Sword and Scale - Episode 360

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

13-year-old Madeline Soto vanishes on what should have been an ordinary school morning in Kissimmee, Florida. She’s dropped off just a block away, and nothing about it feels unusual. She walks off, heading toward school… and disappears. By the afternoon, panic sets in. Calls to 911 reveal a family scrambling for answers: rechecking routes, calling friends, waiting for help that isn’t coming fast enough. She never made it to class. No one saw her arrive. Beneath the family’s lies, it’s a race against the clock to find Maddie.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. And when you guys show me the picture of her, I believe the sexual stuff, but I didn't want to believe that he had done anything equal to her. I'm like, no, what if he did this stuff buying? Some of the stories we tell here on Sorin Scale will make you sick. They'll tug at your heartstrings. they'll change your whole perspective on humanity.

They're the ones you can't get over, the ones you can't really shake, and they stay with you for a long time. The story we're about to tell you is one of them. This is part one of a two-part series. Let's go. 911, what's the location of your emergency? The call is coming out of Kissimmee, Florida, in a quiet suburban town. pocket near Hunter's Creek Middle School. Police fire or medical?

Police possibly I'm reporting a missing child. And is she white, black, or Hispanic? She's white. Okay. And... Dirty blonde hair, blue eyes. Okay.

Hold on with me here. Okay. And then how long has it been, though, since you guys have last seen her? Since this morning, she was dropped off at school this morning, and apparently she never showed up. We called everyone we knew enough. She was last seen her. She was last seen at the church next to Hundreds Creek Middle School.

I think it's called Peace Church. I'm not sure if the exact address. She was dropped off that morning, just steps away from the school. But she never made it inside. By that afternoon, no one had seen her. Not her friends, not her teachers, not a single person at the school. She was dropped off, then just disappeared. Her name was Madeline Soto.

And she was just 13 years old. This was her best friend. She came to the school in the middle of the year in fourth grade. She was like the new kid, so like everybody kind of just picked on her and stuff. She was in a different class to me. She got picked on a lot by people like, that like nobody really liked and stuff. And then one day I kind of like went up to her and I was like, hey, what's your name?

And then we got to know each other. Ever since I've just been best friends. As best friends, she and Maddie talked every day. Like every single day. She texts me every morning I wake up, and I always get a text from her unless she. But usually, I said it was fishy yesterday when she didn't text me at all, because usually even if she doesn't go to school that day, she texts me like the night or the day and I'll like to wake up early

just to text me like, hey, I'm not going to school. And she didn't yesterday, but I didn't think everything of it I thought she'd like, oh, she slept in or something. That morning, February 26, 2024, was supposed to be routine. A ride to school, maybe breakfast on the way. It was the kind of morning you don't think twice about until something goes horribly wrong. That morning, her mother's boyfriend, Stefan Stearns, drove her to school.

Stefan, she was always on a call with him. She loved him. They were really close. They left earlier than usual. They had time to spare. and talked about stopping for breakfast at McDonald's. But she changed her mind, as little kids do. She was sleepy, but she also just wanted to get to school early to hang out with her friends.

Instead of waiting in the insufferable car line, she asked to be dropped off about a block away. She would walk the rest of the way to find her friends. Apparently, no matter who was taking her to school, Maddie preferred to be dropped off in the near- vicinity. This was usually at the church across the street where a lot of parents dropped off their kids to avoid the long lines. That morning, the car pulled over. Maddie got out and started walking. They're going to the pool to double text and everything, but from what we know she wasn't there, so they could be back to being too because it's right next to...

That's fine. So if at least one of you remains there, though, to meet with an officer, that's more than fine, okay? Yeah, I'll be here, I'll be here. Okay, then. All right. Thank you so much, ma'am, and I'll go ahead and let you go. We'll be out there as quickly as we can, okay? When someone goes missing, every second matters. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much you want a limited resource like law enforcement. If there's no cops available, there's no cops available. What do you expect after years of demonizing law enforcement? All cops are bastards, you say.

Yeah, that has a negative but opposite effect. Duh. Police and medical. Hi, I called not that long ago reporting the missing child. I just wanted to know how long the cops are going to take to get here. Okay, hold on. Let me open up the call and let's see. The call is still currently pending to have the deputies respond out there that we don't have any available deputies.

We still have the call up the holding. Okay, so no one's on their way yet? Not yet, no. Does it take long for them to respond to the call? If there's a big emergency in the area and there's nobody, there's no units available, they put the calls on hold. But as soon as one becomes available, they respond to the next pressing call. I'll go ahead and update them with the information.

All right, thank you. Because this happened very recently, so we just want to get everyone here. She's in there since 8 a.m. At the same time, her family started calling the school, reaching out to teachers to see if anyone had seen her. But no one had. Yeah, what's going on that? Maynie, please for our medical.

No, it's not a medical issue. We have a missing child since this morning. We already called three times, and the police didn't show up yet. Yes, ma'am. I see it. There's a way for a deputy to respond. They haven't come here yet. I'm worried, ma'am.

I see it. Is it waiting for a deputy response? You're waiting for a deputy response? Yes, ma'am. And how long do we need to wait? It's a child missing. I understand that, ma'am, but I'm just not able to give out ETA. I don't know when they'll be there.

So how long do we need to wait? to wait. This is an emergency. We have the information, but it just, they're trying to get there as soon as possible. So this is not informed for you guys? Really? Then we were very busy area. I understand they'll be there something they can, okay? They didn't just call 911 once. They had to call three times. The first call came in at around 4.43 p.m. Then, again, at 516. And then another one at 721.

It took officers almost three hours to arrive, and they didn't get there until 7.37 p.m. Deputy logs show the call sat waiting because no deputies were available. Units were tied up with other emergencies, and this one had to wait its turn. But before you blame dispatchers, understand that the people answering those calls weren't the ones heading out to search. They were taking information and waiting for someone in the search. field to clear. They did their jobs correctly by the book, exactly as instructed. Maddie's mother was later told there were other missing children that day. Seems like an epidemic, right? Resources were stretched thin. In fact, nearly 1,000 children are reported missing in the

United States every day. That works out to about one child every 90 seconds. Or, or or roughly 350,000 children under 18 each year. Think about that for just a sec. That's roughly the capacity of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So yeah, an Indianapolis Motor Speedway is worth of children goes missing every year. But to Maddie's parents, family, and friends, statistics didn't really matter at the moment.

This was serious and urgent. This was their own daughter. An entire day had now passed with no one seeing Maddie. Does she have a cell phone that she might keep on her person? She doesn't. She had one when she looked at home conveniently today. Okay. It was no surprise that Maddie left her phone at home.

This was a common occurrence, and it wasn't just because she was forgetful. Kate, is she diagnosed with any medical, mental conditions at all? I know she takes medication for ADHD, and I think that I'm pretty sure that's it. At 737 p.m., officers pulled into the condo complex in Kissimme, where Maddie lived with her mother, Jennifer Soto. Also in the home was Jennifer's boyfriend, Stefan Stearns, who was frequently there despite an on-and-off-again relationship. The unit itself was shared with rooms rented out to other women, and the condo was owned by Maddie's grandfather. It was a crowded living arrangement with multiple people coming and going and limited space

inside the home. By the time deputies got there that evening, both Jennifer and Stefan were there, answering questions and helping officers piece together the last known details from that morning. Officers started with the basics, documenting what Maddie was wearing and establishing a clear timeline. Hey there. Hey there. What's going on?

So was dropped off close to school this morning, but never made it. I went to drop in school. I'm sorry, one second. Go ahead, sir. Are we looking for another kid or we have a kid? Looking for another one. Like I said, an epidemic, especially when Disney World is in your backyard. So she was supposed to be dropped off at school, didn't make it a school.

Didn't make it a school. I went to pick her up from school today. And she never came out. They announced it over the speaker. And I'm just like, maybe she walked here because sometimes she'll walk here to this office. I came here, nothing. I went back to the school, they were closed. I got a notice, an email from the school saying she was absent.

But I also messaged her teacher, and he looked at her entire tenants today and saw that she was completely not at school today either. So she never made it. Okay. What's her name? Madeline. M-A-L-I-N-E. M-D-E-L-E-L-I-N-E? Ayeen.

Last name? SOTO. SOTO. S-O-T-O? Yeah. Date of birth. February 22nd, 2011. February 27th, 2007,

2000. Oh, sorry, 22nd, 2011. Just turned the 13th birthday. He said it quietly, but Stefan just pointed out that Maddie had just turned 13. In fact, just the day before, a Sunday, the family had a birthday party.

Her mother, Jennifer, and her mother, mother's boyfriend Stefan were not there, but her best friend was. But on Monday evening, back at the scene, officers needed to know what Maddie was wearing when she was last seen, so they talked to her mom and Stefan. Green hoodie? Green hoodie? Green hoodie? White crocs. Either blue or black pants? I think black shorts. Black shorts? Yeah. Black shorts? Yeah. Black shorts? All right. Do you know she has, like, friends in the area? She does, but she doesn't know where they live. She doesn't know where she lives, okay.

I asked all of them. Um, okay. Is this like, do she like have any places that you guys know that she would usually be at, any friends' house, any places that like she has to hang out? Typically. No. Not typically? No.

Okay. Um, weight? 110 pounds? 10, 120. Um, hair color. Blonde? Blonde, like a dirty blonde? Like a dirty blonde?

Okay. Eye color. Blue. Does she have any markings on her? Like any scars? She has a distinctive beauty mark on her face here. On her face. On the face, like below the nose or near the nose.

Yeah, like right in that area there. It's very distinctive. You'd know it if you saw it. While one officer was talking to Maddie's parents, another was speaking with staff at the church, where she was dropped off that morning. Surveillance showed a child sitting in a parking lot. parking lot for about 10 minutes before getting up and walking away. After that, the trail disappeared. At that point, investigators were still working through possibilities, including

one that seemed plausible. That Maddie may have left on her own. It's possible that she came here and sat in the parking lot for a while. It's blurry video. But it looks like an Alice of Chal sitting right there, and she's sitting. The people here said that they were adamant. They seen her on the property. But, like I said, it's a blurred video, and I don't see her getting into anybody's car in the video. I see her sitting on property for, give or take 10 minutes, and then walking off property. I don't know which way she went from there.

The video was blurred, he said. But clearly he showed a child lingering for a bit and then, walking away. Could it have been Maddie? There were signs, even messages and comments about wanting to leave, about going off on her own and living in the woods when she turned 13. Why the woods? Why 13, you may ask? Who knows?

But wouldn't we all like to just go off the grid from time to time? Regardless, this half-baked plan was something she had confided about with her friend. We were walking and ran the bus loop and she was like, she was talking about a gator. And then she was like, you know, it would be like so cool to do. And I was like what? She was like, if we like rent the woods, like you know that trail behind the scope. I was like, yeah. And she was like, you'd be so cool to like go there and just like a little house.

And I was like the woods like with like animals stuff. And I was like, where are you going to get this like wooden stuff to build this house? And she was like, I don't know. figured out. And I thought she was joking and stuff because she kind of like smiled if she did it. So I thought she was joking, but I didn't take her seriously. And then when I found she was missing, that popped with my mind and I told my dad. Her saying if the word should run away, go into the woods and find a place and stay there.

If this were true, if she really had planned to leave, then where did she go? He dropped her out a half a block away and drove away. Okay. Did she have remote a school? No, we called school. She was walking in that direction. She was rifling through her backpack,

just looking for something. I thought maybe she was just looking for headphones before she got her walking on. Yeah. But she was just kind of, you know, shambling over in that direction. It looked the same as any other morning. Okay.

Okay. But it wasn't just like any other morning. On any other morning, Maddie would have been safe in school all day. But she wasn't. She would have made it home after school like every other day. But she didn't. Whether Maddie ran away or something far worse happened,

the truth was that she wasn't just missing. She had vanished. She had just turned into a teenager, and now her family feared she would never make it. To adulthood. Maddie Soto had just turned 13. She lived in Kissimmee, Florida with her mother, Jennifer Soto, in a condo complex near her school. On the morning of February 26, 2024, she was dropped off just a short distance from the schoolyard.

A walk she had made before, and one that, at the time, didn't seem unusual. But that morning, she never made it inside. Hours passed before anyone realized something was wrong. her family made calls to the school, then to 911. By the time deputies arrived that evening, Maddie had already been missing for hours, and no one could say where she had gone after getting out of the car. At first, there were explanations. Maybe she left on her own.

Maybe she wandered off. She had allegedly made comments about wanting to leave, about going off into the woods when she turned 13. Maddie lived with her mother and she also spent time with her grandmother. From the time she was about six, her mother's boyfriend was also in the picture. Jennifer and Stefan were in an on-again, off-again relationship for years. For the majority of that time, they lived under the same roof. According to Jennifer and other family members, Stefan was like a dad to Maddie, and they had a great relationship.

But she also had a great relationship with her biological dad and her sister, who lived miles away. If she didn't take off to live in the woods, maybe she took off on a bus or plane to see them. Her friend remembered her preoccupation with getting money for her birthday. Once I took him 13, I'm going to leave this house and never come back. Why 13? Because I think, because she would always brag because I said that I can't wait to my birthday, and she was like, are you having a birthday party? I said no.

And she was like, oh, I get a whole month of money, like, $500 something, dollars on my birthday, you know, like, that's, like, so much money. And I was like, yeah, like, I get money, but, like, not like that. And I don't really like having birthday parties to the last birthday party. I have so much drama. So then she was like, oh, okay. She would always talk about getting money for her birthday. And I didn't give her money, and I already had given her a gift,

I brought it to school. She kind of got mad that I didn't get any money or anything. I was like, I spent money on this. I didn't physically give you any money, though. And then when we also got there, I was like, how many presents did you get? And then she was like, I barely got any money yet. Like, I'm kind of mad because, like, I want more money. I think she was waiting to turn 13.

That way she could get all into money and go. She talks to her sister, her dad is in Washington, D.C., and I think her sister is too. her and her sister are close. Missing her biological dad and sister weren't the only reasons Maddie may have taken off without telling anyone. Her friend said she didn't always get along with her mom, and she had ADHD and other challenges. Based on what I know, I think she kind of just wanted to be free and kind of just not live under, like, her... The word mom, or mom's rules, was redacted.

but that's a reasonable inference that she didn't necessarily want to live under her mom's rules. She had just turned into a teenager. Would she like defiant and didn't like to follow the rules? Sort of, yeah. I mean, it depends on she took her medicine. She doesn't take her meds and she's like really crazy

and she doesn't think she just does stuff. Like impulsive? Yeah. When investigators took a closer look at what actually happened that morning, Maddie's disappearance seemed less like a troubled teenager looking for escape and more like a vulnerable girl who may have been abducted. On the morning of Maddie's disappearance, Stefan drove her to school. This wasn't unusual.

In fact, they had a routine for the days he took her to school that included stopping at McDonald's. But that day was different. Maddie was more lethargic and slept the whole way. She refused breakfast twice. Woke up around 7, 715, somewhere around there, which is an early start for us, but we had talked about getting McDonald's breakfast beforehand, so we wanted to make good time.

We did make good time. We got out the door maybe 730, 7.45-ish, maybe. Got over to that area. She was asleep in the car most of the time, just snoozing until we got there. got to McDonald's or close to McDonald's. I said, you still want it. Wasn't interested in the McDonald's anymore, so we continued on. And she wanted to be dropped off a little down the ways from the school. She's got this phase that she's been into lately where she's very particular about what car she seemed getting out of in front of the

school. I get it. It's an image thing. But that was sometime probably between 820, in 840-ish, somewhere in there. It was along the stretch of the road that on the right side that has all the communities on it before you get to the overpass. You could see the overpass from where it was. So it was on that side on that stretch of road, and that's where I dropped her off. She said she was going to go wait for her friends. She was going to find them and hang out and wait for her friends.

And I asked if that was going to be okay. She said, yeah, it's fine. kids get dropped off early enough as it is. It's not totally unusual for that to happen. It's just not usually that early that I drop her off. I do school runs every once in a while for her. Jennifer was happy to have Stefan in her life. He was a huge help to her.

He was able to give insight to Jennifer about Maddie's ADHD because he, too, had ADHD. According to Stefan, his ADHD was severe. but Jennifer had issues of her own, including bipolar disorder, which she was medicating for. Typically, the medicine would help regulate her moods and her sleep, but at times she'd forget to take it, or her dose needed to be adjusted. She often didn't sleep well and appreciated that Stefan and Maddie had a solid father-daughter-like relationship, and he could pick up the slack.

In this next clip, take particularly... notice of how she's explaining her behavior that night, as if she's trying to explain away a question that hasn't been asked yet. I got home around 10.30. I started getting ready for bed myself. I started eating and taking my meds because I after taking meds. When I went to take my meds, I realized, oh my God, I forgot to take my Saturday night's meds, which is why I felt so weird, so abnormal and not myself Sunday while I was at work everyone at work noticed I was acting different and not being myself like I couldn't smile in front of the guest I felt this wave

of depression that I haven't felt in years it was my bipolar symptoms coming up again but I just I've been meditating myself for them for this time so Sunday you took your meds what meds if you don't mind me asking what beds do you take and like how does it put you to sleep deep does it help you fall asleep or does it help regulate you what kind of happens we take the beds so they do all of the above They make me sleepy. They help me stay asleep, and they help me function. So I'm stable all day.

They only work well if I've got a good night's sleep, and if I've eaten with them the night before when I take them, or the night I take them. The medication is called Giodom. Generic brand is called Ziprasidone. I took my meds. and then I told them to start getting ready for bed to start heading upstairs and get ready

because it was already almost 11 o'clock is past her bedtime. She needs to go to sleep. Even by her own account, when Jennifer did take her medication, it didn't just help her sleep. It knocked her out. She described feeling groggy, disoriented,

and sometimes not fully aware of what had happened the night before. Sleep was very important to Jennifer in general, So the next morning she remembered Stefan coming into a room to get the dog and take him for a walk before he took Maddie to school because she needed to sleep in and didn't want to take her. Stefan confirmed that he took the dog for a walk and then he said he and Maddie had an early start. Other than Maddie being excessively sleepy and not wanting McDonald's, this was a typical trip to school. Then she just dropped off the radar. Dropping off the radar wouldn't be as easy for Maddie as it would for other students.

Her teachers were paying attention. She had an IEP, individualized education program, or special ed, as it used to be known. She has been in my class all year around. She's always very sweet and she struggles a bit. I mean, all my kids have intensive kids. So they're the students who are struggles. She was on my door decorating team. She would actually be my house.

student of the week from two weeks ago for helping us win our door decorating competition with her friends. She had been reading a book a couple months ago, and it had kissing in it. And it was a graphic novel, and she was like scandalized that there was a kissing scene. Seventh grade was the year sex education was introduced in this school system. So it wasn't surprising the kids would make a big deal about a graphic novel. But she also remembered something Maddie's friends told her after Maddie went missing. I was shocked when the kids were telling me about the live in the woods conversation. I was shocked to hear something like that.

She was very excited about her birthday. She had just been made student of the week. She was quiet. She struggled. And she was happy about her birthday. These were descriptions officers heard over and over. But they also heard that Maddie had a lot of anxiety, not just typical worries, but panic attacks. This is the school counselor.

When she has come to me, it's often been those feelings of panic. She's come to me, like, in the middle of class or during lunchtime, just feeling really panicked, kind of heavy breathing, feeling really overwhelmed. And when we've had our conversations about, well, what's going on, what's making you feel this way, I've gotten responses saying, well, it's my anxiety. Sometimes I don't know. I'm just really overstimulated. all the noise and the cafeteria.

But she also talked about things being stressful at home. Her mother was usually the focal point. When I pressed about that, it seemed to be things along the lines of, well, she gets upset that I'm forgetful or that I don't clean my room the way she wants me to. And we talked about what that does to affect her. And she says, yelling, that makes me get over-stimulated. And then I can't respond to her in the way that she wants me to. We discussed strategies for kind of calming herself down.

No one at school was raising any real red flags. A lot of this seemed pretty normal for a seventh grade girl with hormones and ADHD. She also has an IEP. Okay. So do you think maybe? I always thought that it was part like because she struggles with learning. So I always thought, you know, kids that struggle with learning also are a little bit withdrawn and have a hard time focusing. So yeah, there were struggles.

A mom who had her own mental health issues, a broken family, ADHD, but none of it really pointed to a child who was about to disappear. But investigators had to consider every possibility. Whether she left on her own, met someone, or was picked up along the way. None of these explanations held up against the evidence. There was no footage of Maddie getting out of a car, no camera capturing the moment she was was dropped off. The only video investigators could locate came from the area near the church, showing a figure believed to be Maddie, sitting briefly before getting up and walking away.

After that, the trail stops. There were no more sightings, no confirmed movement, and no indication she'd made it any farther towards a school. There is no evidence that she ever met anyone, no sign that she left the area, and nothing to suggest she would be. went anywhere at all. The timeline doesn't extend. It just comes to a dead end. The last person to see Maddie was Stefan, so detectives had no choice but to dig deeper into his version of what happened. I said, okay, light her out, have a good day. Love you. Thanks. Love you too. and I turned around and was driving away and was watching her in my review

Mary to make sure that she was going where she was to go and she was moving in that direction but she was rummaging around in her backpack or something when I assumed was probably headphones or something like that but I found out later that she forgot her phone here so she may have been

rummaging for her phone but she was still kind of making her way towards that direction so it looked okay looked like in the other day and I just continued on After dropping Maddie off, Stefan tells investigators he left the area and went to a nearby vape shop. But it wasn't opened yet.

So he says he returned home briefly. Jennifer was just getting up because she had slept in. They hung out for a bit and then he went back to the vape shop once it opened. From there, his account becomes harder to follow. He describes driving along Highway 192, stopping at multiple places including a comic shop, and a Target. So yeah, that's what an adult male is doing on a typical weekday, shopping for comic books and weed, maybe stopping by Target.

We are so cooked as a society. Then at some point, during that time, he says he got a flat tire, he pulled over and changed it using a spare. He explained apologetically that the flat tire caused him to fall behind, so he missed the opportunity to pick Maddie up from school with Jennifer as they had planned. On its own, none of that stood out as unusual, running errands, losing track of time, even getting a flat tire. These are the kind of things that happen to everyone every day.

But it created a stretch of time that wasn't clearly accounted for, a window where his movements relied almost completely on his own recollection. And his recollection wasn't correctly. because, remember, he has ADHD also. So far, no footage had confirmed where he was during that period. No independent witnesses placed him at any of those stops. As cooperative as Stefan was, he gave a series of locations, times, and explanations that became harder to pin down the more they tried.

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. I apologize for that. I'm trying to help you. out the best that I can, but I just... Right, so like, if you drop her off around 840, let's say give or take 10 minutes, you make it to the shop around 9, the smoke shop,

and you sit there and wait for a couple minutes for it to open, you said you waited for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, right? Does it make sense that you're still there at 10 o'clock? I was there at 10 o'clock. Okay, so what did you do before that? I dropped her off and I made my way over. Not a direct route, but I made my way over there. Did you stop anywhere on your way to the smoke shop?

I don't think so. Do you have problems with your memory that you can't recall what you did? Yes, I'm extremely ADHD. I'm sorry. So just details start to get fuzzy after a while. Even the times I'm giving you are my best guesstimates here. Didn't have my phone with me at the time, so I wasn't aware of exactly what time... There's no time on your car? Transpiring.

There probably is, but it's not my car. It's my parents' car. ADHD. No phone. Unfamiliar car. I mean, ADHD is a real thing. Don't get me wrong. And it does affect memory and the ability to recall details or keep track of time, all of those things.

But it may also be a really good. good cover for someone who's trying to hide something. And that's when the investigation started to shift away from what Stefan said and towards what could actually be verified. He gave the investigators every little detail, but he couldn't account for big gaps of time. And while Jennifer corroborated his version of events, she was also unable to explain gaps of time, probably because she was asleep, or at the doctor's office, maybe getting medicines readjusted.

So, investigators turned to the one thing that doesn't rely on memory or even coherence. His phone. His phone showed him going home, leaving again, and doubling back in a pattern that doesn't match the simple errands he described. What should have been a simple morning became a series of trips and changes in direction. He couldn't really explain. Jennifer corroborated Stefan's morning. Pretty sure he called me around 10-18.

What do he call you for? To let me know that... He didn't go to McDonald's plan. He had asked her multiple times if she wanted to stop at McDonald's because that was the plan the night before, that they were going to wake up early. He was going to take her to McDonald's, do like a special McDonald's breakfast, and then drop her off at school early

because she wanted to get there a little early. But on his way to school, she was very sleepy and wanted to sleep in the car. And she said she did not want to do a week. animals. You just wanted to be dropped off. Okay. Also to let me know that he left his phone at home, because I had called him multiple times and he had picked up. He had left his phone at home by accident. He had went to the vape shop, but they didn't open on time. So he had waited for quite a while in front of the babe shop. They didn't open. So he left and came back and we hung out

a little bit. Then I think he left again to the vape shop to what go by. I think he did. Okay. detectives already knew something they weren't telling Jennifer, something they had already discussed with Stefan. His car was caught on camera with a passenger in it for longer than he admitted, including turning around in route to circle back to the apartment because he forgot a key fob. When you came back to get your key fob, what did you do when you got here? Ran inside, got the key fob, ran back out again. Okay, where did you park? Right up here, I think. Okay. How long would you say you were inside your apartment for?

Literally long enough to run in, grab the fob, and come back out, so... Okay, and then what did you do? What did you do when you came back up? Got back in the car and went back on the morning mission. Okay. The camera has you in the complex for 12 minutes. Mm-hmm. Does that seem about right?

Yeah, coming into the complex, driving around, parking, getting the fog, coming back out, sounds about right. Okay. And then you leave, what time would you say you dropped her off at the school, or not at the school, but in the area? My estimate was sometime between 820 and 840. Okay, the camera has you leaving the complex at 831. 831, okay, so it must have been closer to 840 then. Roundabout, I think.

Okay, so like, let's say you drop her off at 840. We don't see your car coming back south until 10 o'clock in the morning. So what are you doing between 840 and 10 o'clock? Um, cruising around a little bit. Okay, but I asked you earlier, you know, like what you were doing, and you said you were there for like five or ten minutes, and then you came back home. Yeah, well, I went to the smoke shop, like I said. But I was probably, I may have been reandering around the area, but it made my way home.

Okay, but I'm asking you earlier, right? And even like the first time we talked to you, you're not telling us that you're like, you know, just cruising the area, like you're coming home. So I need to be able to explain to my supervisors. why there's such a time gap. Stefan tried to make the return to the apartment sound routine. He forgot a key fob, he said. So he doubled back, ran inside and came right back out.

But investigators were already seeing cracks in that story. The stop took longer than he claimed. The timeline didn't hold. And while he was back at the complex, Like, surveillance caught him doing some things. Things that made the forgot-my-fob explanation seem maybe, well, like a cover. Did she go inside with you? No, she was in the car.

Stoke. She was asleep. Where in the car? Passengers. The front seat? Correct. Okay. Did she at any point go in the back of the vehicle, like in the back seat?

No. So she was in the front the whole time? Mm-hmm. A wake or asleep? She was asleep. Okay. She was conced out. We had gotten up.

How was she positioned in the front seat? Lean back in the seat. It's kind of conked out and happened. Where was her head in relation to the seat? Against the seat, I think. Against it. Was the seat leaning back? The seat was leaning back.

Yeah, she had leaned the seat back so that she could decline. Those questions seem kind of like who cares questions, right? This all took place before he dropped her off at school, according to Stefan. They had been up early. Maddie was tired. She slept on the way. She didn't want McDonald's. They were making good time, and he realized he had forgotten the key fob, so he just drove right back to the complex. She was still asleep in the passenger seat. The problem is, well, the problem for Stefan, was that detectives weren't just looking at the one stop back at the complex. The more they reviewed the surveillance footage, the more they realized the same car Stefan was driving kept appearing.

Different locations, different times. But every time the passenger looked exactly the same. Her position never changed. She wasn't sleeping. She was already dead. Stefan was driving around. for much of the morning with a corpse in the passenger seat, trying to pass her off as sleeping.

Maddie never made it to school that day because she never got out of the car. On the morning of her 13th birthday party, Maddie Soto would have started another day in her life. School, friends, homework. Instead, she disappeared and never made it to school. What started as a missing child case was now falling apart, right in front of her mother's boyfriend, Stefan Stearns, who was the last person to see her. Stefan said it was a normal morning, a school drop-off, a few errands, a stop at a vape shop.

But the more detectives checked his story, the less it held. The timeline shifted, the details changed. Surveillance exposed gaps he just couldn't explain. and whatever hope was left started fading fast. This was no longer a search for a missing girl. It was a search for a missing corpse. Detectives had to break the news to Jennifer, so they showed her a picture of the Lincoln in the driveway at about 7.30.

That's Maddie asleep in the car. Maddie's not asleep in the car. What do you mean? Do you believe Maddie's asleep there? Is she dead? I don't know. We don't know where she's at. Jennifer takes the picture in her hand.

Scrunches her brow and looks closer at her daughter. It's an odd way for her to be laying down sleeping. Right now, we are probably going to start working this case as a homicide. We believe he possibly has done something to Maddie, and we want to know where he would possibly go. Surveillance picks up his silver Lincoln again and again that morning. At 735, it's at the trash compactor. Stefan gets out and throws a white trash bag inside. Maddie is still visible in the front passenger seat.

Her head tilted to the left. Mouth hanging open, seat belted in. At 819, the car is seen at the front gate. At 831, it leaves through the back gate. And in every one of those videos, Maddie is still in the same position. A sleeping 13-year-old doesn't usually remain frozen in the same posture across multiple stops, multiple gates, multiple movements through a complex. But a dead body does.

And then the cameras at the compactor made the morning even darker. Near the tread from a tire matching Stefan's vehicle, they recover a white trash bag containing Maddie's backpack, a white crock, and her school-issued laptop. So while Stefan is telling detectives about McDonald's, a vape shop, and a forgotten keyfob, oh, and a girl sleeping quietly in the front seat, the evidence is telling a very different story. The car didn't just stay in the Kissimmee area. Investigators later traced Stefan's vehicle out towards St. Cloud, about 30 minutes away. License plate readers and traffic cameras followed the link in to Hickory Tree Road. And by the time the car was seen coming back, it had a spare tire on it. And this time, Stefan wasn't lying.

At some point that morning, he really did have a flat tire. Someone saw him pulled over on the side of the road. Coming home from 192 on Hickory Tree, I observed that great vehicle, Lincoln is it? Okay. With a black rear tire. He was on the side of the road. Okay. Stooping down in the back looking at the tire, which I found odd.

Okay. So normally I just blew it off. That was around 1230. The guy I didn't see Maddie in the passenger seat, because Stefan had already moved her, possibly to her final location by then. It's plausible he got a flat tire while off-roading, and off-loading, the body. Just three hours earlier, surveillance footage from a parking garage near the vape shop caught him in the act of moving the body.

Stefan backs his vehicle into a parking space by the stairs. He exits his vehicle and walks towards the rear. Then he opens the trunk. At 9.41 a.m., Stefan is seen placing Maddie, who was wearing a green sweatshirt, into the trunk of his vehicle. He then exits the parking garage and heads onto 192. Detectives don't tell him about their mounting evidence. They're still feeling him out. When he's questioned on details about his timeline, his answers are very polite.

And he's sticking to his story, his vague story. I'm so sorry. That's okay. I know the details are important and just the way our brains work with ADHD is those things can get fuzzy. Are you on any medication? I'm supposed to be. I have not been medicated lately. So I'm just not a morning person. I'm not very time blind on the best of days and forgetful.

So I understand that none of that is helpful in this case. I'm pretty sorry. sorry. We're going to have the apartment secured for the rest of the night, okay? Why? So the investigation's not going to happen tonight? It is. He asks whether the investigation will still happen that night.

It would. It would. But that didn't stop Stefan from continuing his movements when the interviews ended. Because before sunrise, while the search was still very much alive, he takes Jennifer's car and leaves the hotel, heading out towards St. Cloud around 3 a.m. Then later that morning, he takes off again, this time much farther. Records show Jennifer's Nissan traveling to Northport. Later, Jennifer would say he came back with a Wawa cup and claimed he'd just gone to 192.

He never told her where he'd actually been, which is important because Northport isn't around the corner. It's two hours away. Because at one point we moved close to where his parents live right now. In, they live in Northport, Florida, Sarasota County. You caught that right. The one place these killers always seem to head towards after killing is back to mommy and daddy. And in this case, that was Northport, Florida, where Stefan's parents lived. Obviously, you live down in Northport?

Yes, sir. Okay. And I'm just going to shoot today. I respect from you and everything. There's a storage unit down there. Yeah, I have a storage unit. You have a storage unit. Is that your son's storage unit?

No, it's your storage unit? Yeah, okay. Does he have access to it? No, I have the keys. Okay. Were you aware that did your son come visit you on Monday morning? This Monday? Yeah.

No, he left Sunday. Okay. Stefan's dad sounds confused because he is. You see, Stefan, had been living with his parents for a few months after another breakup with Jennifer, but they were still on good terms. And because of his strong bond with Maddie, Jen invited him back for Maddie's birthday,

so his dad is talking about his son leaving on Sunday to head to kiss him me for Maddie's birthday. He doesn't know yet that just three days later, Stefan would quietly make that same drive back without telling anyone. It would become apparent later in the investigation that Stefan had traveled to his parents' place in Northport because he had a hard drive there containing incriminating material, let's say. And as if the Northport trip wasn't incriminating enough, what they found on his phone was worse yet. But he had tried to erase it. When I saw him at the house, everything was normal. We were chatting.

talking, he was acting normal, he was sitting in my computer chair, just messing around on his phone. While we were hanging out, he mentioned something along the lines of, oh man, I've been avoiding this phone update for a really long time. I should probably update it now. And I said, do it. Don't avoid it. Just get it over with. And he updates his phone. And then tells me, oh my God, I don't know what button I just pressed, but I just back for you reset my entire phone. And I said, how the hell does that happen? Well, that happens quite simply when you have something to hide. You deliberately go to your phone settings, find the reset tab, and tap it to erase all the content.

And that's what Stefan thought he did. But a computer scientist, he was not. So earlier that day, I think Detective Hunt came or somebody came. and asked Stefan for his cell phone. If he would willingly give it up so that they can look at it or if they would need a warrant. And I remember him saying, should I have asked a warrant? And I'm like, no, if you've got nothing to hide, give him your fucking phone. And then when you guys came in the evening and you guys told us to wait outside and we waited at my car,

he started getting very anxious and very panicky, going, I want my phone back. I want my phone back. And I said, listen, at this point, it's their phone. It's theirs for fucking ever. I don't give a shit. We will buy you a new phone. It doesn't matter anymore. Whatever they need, they need.

Like, let them look at it. And he's like, I just want my phone back. And I'm just like, do you, are you trying to make yourself more suspicious? Because like, you're, if you were to go to ban your phone back right now, that would look suspicious as fuck. Like, what are you doing? I'm thinking he's just getting impatient because he's bored and wants to plan his phone. And at one point, he takes my phone. phone to start playing with it. I give it up. And I said, here, play on my phone. Have fun.

Just two days after Maddie went missing, detectives had Stefan's phone and all the evidence on it, which was quite a bit. They found graphic pictures and videos of him sexually abusing. 13-year-old Maddie Soto. In one picture, Stefan's face is visible and his tongue is on Maddie's nipple. It was explicit, undeniable, and extremely disturbing. And it had been saved among an

album of child sexual abuse material. They didn't just find one picture or one scene. They found hundreds. Basically a typical Redditor's stash. These pictures pointed to repetition,

duration, a system of abuse. Later reporting would describe roughly 1,700 images linked to Stefan's accounts, stretching back at least two years. So the phone did not just prove what Stefan had done. It showed that he had been doing it for a very long time. And the investigators matched the abuser in those files to Stefan's own body parts, if you catch my drift.

Reports about the pictures describe a bright pinkish area below the head of the penis and a black mark or freckle on it, also visible in some pictures. Yuck. They also collected penile swabs from them, which I'm sure was quite humiliating. By then detectives weren't just looking at abuse images. They were connecting the penis. in those images directly to Stefan Stearns. Imagine that being your job.

Now that detectives had Stefan's phone, Jennifer was forced to reconcile with her understanding of who he really was. Like, I look back at shit now, I'm just like, he was fucking lying. He was fucking faking. What else has he been lying to me about? I know he's like a master liar manipulator

because he's done it to his parents and he's told me and shown me the lies he's done to his parents. But I don't know why I never thought, not me. That would be because Jennifer forgot this stark truth. That people will always show you who they really are if you pay close enough attention. I told him to call his dad

because I had a feeling something, y'all knew something and was going to come down on him. And I'm just like, they're focusing on the wrong. person. They have the wrong person. In my head, I'm convinced you guys are just, that you have the wrong person. It was definitely a wrong person. Just not the wrong person for these crimes. But what happened to Maddie was not an accident at all. Jennifer asked detectives, how the hell does that happen? Well, the detectives wanted that question answered also. And they weren't wanted to know if Jennifer was complicit.

I don't know what you want me to say or do or just want my daughter back. And this is exactly what I was just talking about. We are literally having a conversation right now about Maddie possibly being dead. Yeah. And you have yet to shed a tear. By now, detectives know,

Maddie is dead. They know Stefan is responsible. But the questions that are about to get a lot darker are these. Why did he kill her? And how does this kind of sexual abuse happen for years in a home with someone you say you trusted with your life? Jennifer may have trusted Stefan with her life, but Maddie was the one who paid for it. And what they're about to uncover is far worse than how she died.