I Found Her Like That Jailhouse Calls Expose Stephan Sterns' Shifting Story In Soto Case

"I Found Her Like That": Jailhouse Calls Expose Stephan Sterns' Shifting Story In Soto Case

STEPHAN STERNS: “I wish I had run downstairs and shaken her awake and called 911 and all that.”

That line—staggering in its simplicity—is one of the first real cracks in the story Stephan Sterns has told from the very beginning. It came during a jailhouse call with his parents, and it was a total deviation from what he’s claimed all along: that he dropped off 13-year-old Madeline Soto at school the morning of February 26, 2024, and never saw her again.

But now, months after his arrest, locked in the Osceola County jail and speaking a little too freely, Sterns admitted something huge—he found Madeline’s body. He was there. He saw her face, her blue lips. Her ice-cold skin.

His words were calm, almost rehearsed. Like he was recounting a scene in a book he’d read, not describing the death of a child he'd allegedly assaulted and murdered.

“She had gone to be with me earlier in the night,” he told his father. “But I’d left her alone for quite a while... By the time I realized it was far too late... she was past the point of no return.”

That’s the first time Sterns has publicly acknowledged being in the same house with Madeline at the time of her death. It’s also the first time he’s stopped pretending he wasn’t.

In these four hours of recorded jail calls—recently obtained by Court TV—we hear Sterns move from denial to vague admissions, surrounded by justifications, sidesteps, and increasingly disturbing commentary. It’s like eavesdropping on a man who can’t quite decide whether he wants to clear his name or just shift the blame somewhere more convenient.

The calls, made about three months after his arrest, are with his parents—Debra and Chris Sterns. And while they start off as the kind of supportive, if awkward, chats you’d expect from shell-shocked parents trying to hold it together, they quickly devolve into something else: uncomfortable reminders of what Stephan Sterns is accused of.

When they bring up the digital evidence—the sexually explicit images of Madeline found on his phone—his response isn’t what you’d expect from someone who claims innocence. When asked directly if he’s attracted to minors, he doesn’t say no. He says he isn’t “generally” attracted to them. He adds that he can’t say more without incriminating himself.

Then he makes this chilling remark: that Madeline had “feelings” for him. And that her mother, Jenn Soto, used to joke: “You better not leave me for my daughter when she’s older.”

Jenn Soto hasn’t been charged with anything related to Madeline’s abuse or death. She says she didn’t know it was happening. But she did allow her daughter to sleep in the same bed as Sterns, something she’s admitted.

Sterns’ calls are full of odd priorities. While facing over 60 counts of sexual abuse, capital murder, and possession of child sexual abuse material, he spends a surprising amount of time venting about itchy blankets, bad coffee, and jailhouse ants. He’s worried about the effects of jail on his skin. He complains about anxiety meds, wants better lotion for his worry lines, and he misses his collectible purple dragon popcorn bucket.

He’s genuinely concerned about the whereabouts of his “mouse droid”—a Star Wars-themed toy—and gets so irritated trying to explain what it is that he tells his parents to just “Google it.”

Then there’s the coffee. Coffee is crucial.

“Coffee is very comforting,” he says. “Every time I drink a cup of coffee it releases all types of happy chemicals in my brain.”

He asks for Michael Crichton novels, toiletries, hard candies. His mother draws the line at “Pet Sematary” because she didn’t like the story.

The emotional whiplash in these calls is constant—one minute, Sterns is waxing poetic about the joys of instant coffee, and the next, he’s defending himself from the kind of charges that can end in a needle. His parents plead with him to read the Bible. He tells them he’s not a monster. He cries at movies. He’s a good person, he insists.

“I know I’m not bad, evil or a monster,” he says. “I couldn’t have done it.”

But then, he admits: “Murder one is about as bad as it can get. And the death penalty is about as extreme as it can go.”

And a moment later: “I guess that’s not so bad, right? You go to sleep, and then you go to heaven.”

It’s the kind of thing you say when you’ve already accepted what’s coming.

Sterns’ legal journey is far from over. His first trial—for the sex abuse charges—is scheduled for May. The murder trial is set for September. Earlier this week, his defense team tried to get the judge to bar media and the public from pre-trial hearings, claiming that the coverage is prejudicial. The judge says a decision is coming within 10 days.

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