January 15, 2025 • 42 mins
The man accused of molesting and killing Madeline Soto shortly after her 13th birthday will stand trial next fall.
Stephan Sterns, the boyfriend of Madeline’s mother, Jennifer Soto, faces charges of first-degree murder and 60 other offenses, including sexual battery, molestation, and possession of child pornography. Sterns has not attended court in months, choosing to skip pretrial hearings. In phone calls with his parents, Sterns claimed he "didn't start" the situation he is now facing. Jennifer Soto told police she had always feared a "Woody Allen situation."
Sterns' trial is set to begin on September 22, 2025.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Philip Dubé – Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law; Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy
- Dr. Jorey Krawczyn – Police Psychologist, Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: Operation S.O.S. – Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide”
- Robin Dreeke – Behavior Expert & Retired FBI Special Agent / Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program; Author: “Sizing People Up: A Veteran FBI Agents Manual for Behavior Prediction;” X: @rdreekeke
- Anna Sonoda – Child Grooming Expert, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and Author: “Duck Duck Groom: Understanding How a Child Becomes a Target”
- Dr. Eric Eason – Board-certified Forensic Pathologist, Consultant; Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD
- Shannon Butler – Investigative Reporter WFTV-9
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace murdered Mattie Soto's mom says
she feared a Woody Allen situation. Really, yet she continued
to allow her than twelve year old little girl to
sleep every.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Night in the bed alone with mommy's boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
This as on secretly recorded Jill House calls, we hear
mommy's boyfriend turned murder suspect state Mattie started it. I'm
Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
with us.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So you're saying, presumably her school competer was in her backpack, Well,
I can confidently tell you she did not go to
school with her backpack because we found in the terms.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, that's mom's living boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Stephan Star Earns trying to describe explain why Mattie's backpack
was found in the trash, talking about that she went
into school the whole time. He knows why her backpack
is in the trash, according to prosecutors, because he put
it there trying to hide Evans. But in the most
recent and bizarre turn of events, murdered Mattie Soto's mother.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Led this think in who has gotten.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Immunity, says she feared a Woody Allen type situation.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I've always told him that my biggest fear is that
this would turned into a Woody Allen situation where the
stepdaughter followers, the Chad grooms the child, and the child
in it turns eighteen bringing away with him. I told
him that that was my biggest fear and I don't
ever want that happening, Like, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Like, so take a listen to this.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
So if we go back to twenty twenty, we're looking
at a minimum of three and a half year, three
and a half years where I'm sure you guys are
sexually active. Yes, so for three and a half years
out of your care and your house, not only is
he being sexually active with you and having sexual relationship?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Did you hear that? Crying? See in my mind?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Straight out to Shannon Butler joining US investigative reporter to
WFTV Channel nine in Florida where this happened. Shannon Butler,
those little gulps should have happened when she first thought
she had a quote Woody Allan situation between her living
(02:45):
boyfriend Stephan Stearns and her little girl then twelve. Of course,
Matty told everyone the moment she turned thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
She wanted to go live in the woods.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
G I wonder why, but I think those tears would
have been more appropriate when she first had an inkling.
There was a Woody Allen's situation her words, not mine, Shannon.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
Early on in this investigation, when we first talked to
investigators right after those interviews, just hours after those interviews,
they had told us they had felt that she was
much more upset over what was going on with Stephan
Sterns than what was going on with Madeline Soto. I
don't know if just hadn't sunk in yet that Madeline
(03:28):
may be found dead at this point, but they felt
that the tears and the anguish was much more about
Stephan Sterns and what was going on there than about
her daughter, and that always troubled those investigators early on
in those interviews there. I mean, you can see by
their behavior if you listen to this, they were agitated
(03:50):
in this interview, trying to figure out how this possibly
went awry, how she missed it. She said she knew
nothing about it, but in that comment that she was
worried about her daughter, in that Woody Allen right type situation.
Obviously there was some kind of feeling you had right
that something was amiss.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Exactly, Shannon, And you know what, Shannon Butler, guys joining
me from WFTV Channel nine.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You really hit the nail on the head. I want
to hear this.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
One more time because all she's talking about is me, me.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me me me, nothing
about Maddie. Woman. Maddie is dead.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
The state says your living boyfriend murdered her before she
could reveal you were raping her practically on a nightly basis,
alone in bed.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
While mommy got a good night sleep in another room.
Listen to this. You're dead on, Shannon Butler.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I've always told him that my biggest fear is that
this would turned into a Woody Allen situation where the
stepdaughter followers, the dad, grooms the child and the child
and it turns eighteen bringing away with him. I told
him that that was my biggest fear, and I don't
ever want that happening.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Like, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like you can't do that to me. Okay, wait, wait,
let's analyze this. She but worries onto something.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You have to dissect what she's saying, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
She says, I've always told him, Stephan Stearns, the alleged
killer and child rapist, her boyfriend, I've always told him
my fear is to turn into a Woody Allen situation
where the stepdaughter is she talking about her natural born daughter,
where the stepdaughter, the dad grooms the child, and then
(05:45):
the child turns eighteen after going through years of rapes,
which Maddie did, years of rapes, the child turns eighteen
and runs away with him, Like what, the child's getting
the big prize here in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
She runs away with him, And I told him.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's my biggest fear, that her daughter would run away
with Stefan Stearn's a deadbeat, slung up in his girlfriend's home,
alternating between his mom's basement.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Don't ever, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh oh okay, there's so many directions to go right here.
Robin Drake is joining me, Guys. Robin Draeke, behavior expert,
former FBI Special Agent Chief let This sink In, chief
of the FBI counter Intelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and author
of Sizing People Up, a veteran agent's manual for behavior prediction. Robin, Drake,
(06:52):
all mom cares about is Matti Soto now dead at
that time, a little twelve year old girl. She might
run away with the big catch, the BBD, the.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Bigger better deal. She might run off with Stepan Stearns
and have them all to herself. Have I lost my mind?
That's what she's saying, Drake, I know.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
No, I even wrote it on the sticky here.
Speaker 9 (07:15):
I mean, he is so calm, I know, because there's
so many data points that are so predictable in this.
Speaker 8 (07:22):
Everything she's been saying the.
Speaker 9 (07:23):
Entire time is her her, like you said, like Shannon said,
you know, and that's what the investigators picked up on
right away, and that is they saw deviations from what
normal people that are missing their daughters normally react like.
And she spiked way out of the norm on that.
And there's so much leakage throughout this and even you know,
I know we're not haven't talked about it yet, but
(07:44):
even his parents, I mean, everyone is seeing patterns of
behavior that are deviating from what normal, healthy people do
and they're all signals that say and there's a lot
of unhealthy crazy going on here.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Okay, now you know what Robin Drake, no offense, but.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
The FBI special Agent chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program,
I can say there's a whole lot of crazy going on.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I know that much. I'm just a lawyer. Okay, I'm
expecting a little bit more from you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The mom suspected this a long time before Maddie was murdered.
Before Maddie was raped as a little girl over and
over and over and over with this PERV.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
According to the state, presumed innocent, with.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
This PERV taking literally thousands and thousands of pictures of
him raping and sodomizing a little girl.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And it went back for years.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
As I recall, if I'm wrong, Shannon jump In at
the time she was.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Nine years old, nine years.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Old, sodomizing her and taking videos of it.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
Drake, Yeah, this is what evil looks like.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
I'm just hoping that at some point they're uncovering a
mass of network that they're going to save other children
from this, because I seriously doubt, because of this pattern behavior,
that this was history.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Can we just save the whole squeeze lemons into lemonade thing,
that this has a silver lining and it's going to
be because because let me.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Tell you, something great. I do think there's going to.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
I think we're going to get other people, though, I
see the only thing when.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
We're talking about a Woody Allen situation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Unless you've been living in a cave.
Speaker 10 (09:26):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
I want to.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Explain what Mattie's mom is talking about.
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Listen, Woody Allen, Mia Pharaoh, that's the ideal power couple.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And he gave her everything she could possibly want. I
was over the moon happy. But that's the great regret
of my life. I wish i'd never met him.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Allan good eyes child abuse, but Prey admits he's in
love with another of Pharaoh's daughters, twenty one year old assumed.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Twenty one Now, okay, right at the time, that's where
our friend's over at HBO. It's Alan v Pharaoh. Uh
was the name of the special at HBO.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Okay, you know what.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I just got to get my head around this. Mia
Pharaoh says she had no idea that anything inappropriate or
illegal may have been going on, and I have spoken
with family members, and I believe me a pharaoh. But
(10:25):
she gets a very rude awakening, according to her, when
she comes home and finds a stack of X rated
polaroid pictures of her daughter.
Speaker 10 (10:38):
Sunny.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Listen, there was a stack of polaroid pictures. All of
them were of my own child. I remember struggling to breathe.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That is mea pharaoh speaking to our friends at HBO
and Alan v Pharaoh Okay, struggled to breathe, joining me,
Anna Sonoda, joining us child sex abuse grooming expert, clinical
social worker and author of Duck Duck Groom, and I
thank you for being with us. You know what, Anna,
(11:08):
I'm just a.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Trial lawyer, and I tried a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I can't even count how many cases I've either tried
or investigated and brought to a guilty plea chamla stations
where the.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Mother knew full well what was going on.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
She either knew outright or she put on blinders and
didn't want to see.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I don't believe that about Mia Pharaoh.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I believe Mia Pharaoh really did come home and find
these polaroid photos, because when she says I remember I
couldn't breathe, it hit her like a train. Unlike the
case here where Maddie Soto's mother way back said I
feared a.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Woody Allen type situation.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
What I'm saying is I had so many moms I
just wanted to give them a finger necklace because they
would go along with it or choose not to say
that their child is being raped and sodomized.
Speaker 10 (12:14):
Nancy, this is gruesome.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
You know.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Even the fact that we have to have this conversation
is an alert, big red flag for anybody who's currently dating,
has anybody coming in and out of their lives when
they have children in the house. You know, predators go
out of their way to be selective and intentional with
who they choose to date, and women who are raising
minor children are a perfect choice for a potential predator. Here,
(12:40):
in this case, we have child maltreatment at a minimum,
because child sexual abuse is not random and it's not sudden.
This was a reoccurring situation, chronic situation for poor Mattie
that she had to endure because no one was protecting her.
Speaker 11 (12:57):
When you guys show me the future 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,
if she what if he did this? Stop buying? But
what if she's still missing out there? What if somebody
took her? I still wanted to believe his I believed him.
I believed his whole story. So I was just like,
(13:19):
I kept repeating that part. I'm just like, what did
she take?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
I dropped off?
Speaker 11 (13:22):
What if she got abductive?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What if she's missing? What is this woman on about?
What is she saying?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
After you showed me the images of my living boyfriend,
Stephan Stearns raping and sodomizing my twelve year old, I
didn't want to think he did anything evil to her?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
What okay?
Speaker 12 (13:46):
That said?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Let's move forward with what we're learning now. Mom long
fear in a Woody Allen type situation, but did nothing
about it. I want you to see new video that
we have obtained of the defendant, Stephan Stearns, acting out
how Mattie was asleep in his car, Shannon Butler joining
(14:12):
me WFTV. Mattie wasn't asleep, she.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Was dead, propped up in his car and buckled in.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
Buckled in yes, assumingly. He wanted to do that because
he drove out of the condo complex right on the
way to school, so that would work with his story
that I took her to school that day. So if
there were cameras or any of the neighbors had seen him.
They could be like, oh, I saw him, she was
in the front seat and they were driving out of
(14:43):
the complex to match his story. But investigators knew right
away from looking at that video, they knew Madeleinsoto at
that moment was not alive. That is why they came
out so early and could say that they believed that
she was already dead before she left the apartment complex
because that video to them was very very clear that
she was not moving in that front seat.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So doctor Eric Ethon joining me more certified forensic pathologist
and consultant doctor Esen, I guess he buckled Maddie's dead
body in because he didn't want to get pulled over
on a seat belt violation. The reality is, doctor Esen,
is that at that time rigor had likely not set in,
(15:30):
so her body would have still been limp, so he
had to buckle her in or should fall over.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
Correct.
Speaker 12 (15:38):
Yeah, the body still would have been limp, and she
STI would have been warm as well, because it takes
time after death to occur for the rigor to set
in and for the body to cool or rather assume
the surrounding environmental temperature, and then there's also lividity that
would take a while to set in, that settling of
the blood after death.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Old on Nelly, Wait a minute, slow down, man. I
know this is a regular talk for you Emmy's they're
in the medical examiner's lounge. But slow down for all
of us novices, Okay. Rigor is when the body stiffens up,
that there's a live or mortis where the blood settles
(16:20):
down to the lowest point of your body, like if
you're on your back, all the blood in your body
goes to your back and your end and the back
of your legs. So explain to me why he had
to buckle her up because rigor had not yet set
in in regular people talk.
Speaker 12 (16:38):
Please, Well, she hadn't gotten stiff yet, so she was
not gonna be able to just sit there in the
car seat without flopping over, and so it had to
be buckled in.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What exactly is rigor and does it set in and
then dissolve over a period of hours or do you
stay in rigor?
Speaker 12 (16:55):
No, it's muscle stiffness, So the muscles don't contract, they
just become stiff due to the body depleting this chemical
known as ATP. But trying to keep it simple. The
body becomes stiff, and then over time you'll reach a
full stiffness, full rigor, and then it'll slowly go away.
It all takes. It depends on how you die and
(17:16):
the surrounding an environmental temperature. But it comes on, then
it goes away, Doctor eric Ason.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Every once in a while, while I'm analyzing a case
or I'm investigating a case, and I'm running down the
rabbit hole, sometimes it's easy to forget. We're talking about
a little girl that just turned thirteen, that had been
living in hell for years, since she was at least nine,
(17:44):
And we figure that out because of how far back
the video and photo images on his phone go. He,
according to the state, had been raping and sodomizing this
little girl and taking videos of it.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
In mommy home for years.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And you and I are talking about rigor and why
he had to buckle her in and what is life
and mortis and what is rigor? Morris and I have
to think about my little girl and my little boy
at age twelve. It's easy to forget that or do
(18:24):
we just want to forget about it when we're trying
to analyze, because it's hard to focus on probative issues
and forensics when you're thinking about your own child.
Speaker 12 (18:34):
Correct exactly. I mean that her she was going through
hell leading up to the death, and then we haven't
even talked about the actual cause of death itself. So
you know, she was strangled, which is a very violent
way to be killed, especially if you're a twelve year
old by another man.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So a grown man, mommy's boyfriend that has been molesting
you for years. Okay, guys, I steered us off course,
but I want to you to see what I saw,
and I couldn't verbalize why I was so aghast when
I saw it, But you'll understand.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I'm just gonna say any thinks she was just a sleeper,
she's just reclient in the chair of sleeping. Okay, explain
to me like reclaiming backwards. Yes, thank you, laying back.
Speaker 12 (19:24):
In the chaff.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Two.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Renowned and veteran trial lawyer Philip Dubay joining us LA
County Public Defender's Office, which means he's tried a lot
of cases. They can't even say no, this case disgusts me.
The judge says, you're on it. You're the public defender
have fun with that.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So I guess, h Philip, I'd like you to.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Look one more time at mom's live in a boyfriend
acting out how little Maddie Soto just turned thirteen. I
just dozed off in the front seat of his car
on the way to school one morning.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
She was sleepy.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
Watch it's gonna say you think she was just a sleeper.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
She was just her client in the chair sleeping, Okay,
explain to me like reclining backwards, yes, thank you, laying
back in.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The shar Do you see him leaning his head back
like he'sozing.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I guess, Philip, debate.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's why you tell all your clients not to speak
to LA law enforcement.
Speaker 13 (20:42):
Of course, and they never listen, and that's why we
all have a job in this system. But I will
say this, to be fair, a lot of kids at
that age you have to get up at six six
thirty are tired. They're sitting in the car, They've maybe
just had a little bit of breakfast, they are fatigued themselves.
They're not exactly like the energized bun looking forward to
going into a car.
Speaker 14 (21:02):
Do you say, are you saying she maybe was a
sleep How does that How in this world does that
have anything to do with Mattie, rape, sodomized and dead
by strangulation, and you're talking about some other child might
be a little sleepy in the morning.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
What because they had to get up at six thirty.
That has nothing to do with Maddie. She's dead. She
was dead in that photo.
Speaker 13 (21:25):
Where's the proof of that beyond a reasonable doubt? So far,
the evidence is the kid was in the front seat,
was tired, leaned her head back, and that's it. I
have not heard one shred of forensic evidence that this
child was in fact clinically dead in the front seat
of that car. All we know is that she was
(21:46):
there and may have dozed off. That's it.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Okay, Shannon Butler, can you please help me throw me
a bone? I need life raft Actually, Shannon joining us WFTV,
explain to Debay how you and I know she was dead.
According to the state in that car buckled and so
(22:09):
she wouldn't fall over.
Speaker 7 (22:11):
So investigators were very certain when they looked at that
video of the car driving out of that complex, they
could tell just from the video that Madeleine Soda was
already dead. Now, the timeline of when she was killed.
That is still a mystery. They don't know what happened
inside the house, but they know what she was buckled
(22:31):
into the front seat of that car, that she was
already dead. They knew it by looking at it. There
was no doubt in their minds. They came out very
very early and said that Madeline Soda was no longer
a live They could tell, they said, because she looked
limp and was slumped over in the seat. It didn't
look like she was sleeping to that.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
You know what, I've got a very strong feeling that
Debay is not going to buy that because investigators said so.
Dodger Erry Ason, she Maddie never made it to middle
school that morning at Hunter's Creek Middle School.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
She never got there.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, the last time she was seen she was in
that car with Stephan Stearns. Her mother did not speak
to her as normal that morning before she went to school.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
The mother did not.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Hear her voice to know she was alive that morning
before she went to school.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
She didn't make it to school. So we know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
That indicates anyway, very strongly, circumstantially, that she was dead
before that. We know, based on eye witnesses that shortly
after she was seen in the car with Sterns. Her
body was dumped. He was spotted at the location where
her body was dumped, going into the woods. Her body
(23:59):
was dumped shortly after that picture. Now, isn't it true,
doctor Ason, that a medical examiner can typically place a
time of death? Isn't that true?
Speaker 12 (24:14):
We can come up with a pretty good range, and
so you base it on when they were last known
alive and then when they were found dead, and you
put a bunch of the pieces together, and then you
combine that with some of the postpartum changes that would
have occurred, and so we're usually able to narrow it
down within a pretty good range for the most part.
Speaker 11 (24:31):
Yes, I believe the actual stuff, but I didn't want
to believe that he had done any.
Speaker 15 (24:37):
Able to her.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
But that was me assuming that you guys have the
wrong guy.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I wanted to believe you had the wrong guy, even
after seeing those horrific sex attack images of Stephan Starn's
allegedly attacking her little girl. For years, he kept all
those videos, which is a whole other can of worms.
(25:02):
To doctor Jory Krausen, joining US Psychologists Faculty, Saint Leo
University and author Operation Soos, doctor Jory Craws, And why
do perps want to save their rape videos?
Speaker 6 (25:15):
That's a great question. It's because of fantasy. Okay. To
really understand a sexual offender, you've got to get into
their fantasy world and they want to relive that. That's
the whole key, the whole drive of the sexual offender.
You notice on the report they talked about the pictures
(25:36):
were still like she was sleeping. Several of them identified
him with her where her eyes were closed as sleeping.
There's also a report where one of his previous girlfriend's
reports that in order to get an erection, she had
a play like she was dead. Okay, So those are
(25:57):
two connecting behavioral patterns that are very magnificant and tie
into his fantasy world.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Uh you know what, doctor Crawsin, I never said this
to you, but you're kind of creeping me out, and
I thought i'd seen it all. I'm going to move
on from that at his completely accurate Doctor Jory Crawsin.
Not only is Mama on record claiming she feared a
Woody Allen situation between Stephan Stearns and her little girl.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But yet did nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And we have Stephan Stearns acting out how Maddie was
asleep in the front of his car buckled in. There
are photos and videos taken of Stephan Stern's Listen.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
He go ahead and turn around saying the wall, put
your hands behind your back, put together on your praying
just like that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Going to spread your feet for me. Did you get
a really good picture of this right here the school area?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
See right there?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
They are trying to get photos of his hands, his wrists,
his arm below the elbow. I wonder if there were
scratches or bruises there where Maddy tried to fight back.
You know, I want to look at that video from
beginning to end.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
One more time.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
If you don't mind control room, let's just start it
at the get go. Okay, take a look at this guy,
Stephan Stearns. Look at him now. Think about a little
nine year old girl seeing this coming into the bedroom
every night, and what could she.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Do Anna Sonoda.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
She couldn't call out to mommy because in her mind
that wouldn't do any good because mommy loves.
Speaker 10 (27:58):
Her rapist Nancy and had to pay the ultimate price
for Jennifer to continue our relationship with an evil predator.
In the form of Stefan. We know that grooming was
taking place. We know that the highest risk environment for
a child is their home where they live. And again
and again, Jennifer opened the door to this predator, allowing
(28:21):
him to come in. And where were the mandated observers
in this situation. You know, children are sitting ducks. They
need our protection at all times, and unfortunately, predators get
to run on gas, grooming, access in space. Stefan had
all three in this case, and it led to a
devastating tragedy on all fronts.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
I've never seen any sign. I tried watching her like
a hog.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I thought I was doing a good job, but it wasn't.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
I was oblivious to every four years.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
You know, I'd like to believe her, but yet I
know that in the last hours we find out that
prior to watching her like a hawk, mom Jennifer Soto
feared a Woody Allen type situation between her little girl
and her living boyfriend Stefan Sterns.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, there's more.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Stephan Sterns actually blames the state for inflating his charges,
artificially inflating his charges. Mattie's dead, She's been raped and
sodomized for years, So I don't think those charges need inflating.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Mister Sterns, listen to this.
Speaker 15 (29:47):
Were you expecting these charges? The burger charge? Oh well
you get motly so you got blindsided by that?
Speaker 16 (29:58):
Yeah, obviously you know it's not true. You know I
never would have wanted her and read him, so you
know he meditated first degree is kind of clients.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
These recorded phone calls. I don't know how in this
day and age you cannot know your jail calls are
being recorded. That said, take a look at what Stephan
Stearn's is actually saying straight out to Robin and Drake
joining Us, former FBI Chief of FBI counter Intelligence Behavioral
(30:31):
Analysis Program, author of a lot of books. Robin, do
you hear what he's saying in that first bit of sound?
And this is him talking to his mom and dad
and let me tell you, I'm going to play some more.
And dad, who I think was former l E law
enforcement man, he can smell some serious hot steam and
(30:51):
BS he's talking to his son, who's like, what but here?
Just just kick it off. Stephan starn says, I don't
know what the plan is. Are they just trying to
scare me depleting down. Oh no, Sterns, that ain't gonna happen.
You're not bleating down? What involuntary manslaughter or fat chance?
(31:12):
They're trying to scare me and trying to hurt me
as much as possible. Maddie was left dead right sodomized,
her stuff on in a dumpster, her body found, and
he's saying, they're just trying to hurt me as much
as possible.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
Response isn't as completely shocking and important about how there's
so little regard for the dead little girl by both.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
Him and her mom.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
And like you just pointed out, it's really really striking
to me about how the parents seem to be kind
of just knowledgeable in some way. You know, it's not
like a shocks them. And can you imagine any one
of your beautiful little children being accused of something like this,
You know, the shock that disbelief, because if you are
(32:03):
used to seeing and having a healthy relationship with your
child and something like this happens, it's a huge shock
to your system. But this doesn't send me much of
a shock to them. There's a lot of leakage for
a lot of years that they didn't like the behaviors
they were seeing and you're hearing it come out in
this conversation right here, and then his self centered focus
is just on full display.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Shannon Butler are joining me.
Investigative reporter WFTV Channel nine, Florida. Shannon is Stefan Stearn's dad,
former law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (32:46):
He knew you could tell in those calls. He knew exactly, Oh.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, good, that's what I was just gonna say.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I know he roomed over all these calls, and you
can tell him he's like, who smelling ma, I mean,
he could smell it a mile away.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
How are Sterns' parents reacting to all of.
Speaker 7 (33:07):
This, Well, the dad had questions very early on, because
the parents actually came up when Madeleine Soda was missing
to try to help locate her. They came out, came
up right after, you know, he told them, Hey, Madeline's missing.
And the dad was always a little bit suspicious of
what was happening because Stearns, remember, left in the middle
(33:30):
of the night, was driving around and you can tell
just kind of the matter of factness on those calls,
but you can also hear a little bit of that
anguish as they let it set in that. Hey, by
the way, by the time you get out of jail,
we'll all be gone and there will be no one here.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Given what Shannon Butler has just told us, I want
you to hear what we're talking about. The dad asking
how did this whole thing come about, and Stefan Stearns
essentially says she started it.
Speaker 15 (34:02):
Listen, you know you and actually have a conversation.
Speaker 17 (34:04):
All of us could have a conversation to understand what's
taking place, how this came about.
Speaker 15 (34:12):
How you were right here, because it would help us, help.
Speaker 17 (34:16):
Us better understand the situation, because we're just ratter lost
for understanding.
Speaker 15 (34:26):
How all this came about. I mean, we're just totally
totally baffled.
Speaker 16 (34:30):
It started.
Speaker 15 (34:33):
You didn't start it, but you participated in it, which
is just that that is not starting at.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
The reminder to all, jen Jennifer Soto, Maddie's mother, has
not been charged, has not been named a POI, person
of interest or suspect in this case. As a matter
of fact, in their wisdom, she has been granted a
type of immunity, so based on many of the things
(35:03):
she told investigators, she cannot be prosecuted for those things.
It's a limited use immunity. Jen Soto not a suspect.
Speaker 10 (35:14):
A woman got on a YouTube thing and said that
you weren't even at the party.
Speaker 15 (35:21):
Pardon yeah, her birthday party.
Speaker 16 (35:25):
Yeah, I hadn't gotten there yet. I went up there
a Sunday evening and got there after she was done
at her party.
Speaker 15 (35:31):
Oh okay, okay, and I was.
Speaker 16 (35:34):
We were very happy that I was there with the
very happy the history of us were together and was
shaping up to be a great week and a great visit.
You know, there was no weak was craything to happen
that happened.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
There was no reason for anything to happen that happened.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Again, just like we heard Anna Sonoda claiming, and I'm
going to need a shrink on this, It's like that
didn't have to happen.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, according to the state, you did it. That's why
it happened.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
She didn't just suddenly fall over dead after having been
raped and sodomized.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
This little girl, Maddie so too. It didn't just happen.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Shannon Butler with me investigative reporter WFTV Channel nine.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Shannon tell me the time frame from her birthday to
her murder.
Speaker 7 (36:19):
The birthday was on that Sunday night, she got dropped
off back at the house, and that's when also came
to the house.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
You know, I don't know why, doctor Jory Crawsen, as
many times as I've combed over this case, I didn't
put that significant fact together. The night of her thirteenth
the birthday party, she was killed.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
There could be a couple of reasons for that. Pedophiles
have age specific victims, and when they start to age out,
they start to move on. Okay, he really couldn't move
on with this because she now becomes a liability. One
of the other things already mentioned.
Speaker 15 (36:56):
Was she started it.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
That's part of the fantasy that he was living, that
this child came on to him sexually. I would lose
count how many times I've heard penophiles tell me that
during clinical assessments. That's part of that fantasy they build.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You know, to Phillip Debate joining us, you just heard
Stefan Stern saying, quote, there's no reason for anything to
happen that happened. I know you're not going to comment
on any of your cases, but have you noticed because
I have.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Defendants, perps suspects.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Try to blame the crime on it just happened. Like,
here's a good example. I had a guy break into
a woe's home.
Speaker 12 (37:44):
She came home.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Not only did he kill her, he raped her first,
and when asked why, he says, I don't know, my
little mate, you just got up as if he's blaming
his penis for the rape and murder, it's the penis's fault.
And here we're hearing step On Stearn saying there's no
reason for anything to happen.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
That happened. It just happened.
Speaker 13 (38:07):
Yeah, Unfortunately he doesn't know the elements of the crimes.
He seems to think that by being ignorant or trying
to attribute it to something that was beyond his control,
or that's something that appeared to be a natural urge
or sort of mutually consensual if you will, that it
somehow makes it lawful. And all he did was just
(38:29):
dig himself into a hole much deeper than he already was.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Because everyone I love when he just said that een
that Hey, this grown man. I mean you did see
him without a shirt on, right, nobody wants to see
that coming in the bedroom, all right, That said much
less a nine year old little girl.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You just said.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Mutual consent. If you will, I won't. I will not
go down your garden path. That he thought this was
mutual consent, well.
Speaker 13 (39:04):
Then there's nothing to argue. Frankly, in his mind he
feels that there was consent. It is not a defense
because of the child's age. So all he did was
incriminate himself even further. I mean, that's just the bottom line.
There's just no way out of this. And frankly, they
didn't even need his statements. They don't even need those
(39:24):
jail calls. They have ample evidence without a word coming
out of his mouth to nail him. The only real
issue here, and I know we're not discussing it, is
whether or not he will die. And this is a
type of case. As defense counsel, I would be groveling
for what we call ELWOP life without parole. That is
his only hope in this case. It's not whether or
(39:45):
not he will ever get out. The question is one
of housing. Will he be condemned or will he be
in general population for the rest of his life too.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Robin Drake cut, longtime colleague, behavior expert, and you know
the rest Former FBI author Robin Drake, this guy not Debey,
this guy.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Stephan sterns I mean, hey and Jennifer Soto. What a pair.
But what about steph on Stern's It didn't what happened
didn't have to happen, like it just fell on their heads.
He did it, according to prosecutors.
Speaker 8 (40:23):
Yeah, he's victim blaming.
Speaker 9 (40:24):
He's every time I hear watch him speak any anything,
it looks like he's so rehearsed. He's done this before,
he's he's thought about this a lot, He's contemplated this
a lot, and the entire world he's created around himself
to him is extremely believable. You know, as our lawyer
was saying, you know, it's in his own mind. If
(40:45):
he blames a victim, it shouldn't be an inflated charge.
And literally he believes that because he is just so
twisted and so broken and he allowed himself to keep
going down this dark, evil path or he victimized her.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they find him.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
If you know or think you know anything about the
years of sex abuse and ultimate murder allegations, please dial
four zero seven eight four six three three three three
four zero seven eight four six three three three three.
(41:23):
We remember an American hero Police officer, Kevin Taun Galt PD, California,
just thirty five, shot and killed in the line of duty.
A US Army Vet, Tawn served with Galt PD three years.
Survived by parents. Grieving parents Marianne and Will, sister Julie.
(41:47):
American hero Officer Kevin Taun. Nancy Gray signing off goodbye friend.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace murdered Mattie Soto's mom says
she feared a Woody Allen situation. Really, yet she continued
to allow her than twelve year old little girl to
sleep every.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Night in the bed alone with mommy's boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
This as on secretly recorded Jill House calls, we hear
mommy's boyfriend turned murder suspect state Mattie started it. I'm
Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
with us.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So you're saying, presumably her school competer was in her backpack, Well,
I can confidently tell you she did not go to
school with her backpack because we found in the terms.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, that's mom's living boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Stephan Star Earns trying to describe explain why Mattie's backpack
was found in the trash, talking about that she went
into school the whole time. He knows why her backpack
is in the trash, according to prosecutors, because he put
it there trying to hide Evans. But in the most
recent and bizarre turn of events, murdered Mattie Soto's mother.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Led this think in who has gotten.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Immunity, says she feared a Woody Allen type situation.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I've always told him that my biggest fear is that
this would turned into a Woody Allen situation where the
stepdaughter followers, the Chad grooms the child, and the child
in it turns eighteen bringing away with him. I told
him that that was my biggest fear and I don't
ever want that happening, Like, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Like, so take a listen to this.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
So if we go back to twenty twenty, we're looking
at a minimum of three and a half year, three
and a half years where I'm sure you guys are
sexually active. Yes, so for three and a half years
out of your care and your house, not only is
he being sexually active with you and having sexual relationship?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Did you hear that? Crying? See in my mind?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Straight out to Shannon Butler joining US investigative reporter to
WFTV Channel nine in Florida where this happened. Shannon Butler,
those little gulps should have happened when she first thought
she had a quote Woody Allan situation between her living
(02:45):
boyfriend Stephan Stearns and her little girl then twelve. Of course,
Matty told everyone the moment she turned thirteen.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
She wanted to go live in the woods.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
G I wonder why, but I think those tears would
have been more appropriate when she first had an inkling.
There was a Woody Allen's situation her words, not mine, Shannon.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
Early on in this investigation, when we first talked to
investigators right after those interviews, just hours after those interviews,
they had told us they had felt that she was
much more upset over what was going on with Stephan
Sterns than what was going on with Madeline Soto. I
don't know if just hadn't sunk in yet that Madeline
(03:28):
may be found dead at this point, but they felt
that the tears and the anguish was much more about
Stephan Sterns and what was going on there than about
her daughter, and that always troubled those investigators early on
in those interviews there. I mean, you can see by
their behavior if you listen to this, they were agitated
(03:50):
in this interview, trying to figure out how this possibly
went awry, how she missed it. She said she knew
nothing about it, but in that comment that she was
worried about her daughter, in that Woody Allen right type situation.
Obviously there was some kind of feeling you had right
that something was amiss.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Exactly, Shannon, And you know what, Shannon Butler, guys joining
me from WFTV Channel nine.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
You really hit the nail on the head. I want
to hear this.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
One more time because all she's talking about is me, me.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me me me, nothing
about Maddie. Woman. Maddie is dead.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
The state says your living boyfriend murdered her before she
could reveal you were raping her practically on a nightly basis,
alone in bed.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
While mommy got a good night sleep in another room.
Listen to this. You're dead on, Shannon Butler.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I've always told him that my biggest fear is that
this would turned into a Woody Allen situation where the
stepdaughter followers, the dad, grooms the child and the child
and it turns eighteen bringing away with him. I told
him that that was my biggest fear, and I don't
ever want that happening.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Like, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Like you can't do that to me. Okay, wait, wait,
let's analyze this. She but worries onto something.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You have to dissect what she's saying, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
She says, I've always told him, Stephan Stearns, the alleged
killer and child rapist, her boyfriend, I've always told him
my fear is to turn into a Woody Allen situation
where the stepdaughter is she talking about her natural born daughter,
where the stepdaughter, the dad grooms the child, and then
(05:45):
the child turns eighteen after going through years of rapes,
which Maddie did, years of rapes, the child turns eighteen
and runs away with him, Like what, the child's getting
the big prize here in this scenario.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
She runs away with him, And I told him.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's my biggest fear, that her daughter would run away
with Stefan Stearn's a deadbeat, slung up in his girlfriend's home,
alternating between his mom's basement.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Don't ever, you can't do that to me.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh oh okay, there's so many directions to go right here.
Robin Drake is joining me, Guys. Robin Draeke, behavior expert,
former FBI Special Agent Chief let This sink In, chief
of the FBI counter Intelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and author
of Sizing People Up, a veteran agent's manual for behavior prediction. Robin, Drake,
(06:52):
all mom cares about is Matti Soto now dead at
that time, a little twelve year old girl. She might
run away with the big catch, the BBD, the.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Bigger better deal. She might run off with Stepan Stearns
and have them all to herself. Have I lost my mind?
That's what she's saying, Drake, I know.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
No, I even wrote it on the sticky here.
Speaker 9 (07:15):
I mean, he is so calm, I know, because there's
so many data points that are so predictable in this.
Speaker 8 (07:22):
Everything she's been saying the.
Speaker 9 (07:23):
Entire time is her her, like you said, like Shannon said,
you know, and that's what the investigators picked up on
right away, and that is they saw deviations from what
normal people that are missing their daughters normally react like.
And she spiked way out of the norm on that.
And there's so much leakage throughout this and even you know,
I know we're not haven't talked about it yet, but
(07:44):
even his parents, I mean, everyone is seeing patterns of
behavior that are deviating from what normal, healthy people do
and they're all signals that say and there's a lot
of unhealthy crazy going on here.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Okay, now you know what Robin Drake, no offense, but.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
The FBI special Agent chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program,
I can say there's a whole lot of crazy going on.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I know that much. I'm just a lawyer. Okay, I'm
expecting a little bit more from you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The mom suspected this a long time before Maddie was murdered.
Before Maddie was raped as a little girl over and
over and over and over with this PERV.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
According to the state, presumed innocent, with.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
This PERV taking literally thousands and thousands of pictures of
him raping and sodomizing a little girl.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And it went back for years.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
As I recall, if I'm wrong, Shannon jump In at
the time she was.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Nine years old, nine years.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Old, sodomizing her and taking videos of it.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
Drake, Yeah, this is what evil looks like.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
I'm just hoping that at some point they're uncovering a
mass of network that they're going to save other children
from this, because I seriously doubt, because of this pattern behavior,
that this was history.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Can we just save the whole squeeze lemons into lemonade thing,
that this has a silver lining and it's going to
be because because let me.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Tell you, something great. I do think there's going to.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
I think we're going to get other people, though, I
see the only thing when.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
We're talking about a Woody Allen situation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Unless you've been living in a cave.
Speaker 10 (09:26):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
I want to.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Explain what Mattie's mom is talking about.
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Listen, Woody Allen, Mia Pharaoh, that's the ideal power couple.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And he gave her everything she could possibly want. I
was over the moon happy. But that's the great regret
of my life. I wish i'd never met him.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Allan good eyes child abuse, but Prey admits he's in
love with another of Pharaoh's daughters, twenty one year old assumed.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Twenty one Now, okay, right at the time, that's where
our friend's over at HBO. It's Alan v Pharaoh. Uh
was the name of the special at HBO.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Okay, you know what.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I just got to get my head around this. Mia
Pharaoh says she had no idea that anything inappropriate or
illegal may have been going on, and I have spoken
with family members, and I believe me a pharaoh. But
(10:25):
she gets a very rude awakening, according to her, when
she comes home and finds a stack of X rated
polaroid pictures of her daughter.
Speaker 10 (10:38):
Sunny.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Listen, there was a stack of polaroid pictures. All of
them were of my own child. I remember struggling to breathe.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That is mea pharaoh speaking to our friends at HBO
and Alan v Pharaoh Okay, struggled to breathe, joining me,
Anna Sonoda, joining us child sex abuse grooming expert, clinical
social worker and author of Duck Duck Groom, and I
thank you for being with us. You know what, Anna,
(11:08):
I'm just a.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Trial lawyer, and I tried a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I can't even count how many cases I've either tried
or investigated and brought to a guilty plea chamla stations
where the.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Mother knew full well what was going on.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
She either knew outright or she put on blinders and
didn't want to see.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I don't believe that about Mia Pharaoh.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I believe Mia Pharaoh really did come home and find
these polaroid photos, because when she says I remember I
couldn't breathe, it hit her like a train. Unlike the
case here where Maddie Soto's mother way back said I
feared a.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Woody Allen type situation.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
What I'm saying is I had so many moms I
just wanted to give them a finger necklace because they
would go along with it or choose not to say
that their child is being raped and sodomized.
Speaker 10 (12:14):
Nancy, this is gruesome.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
You know.
Speaker 10 (12:17):
Even the fact that we have to have this conversation
is an alert, big red flag for anybody who's currently dating,
has anybody coming in and out of their lives when
they have children in the house. You know, predators go
out of their way to be selective and intentional with
who they choose to date, and women who are raising
minor children are a perfect choice for a potential predator. Here,
(12:40):
in this case, we have child maltreatment at a minimum,
because child sexual abuse is not random and it's not sudden.
This was a reoccurring situation, chronic situation for poor Mattie
that she had to endure because no one was protecting her.
Speaker 11 (12:57):
When you guys show me the future 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,
if she what if he did this? Stop buying? But
what if she's still missing out there? What if somebody
took her? I still wanted to believe his I believed him.
I believed his whole story. So I was just like,
(13:19):
I kept repeating that part. I'm just like, what did
she take?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
I dropped off?
Speaker 11 (13:22):
What if she got abductive?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
What if she's missing? What is this woman on about?
What is she saying?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
After you showed me the images of my living boyfriend,
Stephan Stearns raping and sodomizing my twelve year old, I
didn't want to think he did anything evil to her?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
What okay?
Speaker 12 (13:46):
That said?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Let's move forward with what we're learning now. Mom long
fear in a Woody Allen type situation, but did nothing
about it. I want you to see new video that
we have obtained of the defendant, Stephan Stearns, acting out
how Mattie was asleep in his car, Shannon Butler joining
(14:12):
me WFTV. Mattie wasn't asleep, she.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Was dead, propped up in his car and buckled in.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
Buckled in yes, assumingly. He wanted to do that because
he drove out of the condo complex right on the
way to school, so that would work with his story
that I took her to school that day. So if
there were cameras or any of the neighbors had seen him.
They could be like, oh, I saw him, she was
in the front seat and they were driving out of
(14:43):
the complex to match his story. But investigators knew right
away from looking at that video, they knew Madeleinsoto at
that moment was not alive. That is why they came
out so early and could say that they believed that
she was already dead before she left the apartment complex
because that video to them was very very clear that
she was not moving in that front seat.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So doctor Eric Ethon joining me more certified forensic pathologist
and consultant doctor Esen, I guess he buckled Maddie's dead
body in because he didn't want to get pulled over
on a seat belt violation. The reality is, doctor Esen,
is that at that time rigor had likely not set in,
(15:30):
so her body would have still been limp, so he
had to buckle her in or should fall over.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
Correct.
Speaker 12 (15:38):
Yeah, the body still would have been limp, and she
STI would have been warm as well, because it takes
time after death to occur for the rigor to set
in and for the body to cool or rather assume
the surrounding environmental temperature, and then there's also lividity that
would take a while to set in, that settling of
the blood after death.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Old on Nelly, Wait a minute, slow down, man. I
know this is a regular talk for you Emmy's they're
in the medical examiner's lounge. But slow down for all
of us novices, Okay. Rigor is when the body stiffens up,
that there's a live or mortis where the blood settles
(16:20):
down to the lowest point of your body, like if
you're on your back, all the blood in your body
goes to your back and your end and the back
of your legs. So explain to me why he had
to buckle her up because rigor had not yet set
in in regular people talk.
Speaker 12 (16:38):
Please, Well, she hadn't gotten stiff yet, so she was
not gonna be able to just sit there in the
car seat without flopping over, and so it had to
be buckled in.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What exactly is rigor and does it set in and
then dissolve over a period of hours or do you
stay in rigor?
Speaker 12 (16:55):
No, it's muscle stiffness, So the muscles don't contract, they
just become stiff due to the body depleting this chemical
known as ATP. But trying to keep it simple. The
body becomes stiff, and then over time you'll reach a
full stiffness, full rigor, and then it'll slowly go away.
It all takes. It depends on how you die and
(17:16):
the surrounding an environmental temperature. But it comes on, then
it goes away, Doctor eric Ason.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Every once in a while, while I'm analyzing a case
or I'm investigating a case, and I'm running down the
rabbit hole, sometimes it's easy to forget. We're talking about
a little girl that just turned thirteen, that had been
living in hell for years, since she was at least nine,
(17:44):
And we figure that out because of how far back
the video and photo images on his phone go. He,
according to the state, had been raping and sodomizing this
little girl and taking videos of it.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
In mommy home for years.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And you and I are talking about rigor and why
he had to buckle her in and what is life
and mortis and what is rigor? Morris and I have
to think about my little girl and my little boy
at age twelve. It's easy to forget that or do
(18:24):
we just want to forget about it when we're trying
to analyze, because it's hard to focus on probative issues
and forensics when you're thinking about your own child.
Speaker 12 (18:34):
Correct exactly. I mean that her she was going through
hell leading up to the death, and then we haven't
even talked about the actual cause of death itself. So
you know, she was strangled, which is a very violent
way to be killed, especially if you're a twelve year
old by another man.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So a grown man, mommy's boyfriend that has been molesting
you for years. Okay, guys, I steered us off course,
but I want to you to see what I saw,
and I couldn't verbalize why I was so aghast when
I saw it, But you'll understand.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I'm just gonna say any thinks she was just a sleeper,
she's just reclient in the chair of sleeping. Okay, explain
to me like reclaiming backwards. Yes, thank you, laying back.
Speaker 12 (19:24):
In the chaff.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Two.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Renowned and veteran trial lawyer Philip Dubay joining us LA
County Public Defender's Office, which means he's tried a lot
of cases. They can't even say no, this case disgusts me.
The judge says, you're on it. You're the public defender
have fun with that.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So I guess, h Philip, I'd like you to.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Look one more time at mom's live in a boyfriend
acting out how little Maddie Soto just turned thirteen. I
just dozed off in the front seat of his car
on the way to school one morning.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
She was sleepy.
Speaker 7 (20:17):
Watch it's gonna say you think she was just a sleeper.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
She was just her client in the chair sleeping, Okay,
explain to me like reclining backwards, yes, thank you, laying
back in.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The shar Do you see him leaning his head back
like he'sozing.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I guess, Philip, debate.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's why you tell all your clients not to speak
to LA law enforcement.
Speaker 13 (20:42):
Of course, and they never listen, and that's why we
all have a job in this system. But I will
say this, to be fair, a lot of kids at
that age you have to get up at six six
thirty are tired. They're sitting in the car, They've maybe
just had a little bit of breakfast, they are fatigued themselves.
They're not exactly like the energized bun looking forward to
going into a car.
Speaker 14 (21:02):
Do you say, are you saying she maybe was a
sleep How does that How in this world does that
have anything to do with Mattie, rape, sodomized and dead
by strangulation, and you're talking about some other child might
be a little sleepy in the morning.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
What because they had to get up at six thirty.
That has nothing to do with Maddie. She's dead. She
was dead in that photo.
Speaker 13 (21:25):
Where's the proof of that beyond a reasonable doubt? So far,
the evidence is the kid was in the front seat,
was tired, leaned her head back, and that's it. I
have not heard one shred of forensic evidence that this
child was in fact clinically dead in the front seat
of that car. All we know is that she was
(21:46):
there and may have dozed off. That's it.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Okay, Shannon Butler, can you please help me throw me
a bone? I need life raft Actually, Shannon joining us WFTV,
explain to Debay how you and I know she was dead.
According to the state in that car buckled and so
(22:09):
she wouldn't fall over.
Speaker 7 (22:11):
So investigators were very certain when they looked at that
video of the car driving out of that complex, they
could tell just from the video that Madeleine Soda was
already dead. Now, the timeline of when she was killed.
That is still a mystery. They don't know what happened
inside the house, but they know what she was buckled
(22:31):
into the front seat of that car, that she was
already dead. They knew it by looking at it. There
was no doubt in their minds. They came out very
very early and said that Madeline Soda was no longer
a live They could tell, they said, because she looked
limp and was slumped over in the seat. It didn't
look like she was sleeping to that.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
You know what, I've got a very strong feeling that
Debay is not going to buy that because investigators said so.
Dodger Erry Ason, she Maddie never made it to middle
school that morning at Hunter's Creek Middle School.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
She never got there.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Okay, the last time she was seen she was in
that car with Stephan Stearns. Her mother did not speak
to her as normal that morning before she went to school.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
The mother did not.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Hear her voice to know she was alive that morning
before she went to school.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
She didn't make it to school. So we know.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
That indicates anyway, very strongly, circumstantially, that she was dead
before that. We know, based on eye witnesses that shortly
after she was seen in the car with Sterns. Her
body was dumped. He was spotted at the location where
her body was dumped, going into the woods. Her body
(23:59):
was dumped shortly after that picture. Now, isn't it true,
doctor Ason, that a medical examiner can typically place a
time of death? Isn't that true?
Speaker 12 (24:14):
We can come up with a pretty good range, and
so you base it on when they were last known
alive and then when they were found dead, and you
put a bunch of the pieces together, and then you
combine that with some of the postpartum changes that would
have occurred, and so we're usually able to narrow it
down within a pretty good range for the most part.
Speaker 11 (24:31):
Yes, I believe the actual stuff, but I didn't want
to believe that he had done any.
Speaker 15 (24:37):
Able to her.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
But that was me assuming that you guys have the
wrong guy.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I wanted to believe you had the wrong guy, even
after seeing those horrific sex attack images of Stephan Starn's
allegedly attacking her little girl. For years, he kept all
those videos, which is a whole other can of worms.
(25:02):
To doctor Jory Krausen, joining US Psychologists Faculty, Saint Leo
University and author Operation Soos, doctor Jory Craws, And why
do perps want to save their rape videos?
Speaker 6 (25:15):
That's a great question. It's because of fantasy. Okay. To
really understand a sexual offender, you've got to get into
their fantasy world and they want to relive that. That's
the whole key, the whole drive of the sexual offender.
You notice on the report they talked about the pictures
(25:36):
were still like she was sleeping. Several of them identified
him with her where her eyes were closed as sleeping.
There's also a report where one of his previous girlfriend's
reports that in order to get an erection, she had
a play like she was dead. Okay, So those are
(25:57):
two connecting behavioral patterns that are very magnificant and tie
into his fantasy world.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Uh you know what, doctor Crawsin, I never said this
to you, but you're kind of creeping me out, and
I thought i'd seen it all. I'm going to move
on from that at his completely accurate Doctor Jory Crawsin.
Not only is Mama on record claiming she feared a
Woody Allen situation between Stephan Stearns and her little girl.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But yet did nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And we have Stephan Stearns acting out how Maddie was
asleep in the front of his car buckled in. There
are photos and videos taken of Stephan Stern's Listen.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
He go ahead and turn around saying the wall, put
your hands behind your back, put together on your praying
just like that.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Going to spread your feet for me. Did you get
a really good picture of this right here the school area?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
See right there?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
They are trying to get photos of his hands, his wrists,
his arm below the elbow. I wonder if there were
scratches or bruises there where Maddy tried to fight back.
You know, I want to look at that video from
beginning to end.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
One more time.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
If you don't mind control room, let's just start it
at the get go. Okay, take a look at this guy,
Stephan Stearns. Look at him now. Think about a little
nine year old girl seeing this coming into the bedroom
every night, and what could she.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Do Anna Sonoda.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
She couldn't call out to mommy because in her mind
that wouldn't do any good because mommy loves.
Speaker 10 (27:58):
Her rapist Nancy and had to pay the ultimate price
for Jennifer to continue our relationship with an evil predator.
In the form of Stefan. We know that grooming was
taking place. We know that the highest risk environment for
a child is their home where they live. And again
and again, Jennifer opened the door to this predator, allowing
(28:21):
him to come in. And where were the mandated observers
in this situation. You know, children are sitting ducks. They
need our protection at all times, and unfortunately, predators get
to run on gas, grooming, access in space. Stefan had
all three in this case, and it led to a
devastating tragedy on all fronts.
Speaker 7 (28:44):
I've never seen any sign. I tried watching her like
a hog.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
I thought I was doing a good job, but it wasn't.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
I was oblivious to every four years.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
You know, I'd like to believe her, but yet I
know that in the last hours we find out that
prior to watching her like a hawk, mom Jennifer Soto
feared a Woody Allen type situation between her little girl
and her living boyfriend Stefan Sterns.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, there's more.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Stephan Sterns actually blames the state for inflating his charges,
artificially inflating his charges. Mattie's dead, She's been raped and
sodomized for years, So I don't think those charges need inflating.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Mister Sterns, listen to this.
Speaker 15 (29:47):
Were you expecting these charges? The burger charge? Oh well
you get motly so you got blindsided by that?
Speaker 16 (29:58):
Yeah, obviously you know it's not true. You know I
never would have wanted her and read him, so you
know he meditated first degree is kind of clients.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
These recorded phone calls. I don't know how in this
day and age you cannot know your jail calls are
being recorded. That said, take a look at what Stephan
Stearn's is actually saying straight out to Robin and Drake
joining Us, former FBI Chief of FBI counter Intelligence Behavioral
(30:31):
Analysis Program, author of a lot of books. Robin, do
you hear what he's saying in that first bit of sound?
And this is him talking to his mom and dad
and let me tell you, I'm going to play some more.
And dad, who I think was former l E law
enforcement man, he can smell some serious hot steam and
(30:51):
BS he's talking to his son, who's like, what but here?
Just just kick it off. Stephan starn says, I don't
know what the plan is. Are they just trying to
scare me depleting down. Oh no, Sterns, that ain't gonna happen.
You're not bleating down? What involuntary manslaughter or fat chance?
(31:12):
They're trying to scare me and trying to hurt me
as much as possible. Maddie was left dead right sodomized,
her stuff on in a dumpster, her body found, and
he's saying, they're just trying to hurt me as much
as possible.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
Response isn't as completely shocking and important about how there's
so little regard for the dead little girl by both.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
Him and her mom.
Speaker 9 (31:42):
And like you just pointed out, it's really really striking
to me about how the parents seem to be kind
of just knowledgeable in some way. You know, it's not
like a shocks them. And can you imagine any one
of your beautiful little children being accused of something like this,
You know, the shock that disbelief, because if you are
(32:03):
used to seeing and having a healthy relationship with your
child and something like this happens, it's a huge shock
to your system. But this doesn't send me much of
a shock to them. There's a lot of leakage for
a lot of years that they didn't like the behaviors
they were seeing and you're hearing it come out in
this conversation right here, and then his self centered focus
is just on full display.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Shannon Butler are joining me.
Investigative reporter WFTV Channel nine, Florida. Shannon is Stefan Stearn's dad,
former law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (32:46):
He knew you could tell in those calls. He knew exactly, Oh.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, good, that's what I was just gonna say.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I know he roomed over all these calls, and you
can tell him he's like, who smelling ma, I mean,
he could smell it a mile away.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
How are Sterns' parents reacting to all of.
Speaker 7 (33:07):
This, Well, the dad had questions very early on, because
the parents actually came up when Madeleine Soda was missing
to try to help locate her. They came out, came
up right after, you know, he told them, Hey, Madeline's missing.
And the dad was always a little bit suspicious of
what was happening because Stearns, remember, left in the middle
(33:30):
of the night, was driving around and you can tell
just kind of the matter of factness on those calls,
but you can also hear a little bit of that
anguish as they let it set in that. Hey, by
the way, by the time you get out of jail,
we'll all be gone and there will be no one here.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Given what Shannon Butler has just told us, I want
you to hear what we're talking about. The dad asking
how did this whole thing come about, and Stefan Stearns
essentially says she started it.
Speaker 15 (34:02):
Listen, you know you and actually have a conversation.
Speaker 17 (34:04):
All of us could have a conversation to understand what's
taking place, how this came about.
Speaker 15 (34:12):
How you were right here, because it would help us, help.
Speaker 17 (34:16):
Us better understand the situation, because we're just ratter lost
for understanding.
Speaker 15 (34:26):
How all this came about. I mean, we're just totally
totally baffled.
Speaker 16 (34:30):
It started.
Speaker 15 (34:33):
You didn't start it, but you participated in it, which
is just that that is not starting at.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
The reminder to all, jen Jennifer Soto, Maddie's mother, has
not been charged, has not been named a POI, person
of interest or suspect in this case. As a matter
of fact, in their wisdom, she has been granted a
type of immunity, so based on many of the things
(35:03):
she told investigators, she cannot be prosecuted for those things.
It's a limited use immunity. Jen Soto not a suspect.
Speaker 10 (35:14):
A woman got on a YouTube thing and said that
you weren't even at the party.
Speaker 15 (35:21):
Pardon yeah, her birthday party.
Speaker 16 (35:25):
Yeah, I hadn't gotten there yet. I went up there
a Sunday evening and got there after she was done
at her party.
Speaker 15 (35:31):
Oh okay, okay, and I was.
Speaker 16 (35:34):
We were very happy that I was there with the
very happy the history of us were together and was
shaping up to be a great week and a great visit.
You know, there was no weak was craything to happen
that happened.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
There was no reason for anything to happen that happened.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Again, just like we heard Anna Sonoda claiming, and I'm
going to need a shrink on this, It's like that
didn't have to happen.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, according to the state, you did it. That's why
it happened.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
She didn't just suddenly fall over dead after having been
raped and sodomized.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
This little girl, Maddie so too. It didn't just happen.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Shannon Butler with me investigative reporter WFTV Channel nine.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Shannon tell me the time frame from her birthday to
her murder.
Speaker 7 (36:19):
The birthday was on that Sunday night, she got dropped
off back at the house, and that's when also came
to the house.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
You know, I don't know why, doctor Jory Crawsen, as
many times as I've combed over this case, I didn't
put that significant fact together. The night of her thirteenth
the birthday party, she was killed.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
There could be a couple of reasons for that. Pedophiles
have age specific victims, and when they start to age out,
they start to move on. Okay, he really couldn't move
on with this because she now becomes a liability. One
of the other things already mentioned.
Speaker 15 (36:56):
Was she started it.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
That's part of the fantasy that he was living, that
this child came on to him sexually. I would lose
count how many times I've heard penophiles tell me that
during clinical assessments. That's part of that fantasy they build.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
You know, to Phillip Debate joining us, you just heard
Stefan Stern saying, quote, there's no reason for anything to
happen that happened. I know you're not going to comment
on any of your cases, but have you noticed because
I have.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Defendants, perps suspects.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Try to blame the crime on it just happened. Like,
here's a good example. I had a guy break into
a woe's home.
Speaker 12 (37:44):
She came home.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Not only did he kill her, he raped her first,
and when asked why, he says, I don't know, my
little mate, you just got up as if he's blaming
his penis for the rape and murder, it's the penis's fault.
And here we're hearing step On Stearn saying there's no
reason for anything to happen.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
That happened. It just happened.
Speaker 13 (38:07):
Yeah, Unfortunately he doesn't know the elements of the crimes.
He seems to think that by being ignorant or trying
to attribute it to something that was beyond his control,
or that's something that appeared to be a natural urge
or sort of mutually consensual if you will, that it
somehow makes it lawful. And all he did was just
(38:29):
dig himself into a hole much deeper than he already was.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Because everyone I love when he just said that een
that Hey, this grown man. I mean you did see
him without a shirt on, right, nobody wants to see
that coming in the bedroom, all right, That said much
less a nine year old little girl.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
You just said.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Mutual consent. If you will, I won't. I will not
go down your garden path. That he thought this was
mutual consent, well.
Speaker 13 (39:04):
Then there's nothing to argue. Frankly, in his mind he
feels that there was consent. It is not a defense
because of the child's age. So all he did was
incriminate himself even further. I mean, that's just the bottom line.
There's just no way out of this. And frankly, they
didn't even need his statements. They don't even need those
(39:24):
jail calls. They have ample evidence without a word coming
out of his mouth to nail him. The only real
issue here, and I know we're not discussing it, is
whether or not he will die. And this is a
type of case. As defense counsel, I would be groveling
for what we call ELWOP life without parole. That is
his only hope in this case. It's not whether or
(39:45):
not he will ever get out. The question is one
of housing. Will he be condemned or will he be
in general population for the rest of his life too.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Robin Drake cut, longtime colleague, behavior expert, and you know
the rest Former FBI author Robin Drake, this guy not Debey,
this guy.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Stephan sterns I mean, hey and Jennifer Soto. What a pair.
But what about steph on Stern's It didn't what happened
didn't have to happen, like it just fell on their heads.
He did it, according to prosecutors.
Speaker 8 (40:23):
Yeah, he's victim blaming.
Speaker 9 (40:24):
He's every time I hear watch him speak any anything,
it looks like he's so rehearsed. He's done this before,
he's he's thought about this a lot, He's contemplated this
a lot, and the entire world he's created around himself
to him is extremely believable. You know, as our lawyer
was saying, you know, it's in his own mind. If
(40:45):
he blames a victim, it shouldn't be an inflated charge.
And literally he believes that because he is just so
twisted and so broken and he allowed himself to keep
going down this dark, evil path or he victimized her.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they find him.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
If you know or think you know anything about the
years of sex abuse and ultimate murder allegations, please dial
four zero seven eight four six three three three three
four zero seven eight four six three three three three.
(41:23):
We remember an American hero Police officer, Kevin Taun Galt PD, California,
just thirty five, shot and killed in the line of duty.
A US Army Vet, Tawn served with Galt PD three years.
Survived by parents. Grieving parents Marianne and Will, sister Julie.
(41:47):
American hero Officer Kevin Taun. Nancy Gray signing off goodbye friend.
Host
Nancy Grace
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