It's still being saying, well, you know, she had a beautiful voice. So I hope she's in the choir. You know, I hope God picks her for the choir. Very literal, right. Very literal. Very literal. And we saw this with Ori Deabel, that there's this, when you become overly literal and you lose this capacity to, you know, to engage, you, you and abstract thought, again, you really limit your view of the world.

You really narrow down your view of the world. Your world becomes so, so condensed and so narrow and so reductive that you just can't see the forest from the trees, right? All you can see are a few trees. You can't see the forest. And that becomes a problem because you start thinking that all of these little elements in your narrow world are the only elements that make sense. you start placing too much importance on a few of the trees and not the forest.

And so it's not hard to imagine that this is one of the ways that he may have fallen in love with Maddie and became involved in this relationship with her and did not, he lost track of the larger picture. He lost track of the forest, right? And so it's this type of literal thinking, which is closely aligned with what I just said about mentalization. and inside and self-reflection. So those two go hand in hand. But you see it here when he talks about the choir, specifically.

And that leaves one. So I've read every line from his sentencing. There's only one line left. That line is his last line. He says, quote, I apologize for all the pain, unquote. Obviously, that's a very very very. vague line. It's not a real apology. He apologizes for all the pain. Well, does he mean his pain? Right. Who's pain? Right. Does he's family's pain? Right. He's hurting and broken up too.

Maddie's pain. Right. Very vague. Very like. What he's not saying, what you want someone to say who's generally a remorse for apologetic is to say essentially, I apologize for, harming or murdering Maddie and all the pain that that my actions caused. I'm sorry for my actions. Right. My actions. So is he apologizing to himself? He could be like,

I'm sorry for your pain. He could be talking to himself. Yeah, that's when I first started it. I thought, oh, he's talking about his pain. He apologizes for all the pain he caused himself by getting caught,

I guess, right? Like, I mean, I want to say that embedded in that last statement about apologizing for the pain. I want to say that to him, I guess this is as close maybe as you'll get to an apology for

the murder, but I mean, clearly he's not capable of accepting full responsibility when you're making a vague statement like this. And again, that would be, again, this would be very true of most criminals that they just, they really struggle

to own up. up to what they did. They really struggle to, a lot of criminals are in denial. So you know that, because I'll go to the chaos and I'll come back and I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy said nothing, right? He's completely in denial. I mean, usually after a few hours I'll get people talking, but you see this here. You see the denial, the minimization, the inability to accept responsibility. So this is what I call, this is the category I would call his non-apology. or his lack of responsibility, his lack of culpability. So that is my analysis of the Stefan Stern sentencing statement.

It's very short, but I think, you know, hopefully people can see that there's a lot. Surprisingly, there's a lot to impact from just a few statements that he's making. And I think those statements really help shed light. not only the criminal mind, but Stefan Stearns. There was a lot, a lot. I agreed. I agree. I did see a lot of that sort of romantic feeling in his sentencing speech as well.

And so thank you for breaking it down for me and helping me know that I wasn't alone and feeling that and seeing that and why that's so startling. And to teach about some emotional. Emotional congruency, is that it? Emotional congruence. You know, it's really interesting that, again, getting back to this idea that he doesn't, he can't step back. He kind of can't stand back and reflect on this, right? Because he clearly doesn't see how emotionally invested he still is in Maddie. I mean, he probably perceives this as.

telling the court essentially, I really miss her, right? Like, he sees this as something, he probably perceives this as, that people will perceive him as someone who's grieving, the loss of someone that was close to him. But of course, knowing what we know and the way he's presenting this, this is not, this feels like, and sounds more like someone who's grieving the loss of a romantic interest, a spouse, a partner, right? I mean, it's, that's just how, that's how it comes off.

And it's, in that sense, it's really hard to listen to because it's so, you know, there's a big creep factor there, I think. Yeah. And so in other words, it is good that he will be spending his life behind bars without the possibility of Pearl, despite being saved, you know, the death penalty. Yeah. What is important is that others are protected from him and that he won't hurt another child. Folks knew the colonel approved of his new honey chili crisp and jalapena ranch sauces the moment he tasted them and said, that's right.

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this was. And maybe even the possibility that, that I don't want to say it was an accident because, but it seems to me that, and I talked about this previously, and by the way, we talked about this recently, I don't know why this is coming up so much in some of our analyses,

but we talked about this what Jeffries is and his murder of Martian Norman. Okay. this parapheria called somnophilia. There's a paraphera called somnophilia, which is essentially sex with an unconscious person. Often they're sleeping or they're drugged, right? Like, clearly, and it's closely correlated with necrophilia, by the way.

And so this gets it back to the idea. I mentioned earlier that Marley Alejandro, his ex, said that the only time he could get aroused when she played dead, she pretended like she was unconscious, right? And so I wonder, you know, did he need Maddie? Did he need to, was there some type of erotic asphyxiation where he needed a choker to the point of unconsciousness, right? Like whatever that, whatever happened, clearly it was high risk. But I think a lot of that or some of that was probably driven by, and by the way, there's a number of paleophilia's like somnophilia.

So this idea of arousal when someone's unconscious, necrophilia obviously is an extreme example of that, but there's other types of perophilias around this. There's a peripheria called objectophilia, which is someone who has a relationship with inanimate objects, like a car. Yes, that exists. There's something called agalmatophilia. That's an attraction to dolls or mannequins. There was this movie called Lars and the Real Girl,

which is this crazy, fascinating movie about this guy who develops an attraction to a doll, basically, a life-sized kind of sex doll. It's a crazy movie. But these are all related in the sense that you're talking about, you're talking about an extreme form of objectification, an extreme form of dehumanization of another human being. In other words, the fundamental issue with these parapherias is you're not having a normal reciprocal relationship with another human being.

Right. You're engaging with someone who's unconscious or you're engaging with a doll or even a car. Right. You're with an object. And you can see how that, you know, it seems to me that Stefan Stearns may have something like this, you know, the idea that his ex said that she had to play dad, right? That's a pretty good clue. This, by the way, is pretty uncommon. The fact that we talked about this with Jeffrey Zizz is unusual. And by the way, the person who did an evaluation of Jeffre's Ziz seems to have missed

this. Absolutely. And the reason they missed it is because it's hard to see. It's hard to find. It's hard to diagnose. But I think you probably have that here. So if we're looking for kind of the underlying motivations or pathology that's driving this crime, I think you probably need to look towards. And by the way, pedophilia is obviously a parapheria. You need to look towards these types of parapherias and maybe multiple parapherias. Oftentimes people that have one parapheria are more likely to have many of them or multiple. And so this is a case of that. I think you have some primary parapherias here, but then you probably have other ones, and they're all kind of correlated. So this idea of strangulation fits with this, fits almost completely with this picture of trying to render her unconscious in some way,

and maybe going too far. Or maybe, you know, there's a lot of scenarios. We talked about some of them in our earlier shows that maybe, I've speculated that maybe, Maddie threatened to disclose the abuse after years. She's turning 13. There's some boys showing some interest in her at school, right? Maybe she's had enough. She's talking about moving in with her dad.

Moving in with her dad. I'm going to leave. Right. Moving in with her dad. Maybe she's going to tell her dad. So does he strike, does he murder her because she's going to blow the whistle here? She's going to disclose the abuse. That could be.

It could be jealousy. He's seen her dating other boys. Other, right, they're showing interest in her. Maybe he doesn't want the competition, right? I don't know. It's hard to know. We'll never know. But there's other possibilities.

Like, she started menstruation several months before, right? So maybe, I know this sounds peculiar, but maybe because she's reaching puberty, he's not as interested in her. Maybe he wants to, you know, he wants to end her life when he's ahead in the game. That he sees her like reaching puberty is presenting a lot of problems. He's not as attracted to someone who's reached puberty. Maybe he got her pregnant, right? I mean, I think they ruled that out.

They did rule that out. They didn't find her being pregnant, right? But that was something that early on I was kind of wondering. on that yeah yeah or it could just be you know it could just be it could be as simple as it could be as simple as he had this parapheria of wanting her to be unconscious when he was with her and strangulation was a part of that it could be like a as i said earlier erotic asphyxiation or maybe he drugged her there was evidence that that that he had drugs that he gave to her quite often sedetins that would put her out.

And so that would be a part of that whole type of parapheria. But yeah, I guess we'll never know for sure. And perhaps that if you went to trial, we would have learned a lot more. But rest in peace, Madeline Soto. I concur with her father. I'm sure she would have been a wonderful woman. and come into her own and found some hope living with her father. So it's so sad. So sad. And what she went through, yeah, just so, so sad. Thank you. Of course, as we explained at the

beginning, this was going to be a difficult conversation and it was for me. So, but I so appreciate your knowledge in this field. Thank you. Thank you for discussing this sentencing. I know that many have been asking us as we were covering this. We simply couldn't be there on that date. We were covering three different trials or sentencings at that time. But we certainly didn't forget Maddie, nor forget that the sentencing happened and been wanting to discuss it. So thank you, babe. Yeah. And yeah, we have some other things planned. I know many have been asking for more Dr. John, and he is working on some additional shows.

Thank you for your patience. And yeah, we'll see you soon again. I love you. Okay. I love you too. Thank you. I think it's important that we did discuss this again and try to tie up some loose ends with Stefan Stearns because a lot of people have reached out and asked,

and it just happened to be, it happened to occur at a time that we were inundated with other stuff. So I'm glad, I'm glad we finally got to it. Yeah. And I'm grateful that he will not be able to harm any more children. So, all right.

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