Mom Said So: Maddie Soto, 13, Sent to Sleep in bed With Mom's Boyfriend, 38, on Her Last Night Alive
September 17, 2024 • 32 mins
This is an update to the story of Madeline Soto and her heartbreaking death, allegedly at the hands of her mother's boyfriend. A cause of death has been released but not the autopsy report due to the victim's age and it is a case of domestic violence. Joseph Scott Morgan pours through investigators reports to shed new light on what happened to Madeline Soto in the time before she was murdered as well as the days before her body was found.
00:00 Introduction, life of Madeline Soto
04:54 Madeline made to sleep with mom's boyfriend
10:24 No Autopsy toxicology record available
14:15 Cause of Death; strangulation
18:28 Comparing injuries to neck
23:46 Suspect called "Master Manipulator", grooming
27:36 Madeline's body was tossed over fence
31:51 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body dikes. But Joseph Scott more got a question for you,
what were you doing when you were thirteen years old
and you were attending middle school? For me, it was
waiting on a bus to come and pick me up
(00:23):
during school year, sports every day of some kind, even
though that I was no good at and friends that
I still rode bikes with and went to a local
field and played baseball with touch football. But not for
(00:43):
Madeline Soto. We've already covered Madeline's case now I urge
you to please check out the earlier episode, but there
have been some developments in her case and I feel
the need right now to update because this is significant.
(01:09):
It really gives us an insight into the life that
I'm not going to say that she lived, but that
she was subjected to. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body bags, and the hits keep on coming. Dave.
(01:35):
I don't know. Maybe it's fatigue on my part, heartache fatigue,
because it seems like every single time we sit down,
we're talking about another victimized child, and it just goes
on and on and on, and when you don't think
(01:57):
it can get any more depraved, up pops the case
of Madeline Soto, and we've you know, we've known a lot,
I think to a great degree. But I would say
that as a result of recent developments as of just
(02:19):
I don't know, days ago, that we have more information
relative to her short and tragic life, how it came
to an end, and what was going on leading up
to that moment. I got to tell you, it's it's weird.
You know, it's a weird thing for me. You know,
(02:42):
we've always heard of stranger danger. You know, people talk
about that a lot, and you you you take care
when you walk down the streets in the evening. You
don't know what's lurking around in any corner or alleyway.
But you know, the real monsters many times exist under
our own roofs. And I think that's the case with Madelin.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, the Cassimi Police Department released an eighty page
investigative document summary that gave us information that we just
didn't have before, some information that we actually, you know,
kind of had thought about, you know, thought that this
(03:24):
is what happened. In particular, we already know that the
medical examiner is not going to release the autopsy report.
We know this.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Can you yeah, I was going to say, please expand
on that and just tell me it's becaul us, tell
us why educated.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's just because the first of all, Madeline is thirteen
years old at the time she died, just turned thirteen
years old. That's part one. But the real reason, because
an argument could be made that thirteen is not too
young to release it. The reason they're not releasing her
autopsy is because it is a direct result of domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So you've got the double whammy of age and domestic violence,
which goes to what you were just talking about how
stranger danger is one thing. This is domestic violence and
abuse at a level that I don't think we are
at the end yet. I think there is going to
(04:22):
be someone else that has to have some accountability and
be responsible for what took place, because when you, as
a parent, directly put your child in a situation for
them to be abused. As in, let's all sleep together
(04:46):
in the same bed, and hey, I have a headache tonight,
I need a good night sleep. You two, my thirteen
year old daughter, Madeline, and my boyfriend Stephen Stearns. Y'all
to sleep in the upstairs bedroom by yourself, just the
two of you. I'm sleeping here alone tonight, which is
exactly what happened the last night of her life. Madelon
(05:09):
Soto was sent to bed with her mom's boyfriend, an
adult thirty eight years old.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I think, you know, back to my early comment about
stranger danger again, if you're attacked Allen Street and you know,
like a robbery gone bad, or you know, whatever the
case might be, that's generally a one off event. The
life that this child lived, and this goes to the
(05:38):
domestic violence part of this, David, was it was every
day that she was coming home to this. Just let
that sink in the terror of this, the violence of this.
You know they talk about domestic violence, this is ongoing
violence that's committed against her. What is it that you
famously say an adult cannot have sex with a child? Ye,
(06:00):
what is it? Please tell us this again, because I
think this is this is profound. It's profound.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I can't have sex with a child. You can rape
a child, but you cannot have sex with a child.
And I'm about tired of hearing it said like that,
because it is said. I said it out loud once
on a different story and was corrected. By a friend
of mine who said, Dave, since when can a child
(06:27):
consent to sex with an adult? Yeah, and if they can't,
then it's not sex.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, it's not, it's rape. It is what it is.
That's what it comes down to. And this is the
life that she, apparently from what we understand now, had
been living. But back to this idea of not being
able to release the autopsy report because of these restrictions
relative to domestic violence and obviously her age, I think
the medical examiner has actually given us some information that
(06:58):
hopefully will satisfy uh, the publics need to know, you know,
balance with with other considerations. And they have listed, actually
listed her death. They've given us a direct diagnosis. They're
saying that this is a death as a result of
a strangulation. And I find this it's it's kind of
(07:21):
interesting on a couple of levels. And just give me
a little rope here, and I want to explore this.
This was not like I think that some people thought
that maybe she had been beaten or beaten to death
or something like that, and maybe there was a bit
of trauma in this way, but the actual cause of
death is strangulation. Here here's another bit that is quite
(07:45):
fascinating about this case. Apparently Stearns had done research on
an agent that's called the CIVA flooring and it's CIVA
flooring is a that's administered for Anesthesia's generally given in
concert with nitrous oxide. It's used quite a bit. It
(08:10):
can be used with humans. It's used quite a bit
in veterinary medicine, you know, and from my understanding, it
can be used in context of like an outpatient event
where you're going to take that person on a limited
limited time and you're going to you know, take them
out of the state of consciousness so that you can
(08:31):
go forth and do surgery. He had actually researched this drug.
It's a very specific drug. This is not this is
not like he's looking for ether or something like this,
you know. It's it's it's kind of unknown. I don't
know how he came to this, but they did find
(08:51):
searches for this. So either way, he was thinking about
depriving her breath, her ability to breathe on her own.
Because if you give somebody to see the fluorine, if
you give it to them in a significant dosage, you
can send them into respiratory arrest. It can compromise them
(09:13):
to that point where they would die. And I'm wondering,
you know, if you're if that was going to be
what his end game was, how would that be explained away?
And all the research that I've done, I can't find
that it would that it would escape toxicological discovery. But
(09:36):
it's not something you would commonly search for, you know,
if you were doing a standard panel at autopsy. He
did do the search for it. I really wonder how
broad a spectrum they did because we're not going to
know this day, not until until trial. We're not going
to have access to our toxicology records from the autopsy,
so i'd i'd like to know if if some type
(09:59):
of agent like this, it doesn't necessarily have to be
this drug played a role in this, because what you're
trying to do is and the other piece to this
is I thought, well, maybe he was going to try
to apply this and then take her life after she
was under you know what I'm saying as opposed to
just strangulent strangulation. I don't know. There's any number of
(10:21):
ways you can think about this, but that's just some
of the things that I've entertained. You know, thinking about
that and how how would it be that you would
bring about her death. It's it's fascinating. I just don't
understand how he got how he got hold of this information.
You know, what kind of other searches had he been.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I had never heard of it, Joe. I actually had
to Google it to see how to pronounce it because
I'd never heard of it, never knew and now I thought, well,
now as somebody in my world circle, you know, and
now it's going to be a search on my thing.
So it's like, you know, market body beat.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Well, don't listen, listen, don't don't don't feel like the
lone ranger there. I didn't know how to pronounce it, really,
because it's something that's for me to say that it's exotic.
It's not something that you're going to come across every day,
you know, like ether. Uh, it's not something that that
you will uh you know that you will you will
(11:14):
have or chloroform, I mean chloroform is and people. I
actually got into a debate with Nancy several years ago
about because you find chloroform sometimes in decomposing bodies that
have been left out in the forest, and one of
the things that happens is that, Yeah, it will naturally
occur as a result of decomposition and also decomposition of vegetation,
(11:36):
so it'll be out there. And that might have been
having to do with Kaylee Anthony. I can't remember. It
seems like that that that's something that had come up,
But you know, you think about those agents and how
how a person was twisted. Mine would try to go
about covering covering their tracks. And I find it very
interesting as well, having worked a number of and covered
(11:57):
a number of these cases of child rape and we'll
say it plainly child sexual abuse. If you have a
child predator like this, did you know that they work
in age groups? And I was fascinated by this. It's
like they have a particular age group that's bracketed from
(12:19):
what psychologists say that once that child kind of moves
on from that outer, outer parameter of age, they no
longer have any utility. They still want that childlike quality.
And I'm really wondering if potentially that could have been
(12:40):
a motivation here if and I still have to wonder
if there are other children. I don't know, you know,
I don't know, because generally where there's one, when you
have a predator. There's a high probability that along the
way that come in contact with somebody else. What else
(13:10):
did we did, Jiglan here.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
In this eighty page report, Joe, Yeah, before we dig
into I wanted to ask you something about the autopsy
that we were told strangulation and the doctor who performed
the autopsy actually mentioned the hyoid bone, and it's something
that we talk about. It seems like whenever there is
a strangulation. And I was talking to one of the
(13:36):
folks that we have on the show on a regular
basis and he is not necessarily in this realm, you know,
and he said, what is that? And I thought, I
know what it is because I've done the show, I
mean with you, but not everybody knows what that hyoid
bone is. And I thought now would be a really
good time because that's all we really got out of
(13:57):
the autopsy report was strangulation and this hyoid bone in
her neck was impacted on the right side.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, well it's described and look, we went over this,
not we yes, Because I still have yet to do
an episode. People have been begging me for it about
Epstein and I've kind of stayed away from it. But
I don't want to sully. I don't want to sully
her memory with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I would have lost a bet if somebody asked if
we'd covered it, because we've covered it so many times
on other shows.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
To get there in the park, I've just I've never
touched it. I've stayed away from it. But we heard
about the highwaid a lot per per doctor Boden and
and through other people as well, and I've come in
contact with hyoids. You remove them at autopsy and if
you will, Okay, the best way I can describe it
(14:50):
is if you go north of your Adam's apple on
the anterior aspect of your of your throat almost two
where you're at the curve ature of your neck as
it begins to curve to underneath where the floor of
your mouth is, and you're going up to your chin.
That junction right there, that's essentially where it sits. It's
the only non articulating bony process in the human body.
(15:15):
It's not connected to any other bony structure. Its simple
purpose is to anchor the tongue in the back of
the mouth, and that's all it's there. But this is
the thing when they talk about the right side of it.
It's a very fragile bone. It looks okay, it looks
if you look at it. It's not as robust, but
it looks a lot like a wishbone that you would
(15:37):
see in a chicken. It is a doctor's describe it
as a bird like structure. And when you think about bird,
just think about a bird where its wings expanded and
the tips kind of going in adulta shape so that
they're backwards. So if it's a bird like structure, the
(15:59):
head of the bird, if you supermpose that on the
shape of the bone, is looking directly at you as
you're looking at it through the neck. And so the
wings extend backwards, and they're not called wings, they're called
they're called horns. And you have a greater horn and
a lesser horn on both of them. So they're these
(16:22):
little bony protuberances on each end. And one of the
things that you look for are little lines of fracture.
The only way, with very few exceptions, that this bone
ever gets fractured is or there's associated hemorrhage, is manual
manual strangulation. If you because it's so high up in
(16:47):
the neck, and if people will just imagine their hands
shaped like in a classic movie image, like you've got
a strangler that's coming towards somebody with both hands side
by side, and they're going to reach around the throat,
the anterior aspect of the throat and squeeze your hands
go really high up on the throat when you do that.
(17:08):
Nooses do not do that. They don't ligatures don't do that.
There are cases of judicial hangings where the hyoid has
been fractured. More than likely, generally you're going to get
cartilage fractures that are going to be in the laynix
(17:28):
that's below the level of the hyoid. So I've only
had one other case, and I related very quickly. It
doesn't have anything to do with Madelin, but just so
that people understand, I've only had one other case in
my entire career outside of a manual strangulation, where I
had fractured hyoid, and that is a guy that was
in a nineteen sixty eight Pontiac Bonnivale and he went
(17:58):
over the side of a three story ramp off of
an outlet of I ten and of course he didn't
have seat belt on it and had you remember the
old gigantic steering wheels that these huge cars had, these
boats at and he he hit He hit the steering
(18:19):
wheel we believe at the twelve o'clock position, directly like
he raised his chin at the last moment and struck
that steering wheel and it fractured his highoid. That's the
only time I've ever seen it in my own practice.
Now other people have seen it. You know, I'm not
the only I'm not the only you know, cat on
the block. You know, it's just my little worldview. I
(18:41):
have to phrase that for everybody, because just because I
haven't seen it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'd be
a fool. But the doctor in Madeline's case is talking
about this insult or whatever is going on, you know
with the hyoid. I'm going to be very interesting to
see when the full autopsy report is released and you know,
(19:04):
we can examine it more clearly. But we do know
that she was strangled.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
That's remarkable. I never knew. I actually, while you were talking,
I looked up Greater Horn Lesser Horn and saw the
diagram and actually saw pictures. That's just amazing, Joe. Some
of the things that came out on the Cassimi, Florida
Police Department. In particular, they showed her picture, they showed
(19:34):
her her mother, Jen Soto. Jennifer Soto is on bodycam
footage with Stephan Stearns the night they called police to
report Madeline missing. And in that report, you know, she's
right there with Stephan. Never occurs to her that anything's
(19:55):
gone wrong at all, and she pretty much di offended
everything she talked about, you know, the three of them
sleeping together, and how that sometimes Stephan and Madeleine would
sleep together and she was right there with him until
police finally, you know, they arrested Stephan Stearns while the
search for Madeleine was ongoing. He was arrested before her
body was found. And in this interview room with Jen Stearns, Stephan,
(20:20):
with Mattie's mother, they showed pictures in videos of Stephan
Stearns had taken of him with Madeline and showed it
to her mother, and her mother said, he's a master liar.
Stephan is a master liar and manipulator and admitted confessed
(20:44):
that he groomed her and abused her a little odd
to come up with it only after seeing those pictures,
but that is what was said in the report.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, there's key in that language. Language is something else,
isn't it. It can reveal a lot. You can say
she you know, for me, she could have said, yeah,
I think he's a manipulator. But that's not how she
classified it, Dave. She gave him a grade. She gave
him a grade. She said master yep, master liar, master manipulator.
(21:22):
So that that goes to evaluation, now, doesn't it. That
means that you had time to form an opinion. So
let's just think about Okay, if you're talking about somebody
that works in a skill, is a skilled laborer, and
I've got many many of my relatives that are. You
start off as an apprentice, right, then you go to journeyman,
(21:45):
and then you become a master. So that means that
that's an observable event on her part. She's had time
to grade him. And she's not saying he is a
master boyfriend, you know, the best boyfriend in the world. No, no, no,
that's not what she's saying. She's saying that he is
a master liar and a master manipulator. And then to
(22:19):
use the phraseology of grooming as well, well, so you
understand what that means. You understand because that's your diagnosis. Literally,
I mean, if you're asking her to diagnose the man
in the situation that she is part and parcel love,
(22:44):
then you can assess this as he was grooming her.
How this almost makes me want to start throwing furniture
in my studio right now. This is so infuriating to me.
And I think it's a portent, like you had mentioned,
you alluded to it. I think it's a portent of
something to calm Dave.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I think it was interesting that she said in the
interview he did it, and the detective said, what do
you mean, who did what? And that's when she said
he was grooming and abusing Madeline. And one thing I
do want to point out is Jennifer Soto has not
(23:24):
been charged with anything at this point. There's no suggestion
that she will be charged. However, this information is very
important in the grand scheme of things as we try
to find out to make sense of how can we
warn other children in this environment. Because some things that
came out during the investigation Joe is that her friends,
(23:47):
jenn Madeleine's friends said she was constantly on the phone
with Stephen Stearns. He was like constantly texting, constantly calling.
He just was all about like he was in fact
obsessed to a degree, and that inappropriate relationship that was
going on and not no, it was not an inappropriate relationship.
(24:11):
It can't be a relationship between an adult man and
a thirteen year old girl. It has to be rape.
And that's what was going on. And the reality of
all of what just came out, and this report really
confirms what many of us had concluded without knowing. But
there was interesting. So they came out about the body Joe,
where they found Madeline Soto. You know, we were told
(24:34):
that she was found in an area near where Stephen
Stearn's car was broken down with a flat tire and
he was seen with a tyron. Well now we know more.
Now we know how they found her body. See, it
wasn't the police just zeroed in on Okay, this is
where his car had a flat tire. He had an
eyewitness that actually gave them a lot more than that.
(24:55):
A man he saw the he saw a a press
conference and the car they were looking for. And this
man called the police said, hey, I know that car.
I saw that car broken down right out here. As
a matter of fact, I took a picture, oh yep,
and he showed him the picture he took of that
(25:17):
and a map. He pointed it out on a map.
So police were then able to go to this one
specific area near where the car had broken down, and
they found a farming area, a gate and the gate
was locked. I had a north end and had north
and south ends and it was all locked. The gate
hadn't been messed with. And so the FBI and law
(25:38):
enforcement altogether go out there and they get the owner
to come out and unlock the gate, and they were
there no time before they saw her body. This was
on March first. She had been missing four days at
that point. And if you remember, before they found her body,
it was shocking to you and I I think we
talked about it. Very rarely do police come out and
(25:59):
say we're not looking for or we're looking for a
body before they had so early an investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You remember that, Oh yeah, because particularly when it comes
to kids, there's u and make no mistake, she's kids,
thirteen years old, just turned thirteen, just turned thirteen. There's
there's that hope, you know, that kind of dangles out
in front of you, and you're hoping that they're still alive.
(26:25):
But this was a very definitive I remember this distinctly.
I'm glad you reminded me of it. But it's a
very definitive moment. You know, where they're looking for human
remains at this point in time. They did find them,
and it appears as though that she had essentially been
pushed over the top of the fence.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Joe, I, for the life of me, Joe, I was
thinking you and I just did a show the other
day on decomposition, and I was thinking about this based
on what I have been able to learn and glean
from you. Wouldn't there have been the odor of decomposition
(27:12):
in that area near the fence?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Possibly, but not It would not be overwhelming. Remember we're
still talking even though it's Kassimi. Okay, let me put
that in here. We're in Florida, it's not like you're
in Massachusetts. Okay. There's a possibility that you, even after
just after four days, you could have, But unfortunately I'm not.
(27:38):
I've not come to h struck that three two. I've
not materialized before you with my meteorological charts from that time.
But you know, it does get cool in Kassimi in
March h this the Saint June or July, and as
(28:01):
we've talked about in the decompetitional episodes, heat speeds things up,
So there might not have been enough time over this
four day period for there to be significant decompetitional or
obviously competitional changes, you know, where we're looking for those
signs because we're beyond micro at that time. We're talking
(28:24):
about macro presentations at the four day level. And I'm
sure that there was or were some some changes and
those will probably be alluded to in the autopsy report.
And it's going to be choice. And one other thing
too that I have to put up put out there.
They said that she had socks on, but as you mentioned,
(28:45):
this is you're talking about shoulder of a road adjacent
to where if she's got socks on there are no shoes,
you would expect the socks to be dirty, and ain't
the case. Her socks were clean, which means, you know,
I don't think she could levitate, So there would have
(29:05):
been footfalls on the ground. She would have struck dirt grass,
there would have been stains on the soles of her feet,
you know, on the socks obviously on socks, and there
was nothing of that, which means that she was affected
in some way either through a rush, kicked her shoes off,
didn't put her shoes on, But she got into that car.
(29:28):
And here's the thing, she had her socks on. I
don't think that somebody would take time to put socks
on the deceased individual. So that brings us back around
where did the homicide take place? Did it take place
in their domicile? And then she was transported from the
domsile into the car. And remember the one video, the
(29:49):
videography that we've got where I think that she is
leaning over or it appears to be her, and it
looks like an odd position. As a matter in fact,
there are others that have commented on this and have
stated that it appears as though she may have been
deceased at that time.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Multiple pictures and areas that it was in the same position.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, yeah, so you know that's that car, I think,
and the house itself is going to be a touchstone
in this case for a variety of reasons. We already
know the electronic evidence. I refuse to go into all
of that right now, this is enough to digest at
this point. The stuff that they found on his phone
(30:33):
that goes back God bless her for years, for years, Dave,
And it's an evidence rich environment. We don't know what else.
We don't know if she had recorded anything, if there
were any statements from her, she had anything. You know,
we do know that she had a phone, were there
(30:53):
any text messages there that might have some significance to them,
or the photographs of abuse on her part where she
may be in her own little way she was trying
to document. I have no insight into that. I don't know,
but those are big questions that still have to be asked.
But I can tell you as I do with all
of our cases, Dave. You know, we're going to continue
(31:18):
to watch this case, and this is going to be
I don't know that it's necessarily going to be a
landmark case, but it is a case nonetheless that has
such weight to it where it shines a light on
the abuse that's going on out there. Even right now
as you and I are talking to my friend. It's
(31:40):
going on out there. There are other madeleinsotto's out there
right now. We need to be aware of that. And
I hope, I hope, that her case, her little life
that she led again will be a warning, will be
a warning to those that perpetrate crimes against children. H.
(32:01):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags
Speaker 2 (32:11):
HM.
Body dikes. But Joseph Scott more got a question for you,
what were you doing when you were thirteen years old
and you were attending middle school? For me, it was
waiting on a bus to come and pick me up
(00:23):
during school year, sports every day of some kind, even
though that I was no good at and friends that
I still rode bikes with and went to a local
field and played baseball with touch football. But not for
(00:43):
Madeline Soto. We've already covered Madeline's case now I urge
you to please check out the earlier episode, but there
have been some developments in her case and I feel
the need right now to update because this is significant.
(01:09):
It really gives us an insight into the life that
I'm not going to say that she lived, but that
she was subjected to. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this
is body bags, and the hits keep on coming. Dave.
(01:35):
I don't know. Maybe it's fatigue on my part, heartache fatigue,
because it seems like every single time we sit down,
we're talking about another victimized child, and it just goes
on and on and on, and when you don't think
(01:57):
it can get any more depraved, up pops the case
of Madeline Soto, and we've you know, we've known a lot,
I think to a great degree. But I would say
that as a result of recent developments as of just
(02:19):
I don't know, days ago, that we have more information
relative to her short and tragic life, how it came
to an end, and what was going on leading up
to that moment. I got to tell you, it's it's weird.
You know, it's a weird thing for me. You know,
(02:42):
we've always heard of stranger danger. You know, people talk
about that a lot, and you you you take care
when you walk down the streets in the evening. You
don't know what's lurking around in any corner or alleyway.
But you know, the real monsters many times exist under
our own roofs. And I think that's the case with Madelin.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, the Cassimi Police Department released an eighty page
investigative document summary that gave us information that we just
didn't have before, some information that we actually, you know,
kind of had thought about, you know, thought that this
(03:24):
is what happened. In particular, we already know that the
medical examiner is not going to release the autopsy report.
We know this.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Can you yeah, I was going to say, please expand
on that and just tell me it's becaul us, tell
us why educated.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's just because the first of all, Madeline is thirteen
years old at the time she died, just turned thirteen
years old. That's part one. But the real reason, because
an argument could be made that thirteen is not too
young to release it. The reason they're not releasing her
autopsy is because it is a direct result of domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So you've got the double whammy of age and domestic violence,
which goes to what you were just talking about how
stranger danger is one thing. This is domestic violence and
abuse at a level that I don't think we are
at the end yet. I think there is going to
(04:22):
be someone else that has to have some accountability and
be responsible for what took place, because when you, as
a parent, directly put your child in a situation for
them to be abused. As in, let's all sleep together
(04:46):
in the same bed, and hey, I have a headache tonight,
I need a good night sleep. You two, my thirteen
year old daughter, Madeline, and my boyfriend Stephen Stearns. Y'all
to sleep in the upstairs bedroom by yourself, just the
two of you. I'm sleeping here alone tonight, which is
exactly what happened the last night of her life. Madelon
(05:09):
Soto was sent to bed with her mom's boyfriend, an
adult thirty eight years old.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
I think, you know, back to my early comment about
stranger danger again, if you're attacked Allen Street and you know,
like a robbery gone bad, or you know, whatever the
case might be, that's generally a one off event. The
life that this child lived, and this goes to the
(05:38):
domestic violence part of this, David, was it was every
day that she was coming home to this. Just let
that sink in the terror of this, the violence of this.
You know they talk about domestic violence, this is ongoing
violence that's committed against her. What is it that you
famously say an adult cannot have sex with a child? Ye,
(06:00):
what is it? Please tell us this again, because I
think this is this is profound. It's profound.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I can't have sex with a child. You can rape
a child, but you cannot have sex with a child.
And I'm about tired of hearing it said like that,
because it is said. I said it out loud once
on a different story and was corrected. By a friend
of mine who said, Dave, since when can a child
(06:27):
consent to sex with an adult? Yeah, and if they can't,
then it's not sex.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No, it's not, it's rape. It is what it is.
That's what it comes down to. And this is the
life that she, apparently from what we understand now, had
been living. But back to this idea of not being
able to release the autopsy report because of these restrictions
relative to domestic violence and obviously her age, I think
the medical examiner has actually given us some information that
(06:58):
hopefully will satisfy uh, the publics need to know, you know,
balance with with other considerations. And they have listed, actually
listed her death. They've given us a direct diagnosis. They're
saying that this is a death as a result of
a strangulation. And I find this it's it's kind of
(07:21):
interesting on a couple of levels. And just give me
a little rope here, and I want to explore this.
This was not like I think that some people thought
that maybe she had been beaten or beaten to death
or something like that, and maybe there was a bit
of trauma in this way, but the actual cause of
death is strangulation. Here here's another bit that is quite
(07:45):
fascinating about this case. Apparently Stearns had done research on
an agent that's called the CIVA flooring and it's CIVA
flooring is a that's administered for Anesthesia's generally given in
concert with nitrous oxide. It's used quite a bit. It
(08:10):
can be used with humans. It's used quite a bit
in veterinary medicine, you know, and from my understanding, it
can be used in context of like an outpatient event
where you're going to take that person on a limited
limited time and you're going to you know, take them
out of the state of consciousness so that you can
(08:31):
go forth and do surgery. He had actually researched this drug.
It's a very specific drug. This is not this is
not like he's looking for ether or something like this,
you know. It's it's it's kind of unknown. I don't
know how he came to this, but they did find
(08:51):
searches for this. So either way, he was thinking about
depriving her breath, her ability to breathe on her own.
Because if you give somebody to see the fluorine, if
you give it to them in a significant dosage, you
can send them into respiratory arrest. It can compromise them
(09:13):
to that point where they would die. And I'm wondering,
you know, if you're if that was going to be
what his end game was, how would that be explained away?
And all the research that I've done, I can't find
that it would that it would escape toxicological discovery. But
(09:36):
it's not something you would commonly search for, you know,
if you were doing a standard panel at autopsy. He
did do the search for it. I really wonder how
broad a spectrum they did because we're not going to
know this day, not until until trial. We're not going
to have access to our toxicology records from the autopsy,
so i'd i'd like to know if if some type
(09:59):
of agent like this, it doesn't necessarily have to be
this drug played a role in this, because what you're
trying to do is and the other piece to this
is I thought, well, maybe he was going to try
to apply this and then take her life after she
was under you know what I'm saying as opposed to
just strangulent strangulation. I don't know. There's any number of
(10:21):
ways you can think about this, but that's just some
of the things that I've entertained. You know, thinking about
that and how how would it be that you would
bring about her death. It's it's fascinating. I just don't
understand how he got how he got hold of this information.
You know, what kind of other searches had he been.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I had never heard of it, Joe. I actually had
to Google it to see how to pronounce it because
I'd never heard of it, never knew and now I thought, well,
now as somebody in my world circle, you know, and
now it's going to be a search on my thing.
So it's like, you know, market body beat.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Well, don't listen, listen, don't don't don't feel like the
lone ranger there. I didn't know how to pronounce it, really,
because it's something that's for me to say that it's exotic.
It's not something that you're going to come across every day,
you know, like ether. Uh, it's not something that that
you will uh you know that you will you will
(11:14):
have or chloroform, I mean chloroform is and people. I
actually got into a debate with Nancy several years ago
about because you find chloroform sometimes in decomposing bodies that
have been left out in the forest, and one of
the things that happens is that, Yeah, it will naturally
occur as a result of decomposition and also decomposition of vegetation,
(11:36):
so it'll be out there. And that might have been
having to do with Kaylee Anthony. I can't remember. It
seems like that that that's something that had come up,
But you know, you think about those agents and how
how a person was twisted. Mine would try to go
about covering covering their tracks. And I find it very
interesting as well, having worked a number of and covered
(11:57):
a number of these cases of child rape and we'll
say it plainly child sexual abuse. If you have a
child predator like this, did you know that they work
in age groups? And I was fascinated by this. It's
like they have a particular age group that's bracketed from
(12:19):
what psychologists say that once that child kind of moves
on from that outer, outer parameter of age, they no
longer have any utility. They still want that childlike quality.
And I'm really wondering if potentially that could have been
(12:40):
a motivation here if and I still have to wonder
if there are other children. I don't know, you know,
I don't know, because generally where there's one, when you
have a predator. There's a high probability that along the
way that come in contact with somebody else. What else
(13:10):
did we did, Jiglan here.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
In this eighty page report, Joe, Yeah, before we dig
into I wanted to ask you something about the autopsy
that we were told strangulation and the doctor who performed
the autopsy actually mentioned the hyoid bone, and it's something
that we talk about. It seems like whenever there is
a strangulation. And I was talking to one of the
(13:36):
folks that we have on the show on a regular
basis and he is not necessarily in this realm, you know,
and he said, what is that? And I thought, I
know what it is because I've done the show, I
mean with you, but not everybody knows what that hyoid
bone is. And I thought now would be a really
good time because that's all we really got out of
(13:57):
the autopsy report was strangulation and this hyoid bone in
her neck was impacted on the right side.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, well it's described and look, we went over this,
not we yes, Because I still have yet to do
an episode. People have been begging me for it about
Epstein and I've kind of stayed away from it. But
I don't want to sully. I don't want to sully
her memory with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I would have lost a bet if somebody asked if
we'd covered it, because we've covered it so many times
on other shows.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
To get there in the park, I've just I've never
touched it. I've stayed away from it. But we heard
about the highwaid a lot per per doctor Boden and
and through other people as well, and I've come in
contact with hyoids. You remove them at autopsy and if
you will, Okay, the best way I can describe it
(14:50):
is if you go north of your Adam's apple on
the anterior aspect of your of your throat almost two
where you're at the curve ature of your neck as
it begins to curve to underneath where the floor of
your mouth is, and you're going up to your chin.
That junction right there, that's essentially where it sits. It's
the only non articulating bony process in the human body.
(15:15):
It's not connected to any other bony structure. Its simple
purpose is to anchor the tongue in the back of
the mouth, and that's all it's there. But this is
the thing when they talk about the right side of it.
It's a very fragile bone. It looks okay, it looks
if you look at it. It's not as robust, but
it looks a lot like a wishbone that you would
(15:37):
see in a chicken. It is a doctor's describe it
as a bird like structure. And when you think about bird,
just think about a bird where its wings expanded and
the tips kind of going in adulta shape so that
they're backwards. So if it's a bird like structure, the
(15:59):
head of the bird, if you supermpose that on the
shape of the bone, is looking directly at you as
you're looking at it through the neck. And so the
wings extend backwards, and they're not called wings, they're called
they're called horns. And you have a greater horn and
a lesser horn on both of them. So they're these
(16:22):
little bony protuberances on each end. And one of the
things that you look for are little lines of fracture.
The only way, with very few exceptions, that this bone
ever gets fractured is or there's associated hemorrhage, is manual
manual strangulation. If you because it's so high up in
(16:47):
the neck, and if people will just imagine their hands
shaped like in a classic movie image, like you've got
a strangler that's coming towards somebody with both hands side
by side, and they're going to reach around the throat,
the anterior aspect of the throat and squeeze your hands
go really high up on the throat when you do that.
(17:08):
Nooses do not do that. They don't ligatures don't do that.
There are cases of judicial hangings where the hyoid has
been fractured. More than likely, generally you're going to get
cartilage fractures that are going to be in the laynix
(17:28):
that's below the level of the hyoid. So I've only
had one other case, and I related very quickly. It
doesn't have anything to do with Madelin, but just so
that people understand, I've only had one other case in
my entire career outside of a manual strangulation, where I
had fractured hyoid, and that is a guy that was
in a nineteen sixty eight Pontiac Bonnivale and he went
(17:58):
over the side of a three story ramp off of
an outlet of I ten and of course he didn't
have seat belt on it and had you remember the
old gigantic steering wheels that these huge cars had, these
boats at and he he hit He hit the steering
(18:19):
wheel we believe at the twelve o'clock position, directly like
he raised his chin at the last moment and struck
that steering wheel and it fractured his highoid. That's the
only time I've ever seen it in my own practice.
Now other people have seen it. You know, I'm not
the only I'm not the only you know, cat on
the block. You know, it's just my little worldview. I
(18:41):
have to phrase that for everybody, because just because I
haven't seen it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'd be
a fool. But the doctor in Madeline's case is talking
about this insult or whatever is going on, you know
with the hyoid. I'm going to be very interesting to
see when the full autopsy report is released and you know,
(19:04):
we can examine it more clearly. But we do know
that she was strangled.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
That's remarkable. I never knew. I actually, while you were talking,
I looked up Greater Horn Lesser Horn and saw the
diagram and actually saw pictures. That's just amazing, Joe. Some
of the things that came out on the Cassimi, Florida
Police Department. In particular, they showed her picture, they showed
(19:34):
her her mother, Jen Soto. Jennifer Soto is on bodycam
footage with Stephan Stearns the night they called police to
report Madeline missing. And in that report, you know, she's
right there with Stephan. Never occurs to her that anything's
(19:55):
gone wrong at all, and she pretty much di offended
everything she talked about, you know, the three of them
sleeping together, and how that sometimes Stephan and Madeleine would
sleep together and she was right there with him until
police finally, you know, they arrested Stephan Stearns while the
search for Madeleine was ongoing. He was arrested before her
body was found. And in this interview room with Jen Stearns, Stephan,
(20:20):
with Mattie's mother, they showed pictures in videos of Stephan
Stearns had taken of him with Madeline and showed it
to her mother, and her mother said, he's a master liar.
Stephan is a master liar and manipulator and admitted confessed
(20:44):
that he groomed her and abused her a little odd
to come up with it only after seeing those pictures,
but that is what was said in the report.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, there's key in that language. Language is something else,
isn't it. It can reveal a lot. You can say
she you know, for me, she could have said, yeah,
I think he's a manipulator. But that's not how she
classified it, Dave. She gave him a grade. She gave
him a grade. She said master yep, master liar, master manipulator.
(21:22):
So that that goes to evaluation, now, doesn't it. That
means that you had time to form an opinion. So
let's just think about Okay, if you're talking about somebody
that works in a skill, is a skilled laborer, and
I've got many many of my relatives that are. You
start off as an apprentice, right, then you go to journeyman,
(21:45):
and then you become a master. So that means that
that's an observable event on her part. She's had time
to grade him. And she's not saying he is a
master boyfriend, you know, the best boyfriend in the world. No, no, no,
that's not what she's saying. She's saying that he is
a master liar and a master manipulator. And then to
(22:19):
use the phraseology of grooming as well, well, so you
understand what that means. You understand because that's your diagnosis. Literally,
I mean, if you're asking her to diagnose the man
in the situation that she is part and parcel love,
(22:44):
then you can assess this as he was grooming her.
How this almost makes me want to start throwing furniture
in my studio right now. This is so infuriating to me.
And I think it's a portent, like you had mentioned,
you alluded to it. I think it's a portent of
something to calm Dave.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I think it was interesting that she said in the
interview he did it, and the detective said, what do
you mean, who did what? And that's when she said
he was grooming and abusing Madeline. And one thing I
do want to point out is Jennifer Soto has not
(23:24):
been charged with anything at this point. There's no suggestion
that she will be charged. However, this information is very
important in the grand scheme of things as we try
to find out to make sense of how can we
warn other children in this environment. Because some things that
came out during the investigation Joe is that her friends,
(23:47):
jenn Madeleine's friends said she was constantly on the phone
with Stephen Stearns. He was like constantly texting, constantly calling.
He just was all about like he was in fact
obsessed to a degree, and that inappropriate relationship that was
going on and not no, it was not an inappropriate relationship.
(24:11):
It can't be a relationship between an adult man and
a thirteen year old girl. It has to be rape.
And that's what was going on. And the reality of
all of what just came out, and this report really
confirms what many of us had concluded without knowing. But
there was interesting. So they came out about the body Joe,
where they found Madeline Soto. You know, we were told
(24:34):
that she was found in an area near where Stephen
Stearn's car was broken down with a flat tire and
he was seen with a tyron. Well now we know more.
Now we know how they found her body. See, it
wasn't the police just zeroed in on Okay, this is
where his car had a flat tire. He had an
eyewitness that actually gave them a lot more than that.
(24:55):
A man he saw the he saw a a press
conference and the car they were looking for. And this
man called the police said, hey, I know that car.
I saw that car broken down right out here. As
a matter of fact, I took a picture, oh yep,
and he showed him the picture he took of that
(25:17):
and a map. He pointed it out on a map.
So police were then able to go to this one
specific area near where the car had broken down, and
they found a farming area, a gate and the gate
was locked. I had a north end and had north
and south ends and it was all locked. The gate
hadn't been messed with. And so the FBI and law
(25:38):
enforcement altogether go out there and they get the owner
to come out and unlock the gate, and they were
there no time before they saw her body. This was
on March first. She had been missing four days at
that point. And if you remember, before they found her body,
it was shocking to you and I I think we
talked about it. Very rarely do police come out and
(25:59):
say we're not looking for or we're looking for a
body before they had so early an investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You remember that, Oh yeah, because particularly when it comes
to kids, there's u and make no mistake, she's kids,
thirteen years old, just turned thirteen, just turned thirteen. There's
there's that hope, you know, that kind of dangles out
in front of you, and you're hoping that they're still alive.
(26:25):
But this was a very definitive I remember this distinctly.
I'm glad you reminded me of it. But it's a
very definitive moment. You know, where they're looking for human
remains at this point in time. They did find them,
and it appears as though that she had essentially been
pushed over the top of the fence.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Joe, I, for the life of me, Joe, I was
thinking you and I just did a show the other
day on decomposition, and I was thinking about this based
on what I have been able to learn and glean
from you. Wouldn't there have been the odor of decomposition
(27:12):
in that area near the fence?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Possibly, but not It would not be overwhelming. Remember we're
still talking even though it's Kassimi. Okay, let me put
that in here. We're in Florida, it's not like you're
in Massachusetts. Okay. There's a possibility that you, even after
just after four days, you could have, But unfortunately I'm not.
(27:38):
I've not come to h struck that three two. I've
not materialized before you with my meteorological charts from that time.
But you know, it does get cool in Kassimi in
March h this the Saint June or July, and as
(28:01):
we've talked about in the decompetitional episodes, heat speeds things up,
So there might not have been enough time over this
four day period for there to be significant decompetitional or
obviously competitional changes, you know, where we're looking for those
signs because we're beyond micro at that time. We're talking
(28:24):
about macro presentations at the four day level. And I'm
sure that there was or were some some changes and
those will probably be alluded to in the autopsy report.
And it's going to be choice. And one other thing
too that I have to put up put out there.
They said that she had socks on, but as you mentioned,
(28:45):
this is you're talking about shoulder of a road adjacent
to where if she's got socks on there are no shoes,
you would expect the socks to be dirty, and ain't
the case. Her socks were clean, which means, you know,
I don't think she could levitate, So there would have
(29:05):
been footfalls on the ground. She would have struck dirt grass,
there would have been stains on the soles of her feet,
you know, on the socks obviously on socks, and there
was nothing of that, which means that she was affected
in some way either through a rush, kicked her shoes off,
didn't put her shoes on, But she got into that car.
(29:28):
And here's the thing, she had her socks on. I
don't think that somebody would take time to put socks
on the deceased individual. So that brings us back around
where did the homicide take place? Did it take place
in their domicile? And then she was transported from the
domsile into the car. And remember the one video, the
(29:49):
videography that we've got where I think that she is
leaning over or it appears to be her, and it
looks like an odd position. As a matter in fact,
there are others that have commented on this and have
stated that it appears as though she may have been
deceased at that time.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Multiple pictures and areas that it was in the same position.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, yeah, so you know that's that car, I think,
and the house itself is going to be a touchstone
in this case for a variety of reasons. We already
know the electronic evidence. I refuse to go into all
of that right now, this is enough to digest at
this point. The stuff that they found on his phone
(30:33):
that goes back God bless her for years, for years, Dave,
And it's an evidence rich environment. We don't know what else.
We don't know if she had recorded anything, if there
were any statements from her, she had anything. You know,
we do know that she had a phone, were there
(30:53):
any text messages there that might have some significance to them,
or the photographs of abuse on her part where she
may be in her own little way she was trying
to document. I have no insight into that. I don't know,
but those are big questions that still have to be asked.
But I can tell you as I do with all
of our cases, Dave. You know, we're going to continue
(31:18):
to watch this case, and this is going to be
I don't know that it's necessarily going to be a
landmark case, but it is a case nonetheless that has
such weight to it where it shines a light on
the abuse that's going on out there. Even right now
as you and I are talking to my friend. It's
(31:40):
going on out there. There are other madeleinsotto's out there
right now. We need to be aware of that. And
I hope, I hope, that her case, her little life
that she led again will be a warning, will be
a warning to those that perpetrate crimes against children. H.
(32:01):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags
Speaker 2 (32:11):
HM.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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